Britain and Chile 40 Years After Pinochet’s Coup
Weekend Edition September 6-8, 2013
The ‘Other Special Relationship’
Britain and Chile 40 Years After Pinochet’s Coup
by PATRICK TIMMONS
England
Ask anybody from Santiago about the noise heard in the Chilean capital’s skies on the morning of Sept. 11, 1973, and they will probably tell you about the screeching roar of the British Hawker Harrier jets as they bombed La Moneda. Within minutes the planes had set fire to the presidential palace. After the air attack on the president’s offices, Chile’s army, directed by Augusto Pinochet and a group of generals, stormed the building. President Salvador Allende died in the attack.
Britain had been supplying all branches of the Chilean military with arms even under Allende, the democratically elected president ousted by Pinochet, who was his defense minister. In 1973, with British matériel and more than a nod and a wink from the CIA, a more than century-old Latin American democracy fell to authoritarianism. Pinochet stayed in power from 1973 to 1990 and sustained friendly, special relations with London and Washington, D.C., even as concerns about human rights abuses mounted.
In 2013, the anniversary year of Pinochet’s coup, Britain is aggressively refreshing its ties to Chile’s military establishment. From May 28-30, Chile’s defense minister visited London for annual bilateral defense discussions. Earlier in May, a 15-member delegation of military and civilian security and defense officials from 11 countries came to Chile on a “study tour” organized by Britain’s Royal College of Defense Studies with the support of the UK Embassy in Santiago. Chile’s defense minister welcomed the group. In late July and early August, “academics” from the British Army’s college at Sandhurst traveled to Santiago to train students from Chile’s defense institutions in counterinsurgency techniques.
There’s no secret to Britain’s current ties to Chile’s military: the British government has advertised these visits on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, stating that counterinsurgency training “was organised as part of the ongoing efforts to reinforce and strengthen the close ties between the British and Chilean Ministries of Defence.
Chile is an ever-present reminder to the West of the excesses of Cold War anti-communism. Pinochet seized power for the country’s capitalist establishment and labeled his leftist antagonists violent extremists. Pinochet did not shirk from calling his opponents terrorists and subversives. The dictator governed Chile through terrifying presidential rule from 1973 until 1990. A million people went into exile, tens of thousands were tortured, and thousands died or disappeared without a trace, often in the allied causes of counterinsurgency, counterterrorism or anti-communism.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/06/britain-and-chile-40-years-after-pinochets-coup/
= new reply since forum marked as read
is known by name internationally. Hideous.
Osvaldo Romo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osvaldo_Romo