Chile Forum

Criticism well taken. Since you appear to know the truth.....educate us!

I would say on a largely expat website with a prevailing Anglo culture, discuss & debate away. In person with a Chilean, approach the topic very gently and carefully, leaving everyone an escape hatch to switch the subject. In particular, you never know who has had what very personal experience in those years, directly or via close family members. Such emotions can quickly doom any sort of useful discussion and permanently color a relationship, better to look for indications that the conversation is not going to go well. With that said, lots of Chileans will discuss the matter in a productive manner if correctly approached.

John Hyre

JHyre wrote:I would say .... In person with a Chilean, approach the topic very gently and carefully, leaving everyone an escape hatch to switch the subject.

Good advice.

It is helpful when considering the military regime in Chile to understand also the longer history of experience in dealing with the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. The parallels are significant. Both involved "democratically elected" governments supported by the Soviet union.

Although many have heard of the International Brigades, few recognize that this was in large part the brainchild of Stalinist Josip Broz, later to become widely known as Marshal Tito, who in the 1930s quietly gathered up communists from around the world to support the Spanish Republic, for the hoped-for benefit of the Soviets, and Soviet expansionism.

Few acknowledge the insertion of similar communist combatants into Chile, who would for many years subsequent to 1973 carry on a guerrilla war using Soviet and Cuban assistance. I once translated a paper by a senior Soviet KGB official, Nikolai Leonov, who outlined a 1973 plan for a commando raid on an island in southern Chile, to be undertaken by Soviet special operations troops, helicopters, and submarines. Leoniv was director for Latin American intelligence for the KGB, and we cannot dismiss his information as wild imaginings of the Chilean right wing.

Chilean friends of mine tell me about the small caches of weapons and other guerrilla materiel that were hidden in the food shipments on Soviet-bloc ships in Chilean ports during the Allende regime. This materiel, of course, was destined for the MIRistas, who fought against the Chilean government for several years post-1973. It is unsurprising, if unfortunate, that the military regime in Chile felt it necessary to take harsh measures to combat the MIRista guerrillas. Pinochet was no doubt aware that General Franco experienced a similar limited guerrilla war after the end of the Spanish Civil War. There were also a number of pro-communist Spanish Republicans in Chile, refugees who had fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco. Although their sub rosa political influence may have been a tiny factor, the fact of their ages in 1973 makes it unlikely that they played large active roles in the guerrilla war against the Chilean military regime.

A great deal can be written on this topic, but this is not the place for it. Let us briefly consider instead the parallels between Spain in post 1939 and Chile in post 1973. Both nations had been to some degree "destroyed" (Spain certainly to a larger extent due to the long civil war that had no parallel in Chile in the seventies). Both nations had experienced Soviet-influenced (dominated?) governments and were targeted to become Soviet satellites in much the same mold as Cuba. Thus the Western European and North American powers had little incentive to support communist-backed Spain or Chile, on the simplistic notion that the corresponding governments had been "democratically elected." We seem to forget that Hitler was also brought to power through democratically elected representatives, if not through popular vote. But I digress.

The populations of Chile in 1973 and Spain in 1939 had "had enough." The respective nations were badly wounded and needed recovery, and a period of stability. Pinochet and Franco provided that stability, however unfairly and even brutally. The education systems in the English speaking countries fail to adequately appreciate the critical need for this period of stability, and selectively focus instead on perceptions of the harsher aspects. Yet the overwhelming majorities in both 1939 Spain and 1973 Chile supported the regimes that brought them stability and a rebuilding.

A foreigner who is a non-participant in Chilean history should not forget how it feels to be a member of a badly wounded nation going through the necessary decades of reconstitution. In Spain, at the 50th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, there was almost silence on the subject. After fifty years, Spain was still in a sort of post-traumatic shock. There were no winners, only survivors. This was not so much a matter of denial, but of pushing the past aside to get on with life and national recovery. Evils had been done by all sides, and all sides had blood on their hands. Nobody wanted some foreigner to stand up and say, this side or that disgusts me so much, because this side and that side were still trying desperately to become one again.

Why must we be gracious and sensitive to the question of the post-golpe recovery of Chile? Because a nation that has recently rent itself asunder feels embarrassment and shame, and sometimes unspeakable sadness. It is hardly the place of the foreigner, the forastero, the know-it-all outraged outsider, to prolong the suffering and interfere with the healing.

Can anyone recommend a book on this subject (either in english or spanish). When my wife (Chilena - family fled the country during Allende) and I were dating I read a book called "Chile's Marxist Expirement" though after 25+ years I don't remember who wrote it or what kind of slant it had.

My books are in the States. I will post when I return in a month. Remind me if the intervening month of wine & fun corrodes my memory.

John Hyre, Always Reading

In spanish I reccomend Tomas Moulian´s "Chile, anatomia de un mito" and Augusto Pinochet´s "El dia decisivo", ah also Joaquin Lavin´s "Chile, revolucion silenciosa" and Jose Pinera´s "El cascabel al gato" (nice book)

kampalm wrote:Can anyone recommend a book on this subject (either in english or spanish). When my wife (Chilena - family fled the country during Allende) and I were dating I read a book called "Chile's Marxist Expirement" though after 25+ years I don't remember who wrote it or what kind of slant it had.

Neither Moss nor his book "Chile's Marxist Expirement" can be considered reliable. Moss himself was from Oz and a bit of a nut-case. He is better known for his involvement in the study of dreams, which may explain some of the content of his books.

Why the need to buy a book when you can go on the internet and find all the information that you need. For those of you who mention the 'shortages' for food, fuel, etc. under Allende you need look no further than the declassified US CIA files to see how all of that came to be. You will find in those files how Kissinger set out to destabilize the economy, how strikes by independent truckers were subsidized with CIA money, etc. As far as those of you who write on this topic that most of Pinochet's 3000+ killed were not innocent you need to read history. I am new on the forum so I will not post any links but there are more than a few exposes written by credible American journalists on the topic.

Simply google "CIA Activities in Chile", and the first result will take you to the cia.gov page. Straight from the horse's mouth if you will.

Did they ever re-include the memo with kissenger's signature on it ordering the hits in Chile (it was 1 page)? As I recall the order was directed at daddy Bush or at least he had something to do with it as he was at the CIA at that time?

It was there at first in the thousands of docs they released under the Clinton administration, then got reclassified in the first weeks under the Bush administration. I recall finding it while doing research on Chilean history as an undergrad (human rights in Chile), then it was pulled from the public archives and I never was able to find it again. Unfortunately, I did not keep my copies. I recall looking at it and thinking, "this is a total smoking gun, why is this guy not in prison"?

this one?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch09-01.htm

PenquistaDeCorazon wrote:Simply google "CIA Activities in Chile", and the first result will take you to the cia.gov page. Straight from the horse's mouth if you will.

.............what that horse wants you to know