Remembering Chile’s 9/11

via the Workers Party of Ireland

As the bourgeois media remembers only the murderous attacks against civilians in the US on 11 September 2001, the Workers Party of Ireland remembers the brutal and murderous US sponsored coup which commenced in Chile on that infamous 9/11 in 1973.

In the lead-up to the September 1970 election the United States intensified its covert involvement in Chilean politics. Seeking to prevent Salvador Allende’s victory, the CIA launched an operation to subvert the outcome through financial and political support for opposition candidates.

Despite the CIA’s efforts, Allende was successful. The US immediately ordered the CIA to organize a coup to prevent Allende from taking office. This commenced with a plan to “make the economy scream.” The Nixon administration imposed a foreign loan blockade on Chile as part of its economic warfare. In a scene reminiscent of the US economic war against Cuba, then and since, Allende complained to the United Nations in 1972 of “large-scale external pressure to cut us off from the world, to strangle our economy and paralyze trade and to deprive us of access to sources of international financing.” In addition to denying foreign loans and exchange resources itself, the United States used its influence in international banks and financial institutions to pressure its allies to do the same. In the early morning of September 11, 1973, two naval units stationed in Valparaiso seized control of two of the country’s three cruisers. The military revolt spread to other Chilean cities and the repression began.

Two days after the coup Augusto Pinochet emerged as head of the military junta and soon assumed the presidency. He immediately dismantled Congress and outlawed Chilean left-wing political parties. Pinochet imposed a curfew and ordered mass arrests, including the arrest of students, social activists, and his political opponents. In a campaign of repression which included permanent centres of torture and assassination, more than 30,000 people were rounded up in Santiago’s National Stadium while improvised detention centres appeared across Chile. The use of torture became widespread. In June 1975 Pinochet declared that no future elections would be held in Chile.

The coup was conceived, prepared, and executed by the US, acting on behalf of US based transnational corporations and the Chilean bourgeoisie. The democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, together with many others, lost his life .

The coup revealed the reality and necessity of class struggle. Exploitation is not an anomaly within capitalism - it is the basis of the system. The capitalists’ and workers’ interests is always irreconcilable. They are structurally opposed. The lessons of Chile in 1973 remain as important today. Workers’ gains cannot be considered separately from the need for a revolutionary transformation and the establishment of workers’ power in a socialist society.

International Section

Workers Party of Ireland

11 September 2026