The democratically elected leader of Chile, Salvador Allende, was murdered in a CIA backed coup by the military general, Augusto Pinochet. The violence that followed killed about 60,000 Chilean people, while the United States sent arms and armour to the regime. Previously, Nixon ordered an embargo of Chile as a result of Allende’s election.
During Allende’s tenure, the middle class soared, democratic rights were being extended to the workplace, poverty and hunger greatly decreased, access to medical care greatly increased. The natural resources were nationalized so that all Chilean people can benefit from them.
The following regime saw a poverty rate of 45%, the near destruction of the Chilean middle class, a 19% decline in productivity, steep decline in average earnings. Pinochet was hated by the Chilean people.
El #11deSetiembre se conmemoró la muerte de Salvador Allende y esta frase de él no me ha dejado de sonar en la cabeza.
El 11 de setiembre de 1973, Pinochet, financiado por Estados Unidos, bombardeó el Palacio de La Moneda (la casa presidencial chilena) para ejecutar el golpe de estado que resultaría en una de las tragedias latinoamericanas que todavía duele. La dictadura Pinoshit dejó aproximadamente 30.000 víctimas de prisión política y tortura, 3000 muertos y 1200 desaparecidos.
Last Friday—instead of watching an abusive narcissist lie on the steps of the White House—I went to La Inauguración Del Pueblo (The People’s Inauguration) here in Atlanta. It was truly incredible.
I marched alongside hundreds of people to the steps of City Hall where (mostly) women—black women, latinx women, trans women, Muslim women, first generation immigrant women—lead us in chants and speeches, then went inside City Hall to deliver demands. Demands for human rights for all communities in Atlanta.
There were speeches in Spanish, there were prayers in Arabic, there was rap music. It was the most American thing I’ve ever witnessed and I’ll never ever forget it.
