The other 9/11

IN THE NEWS
Matt at Fruits and Votes posted a memorial about the other 9/11 anniversary. Thirty-two years ago, the Chilean military seized control of the government and began an era of savage repression. I agree with Matt: this tragedy is one of the important landmarks of the 20th century. Even after the collapse of the Weimar Republic into Nazi savagery, Western democracies still had reason to fear how easily and spectacularly democratic experiments could fail. Allende deserves criticism for his bungled handling of an incendiary political situation, but neither he nor his supporters deserved what came next.

The 1973 coup was also one of the most ignoble moments in US foreign policy, a cautionary lesson for our current handling of ostensible allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. US support for the coup unleashed unspeakable atrocities, all in the name of blocking a communist threat that wasn't really there.

Comments

[Matthew Shugart]

I'm not sure what Allende could have done differently to avoid "bungling." My purpose is not to defend him or his "road to socialism" but I really do not know what better options he had.

The Christian Democrats were the "pivot" party in Chile's party system at the time, and they refused to work with him (except on copper nationalization, which passed Chile's congress unanimously).

At one point in 1973, Allende tried to bring the Christian Democrats into his cabinet, but instead they joined the rightwing parties in passing a resolution calling Allende's government unconstitutional (with, to be charitable, dubious justification)

By that time, it is evident that the Christian Democrats had already thrown themselves into the arms (so to speak) of the coup plotters, and probably assumed there would be new elections (that they would win) almost immediately. Now THAT was a blunder of catastrophic proportions.

Maybe another blunder worthy of note was Allende's decision to promote Pinochet to head of the army shortly before the coup. But I think there is little evidence that he should have known Pinochet would lead a coup. In fact, I think Pinochet led the coup mainly to maintain the integrity of his own institution, which was being pulled asunder by coup plotters within the ranks, some of whom would have preferred to lead a socialist coup, and others of whom were in league with the CIA.