The Chile Solidarity Movement supported the election of Salvador Allende, president of Chile from 1970 to 1973. When a military coup ousted Allende from power in 1973, the Movement sought to end the dictatorship. [1]
The Chile Solidarity Movement supported the election of Salvador Allende, president of Chile from 1970 to 1973. When a military coup ousted Allende from power in 1973, the Movement sought to end the dictatorship. [1]
American Leftist groups supported the democratic efforts to elect the Socialist Salvador Allende and showed continued support him during his presidency. [1] In 1972, Eric Leenson, returned from a Fulbright in Chile, helped establish Non-Intervention in Chile (NICH). [1] The group stood in solidarity with Allende supporters within Chile and sent out newsletters from their Berkeley office to inform solidarity groups across the United States.
The Socialist Allende government of Chile fell to a U.S.-involved military coup d'état on September 11, 1973. The Pinochet regime targeted and forced the disappearance of political opposition. At least 200,000 people left Chile as exiles and settled, in highest numbers, in Europe and North America. [2] In exile, the Chilean left established an "external front" to fight the dictatorship. [2] They joined with allies and created a culturally vibrant and politically diverse solidarity movement with the Chilean Left. U.S. solidarity groups operated in New York, Berkeley, CA, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. [3] Movement groups operated out of Amsterdam, London, and other European cities. [4]
Movement participants used this non-mainstream media in many of the same ways that contemporary movements use social media, because media in Chile during the dictatorship was severely controlled by the Pinochet regime. Rosalind Bresnahan writes, "In the early hours of the coup, radio had the greatest potential for organizing resistance. Not surprisingly, one of the junta's first acts was the order the pro-UP stations to ease transmissions or face aerial bombardment." [5] The Pinochet regime expropriated 40 stations, and most were linked to form Radio Nacional. [5] In 1980, Pinochet enacted Article 6(b) in Chile's State Security Law. The law granted discretionary power to the regime to control media and restrict free speech. It became illegal to "publicly slander, libel, or offend the president of the Republic or any other high-level government, military, and police officials." [6] The threat to free speech restricted the oppositional movement to Pinochet within Chile, and affected the solidarity movement's access to information within Chile.
Short wave radio helped to spread information in the international arena. Radio Moscow produced daily segments about Chile, "mostly speeches and commentaries because [they] didn't have much information." They also reported on friends' and families' testimonies from within Chile. From 1974 to 1975 Radio Moscow read letters that arrived most often indirectly from Chile to Moscow that denounced cases of human rights violations. [5] Radio programming in solidarity with Chile also came from Radio Prague, Havana, and Berlin. [5]
To communicate between the local groups, several solidarity organizations produced and distributed newsletters. The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) spread information and calls to action in their magazine Report on the Americas, consistently during the Dictatorship. [7] Of any other U.S. journal, NACLA served as the greatest source of information about Chile for people in the U.S. [1]
Political art played a central role in the movement. Activists used concerts, poster art, and arpilleras to promote Chilean culture, denounce the dictatorship, and support the movement. At Glide Church in San Francisco, activists presented a Salvador Allende Memorial Poetry Reading. The event took place on October 4, 1973, just one month after the coup. [8]
In Berkeley, CA in June 1975, Chilean exiles and movement activists joined to create La Peña Cultural Center. [9] Traditionally, a Peña is a Chilean meeting place for socially conscious conversation and culture. Here, the Bay Area movement held meetings, concerts, and housed their movement office. The musicians of Grupo Raíz met at La Peña, and performed around the world to educate about Latin American social struggles. [10] The Nueva Canción group's members included Rafael Manriquez, Quique Cruz, Fernando "Feña" Torres, Hector Salgado, and Elizabeth Lichi Fuentes. [10] In 1982, the group sang with Pete Seeger for a movement solidarity concert at the Berkeley Community Theatre. [11]
La Esmeralda is a Chilean Naval ship known to be a site of torture and detention during the dictatorship. It was docked in the port of Valparaiso, Chile then sent to tour around the world. [12] On Friday morning, June 21, 1974, La Esmeralda was set to dock at the Oakland Naval Supply Depot. [13] Movement activists attempted to block the dock, and hung a "Junta No" banner from the Golden Gate Bridge in protest. [1] In solidarity, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union obstructed the ship from entering the harbor.
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and socialist politician, who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until his death in 1973. As a democratic socialist committed to democracy, he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.
Nueva canción is a left-wing social movement and musical genre in Latin America and the Iberian peninsula, characterized by folk-inspired styles and socially committed lyrics. Nueva canción is widely recognized to have played a profound role in the pro-democracy social upheavals in Portugal, Spain and Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s, and was popular amongst socialist organizations in the region.
