Shâh Jahân

The coup d'etat of September 11th, 1973 in Chile was carried out by a military Junte which reversed the government of the socialist president Salvador Allende, suspended the constitution, prohibited to the political parties and the trade unions and led to the introduction of the dictatorship directed by Augusto Pinochet.

This Coup d'etat took place in a context of crisis institutional, political, social and economic in which Chile was plunged, with an opposition between the executive power and the legislative powers and legal.

The exact role of the the United States remains object of debate still today. Often pled, the supports and supports brought to the soldiers were never shown.

Circumstances

Political context

At the beginning of the 20th century, Chile knows a fast Industrialization supported by the economic strong growth of the the United States, large importers of the main resource of the country: the Copper. This dependence on the United States causes a hard repercussion of the Economic crisis of 1929 in Chile. A certain social sensitivity develops then. As of 1938 the Frente Popular arrives at the capacity. Chile launches out then in a series of reforms, implying an increased role of the State in the economy, a legislation and a protection social.

At the time of the presidential Poll of 1958, Jorge Alessandri is elected while being supported by the right parties. As of 1960, it must face a strong social agitation and at the time of the elections of 1964, Salvador Allende (Coalition socialo-Communist) is opposed to Eduardo Frei Montalva (Christian-Democrat). This one is supported by the center and the line, like by the United States, which finances its electoral campaign based on the Anti-communisme. Frei gains the elections, then engages of the reforms concerning the Syndicat S, the education, Agriculture, and the social services. But it must face the opposition of the Congrès, which does not support it any more; of its own partisans, who doubt his Land reform; and to fight against a important Inflation.

The tight poll of 1970

The Constitution prohibited with Eduardo Frei, very popular, to contribute. The communist Pablo Neruda withdraws its candidature and forms with the other left parties the Popular Unité. This new alliance of the lefts presents the socialist Marxist Salvador Allende for one applicant and preaches important reforms, “a revolution by legal channels”, such as the expropriation of the land great landowners and the Nationalization S of companies.

Also present Rodomiro Tomic for the democracy-Christian woman and Alessandri for the conservatives, This last had already been elected president in 1958. The results are very tight: 27,95% for Tomic, 35,76% for Alessandri and 36,29% for Allende. Since there is no absolute majority, and like it the constitution wants, it is with the Congress that it returns to choose that which will be elected with the presidency. Under the impulse of the Christian-Democrats, the Parliament adopts several constitutional amendments then aiming at limiting the capacities of the future government and, with the vote of the Christian-Democrats, elects Allende chair Republic by 153 votes against 53 votes Alessandri.

The new president is invested in his functions the November 4th 1970 and quickly sets up the program of the popular Unit.

Economic crisis

Difficulties of provisioning, which gallop inflation (508% in 1973 compared with 35% in 1970), the difficulties of the economic policy and the strikes place Chile in a difficult situation. Strong pay rise (minimum wage statement of 35%) causes initially a rise of consumption profiting with the industrial production, but then revival inflation as from 1972 (whereas in 1971, the rise in the cost of living had been only of 20%, that is to say half of the increase in the previous years). The social categories threatened by nationalizations revolt., in particular the great landowners whose possessions must be nationalized without serious counterpart.

The July 11th 1971, the law of nationalization of the mines of Cuivre (which accounts for 80% of exports of the country) is adopted unanimously by the Parliament.

Starting from 1972, the Chilean economy starts to sink, inflation flies away whereas the country knows for the first time a shortage of the products of first need. Thus, the price of copper lowers half whereas 8000 workmen of copper put themselves in strike at Chuquicamata. In May, of the massively followed strikes burst in the sectors of the electric household appliances, fizzy drinks and coal mining. In August 1972, 150.000 tradesmen express in the streets of the Chilean capital to protest against the Inflation, and the October 10th, the Chilean confederation of transport paralyzes the country to protest against the Nationalization announced by the government of their branch of industry.

Institutional opposition to Allende

Between November 1970 and September 1973, president Allende forms six governments, after most of the time the dismissal of its ministers by the Parliament.

