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11.09.03, 00:20
The Pinochet files
A series of declassified US documents have revealed the extent of America's
role in the Chilean coup, reports Jonathan Franklin
Wednesday September 10, 2003
In this never-before-published photograph, General Augusto Pinochet (second
from left) and President Salvador Allende (in white jacket) are seen on a
trip in northern Chile in the months before the 1973 coup that left Allende
dead and Pinochet in command of the government. Photograph: Fundacion
Salvador Allende
September 11 1973 was a day of terror and bloodshed in Chile. After months of
rising tension, army troops stormed the presidential palace, leaving
President Salvador Allende dead and thousands prisoners throughout this
previously democratic nation.
Now, on the 30th anniversary of the coup, professors, journalists and citizen
activists around the world are continuing to expose the full role of the US
government in financing and promoting this bloody coup, which ushered in the
17-year military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet.
Thousands of top secret documents which were declassified over the past five
years have now been synthesized in a new book, The Pinochet File, by
investigative reporter Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archives, a
Washington-based investigative centre. "The US created a climate of a coup in
Chile, a situation of chaos and agitation," said Kornbluh. "The CIA and state
department were worried that the [Chilean] military ... were not ready for a
coup."
The top secret documents accumulatively detail the crude workings of
Washington during the Cold War. "It is firm and continuing policy that
Allende be overthrown by a coup," reads a CIA document from October 1970. "It
is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so
that the USG [US government] and American hand be well hidden."
Two days after this document was written, top CIA officials proposed a
terrorist campaign to stun the Chilean people into accepting a military
regime.
"Concur giving tear gas cannisters and gas masks ... working on obtaining
machine guns," reads a CIA memo dated October 18 1970.
"Use good officers ... Some low-level overflights of Santiago and bomb drops
in areas not likely to cause casualties could have great psychological effect
and might swing balance as they have so many times in past in similar
circumstances."
While conservative Chileans argue that the coup was a home-grown affair, the
current Chilean minister of education, Sergio Bitar, says: "That internal
crisis was activated by the North American policies against it. We see how
they energetically obstructed all types of credit from the World Bank and the
InterAmerican Bank ... these were decisive actions. This were political and
financial pressures that were very relevant [to the ensuing coup.]"
The US effort to destabilise Chile was led by a policy of massively funding
and bribing non-leftwing Chilean politicians.
Throughout the 1960s, the US secretly spent millions funding political
parties of their choosing - usually the moderate Christian Democrats led by
Eduardo Frei Montalva. By the early 1970s, Chilean society had become so
leftwing that Washington decided to change tactics. First, President Nixon
authorised $10m to be spent "to make the economy scream".
He also authorised pro-coup initiatives designed to destroy the traditional
reluctance of Chilean military men to take over civilian government.
"Pinochet will not be a stumbling block to coup plans", reads one memo
written six months before the coup, in which the American government looks to
build a veritable Dream Team of coup plotters. "The navy and air force are
ready ... the military is getting ready to move."
As part of a particularly crude effort to remove army officers who supported
democratic rule, the CIA organised to kidnap Rene Schneider, a Chilean army
general.
That plot was botched; Schneider died, and today his family is suing the US
government and Henry Kissinger in particular for playing a role in his
murder.
Citing documents declassified in the past few years, the lawsuit alleges that
the US government paid $35,000 to the men who plotted the actions against
Schneider.
"I don't want revenge, I want the truth to be established," said a son of the
murdered general, also named Rene, who now lives in Santiago and works for a
television station.
Immediately after the coup, US officials worked hard to ease international
criticism of the human rights record of the Pinochet regime. Rather than fear
Washington¿s reproach, the military regime repeatedly sought help and advice.
Just weeks after the coup, the US ambassador in Chile sent a memo to Henry
Kissinger noting that "the military government of Chile requires adviser
assistance of a person qualified in establishing a detention centre for the
detainees ... adviser must have knowledge in the establishment and operation
of a detention centre".
Even when the full extent of the torture and executions in Chile were well
known, the US government sought to integrate the Pinochet regime into
international business circles.
Probably no figure more personalised the cruelty of the Pinochet regime than
the head of its secret DINA police force, Manuel Contreras.
Previously classified documents now confirm that, not only was Contreras on
the CIA payroll, but that when he came to Washington during the height of
human rights abuses, the US state department had specific tasks for him.
"Contreras was also asked to check in with Anaconda [Copper] and General
Motors to encourage them to resume operations in Chile."
· A documentary, The Other 9/11, is broadcast at 11pm on Thursday September
11 on BBC Four
