Remembering Chile’s U.S.-backed Coup, 50 Years On
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military overthrew the socialist government of President Salvador Allende in a CIA-supported coup, installing a ruthless 17-year dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet. As the U.S.-backed military junta killed or forcibly disappeared more than 3,000 people and tortured more than 40,000, the country became the laboratory for neoliberal policy with sweeping privatization and aggressive free market reforms.
At the time, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) was at the vanguard of the solidarity movement with Chile. NACLA’s Latin America and Empire Report—renamed the NACLA Report on the Americas in 1977—offered research and analysis of the economic and political interests in overthrowing Allende; denounced U.S. involvement in the coup and the destabilization leading up to it; condemned human rights abuses at the hands of the U.S.-backed regime; and amplified the positions of the Chilean Left in their own words for an international movement of solidarity activists.
Fifty years on, overcoming the legacy of Pinochet and the coup remains extremely difficult. The constitutional process born out of popular protest in 2019 and aimed at burying a cornerstone of Pinochet’s legacy—the 1980 Constitution—has suffered serious setbacks curtailing its potential. The “economic counterrevolution” of Chile-style laissez-faire capitalism that NACLA critiqued in the 1970s remains in force today with devastating consequences of extreme inequality.
This collection revisits NACLA’s coverage before and after September 11, 1973 with a focus on news and analysis in the year following the coup.