Letters / The other 9/11
AS THE world awaits America’s decision whether to launch air strikes against Syria, 40 years ago there was no such hesitation in the case of Chile after the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende first won the 1970 election under the slogan “The Peaceful Road to Socialism“.
At an earlier White House meeting the “Committee of 40” was formed, headed by Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Richard Nixon led American government, whose sole intention was the overthrow of the democratically elected socialist government.
Most of the top US-based multinational corporations had established themselves in Chile. These included all the major car manufacturers, oil companies, DuPont and Dow Chemicals and International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT).
In the three years leading up to the coup many were covertly involved, led by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In the congressional elections of March 1973 Allende’s Popular Unity coalition increased its vote by seven per cent, but a financial blockade and later a private truck owners blockade organised by the CIA was slowly strangling Chile.
When British-supplied Hawker Hunters with Royal Air Force-trained Chilean pilots bombed the La Moneda Palace in Santiago the first 9/11 had begun.
President Allende died defending his government in the Presidential Palace.
General Augusto Pinochet led the fascist military coup and the nightmare years of torture, disappearances, concentration camps and executions had begun.
The new military government named Augusto Pinochet as president, dissolved Congress, ended all democratic institutions, abolished elections, made strikes and unions illegal, and imposed strict censorship of books, the press and school curriculums.
The National Stadium where international football games were played was the main concentration camp, used for torture and executions.
World famous composer and singer Victor Jara, along with thousands of his companeros, was tortured and murdered; his hands famous for their brilliance on the guitar were broken, before his bloodied and machine gun-riddled body was found days later.
Pablo Neruda, the Nobel poet and supporter of the Popular Unity government, was refused medical assistance and died in the days following the coup.
In Australia, where I was at the time, my solidarity with the Chilean folk who came as political refugees began.
Colo Colo, the Chilean football team, was formed in South Australia. I was a team member and represented the Chileans in the league in an interstate game; all the players had escaped death or imprisonment. Many had fought till they had no more bullets.
The maritime unions: the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF), Wharfies (Dockers), and the Seamens Union of Australia (SUA) took part in 24 hour strike actions and banned the visit of the Chilean naval sail training ship the “Esmarelda” because of its use as a torture chamber, where freedom fighters were thrown overboard to their death.
In the years that followed, Pinochet dodged the International War Crimes Tribunal thanks to his friends in Washington, Westminster, Buckingham Palace, and the Vatican.
Most notably when he was given sanctuary by the Blair government, he was visited by his dear friend, the vile Tory Margaret Thatcher.
So as the “ free press” call for air strikes against Syria, as the death toll since the ‘weapons of mass destruction lies’ in Iraq reaches the millions, and with millions displaced as refugees all over the world, where are the war crimes tribunals?
President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Howard of Australia deserve to face an International War Crimes Tribunal.
Like Iraq, Syria’s strategic position concerning oil is the main reason for the continued support for the opposition to Syrian independence.
The defeat in the Westminster Parliament to Prime Minister Cameron, Tory and LibDem attempt to bomb Syria was linked to the tragedy of Iraq and should be applauded.
Shetland’s MP Alistair Carmichael voted to bomb the folk of Syria, unlike the role he took before he became part of the cabinet of this vile Tory/LibDem coalition.
Forty years ago the same governments, spearheaded by their secret services CIA, MI5, MI6 and ASIO, brutally destroyed one of the most inspirational socialist governments.
Twice democratically elected, radically distributing wealth to the poor, providing free health services, education to university level free of charge, nationalisation of the huge mining sector that was sending all the profits to its foreign owners.
But most importantly it empowered the First Nations people, the Mapuche.
All was destroyed and a neo-liberal capitalism was enforced, much of which has being introduced across the world since, Chile and its people brutally used as guinea pigs.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them.
To them, blood equals medals,
Slaughter is an act of heroism…
How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living.
Horror which I am dying.
Victor Jara wrote these lines, smuggled out of Estadio, Chile.
In Solidarity tae da folk o Chile.
Davie Thomason
Belmont
Victoria
Australia.
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