Thread by @Americas_Crimes

On Sept 11 1973, a CIA-backed coup overthrew Chile's democratic socialist president Salvador Allende & worked to install Gen. Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, who killed thousands, tortured tens of thousands & imprisoned over 130,000.

Upon Salvador Allende’s election victory in 1970, the CIA immediately began working to destabilize his government, viewing it as being too close to communists. The CIA spread propaganda through the press, facilitated economic destabilization and organized labor strikes/protests.

The US even provided the coup plotters within the military the missiles that they used to bombard the La Moneda Palace.

The Pinochet dictatorship’s 15 year rule, employed death squads which engaged in systematic torture and executions of leftists or political enemies of the Pinochet regime. One of the torturers described what was done to the victims:

Under Pinochet, Chile served as a base for CIA terror program known as Operation Condor, which killed 60,000 suspected leftist sympathizers. The operation was run with US-backed right wing dictators in South America & was designed to eradicate communism in South America.

The US would never accept a socialist government in Chile and Richard Nixon's attitude was described as being: 'if Nixon couldn't send in the marines, he'd send the CIA.'

In 2002, Chilean academic Tito Tricot wrote, “Our dreams were shattered one cloudy morning when the military overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.”
theguardian.com/world/2002/sep…