2023-09-11 03:41:30
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Caption,
One of the images that most impacted the world on September 11, 1973: Salvador Allende with rifle in hand and helmet, in the middle of the attack on La Moneda.
Article informationAuthor, Fernanda Paúl *Role, BBC News Mundo
5 hours
“It happened in Chile, to the detriment of the Chileans, but it has to go down in history as something that happened to all men of this time without remedy and that remained in our lives forever.”
This is how Gabriel García Márquez described the overthrow of Salvador Allende, which for 50 years not only marked and divided Chile but, as the Colombian Nobel Prize winner says, also had great international impact.
Occurring in the middle of the Cold War, the coup d’état led by Augusto Pinochet in September 1973 was not an isolated phenomenon.
While Bolivia was under the de facto government of Hugo Banzer, Brazil had already had a military regime for nine years that would last for 20 years. In Uruguay, Juan María Bordaberry governed, who would later go to prison for crimes once morest humanity, and in Argentina the Armed Forces took power in 1976.
Why then did it become an emblematic event?
50 years following the coup, BBC Mundo tells you 4 reasons that explain why what happened in Chile had such an international impact.
1. The figure of Allende
Salvador Allende was not just any leader.
The Chilean was the first socialist to come to power by popular vote in history, which immediately made him a global figure. And despite the undeniable divisions that it caused – and continues to cause – in his own country, outside of it his figure and his project generated great admiration.
“Salvador Allende attracted a lot of sympathy in Europe and the world. He was not a revolutionary hero like Fidel Castro or Che Guevara. He is not a populist either. He was an old-school politician, who negotiated, talked,” David Lehmann, a researcher at the University of Cambridge and a specialist in Latin American studies, explains to BBC Mundo.
“Unlike what happened with other Latin American forces such as Peronism, the alliance of the Chilean Popular Unity had resonance and links with other countries,” he continues.
“For this reason, his abrupt death caused shock and great disappointment… The attack on a peaceful proposal like that, despite the obvious difficulties it had, was very shocking for many,” says the expert.
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Caption,
Salvador Allende assumed the presidency on November 3, 1970. In the photo, he is escorted by then-General Augusto Pinochet (on the left, riding a horse).
Camila Vergara, a doctor in political theory and academic at the University of Essex, in the United Kingdom, has a similar opinion.
“Allende was a respected person, because he respected the rules of the game. Let us remember that Che Guevara gave him a copy of his book and, in the dedication, he wrote: ‘For someone who is going to be the same but in a different way,’” he tells BBC Mundo.
Perhaps one of the moments that best reflects this notoriety is the historic speech he made before the United Nations General Assembly in September 1972.
“In that speech,” explains the academic, “Allende denounced what was happening in Chile and the role of transnational corporations in interfering in national sovereignty; of how his hands were tied to make his public policies.”
“It is a human, erudite and true discourse that continues to resonate to this day.”
When he finished, he received a standing ovation that was only repeated in 2013, when Nelson Mandela occupied the same box.
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Caption,
Salvador Allende giving his historic speech before the United Nations General Assembly.
According to Vergara, the coup once morest Allende was understood as “the violent end of the labor movement worldwide.”
“It is the end of a promise of a real popular government and that was very hopeless for Europe, that is why it is so heartfelt,” he says.
Analysts agree that in addition to all this, Chile was seen as a country with a long democratic tradition.
And the arrival to power in 1970 of a left-wing leader, who represented a challenge to the United States in very dizzying times, was further proof of that.
2. The images
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Caption,
Foreign journalists from the UPI (United Press International) agency covering the military coup.
Another reason that explains why September 11, 1973 is still considered a milestone is the numerous images that went around the world due to the extensive coverage it had in the international press.
And they became iconic.
“One might describe it as the first Latin American coup that from its origins, through its execution to its consequences, was covered by the Western press,” said Kristian Gustafson, a specialist in Intelligence and Security at Brunel University in London in a published interview. by BBC Mundo in 2013.
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The La Moneda Palace was attacked with aerial projectiles around noon on September 11, 1973.
“They were images that had a huge impact,” says Michael Reid, a British writer and journalist who is an expert on Latin America.
“Especially the attack on La Moneda by the Chilean Air Force itself. “They were bombing their own presidential palace,” he adds for BBC Mundo.
