Britain and Chile's 9/11
by Pablo Navarrete
It was just before midday on 11th September 1973 when two British-built Hawker Hunter fighter jets flew over La Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace, firing rockets into the building. Inside was socialist president Salvador Allende and scores of his aides and supporters. A coup against Allende, in power since November 1970, was now fully in motion. By the end of the day Allende was dead and a 17 year-long brutal military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet followed that butchered Chile’s democracy and radically transformed the country.
EXPOSING BRITAIN'S ROLE
The role of the US government in sabotaging Allende’s presidency and supporting the coup and Pinochet junta is now well documented. Less known, however, is the role played by the British government. As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Chilean 9/11, a documentary I’m working on with investigative journalist John McEvoy seeks to expose the UK’s role in the destruction of Chile’s democracy and its support for the coup regime. We also explore the relationship between Thatcher and Pinochet and how Tony Blair’s New Labour helped the Chilean dictator evade justice for war crimes.
In June we travelled to Chile to film interviews for the documentary. We spoke to leading Chilean journalists, the relatives of British nationals who were targeted by the Pinochet regime, torture survivors, and prominent Chilean officials. We also spoke to Pablo Sépulveda Allende, Salvador Allende’s grandson. (1) (2) Pablo was born to Allende’s oldest daughter, Carmen Paz, in Mexico in 1976. His family were exiled there having fled Chile after the coup. He has now returned to live in Chile and is a qualified doctor working in mental health. In April 2020, a few months after the eruption of mass anti-government protests in Chile in October 2019, Pablo was detained (3) while providing medical treatment to those on the streets rallying against neoliberalism and police brutality in Chile – both remnants of the Pinochet dictatorship.
When we met in June, the hard-right government of Sebastian Piñera had given way to the ostensibly left-wing government of Gabriel Boric, in power since March 2022. I spoke to Pablo about the past and present of Chilean politics, including his grandfather’s government and legacy, for an upcoming film of mine, while John’s interview with him for our documentary focused on the UK’s machinations in Chile and what his investigations had uncovered.
John’s interview began with him reading excerpts to Pablo from declassified British government files, all of which have only recently been released into the UK National Archives. Many are still heavily redacted. The files detail how it wasn’t just the US government that was working to prevent Allende from reaching the presidency. In fact, Britain’s Cold War propaganda unit, the Information Research Department (IRD), had been working to prevent Allende from coming to power since at least 1962. As Allende’s electoral prospects improved during the late 1960s, Britain’s covert propaganda operations in Chile intensified. “We are concentrating on covert operations which we think could influence the result of the next elections”, noted Pat Dyer, the IRD field officer in Santiago, in 1968. British efforts ultimately failed as Allende won the 1970 election – a victory secured at the fourth attempt to become president since 1952.
The UK government continued its destabilisation of Allende’s ‘Popular Unity’ (UP) government, the left-wing coalition of parties which brought Allende to power, as soon it was elected. For example, as a 2020 article by John in the independent media outlet Declassified UK (DCUK) (4) outlines, in October 1970, one month after Allende’s election, UK government officials in Chile covertly facilitated a CIA-funded news agency, Forum World Features (FWF). (5) British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home instructed the embassy in Santiago to “respond to any approach” from FWF after its chief, Brian Crozier, requested assistance for a series of “behind the scenes” articles on Allende’s programme.
John’s piece argues that FWF played a significant role in the propaganda war against Allende. Crozier later recalled that FWF journalist Robert Moss’ work in and on Chile “played its part in the necessary destabilisation of the Allende regime”. In December 1973, three months after Allende was overthrown, Moss published Chile’s Marxist Experiment – a CIA-commissioned book which denied Washington’s role in the coup and blamed Allende instead. The Pinochet regime purchased 10,000 copies of Crozier’s book “to be given away as part of a propaganda package”.
This was the first time that Pablo had heard about the UK government’s hidden hand in sabotaging his grandfather’s political project, but he was not surprised. “I didn’t have much information about the actions of the British government against Allende in Chile”, he says. “But, as you know, given the role of the US, it’s not surprising. From an Anglo-Saxon point of view, the US and Britain act as one in many respects”. Pablo relates this effort to wider colonial practices of seeking to prevent the economic development of smaller countries: “The colonialist countries in general have collaborated, let’s say, so that the decolonised countries can’t become independent, so that they don’t have any real economic or political independence”.
END THE SECRECY
John’s investigations have exposed how British covert action in Chile during this period was often undertaken in collaboration with the US, with advice and intelligence being shared with the US embassy in Santiago.
As we mark the 50th anniversary of Chile’s coup, the US government has come under pressure to fully declassify its records on the 1973 coup. (6) The British government should also come under similar pressure to do the same. With so much secrecy surrounding its plotting against Allende, we hope our documentary shines a light on how the UK government bears a level of responsibility for Pinochet’s atrocities, while its actions also helped kill the hopes of millions of Chileans who supported Allende in his project to build a more humane, socialist Chile.
(1) declassifieduk.org 11/9/23
(4) Exclusive: Secret cables reveal Britain interfered with elections in Chile (declassifieduk.org)
Pablo Navarrete is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker focusing on Latin America. He is a founding editor of Alborada and the director of Alborada Films. https://www.alborada.net/pablonavarrete
For more information about how to support the production of the forthcoming documentary ‘Britain and Chile’s 9/11’ and online screenings of the interview with Pablo Sepulveda Allende about the UK government’s role in Chile visit: www.alboradafilms.net/films/originals
For more information about political developments in Latin America visit: www.alborada.net
To read John McEvoy’s and others’ latest investigations on the UK government’s role in Chile, visit: www.declassifieduk.org/tag/chile/
Caption John McEvoy (right) interviews Pablo Sépulveda Allende, grandson of Salvador Allende (left) photo by Albodara films
As we mark the 50th anniversary of Chile’s coup, the US government has come under pressure to fully declassify its records on the 1973 coup. The British government should also come under similar pressure to do the same.
