For extensive links to Chile before Allende & Pinochet, go to the casahistoria Chile site

 

 

The Military Regimes For casahistoria links to the military regimes of other Latin American states at this time

 

• Chile: A Guide to the 20th Century by by Kristi Armstrong. A good web based account for a basic start placing modern Chile in a historical context. From Historical Text Archive
• Chile en el Siglo XX  Commercial Chilean site set out by years or decades. Provides basic outline, but well supported by visuals. Useful is the section on images (again by decade) §
• BBC News timeline
• LANIC - Chile Latin American Network Information Center comprehensive directory of academic resources for Chile
• World-Wide Web Virtual Library (WWW-VL) Chile Links to sites on the History of Chile. However, many are now broken.

Political

• Development and Breakdown of Democracy, 1830-1973 From US Library of Congress by Arturo Valenzuela. 1994, but still provide worthwhile introductions. See sub sections on:
  •  Military Interventions, 1925-32
  • Mass Democracy, 1932-73
  • The Economy      
  • Government and Politics      
  • National Security      
  • The Evolution Of The Armed Forces
• Good subdivisions to individuals and events less well known outside Chile from Icarito. Worthwhile drilling down into the main part of the site for detailed past election results and graphics. In Spanish, but simpler Spanish for schools makes for clearer Google translations....
  • Parlamentarismo See also the interactive guide.
  • Presidencialismo
  • Del gobierno militar a la democracia Subsections on:
    • Represión militar | El modelo neoliberal  | La Constitución de 1980 | Augusto Pinochet Ugarte

• For current developments to the national history themes:
  • Yahoo Chile news excellent resource for current news items (in English) on Chile
  • Lanic Newsroom: Texas Univ site for links to the recent news themes on Latin America in general.

casahistoria home                              visit caféhistoria for updates and current topic news

• Homenaje a Salvador Allende A very committed site to Allende. Contains source materials, but graphic layout makes it hard to use at times. In Spanish.
• Chile Vive : Una pagina abierta a las utopias - includes downloadable Allende speeches. In Spanish
• Salvador Allende's Last Words
• Chilean President Salvador Allende denies threat of communist domination of his government, September 1970 (audio in Spanish and in English; Allende explains other parties are strong enough to resist to communism)
• 09/11/1973 - Salvador Allende Elected Video news item (you will have to watch an ad first!!)
• Web Page of Salvador Allende (Allende's speeches and captured radio transmissions of Pinochet directing the coup). Otherwise entries in English. Picture gallery.

• History of Chile under Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity by Ewin Martínez. Well documented and illustrated outline of the Allende years §
• Chile: Allende's Rise and Fall by Don Mabry. A good, detailed examination of Allende. Balanced view of US role at the end.
• Salvador Allende's Leftist Regime, 1970-73 From US Library of Congress by P W Drake. 1994, but still provide worthwhile introductions.
• Allende's Chile, 1972  By John Foran, University of California. Essentially devised for a  role playing learning project, this has a good, succinct description of the key events of Allende's period of office, not just his accession and fall. ( The case visits the site of a meeting Allende held with his coalition partners in Lo Curro, in 1972, in which various proposals were put forward for dealing with social problems and sustaining the project of social transformation)
• Chile: Some Economic Data as of 1970 From Historical Text Archive
• Allende's Leftist Regime -- Article looking at the policies of the Allende government. By the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
• Chile: Breve Imaginaria politica 1970-73 Well presented, visually appealing site including wall murals and posters; information on street painting brigades, the New Song movement and other information)

• From the "Socialist Experiment" to the Military Regime – the Structural Rupture of Social Systems By Jörg Sancho Pernas. Brief essay (Translated and a little difficult in places) suggesting how Allende's policies destabilised and paved the way for military takeover.
• Chile: Virtual Truth Commission Uses available US documentation to tell the story of Allende's fall
• Communication between the high chiefs of the Chilean Armed Forces on September 11, 1973, day of the military coup (audio; Spanish)

casahistoria home                              visit caféhistoria for updates and current topic news

Operation Condor Go to the casahistoria Military Regimes site for links to the covert US - latin American military regime project in the 1970's