Nevertheless, the August 22nd 1973, the Christians democratic (center) and the members of the National Party (right-hand side) of the House of Commons note that they do not have in the state the constitutional means to relieve president Allende and vote by 81 votes against 47 a resolution intimating to the army to immediately put an end so that they call violations of the Constitution and to restore the right, the constitutional order and the essential bases of the democracy.

Basing itself on the result of the elections of March 1973 by which the majority of the Chilean voters had voted for the parties calling with the dismissal of the Chilean president, the resolution declared that the government of Allende sought “to conquer an absolute capacity at the obvious to subject all the citizens to controls policy and economic end of most strict by the State the goal to establish a totalitarian system”. Greatest criticism consisted in absorption by the executive of the legislative and legal prerogatives.

More particularly, the mode was shown of: ; * to direct by decree by circumventing the legislative system ; * not to apply the marked court orders against its partisans or opposing its objectives ; * various economic pressures and police towards the media ; * to allow its partisans to ravel armed while preventing with its opponents from legally meeting ; * to repress illegally the strike of El Teniente

The resolution condemns “the development finally, under the protection of the Government, the armed groups which, in addition to making an attempt on the safety of the people and his rights and on peace of the Nation, are intended to fight against the army”. The efforts of Allende to reorganize the army and the police force in which it could not make confidence, were described like “notorious attempt to use the army and the police force at ends partisanes, to destroy the institutional hierarchy and to infiltrate their rows politically”.

Previously, on May 26th, 1973, the Supreme court had declared unconstitutional and illegal many provisions taken by the government. July 2nd, 1973, the general inspector of the accounts draws up the same report.

First steps of the putsch

The November 2nd 1972, Allende names Carlos Prats, chief of the armies and allied political, at the post of minister of the Interior, thus bringing to politicize the army. At the time of the legislative ones of 1973, the Popular Unit makes countryside on a revolutionary programme of transformation of the economy and Chilean company whereas the opposition gathered has for only program the dismissal of president Salvador Allende and the organization of a new presidential election. The popular unit obtains 43,4% of the votes, which equips it with 8 additional deputies, against 57% with the opposition. This one however misses by little its objective to make relieve legally president Allende while missing by little the 60% of the voices which would have constitutionally enabled him to reverse the Chilean president. The Chilean president still has the possibility of opening his government in the center and of approaching the Christian-Democrats to resolve the situation by forming a government of national union. But its partisans rather see an approval of the government policy in the progression of the left at the time of these elections and no gesture of opening is carried out. If Allende seems to seek political solutions, it is overflowed by the militia of the extreme left which want the revolution and by the extreme line which seeks the confrontation.

Although it saved the government of a first putsch in June 1973 (a tank regiment had been caught some with the presidential palace, Moneda ), the Prats general must resign following new strikes in the liberal professions and in the truck-drivers, like with the grogne of the party of the Female Capacity. He is replaced by Augusto Pinochet.

The August 9th 1973, Allende makes the opening awaited but in direction only of the army which it makes enter more to the government by naming the general César Ruitz to Public works (the ministry concerned with the private conveyers), the admiral Raoul Montero with Finances. They will resign in the days which follow.

To resolve the situation, president Allende planned for on September 12th, a speech with Chilean by which it was to announce a referendum on a new economic organization of the country.

The implication of the United States

The election of Allende takes the US government by surprise, the services envisaged a victory of Alessandrini indeed, in accordance with the analyzes of many specialists. Consequently of this false estimate, the United States had engaged of the funds only in one measurement much weaker than in 1964. The United States had refused to support Alessandrini, being satisfied with some campaigns against Allende and not in favor of the conservative candidate. When the government takes the measurement of the problem, it is too late. The president Richard Nixon “out of him” and is decided to act.

The government of the United States rejects the expropriation of large American companies of the Cuivre and the introduction of a second hostile Marxist mode in its zone of influence. The United States decreases the attribution of appropriations but continues the programs in progress with which that of the Chilean Armée (stopped during the election) and in addition offers training courses to the Chilean officers.

