50th anniversary of the military coup d'stat in Chile

[buritobr]

Today, in the anniversary of the September 11th 1973 coup, which removed the socialist democraticly elected president Salvador Allende and established the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, president of Chile Gabriel Boric organized an event for the memory of the victims, in front of the Palacio de la Moneda. Many present and former heads of government and state of the world attended. But many of them could not attend due to the G20.
Leaders who attended: López Obrador, Gustavo Petro, Luis Arce, Lacalle Pou, Pepe Mujica, Felipe Gonzáles

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xfeSWVgF1w

[YPestis25]

Allende's disregard for a Constitution, though bad, did not warrant a military coup d'etat. Might as well be a doctor prescribing euthanasia to cure a patient of their cancer.

More to the point, I don't think we should lionize the leader of a military junta who led to the deaths of thousands and the internments of tens of thousands. Don't like Allende all you want, I, for one, don't find him a particularly praiseworthy figure, but the fetishization by the right of Pinochet is something I will never understand.

Finally, the blasé posts above in response to a topic addressing, in part, an event for the memories of the victim's of Pinochet's regime, are just in poor taste. Post whatever you want I guess, but the man you all are lauding led to some horrific human suffering, and the short pithy posts in response to this just leave a sour taste in my mouth - but maybe my sensibilities are too soft.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Allende's disregard for a Constitution, though bad, did not warrant a military coup d'etat. Might as well be a doctor prescribing euthanasia to cure a patient of their cancer.

More to the point, I don't think we should lionize the leader of a military junta who led to the deaths of thousands and the internments of tens of thousands. Don't like Allende all you want, I, for one, don't find him a particularly praiseworthy figure, but the fetishization by the right of Pinochet is something I will never understand.

Yeah, there's no question that Pinochet was monstrous enough that it's hard to believe Allende could have been a worse option. But at this point the lionizing of Allende each year seems to have less to do with his actual actions and more to do with convenient timing.

[TDAS04]

Pinochet was a monster. Allende was not good—and frankly—I haven’t noticed anyone on here “lionizing Allende,” but the admiration by the right for right-wing tyrant Pinochet is shameful.

Nonetheless, the purge of suspected communists in Chile by the Pinochet regime—as horrific as it was—was conducted on a much smaller scale numerically than the similar purge in Indonesia at the hands of Suharto, another despot backed by the US in the name of “fighting communism.” (Of course, Indonesia’s population is multiple times the size of Chile’s).

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Obviously Allende

and everyone else with a different opinion will burn in hell for eternity & beyond, including the blue avatar poster in this thread (unless you're just misinformed, which with the loads of propaganda in both the democratic & republican party going on wouldn't be a surprise).

[Hnv1]

Marxists online: this is the future of Chilea the evil CIA stopped!

[kaoras]

I'm not going to dignify this thread giving an answer to all the Chilean constitutional experts here, I have written to death about this topic, but all Pinochet apologists and whataboutist (of any kind, like IN INDONESIA IT WAS WORSE) pueden irse a la re concha de su madre.

[TDAS04]

I'm not going to dignify this thread giving an answer to all the Chilean constitutional experts here, I have written to death about this topic, but all Pinochet apologists and whataboutist (of any kind, like IN INDONESIA IT WAS WORSE) pueden irse a la re concha de su madre.

I didn’t mean to downplay Pinochet’s brutality, sorry if it came off that way. My post clearly expressed that I believe Pinochet was evil, and I that I don’t think highly of Pinochet apologists. By bringing up Indonesia, I simply meant it as example of a similar situation in which the US supported a right wing dictatorship engaged in a brutal campaign aimed at eliminating suspected Communists, and I even indicated that the differing numbers of victims was due to differing population sizes.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

I'm not going to dignify this thread giving an answer to all the Chilean constitutional experts here, I have written to death about this topic, but all Pinochet apologists and whataboutist (of any kind, like IN INDONESIA IT WAS WORSE) pueden irse a la re concha de su madre.

Seconded.

And i'll add the following because we recently got a thread about would you marry someone who supports Russias role in the Ukraine war or Putin.

People who downplay Pinochet or minimize his actions or outright prefer him over Allende are people I do not wish to marry as well, neither do i wish to be friends with them, neither would I handshake them. I would reject a handshake.

And yes in Indonesia it was even worse and nobody even ever talks about that.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

It was a Tuesday September 11th terrorist attack.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The big moral lesson of the Chilean coup is that economic mismanagement does not, in fact, justify violently overthrowing the government and murdering its supporters.

[Oryxslayer]

Anyone got a description of what Kast did to honor such a meaningful moment?

[Red Velvet]

Wow can’t believe it has been half a century already from 9/11.

Being born in the 90s in South America is like coming right in the 1st “progressive” decade, where the dictatorship era was still very much alive in people’s minds so even though you never really lived through any of that, it’s still very much inserted in your head in a very instinctive way because you as kid heard the adults talking about it like it was a boogeyman or something.

That’s what likely characterizes “Millenials” (born in 80s/90s) here in Brazil tbh. People who didn’t live through the dictatorship or were at most 5 when it ended and it was already much much weaker anyway, so they all still have some level of close connection to it.

Gen Z didn’t really get this, being born already into full normality and not hearing as close about it. Gen X were the people who were born during the dictatorship and lived their childhood in it, so for them it wasn’t the worst thing either as they didn’t fully understand or saw it as the norm. It’s through the “boomers” that we get the stories as they were the ~youth~ in the hardest days.