• CNN Cold War Site Document concerning a CIA Plot against Allende, 1970
• Chile 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead Excerpt from the book Killing Hope by William Blum. Looks closely at US perceptions of the electoral success of Allende
• "How the CIA Took Aim at Allende"- by Tim Weiner, New York Times, Sept, 1998,  §
• Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973, a Staff report of The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (US Senate), 18 December 1975.
• "Secrets, Lies and Democracy" - an interview with Noam Chomsky by David Barsamian discussing US attitude and response to Allende's Chile
• Report of CIA Chilean Task Force Activities, 15 September to 3 November 1970.  Declassified documents by the United States government concerning CIA attempts to prevent Allende's assent to the Chilean presidency on 3 November.
• Castro Speaks On U.S. Role In 1973 Coup In Chile (excerpts) By Fidel Castro. Castro expresses the belief that for the first time in history, a new experience was developed in Chile: the attempt to bring about the revolution by peaceful means, by legal means.

• The Chile Coup -- The U.S. Hand Account  by Peter Kornbluh, iF magazine, Oct. 25, 1998
• A Plot Thickens Three Decades After Chile's Right-Wing Coup, Historians Have Yet to Dot All the i's. But One Thinks He May Have Crossed a K. Detailed article by By Lynne Duke of Washington Post, Feb 2005 investigates Kissingers' involvement...
• Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup in Chile - by Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archives
  • 2008: Documents: Evidence of Kissinger support for coup. From the US based National Security Archive. Published formerly secret transcripts of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations.
  • Chilean Documentation Project  Peter Kornbluh, Director. US National Security Archive. 16,000 original, declassified documents.
  • Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents relating to the Military Coup, 1970-1976
  • Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11,1973
• Nixon on the Chilean Intervention, 1970-1973 These declassified Kissinger transcripts reveal strong support for Pinochet following the Chilean coup. Transcripts and background from the US national security archive.
• World History Archives More well sourced articles on the role of the US in the Allende/Pinochet period can be found here.

• Augusto Pinochet  Detailed obituary and life account by Malcolm Coad for the UK Guardian
• Pinochet obituary Video account from BBC
• Special report: The Pinochet file BBC News Online report of 2001 records the twists and turns of the Pinochet case after the 2001 UK house arrest. Good background items though to unlock the dark secrets of the general's past.

• Imposition of Authoritarian Rule From US Library of Congress by Arturo Valenzuela. 1994, but still provide worthwhile introductions. See also sub sections on:
  • The Constitution of 1980
  • Authoritarianism Defeated by Its Own Rules
• Military Rule , 1973-90 From US Library of Congress by P W Drake. 1994, but still provide worthwhile introductions. See sub sections on: 
  • Neoliberal Economics  
  • The Crisis of 1982 and the Erosion of Military Rule
• Spotlight on Chile Concise but contains outline chronology and data.
• The Chilean Electoral System Before 1973 Describes the democratic structure before Pinochet. Contains good electoral statistics.
• The Military Government's Free-Market Reforms, 1973-90 From US Library of Congress by Sebastian Edwards and Alejandra Cox Edwards. 1994, but still provide worthwhile introductions. See also sub sections on:
  • Trade Policy
  • Banking Reform and the Financial Sector
  • Rural Land Market Reform
  • Labor-Market Reform
  • Public Employment Programs
  • The Debt Crisis: Further Reforms and Recovery.
• Chile: The Laboratory Test The Chicago School of Economics got the chance to restructure the Chile economy for 16 years, under near-laboratory conditions. Between 1973 and 1989, a government team of economists trained at the University of Chicago dismantled or decentralized the Chilean state as far as was humanly possible. Their program included privatizing welfare and social programs, deregulating the market, liberalizing trade, rolling back trade unions, and rewriting its constitution and laws. And they did all this in the absence of the far-right's most hated institution: democracy. this article is a well detailed critique of the process.
• Some Say Pinochet Wasn't Good for Economy By Katherine Ellison, The Miami Herald, 18 March 1998. Left wing analysis of the legacy of Pinochet's economic policies

