republicansaredomesticterrorists:
On this day, 10 December 2006, former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, died. His regime, which swept into power after a bloody 1973 coup and saw thousands of radicals, trade unionists and others rounded up and executed, was enthusiastically supported by both British and American governments.
He was close friends with Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (with whom he is pictured), and when Spain tried to extradite Pinochet from Britain to face trial for torture and murder, Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled that he should not be extradited.
He was allowed to return freely to Chile where he was immune from prosecution. And although he was stripped of his immunity in 2004 and charged with multiple counts of kidnapping, torture and murder, he died before being convicted or punished.
The recent working class rebellion in Chile, provoked by an increase in the price of the Santiago subway, has developed into an enormous uprising demanding the abolition of Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution, which is still in effect. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1289003097951504/?type=3
On this day, 10 December 2006, former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, died. His regime, which swept into power after a bloody 1973 coup and saw thousands of radicals, trade unionists and others rounded up and executed, was enthusiastically supported by both British and American governments.
He was close friends with Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (with whom he is pictured), and when Spain tried to extradite Pinochet from Britain to face trial for torture and murder, Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled that he should not be extradited.
He was allowed to return freely to Chile where he was immune from prosecution. And although he was stripped of his immunity in 2004 and charged with multiple counts of kidnapping, torture and murder, he died before being convicted or punished.
The recent working class rebellion in Chile, provoked by an increase in the price of the Santiago subway, has developed into an enormous uprising demanding the abolition of Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution, which is still in effect. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1289003097951504/?type=3
On September 11th 1973, US-backed General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected leader of Chile, Salvadore Allende. Pinochet ordered an air strike on the Presidential Palace, labor activists and famous folk guitarists were rounded up for torture, disappeared, and killed.
Pinochet converted the national football stadium into a detention facility like Guantanamo Bay. Chile’s economy was turned into a plantation for the 1%, as inequality and poverty skyrocketed under the imposed Milton Friedman-style economic model.
Over 40,000 Chileans became victims of Pinochet’s terror. In response, the Nixon administration committed more money, more training, more torture equipment.
The world didn’t begin on September 11th, 2001. Rather, for the first time in modern history, Americans were visited by the same violence the US has imposed since its creation.
In Chile, the US murdered tens of thousands and impoverished millions. This wasn’t America’s first foray in international terrorism, nor would it be the last.
The United States security state is a terrorist and a plague on the people of the world.