Australia Played a Key Role in Chile’s 1973 Coup. Chilean Exiles Are Demanding an Apology.
Newly declassified documents reveal that Australia helped the US overthrow Chile’s democratically elected socialist government and install the brutal Augusto Pinochet regime. Chilean exiles in Australia are demanding an apology.
Chilean president Salvador Allende attends a press conference in the Government House in Santiago, Chile, in 1973. His government was overthrown by a violent right-wing coup months later. (Bettmann / Getty Images)
In an open letter to Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, Marise Payne, a group of campaigners representing the Chilean exile community and victims of the Augusto Pinochet regime have condemned Australia’s role in Chile’s violent military coup, which overthrew democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.
Newly declassified files, released to Canberra academic and intelligence analyst Clinton Fernandes, detail how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) requested assistance from the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) during the Allende administration in undermining the president’s authority and sabotaging Chile’s socialist project.
According to the files, ASIS set up a surveillance unit in Santiago, Chile, as part of the wider CIA campaign to discredit the Salvador Allende government. It’s estimated that, from 1970 to 1973, the United States poured $8 million into the smear campaign, funding the far-right El Mercurio newspaper to create a campaign of disinformation and fan preexisting social tensions in Chile.
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