United States intervention in Chilean politics started during the War of Chilean Independence (1812–1826). The influence of United States in both the economic and the political arenas of Chile has since gradually increased over the last two centuries, and continues to be significant.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon. On 11 September 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of René Schneider, who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.
Popular Unity was a left-wing political alliance in Chile that stood behind the successful candidacy of Salvador Allende for the 1970 Chilean presidential election.
An authoritarian military dictatorship ruled Chile for seventeen years, between 11 September 1973 and 11 March 1990. The dictatorship was established after the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'état backed by the United States on 11 September 1973. During this time, the country was ruled by a military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. The military used the breakdown of democracy and the economic crisis that took place during Allende's presidency to justify its seizure of power. The dictatorship presented its mission as a "national reconstruction". The coup was the result of multiple forces, including pressure from conservative groups, certain political parties, union strikes and other domestic unrest, as well as international factors.
María Isabel Allende Bussi is a Chilean politician and the youngest daughter of former Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens, the first and till today last legally elected Marxist president in world history.
This article discusses the portrayal of Salvador Allende on postage stamps.
The Catholic Church in Chile is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, the curia in Rome, and the Episcopal Conference of Chile.
North American Congress in Latin America (NACLA) is a non-profit organization founded in 1966 to provide information on trends in Latin America and relations between Latin America and the United States. The organization is best known for publishing the quarterly NACLA Report on the Americas, and also publishes "books, anthologies and pamphlets for classroom and activist use". The NACLA Report on the Americas print magazine was briefly discontinued in 2015, but relaunched under the Taylor and Francis imprint Routledge in May 2016.
The Fatherland and Liberty Nationalist Front was a Chilean fascist, political and paramilitary group that fought against the democratically elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, in Chile.
The Government Junta of Chile was the military junta established to rule Chile during the military dictatorship that followed the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. The Government Junta was the executive and legislative branch of government until December 17, 1974, when Augusto Pinochet rose was formally declared President of Chile in late 1974. After that date, it functioned strictly as a legislative body until the return to democracy in 1990.
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean general and dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of the Republic by the junta in 1974 and becoming the de facto dictator of Chile, and from 1981 to 1990 as de jure president after a new constitution, which confirmed him in the office, was approved by a referendum in 1980. His rule remains the longest of any Chilean leader in history.
Edgardo Enríquez Frödden was a Chilean physician, academic and minister of education under the Salvador Allende government.
La Peña Cultural Center or La Peña for short, is a multicultural center in the United States. It was founded in 1975 by Latin American and Californian allies in Berkeley, California in response to the 1973 coup d'état in Chile, or golpe de estado. The center was a focal point for the opposition-in-exile to dictator Augusto Pinochet during his rule, and later evolved into a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote peace, social justice and community action through cultural arts, education and community action. La Peña is located at 3105 Shattuck Avenue in the Ashby neighborhood of South Berkeley, California.
Human rights abuses in Chile under Augusto Pinochet were the crimes against humanity, persecution of opponents, political repression, and state terrorism committed by the Chilean Armed Forces, members of Carabineros de Chile and civil repressive agents members of a secret police, during the military dictatorship of Chile under General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990.
An arpillera, which means burlap in Spanish, is a brightly colored patchwork picture made predominantly by groups of women. The construction of arpilleras became popular in Chile during the military dictatorship (1973–90) of Augusto Pinochet. Arpilleras were made in workshops organized by a committee of the Chilean Catholic Church and then secretly distributed abroad through the church's human rights group, the Vicariate of Solidarity. The production of arpilleras provided a vital source of income for the arpilleristas, many of whom had been left in a state of financial insecurity due to widespread unemployment and forced disappearances of their husbands and children, who became known as desaparecidos.
The Committee of Cooperation for Peace in Chile was a Chilean peace organization founded in October 1973 by an inter-religious group led by the Archdiocese of Santiago in order to support human rights of those persecuted by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet.
The Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD), is a Chilean human rights group that formed in Santiago in 1974 in the wake of detentions and disappearances of thousands of people by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Fabiola Alicia Letelier del Solar was a Chilean lawyer, noted for her activism and defense of human rights in Chile and Latin America. She was the founder and president of CODEPU (1980–1998), and a plaintiff lawyer in the case surrounding her brother Orlando Letelier's assassination in 1976. On 23 July 2018, she was awarded the National Human Rights Prize, awarded by the National Institute of Human Rights.