Hostility of the Nixon administration

The administration Nixon is basically hostile at the Socialist government of Allende as of her election. This hostility arises in particular from the memorandum transmitted to Nixon on November 5th, 1970 by Henry Kissinger, then Conseiller with safety national. Peter Kornbluh, researcher with the National Security Archive, which took part in a campaign for the declassification of the files of the CIA, declares with Libération: “if the United States directly did not take part in the plot of September 11th, 1973, they did everything to prepare the coup d'etat against Allende”. Two déclassifiés documents of the CIA show that in 1970, president Nixon wished that Allende be reversed, by strangling the economy and by starting a coup d'etat. Henry Kissinger explains the virulence of Nixon by his fury to be kept away and on the occasion to make the least decision to prevent the victory of the Marxist candidate. The official attitude selected is however “cold but correct”, in order to avoid a confrontation which would reinforce Allende.

According to a retranscription of listenings published by the National Security Files, Henry Kissinger, become Secretary of State American, known as with president Nixon, on September 16th, 1973, while speaking about the blow: “Of the time of Eisenhower, we would have been of the heroes. ”, then: “Helped We them to create the conditions as well as possible”.

Encouraged instability

As of March 1970, commission 40 of the American National council of safety had set up a vast program in favor of Frei, President-in-Office and adversary of Allende. According to William Colby, director of the CIA of 1973 to 1976, the CIA would have had the role of destabilizing the Chilean mode so “feeding a favorable climate with the coup d'etat”, affirming that seven million dollars had been spent by the power station to this end. The movement of the strike of the truck-drivers which paralyzes the country in October 1972 would have been financially constant by the American power station of information. Reacting to the nationalizations carried out by the government of Allende, several American firms whose ITT assists their in this strategy.

Between the date of the presidential election and the establishment of Allende, the United States seeks in precipitation a means of preventing the accession with the capacity of this one. Allotting the victory of Allende to the division of the democratic camp, itself due to constitutional impossibility for Frei to immediately represent itself, the United States thinks of different maneuvres through an official approach (Track one) and a semi-official approach (Track two) which shorts-circuit the ministry for the foreign affires to which Nixon does not make any more confidence. They initially seek to make indicate Alessandrini by the Parliament, who would resign immediately so that are held new elections in which Frei could this time take part, an intermediate presidency being run out. Sedition within the Chilean army is also encouraged. October 22nd, 1970, the chief of Chilean staff Rene Schneider, likely to be opposed to a coup d'etat, is killed at the time of an attempt at removal missed by seditious elements carried out by the general Roberto Viaux, of coordination with the Patrie nationalist movement and Freedom. Kissinger reports that this action, likely to fail, had however been countermanded and had not profited from American support. Another group, made up amateurs, had acted a few days before with the agreement of the CIA but without the White House being informed: it fails the point not to never be able to pass to the action.

With regard to the coup d'etat itself of September 11th, 1973, there does not exist any element making it possible to affirm that the United States directly took part in it. If the Nixon administration were magic blow of 1973, the report/ratio of the Commission Church, in 1976, concluded that the United States had not had a direct role in the event.

The coup d'etat

September 1973

The passage to the act is envisaged the September 9th by the chiefs of the sea and Army for the September 11th 1973.

In September 1973, like each year, the US Navy and the Chilean navy organize common operations. The troops of marines thus spend the day of the September 10th 1973 with four ships of Navy to broad of Valparaiso what provides them an alibi in order not to draw the attention to the preparations of the putsch.

Of return to Valparaiso, the troops of marines cut the communications. The admiral Monteiro loyal supporter is placed in a state of arrest. With 3:00 of the morning, on September 11th, Valparaiso is with the hands of the putschists without blow to férir.

To 6:00 of the morning, military operation extends to all the country and is carried out without resistance, except for Santiago.

The September 11th 1973, with 9:00 of the morning, Moneda is besieged by the Army under the command of the Pinochet general. Salvador Allende has been cut off, for 7 hours of the morning, in the presidential palace, with 42 of her strongly armed guards. The vice-admiral Patricio Carjaval proposes to him then by telephone a safe conduct to leave healthy Chile and except with his family. But he refuses, convinced that it is a trap. He makes nevertheless evacuate his family and the personnel.

