Three decades before the 2001 al-Qaida terror attacks on the US, September 11 was infamous for another bloody event which ended one era of history and brought forth another. The 1973 military coup in Chile installed General Augusto Pinochet as the dictator of a regime that tortured, killed and disappeared thousands in the name of fighting communism. Salvador Allende, the first socialist in the Americas to take office via the ballot box, killed himself as troops stormed the presidential palace. Under Pinochet, parliament was closed, political parties outlawed, and media outlets shut down. Chile became a test-bed for the “shock therapy” policies of the University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.
The death of democracy was undoubtedly hastened by the actions of leading powers, including the UK and Australia, but most notably the US. Shamefully, Conservative governments led by Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher resisted helping Pinochet’s victims because of sympathetic attitudes towards the coup. The Labour governments of 1974-79 ran a more ethical foreign policy, accepting Chilean refugees and imposing sanctions on the junta.