For Camila Vergara, in Europe it was even more shocking, since some of the actions carried out by the military were related “to the visual memory of the German fascist movement.”
“I’m talking regarding the burning of books or the detention centers. And that was very strong,” says the historian.
“In addition, there were things that were better known outside… In Chile there was a lot of concealment, censorship,” Vergara concludes.
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Caption,
After the coup, the Chilean military burned books they considered Marxist.
The figure of Pinochet, as leader of the coup, also had great international impact.
At the same time that his followers considered that he had saved Chile from a government that was ruining the country, he became one of the icons of the violation of human rights in the world.
Pinochet, furthermore, spent many years in power (17 in total) in contrast to the generals who succeeded one another in the dictatorships of Argentina and Brazil, for example.
For Oxford University academic and specialist in Latin American politics Alan Angell, the photographs that spread of Pinochet with his dark glasses represented “almost a parody of the image of dictators.”
“The Chilean military was more effective in its brutality. They targeted the suspected militants with more precision. They had much more information. And less opposition. They didn’t have to deal with Montoneros, Tupamaros…” Angell told BBC Mundo for an article published in 2013.
According to several Truth Commissions, the total number of officially classified victims in Chile is 40,175 people, including politically executed people, disappeared detainees, and victims of political imprisonment and torture.
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Caption,
Pinochet with his dark glasses, along with José Toribio Merino (on the left) and Gustavo Leigh (on the right), who were also part of the Military Junta.
3. Milestone in human rights
Researcher David Lehmann believes that another relevant point is that “from what happened in Chile, human rights were professionalized not only in Latin America but also in the world.”
“There was a lot of solidarity. Unlike Argentina or Brazil, which also had military regimes, in this case support organizations for victims of persecution flourished. A lot of international militancy arose around Chile because it was a country that resonated and attracted,” explains Lehmann.
The expert recalls that in the United Kingdom, for example, an aid program was created to rescue academics and students, and that the same was repeated in other countries.
“The governments opened diplomatic representations giving official support, something very rare, which in other cases did not happen. Those seeking asylum were recognized. It was crazy, the houses of the Swedish or French embassies were full of refugees,” he indicates.
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Caption,
An officer stands guard at the National Stadium, which following the coup became a detention center.
“The coup in Chile marks the beginning of a greater focus of human rights on physical integrity, understood as abuse or torture,” says Camila Vergara.
“Europe’s greater commitment to human rights emerges.”
Michael Reid agrees and adds that Pinochet’s arrest in London in 1998 was also a milestone in the debate around this issue.
“It set the tone for universal jurisdiction once morest crimes once morest humanity,” he says.
4. The diaspora
The political exile during the Pinochet dictatorship represents the largest migratory movement in the history of Chile, adding more than 200 thousand people who were forced to leave the country.
This massive expatriation – which was destined for countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Italy, Sweden and Germany – influenced many foreigners to show solidarity with what was happening due to the military regime.
But perhaps even more important than the volume of migration was the level of political and cultural organization that this diaspora had in the world.
“Many exiles were educated both politically and economically. And they managed to insert themselves into the European and Latin American left very easily,” explains Michael Reid.
Thus, Chileans left an important mark in the places where they went to live. And one of the areas where it was most palpable is music.
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Caption,
The image of Víctor Jara continues to be an icon of protest.
The exiles managed to create and spread protest anthems that resonate to this day throughout the world.
“Many of those who left were not simply singers, but activists, who would have given their lives for the emancipation of the people,” explains Camila Vergara.
“There was a very clear epic because the brutal repression had no half-tones. Then an almost invisible network of solidarity was formed, where foreigners shared their struggles, their songs, their protest anthems,” he adds.
Many of the artists of La Nueva Canción Chilena, the musical-social movement that was born in the 1960s, were victims of the dictatorship, among them Víctor Jara, who was tortured and murdered in the old Chile Stadium that today bears his name.
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Caption,
Members of the Quilapayún band, creator of “The united people will never be defeated”, in France, in 1985.
His work became an international reference for protest songs.
Other surviving musicians took their songs into exile. Inti Illimani kept the flame of Chile alive in Italy, while Patricio Manns did so from Cuba and France.
The Quilapayún group was established in that same country. His emblematic “The people united will never be defeated” remained in global memory and is repeated to this day in the streets of many places in the world. And in different languages.
*With reporting by Dalia Ventura.
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