Little before midday, two hunters of the army bombards Moneda with blows of rockets. The tanks follow shortly after. With 14:00, the palate is invaded but Salvador Allende already dead east. It would have committed suicide using an automatic weapon that Fidel Castro had offered to him.

The military Junta, directed by a council of four officers, then puts officially at its head the Pinochet general:

Augusto Pinochet for the Army (30 000 men);
Gustavo Leigh Guzmán for the air force (9 000 men);
Jose Toribio Merino Castro for the navy (15 000 men);
César Mendoza Durán for the national police force called carabineros (30 000 men).

With her takeover, Pinochet makes in kind be alone with the head of the council and is proclaimed president of the republic. It sticks at once to consolidate its capacity.

The September 13rd, the junta dissolves the congress, suspends the constitution and prohibits the political parties, including those which acclaimed the coup d'etat two days earlier.

The national stage is temporarily transformed into an immense prison; 130.000 people are stopped in three years, of which thousands in the first months. The executions which follow the coup d'etat are then very numerous. An internal note with the military junta establishes to 320 the number of the executions having taken place during the time from September 11th to 30th. The American department itself intervenes to ask that the exactions cease but those continue during the end of the year 1973.

By making of the Pinochet general the supreme leader of the nation in 1974, it becomes obvious that the junta does not plan shortly to return the capacity to the civilians and that the constitution of 1925 is not ready to be restored.

The closed Congress, the prohibited trade unions, the censured press, the army concentrates all the capacities henceforth. Controlling using decrees, the mode is constitutionalized in 1980 and remains authoritative with a president who names the ministers, controls the legal apparatus and orders the armies.

After the coup d'etat

Military regime of Augusto Pinochet

Reports/ratios on the Pinochet mode

According to the Commission truth and reconciliation of 1991, the dictatorship made 2.279 would have died and disappeared including 641 died “under not elucidated conditions” and 957 “missing prisoners. This estimate would have been changed to 3.197.

Nearly 150.000 people were imprisoned for political reasons, and nineteen were it still at the end of 1993. According to a report submitted to the president Ricardo Lagos in the years 2000, nearly 27.255 people were tortured.

It 160.000 exiled there political.

Cities by a dispatch of AFP on December 11th, 2006, here profile of the victims drawn up by the ratios of two official commissions, that of the Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and that on the political prison and torture (2004), also known under the name of the presidents of the commissions, respectively Raul Rettig and Mgr Sergio Valech:

Total of died and disappeared from the military dictatorship: 2.279
94,5% were men (2.153) (Rettig report/ratio)
97,76% was Chiliens (2.228) (Rettig report/ratio)
17,8% (405) belonged to the Socialist party, 16,9% (384) with the Movement of the revolutionary left (MIR, extreme left) and 15,5% (353) with the Communist party. Some 46% of them did not have past known militant (Valech report/ratio)
On 33.221 people stopped between 1973 and 1990,27.255 were recognized like victims of political prison and torture by the Commission on the political prison and torture (Valech report/ratio).
68,7% of them (22 824) was stopped in 1973
87,5% (23 856) were men
44,2% (12 060) had between 21 and 30 years and 25,4% (6.913) between 31 and 40 years

Chile today

Since 1990, Chile is a Démocratie with whole share control by the constitution of 1980 but the Chilean ones remain divided in their report/ratio with the Coup d'etat and the Pinochet general.

However, of the marked people of crimes remain free and of the bodies of missings, perhaps removed by the “caravans of Dead” were not found yet. Thus, of the women of missings gathered, ask justice and claim government of in-depth surveys.

The Pinochet general died in December 2006 at the 91 years age, without never to be judged for the exactions made under his mode. It remains with Salvador Allende one of the most discussed personalities of Chile. If the economic policy whom it engaged is greeted by the majority of the Chilean population, the attacks with the Human rights during the 17 years of its reign made of him a symbol of the dictatorships of South America, although its mode was on this longest continent neither (Paraguay, Brésil, Cuba), nor most repressive (Argentine).

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