On this date, 50 years ago, Chile's democratically-elected government was overthrown in a military coup, ending Salvador Allende's presidency and giving way to Augusto Pinochet's rule. The military immediately seized Chile's intellectuals, political dissidents, students, teachers, artists, and anyone else who they thought embodied the threat of communism. They were tortured — with special emphasis on sexual torture and rape — then killed or disappeared. Through the dictatorship's long decades in power, more than 40,000 people suffered this fate. Entire families were broken, and countless people remain missing to this very day.
The United States got what it wanted, of course. It was them — headed by Nixon and Kissinger — who financed and armed the Chilean military through the School of the Americas, who taught them CIA torture techniques designed to break and turn people into less than humans, who then denied any wrongdoing and tried to sweep it all under the rug. This was not the first time the US used others to commit crimes against humanity, nor would it be the last: Operation Cóndor, a campaign of repression against "communists" and "subversives", was felt through most of Latin America. Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Perú, Guatemala, Argentina and Chile were all given monstrous governments so the US could keep its capitalist playground untouched. In Guatemala, the US backed a genocide of the Mayan people. In Uruguay, the US taught the military the best way of disposing of murdered children.
We do not forget. We do not forgive.
Latin America must heal, but it must never give in. We must remember, always.
Thanks to Maxyfran73 for allowing me to collaborate with him to create this piece of both mourning and remembrance. Thank you, my friend.
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