I remember “Machuca” being the Chilean film that they showed in school regarding Latin American dictatorships. It’s a film from 2003 and it was my 1st contact with the same kind of stuff happening in other Latin American countries.

And still only later I got to understand what happened in Chile was even bloodier than what even happened here, no wonder that the figure of Pinochet is still the poster to talk about that era for the region as a whole.

[Red Velvet]

Brazilian 1973 newspapers about Chilean coup:



“Deposed Allende commits suicide”





In this 3rd one, a headline is: “USA expected it, but deny to make any comments” - a translation of a text published by The New York Times (author: David Binder)

“WASHINGTON - Members of the USA government weren’t surprised yesterday with the rebelling of Chilean Armed Forces but denied to make any commentary in order to avoid any shadow of cumplicity or involvement in the ousting of President Salvador Allende. Meanwhile, the United States embassy in Santiago informed that none of the 2.800 US citizens currently in Chile suffered during the uprising.

…

The American government, which has successively interfered in Chilean politics, especially in economic matters, before Allende took power in 1970, has kept a position of an uninterested observer since the election of the Marxist president, exception being when to protest against the expropriation politics adopted by the Unidade Popular leader.”





“Death to those who resist it”



“Brazil recognizes the Chilean junta”



“US denies involvement”

[CumbrianLefty]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

[TheReckoning]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

I think Pinochet stanning is really Gigacringe, but is this anything worse than what Fidel Castro did to dissenters (I.e. torturing and murdering them)? Because he’s loved by so many.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

I think Pinochet stanning is really Gigacringe, but is this anything worse than what Fidel Castro did to dissenters (I.e. torturing and murdering them)? Because he’s loved by so many.

Obviously. The scale was worse, and even the worst accusations in Cuba do not rise to the levels of cruelty present in Pinochet's tactics.

[TheReckoning]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

I think Pinochet stanning is really Gigacringe, but is this anything worse than what Fidel Castro did to dissenters (I.e. torturing and murdering them)? Because he’s loved by so many.

Obviously. The scale was worse, and even the worst accusations in Cuba do not rise to the levels of cruelty present in Pinochet's tactics.

Pinochet killed 2000 people over 17 years. Castro’s death toll was way higher, and murdering someone is always worse than torture (which there was plenty under Castro, as well!)

Now if someone wants to argue that despite Castro’s violence, he also helped provide healthcare/education/whatever to the Cuban population, they may have a point. But just saying straight up that he was actually “nicer” than right wing dictators at the time? Pure nonsense.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Allende was on his way to creating the United States of South America and was going to expose the Clinton murders before Hillary had him killed

in all seriousness though, Allende was a dirtbag who was speedrunning ruining his country, but Pinochet was infinitely worse (although it wasn't clear at the time of the coup) and the right-wingers who today claim to support him, even ironically, are absolute swine.  Interfering with the governments of other countries, especially in support of a violent man like Pinochet, is bad, although Pinochet almost certainly would have taken over Chile even without the oft-overblown CIA support.

[YPestis25]

I don't see how Castro is relevant to this thread.

[Devout Centrist]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

I think Pinochet stanning is really Gigacringe, but is this anything worse than what Fidel Castro did to dissenters (I.e. torturing and murdering them)? Because he’s loved by so many.

I, for one, think both men were horrible in their own way.

[Oryxslayer]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

I think Pinochet stanning is really Gigacringe, but is this anything worse than what Fidel Castro did to dissenters (I.e. torturing and murdering them)? Because he’s loved by so many.

I, for one, think both men were horrible in their own way.

The simple truth is that most authoritarian systems, no matter their professed ideology, are evil when it comes to basic human rights and individual opinions. This is of course because most policies in such regime are secondary to the primary ideology of maintaining power (see Vietnam a day ago for an example) which is universal among governments. Except most authoritarian systems are unable to base their governance on popular opinion like elected ones, so they have to use the many available sticks rather than promising carrots, and then fake the popular support with forced rallies and marches. And the authoritarian regimes that do start with popular backing and use it rather than fear for legitimacy and security, over time degrade to the common point when said backing similarly degrades.

This isn't to say that electoral systems are perfect, and there are plenty of hybrid democracies that have/do try to oppress one section of the the population and please another, but they at least can face consequences without popular violence.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

A reminder that Pinochet's regime had female political prisoners raped by specially trained dogs. Yes, that is the nature of the man that certain right wingers (including on here) applaud.

By their own friends ye shall know them, and all that.

I think Pinochet stanning is really Gigacringe, but is this anything worse than what Fidel Castro did to dissenters (I.e. torturing and murdering them)? Because he’s loved by so many.

I would think that regardless of the answer here, we should probably refrain from defending people as bad or worse towards dissidents as Fidel Castro!

[buritobr]

It's important to preserve the memory of this event in order to avoid right-wing myths like the one that the military coup was legal and the one that the Chicago Boys made the Chilean economy perform very well.

The right-wing revisionists like to mention the resolution against Allende approved by the Congress in August 1973. But there was no article in the Chilean constitution allowing the armed forces to do a coup d'stat.

Chile faced depressions in 1975 and 1982-83. GDP started to have high growth rates since 1984: when the Chicago Boys were not in the government anymore. Besides, Chile had income inequality lower than the Latin American average before the 1973 coup, and, after Pinochet's regime, had an income inequality similar to Brazil's.