On September 11, 1973, Chile’s President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup encouraged by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US. The coup led to the suicide of President Allende and the installation of a military junta government under General Augusto Pinochet.
Half a century later, the events of that fateful day continue to send shockwaves across generations. The coup continues to inspire popular struggles to install and reinforce democratic constitutional orders in the Global South.
Backstory
Post-World War II saw the emergence of a US-led attempt to nourish fledgling liberal democratic orders in the western hemisphere.
A setback-of-sorts to these American efforts in Chile was the election of Allende in 1970. President Allende sought to nationalise major industries and improve the living standards of the working class. Social spending was dramatically increased – particularly for housing, education, and health – and a major effort was made to redistribute wealth to poorer Chileans. In the realm of foreign policy, in 1971, President Allende re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba.
All these developments rang alarm bells in Washington, D.C. and dissatisfaction with the Allende-led establishment in Chile quickly grew. The US was worried about the growing strength of the left-leaning socialists against the backdrop of the Cold War and the impact of losing its economic investments to Allende’s nationalisation programme.
The coup
A number of coup attempts against President Allende were brewing right from the day of his election in 1970. However, the one orchestrated under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, General Augusto Pinochet, on September 11, 1973, proved fatal for the first democratically elected socialist government of Chile. This coup was successful, mainly on account of the absolute unity achieved between all branches of the Chilean Armed Forces and active support from the Nixon administration in the US that worked towards creating favourable conditions for the anti-Allende coup.
Chile’s former President Salvador Allende Credit: Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, CC BY 3.0 CL/ Wikimedia Commons
In what would become iconic images of the coup, the Chilean Air Force bombed La Moneda – Chile’s White House. It became a symbol of the brutality with which an elected government was deposed, thus leading to the death-by-suicide of President Allende inside the presidential palace in the capital Santiago on that fateful day.
While fatalities in the battle during the coup might have been relatively small, the Chilean security forces sustained casualties in the three following months as a result of continued resistance from pro-democracy forces. In the months after the coup d’état, the military killed thousands of Chilean left-wing activists, both real and suspected, or forced their “disappearance”. The junta government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period.
The coup went on to inspire military takeovers across Latin America – but also galvanised the human rights movement. The brazen support for the coup brought the focus on to the dark activities of the CIA in subverting democracies, in cahoots with its allies – the UK and Australia.
Five decades on, the wounds left in Chilean society by the coup are still very much open. Justice is a long way from being served, secrets remain untold, and the bodies of many of the victims are yet to be found.
Chile’s march back to democracy
In the 50 years since, Chile has traversed the full road to recovery. The internationally supported 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum held under the military junta led to the peaceful Chilean transition back to democracy. Attempts were made to bring the top leadership, including General Augusto Pinochet, to justice – both within and outside Chile. By the time of his death in 2006, about 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for numerous human rights violations during his 17-year rule, as well as tax evasion and embezzlement during and after his rule.
In a sign of how advanced Chilean democracy has really become, it became the first country in the world to pass a law on neuro-rights (fundamental normative rules for the protection and preservation of the human brain and mind) in 2021, thus proving that it is a capable 21st century democracy. Chile underwent two recent attempts to bring about a new, more advanced constitution.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the coup, Chile’s current President Gabriel Boric, along with all four living former presidents — Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Bachelet, and Sebastian Piñera — signed a declaration titled ‘Compromise with Democracy’. The declaration states that the signatories should “confront the challenges of democracy with more democracy” and that they should “defend and promote human rights”. The right-wing opposition in Chile called the declaration “biased” and refused to sign it.
The coup’s lasting legacy around the world has been defined mostly by the international backlash to its shocking cruelty. It galvanised the human rights movement globally, and more specifically in Latin America. The US’s involvement shocked politicians such as liberal US Senator Frank F. Church, who oversaw the first congressional hearings on the CIA’s covert activities that ultimately led to constraints on its future operations overseas.
The martyrdom of Salvador Allende and his experiment in democratic socialism continues to inspire generations of progressive social and political activists around the world to build and strengthen robust constitutional orders.
Vinay N. Bhushan worked as a consultant at the Ministry of External Affairs and Bhargava Reddy works for APAC Assistance.