Canada’s 9/11: How Ottawa Aided and Abetted the Chilean Coup
Written by: Tyler Shipley
Sept 11 is a dark anniversary in Chile. It was on that day, in 1973, that the elected socialist president Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup that would cost tens of thousands of Chileans their lives. It was also a day celebrated and supported by the Canadian government.
As argued in Canada in the World, Cold War Canada framed itself as a neutral ‘Middle Power’ focused on peacekeeping. This was largely a myth, contradicted by direct participation in the horrific Korean and Vietnam wars, support for European powers maintaining their African colonies, and upholding dictatorships in Latin America.
Latin America was a major site of struggle in this period, as people increasingly rebelled against the US-backed dictatorships and tried to institute alternative governments ranging from social-democracy to socialism/communism. Chile was one such case.
Chile had a remarkably robust and durable democratic tradition, which may be the reason that a socialist government was achieved there through an unlikely means: the ballot. This would have been unthinkable in countries where the military had greater power and held tighter to their own control, but enough space existed for civilian rule that Chileans had faith in the democratic process.
Still, Chileans went into the 1964 elections frustrated by grinding poverty in rural areas and tumbling wages and rising costs for workers in cities. Strikes and demonstrations increased and the election featured an openly socialist candidate, Dr Salvador Allende.
Canada and the US feared an Allende presidency would affect their investments in the country, so they poured money into the campaign of the centrist Eduardo Frei. The plan worked and Frei won, but Allende garnered 39% of the vote. Canada gifted Frei with $8.6 million to consolidate his position.
Frei did what he was supposed to: he changed nothing about Chilean life. In a country where people were demanding progressive change, his only major impact was to open the country up to further foreign investment, which made things considerably worse for workers and farmers.
In that context, Salvador Allende won the 1970 elections. It was a day of celebration for poor and working class Chileans, but no one in the Canadian embassy was cheering. Though Canada had gifted $8 million to the Frei government, Pierre Trudeau immediately cut off all aid to Chile upon Allende’s election.
“We shall do all within our power to condemn Chileans to the utmost deprivation and poverty,” said US Sec of State Henry Kissinger. And Canada was in lockstep, cancelling all EDC loans and convincing the IMF to cut off credit, while commercial banks withdrew from the country and the US imposed a strict embargo.
This plan to strangle Chile economically was actually Plan B. Plan A had been to overthrow Allende immediately. The CIA attempted to foment such a plan, but was stymied by the commander of the Chilean military, who refused to participate. He was murdered in the streets, but the coup failed and Allende’s program went ahead, at least at first.
Years of economic embargo and CIA interference and sabotage took a toll. The CIA sponsored major strikes against Allende (though his approval rating was even higher in 1973 than when he was elected) and vowed to make an example of him after he nationalized the profitable US copper mines.
Allende’s crime was to put the interests of Chileans ahead of foreign capital. Though Allende was a socialist, his program as president was a slow, gradual socialization of the economy, methodically improving the conditions of life for the poor, giving workers control of their factories, etc.
On Sept 11, 1973, the CIA finished the job, orchestrating a coup d’état that left Allende dead and placed General Augusto Pinochet in charge. It was the start of a seventeen year nightmare for Chile. Thousands of Allende supporters were rounded up, taken to the National Stadium, and executed in the weeks following the coup. Ultimately tens of thousands would be targeted.
Congress was closed, opposition parties banned, a curfew imposed for years. Public institutions like universities were placed under direct military control. Leftists were systematically purged. Poet Pablo Neruda was exiled, folk singer Victor Jara had his hands smashed and was hanged outside the stadium.
In the midst of this tragedy, the Canadian ambassador was gleeful. Andrew Ross cabled Ottawa about the “panic atmosphere” being imposed on “the riff-raff of the Latin American left” and noted that the new government would have “the thankless task of sobering Chile up.”
After Allende’s election, Canada had cut off all aid. Now, as blood soaked the streets of Santiago, Canada showered money on the Pinochet dictatorship. More than $100 million in loans were rushed through at Canada’s behest. Private Canadian capital soon followed suit, to the ultimate tune of $1 billion.
Pierre Trudeau, who had refused to visit Salvador Allende, granted official recognition to Pinochet within weeks, after being reassured that there was “no useful purpose to withholding recognition.” None, perhaps, but the screams which emanated from El Palacio de las Sonrisas (the palace of laughter), Pinochet’s notorious torture chamber.
Today, there are thousands of Chileans in Canada who were exiles from Pinochet’s violence. Pinochet arranged for the murder of many such exiles, from Buenos Aires to Washington DC, but some 7000 people did find refuge in Canada. This was due to intense pressure from civil society and activist groups in Canada.
Canadian mythologists love to tout its (exaggerated) reputation for accepting refugees. To the extent that several thousand Chileans found safety in Canada, it is a brutal irony that the violence they were escaping was encouraged and supported by the Canadian government.
Sept 11 in Chile marked the beginning of a nightmare that right wing economists called “the Chilean Miracle.” It was an experiment in neoliberalism, a ramped up version of capitalist exploitation that made working people more vulnerable than ever. Families were broken and profits went up.
Today, neoliberalism is the common form that capitalism takes, and it’s effects have been disastrous for working people around the world. Chile’s nightmare is now our own, and it is instructive to remember which side the elder Trudeau took.
And as we remember how Pierre Trudeau oversaw the demise of Chilean democracy, it would be wise to recall that his son Justin has recently done the same in neighbouring Bolivia. Daddy would be very proud.
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