U.S. role in "the other 9/11" murders in Chile

The article below is from today's "Democracy Now" program (www.democracynow.org) with Amy Goodman.

A court in Chile has ruled that the U.S. played a "fundamental" role in the killing of my good friend Frank Teruggi and another North American in l973, during the time that I lived Chile, where "the other 9/11" happened. Today's NY Times also has an article on this court decision some 40 years after the militaries began to dominate the Southern Cone of the Americas.

Having lived in Chile when it became a military-dominated country, I have been concerned that the U.S. is increasingly moving in that direction. I feel it in my bones. We have a militarized police force, as demonstrated by Iraq veteran deputy sheriff Erik Gelhaus murdering an innocent boy with a toy gun in Santa Rosa.

Chilean Court Rules U.S. Had Key Role in 1973 Killings of 2 Americans

In Chile, a court has ruled that U.S. military intelligence services played a "fundamental" role in the 1973 killings of two Americans in the days after Augusto Pinochet seized power in a U.S.-backed coup. The court ruling, released Monday, finds former U.S. Navy Captain Ray Davis, who was then commander of the U.S. military mission in Chile, gave Chilean officials information that led to the deaths of journalist Charles Horman and student Frank Teruggi. Davis died last year in Chile, where he lived even as a Chilean court approved his extradition, believing he was in Florida. Charles Horman’s widow Joyce Horman told the Associated Press she was "delighted" to see the case moving ahead but "outraged" that "through death and delay, a key indicted U.S. official, Captain Ray Davis, has escaped this prosecutorial process." (Watch our interview with Joyce Horman last year around the 40th anniversary of the killings and the coup.)

Just out of college when the draft was still active, I went to Chile in 1969 as a Peace Corps Volunteer doing agricultural work in the south around Temuco. During our 3-month orientation in Santiago, I remember one of our group had tough questions for our trainers about US foreign policy in Chile. I had just finished reading John Kenneth Galbraith's Great Fear in Latin America, but I was still politically naive. Our compatriot with the uncomfortable questions ended up leaving early for reasons of conscience.

Another member of our group, more of an intellect, stayed on in a teaching position, I believe, in Santiago. In 1972, the first edition of his book came out, titled The Triumph of Allende --ironic, considering Allende's fate. Describing the pre-coup period, Richard Feinberg lauded the notable accomplishments and improvements for civil institutions as well as sovereign controls gained over national resources. Alas, they dared to nationalize their own copper mines.

The Allende administration had broad popular support, but the triumph was short lived, thanks to Kissinger and other nefarious cohorts up north. The rest is sad history, premiering the first bloody coup in Chile's history. Today there is massive student unrest, no surprise.

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Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:

The article below is from today's "Democracy Now" program (www.democracynow.org) with Amy Goodman. A court in Chile has ruled that the U.S. played a "fundamental" role in the killing of my good friend Frank Teruggi and another North American in l973, during the time that I lived Chile, where "the other 9/11" happened. Today's NY Times also has an article on this court decision some 40 years after the militaries began to dominate the Southern Cone of the Americas....

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Yes, Salvador Allende, a physician, was a truly wonderful, well-loved president in Chile with wide support from the people, but not a part of the military or the U.S. He was democratically elected. He ran on a platform that included providing enough milk for all children. If Kissinger and Nixon had not intervened, his democratic revolution would have spread throughout Latin America. Thousands of young and progressive people from around the world came to Chile during the brief Allende years, where we learned a lot about American imperialism and its long history of damage to people throughout the world.

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Posted in reply to the post by Runningbare:

Just out of college when the draft was still active, I went to Chile in 1969 as a Peace Corps Volunteer doing agricultural work in the south around Temuco. During our 3-month orientation in Santiago, I remember one of our group had tough questions for our trainers about US foreign policy in Chile...

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I remember back in the early 1980s when the movie, "Missing," came out and a local activist was promoting it in a Rohnert Park cinema. The activist, a young lady, was doing this in order to educate the public about the genocide that their government, the US government, had perpetrated in Chile. Chilean democracy was destroyed, it was a democratically elected government overthrown (Salvador Allende), and a bloody military tyrant was put in power (Pinochet), who was responsible for the systematic torture and murder of more than 30,000 people.

When I saw the film the second time because of the activist's efforts, it seemed to me to be trite and a moot point since the movie did little to make the US government recognize and atone for its bloody role. Back then the POTUS was Reagan and there was no way in hell that asshole was ever going to apologize or make things right. And this was even less likely among the American people themselves because of their ignorance and reactionary disposition. The Chilean coup is one of the worst atrocities perpetrated by the United States during the Cold War, and using the Cold War as justification.