Allende

I'm currently preparing a presentation on Salvador Allende, so I'm going to give a brief history lesson to you all.

Salvador Allende was the first democratically-elected socialist president in the world. He was elected in Chile in 1970, and quickly began to institute his far-reaching socialist reforms. This included nationalization of the foreign-owned copper mines (which some years makes up to 75% of Chile's exports), nationalization of many foreign-owned businesses, and land distribution of the latifundios. Latifundios were the huge traditional Latin-american farms that were owned by a head family (usually white) and worked by very poor campesinos (usually indigenous or a mix) in near slavery. If you know about share-cropping in the southern US, it is essentially the same thing. Anyway, Allende took the land from the owners, broke it up into smaller sections, and gave it to the people who had been working it.
instituted many other socialist reforms, but those are the main ones.

These reforms, needless to say, where very unpopular with the rich, ruling oligarchy which had previously controlled Chile. However, they were wildly popular with the lower class, and after the first year of Allende's economic policies inflation went down 12%, the GDP went up 9%, and unemployment decreased to only 3.8%. Allende and his political party had a very high approval rating, and won additional seats in the congress. However, these economic policies were also very unpopular with foreigners, especially the US.

The US was in the middle of the Cold War, and during this time Nixon and Kissinger were in power. Apart from the forced seizures of US-owned companies, Nixon and Kissinger saw the election of Allende as an ideological loss to communism. The US had spent 3 million dollars in support of Allende's opponent in the 1964 elections, and they spent a half a million in anti-Allende propaganda in the 1970 election. When Allende was elected, the Nixon administration began it's plan to destabilize the government enough to allow a military coup to occur. They did this through a variety of means, but here are some quotes first:
* "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger
* "Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty." — Edward M. Korry, U.S. Ambassador to Chile, upon hearing of Allende's election.
* "Make the economy scream [in Chile to] prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him" — Richard Nixon, orders to CIA director Richard Helms on September 15, 1970.

Anyway, the US spent about 8 million dollars destroying the Chilean economy, and it was pretty successful. The country started going down the tubes, and CIA activity in Chile fomented a military coup and helped to produce the conditions to allow Allende to be overthrown. It took a lot of time and money however, because Chile had had a long history of democracy and a very stable government. In the end, the military coup occurred on September 11, 1973, and Augusto Pinochet took power for about 17 years. His regime was marked by numerous human-rights abuses with about 3,000 people murdered for political reasons, up to 30,000 brutally tortured, and up to 80,000 imprisoned.

Sorry I got a little winded, but I think it's pretty interesting. Feel free to post comments or questions.