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Fifty years ago, on September 11, 1973, a coup d’état took place in Chile. Even if half a century has passed, it retains a dramatic relevance. This is, in short, the story.

In November 1970, Salvador Allende became President of Chile, he was elected by a coalition of democratic forces with a program of social progress and national sovereignty. Two months earlier, in September, President Nixon ordered the CIA to prepare a plan to prevent Allende from carrying out his program. Washington’s first objective was to “blow up the Chilean economy“.

When President Allende nationalized the Chilean copper mines, hitherto in the hands of US multinationals, Washington created a Federal Task Force that brought down the world price of copper to hit the Chilean economy operating on the financial markets. While deprived of the primary source of income from its exports, Chile was subjected by the USA to a strict embargo which prevented it from importing essential basic necessities. At the same time, the CIA blocked internal transport for 40 days financing a truckers’ strike with millions of dollars.

The ground was thus prepared for the coup d’état organized by the CIA and implemented by the military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. On September 11, 1973, the coup began with the attack on the presidential palace, killing Salvador Allende and his escort men who decided to stay with him until the end. Tens of thousands of Chileans were locked up in stadiums and other detention places, they were tortured in the most atrocious ways and murdered. Coup d’état, torture, and killing techniques are those of the “School of the Americas” created by the Pentagon to train the Latin American soldiers under its command.

The Pinochet regime: he has been “president” of Chile from 1974 to 1990, continued its chain of crimes, assassinating opponents both at home and abroad and bloodily repressing popular demonstrations with the connivance of Washington. This did not prevent John Paul II, on an official visit to Chile on April 2, 1987, from appearing in front of the cheering crowd, from the balcony of La Moneda palace, alongside Augusto Pinochet, the man who fourteen years earlier had assassinated the President Salvador Allende.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.