• Official secret documents from Chile prove the existence of Operation Condor In El Pais. Official documents from the Chilean Exterior Relations Ministry prove the existence of Operation Condor, which was responsible of the extermination of thousands of civilians in South America.
• Under the Dictatorship  Concerned with the militarization of society after 1973; the creation in 1975 of the DINA secret police. The violation of the constitution and of human rights. The opposition and the 1988 plebiscite.
• The Crimes of Pinochet This site contains accounts of the crimes of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. The texts explain what people are talking about when they call him a "dictator" or "strong man" who committed a few "human rights violations".  These reports tend to confirm one another, and collectively give some idea of the range and scale of atrocities.  
• Crimes of the Chilean Generals  Elaborate site into the repression.
• New Information on the Murders of U.S. Citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi by the
  Chilean Military US National Security Archive essay intro & documents relating to the deaths of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, both of whom were killed by the Chilean military in the days following the 1973 coup. The murders of Horman and Teruggi were later dramatized in the 1982 film Missing.
• Death of a Dictator: Victims of Augusto Pinochet’s Reign Remember Brutal Regime From the Caravan of Death to Operation Condor. Transcript of a very worthwhile Dec 2006  'Democracy Now' broadcast (podcasts, mp3 versions available on the age) discussion with Emilio Banda, a student union leader tortured under Pinochet’s reign; Francisco Letelier, the son of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, killed in car bomb in Washington DC and with Peter Kornbluh, author of “The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.”
• Testimony of Chilean General Manuel Contreras detailing crimes committed by the military dictatorship and Pinochet ("Introduccion a la entrega de documentos que demuestran las verdaderas responsibilidades de las instituciones de la defensa nacional en la lucha contra el terrorismo en Chile") In Spanish, but as this is a pdf of the original, translation may be difficult using web translator.(May 2005)

Malvinas War

• Chile and support for Britain General Fernando Matthei, ex- Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force of Chile and member of the Military junta between 1977 and 1989, reveals (July 1999) to the Santiago paper Tercera how Chile gave support to the UK
• Colaboracion de Chile con Gran Bretana en Malvinas (Click to read Anglo-Chile collaboration in the Malvinas conflict  in Google English"). Gives an insight into the Chilean motivation in supporting the UK - and their fear that the Malvinas occupation was Galtieri's first step in further expansion. It is also interesting in the light of recent press releases about the monies still being paid to Pinochet by the British Government. (See next item)
• US banking records show links between arms firm and ex-dictator continued until last year from the London Guardian, Sept 2005

see also casahistoria Malvinas/Falklands site

 

Films on the Allende/Pinochet period

• The Battle of Chile (Parts 1 and 2) - a film by Patricio Guzmán (First Run/Icarus Films)
• Chile, Obstinate Memory - a film by Patricio Guzmán (First Run/Icarus Films
• Missing - a film by Costa-Gavras with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek
• The Pinochet Case - a film by Patricio Guzmán (First Run/Icarus Films)

• The Return to Democracy, 1990 From US Library of Congress by Arturo Valenzuela. 1994, but still provide worthwhile introductions. See sub sections on:
  • Continuity in Economic Policy
  • Emphasis on Social Programs

Finally:

• East German Poster Art and Chile - from Stanford University Libraries. Interesting links to the "fraternal" support for the Chile left from the GDR. Source of the GDR posters on this page.

 

 

casahistoria home                              visit caféhistoria for updates and current topic news

 

5. Pinochet: the Endgame 

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• Human Rights Watch - Chile For recent updates on the legal moves to bring the military regime perpetrators to justice go to this page. Very useful links to current articles from newspapers world wide 
• Pinochet legacy still in dispute BBC 2006 item by Nick Caistor shows how the figure of the former military dictator continues to divide Chile more than 30 years after he seized power.
• Timeline: The Pinochet legal saga 2006 guide to the key developments in the legal battle to prosecute Chile's Gen Augusto Pinochet for human rights abuses during his 1973-1990 military rule and for tax evasion. BBC
• Q&A: Pinochet and justice. 2006 BBC News item looks at the charges brought against Gen Pinochet and other issues surrounding attempts to put him on trial.
• Did Pinochet kill or cure Chile? looks at Augusto Pinochet's legacy and its impact on the Chilean economy.BBC News business reporter Robert Plummer (2006)
• "Proceso a Pinochet"  The case against Pinochet. Very full 2000 site (articles, photos, cartoons, documents) on the attempts to bring Pinochet to Justice  from the University of Alicante until 2000.
• Special report: The Pinochet file  BBC News Online records the twists and turns of the Pinochet case and unlocks the dark secrets of the general's past.
• Amnesty International - Annual Report  Amnesty International 2007 Report covering human rights in Chile