Thursday, August 25, 2005

Revolutionaries and a country on the edge

By Johann Hari, Published by The THE INDEPENDENT (London), August 25, 2005

Venezuela is living in the shadow of the other 11 September. In 1973, on a day synonymous with death, Salvador Allende - the democratically elected left-wing President of Chile - was bombed and blasted from power. The CIA and the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had decided the "irresponsibility" of the Chilean people at the ballot box needed to be "rectified" - so they installed a fascist general, Augusto Pinochet. He "disappeared" at least 3,000 people and tortured 27,000 more as he clung to power right up to 1990.