“THE OTHER SEPTEMBER 11^TH AND THE OTHER APRIL 14^TH:

US-SPONSORED TERRORISM IN LATIN AMERICA”

September 11^th is truly a day that will forever live in infamy, a day that brings to many of us memories and images of destruction, fear and death. On that day, a peaceful city was attacked by surprise by a force instigated, financed and backed up by foreigners. On that day, an open and democratic society suffered unprecedented forms of violence by orders of an alleged international terrorist blinded by his hatred towards those whom he considered “evil”. On that day, people all over the world stared in disbelief at their TV screens while supposedly friendly airplanes attacked a heavily populated downtown area. On that day, many lives were disrupted or destroyed, families were wrecked, children were orphaned. On that day, many cried. And for those who survived the events and those who witnessed them in person or through the news, the world would never be the same. The culprits, those who perpetrated the attacks, and those who instigated them, went unpunished despite the efforts of many in the international community; some, the worse among them, the intellectual authors of the crimes, the true terrorists, are still living, still free and unpunished, and still active.

But before any misunderstandings arise, let me clarify that the alleged international terrorist organization I am referring to is not Al-Qaeda; its head is not a Muslim and does not go by the name of Osama; the attacked city I am talking about is not New York; the attackers were not trained in Afghanistan or Sudan; and the day I just described was not September 11^th, 2001. I am talking about September 11^th, 1973; I am talking about Santiago, the capital city of Chile; I am talking about the US-inspired, sponsored and orchestrated attacks against the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. The alleged international terrorist organization I am referring to is the US government, its training camps are in the so-called “School of the Americas” in Fort Benning, Georgia, and its leader at the time was Mr. Henry Kissinger.

I was a school kid barely ten years old at the time, there was no CNN then, and there was no “live” coverage of the events. We had to wait for the late night news to see the first images of what we already knew had happened earlier that day. “La Moneda”, the presidential palace of Chile, the seat of the longest standing democratic government in Latin America, the center of one of the most advanced, stable and reliable governments in our part of the world, the heart of a country that had been a model, an example, and a source of envy for many others, had been bombed. Its occupant, President Allende, was presumed dead, along with scores of his aides and supporters. The constitution had been suspended. Political parties had been outlawed. A military “junta” had taken over, led by a most sinister character sporting a Hitlerian moustache and big dark sunglasses. And that was only the beginning of the horrors: during the following weeks, we would learn that thousands had been illegally arrested for defending their government and their constitution, and many more just for being associated with those who resisted the attacks, or simply for being in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time. Later, we knew that those arrested were being tortured, and that many had simply vanished, “disappeared”, without leaving a trace. Almost thirty years later, the total body count is in the thousands and still growing, as more and more secret mass graves are being uncovered, and many of those “disappeared” by the military regime are finally reappearing. Or rather, their tortured remains are. The numbers of those who were dismissed from their jobs, jailed for months, tortured, forced into exile, whisked away from their homes in the middle of the night, is even larger. But those were the lucky ones. After all, they weren’t killed.

A few months ago, Gladys Marín, a well-known political activist in her country, widow of one of those who were “disappeared” never to return, and herself a victim of harassment and illegal imprisonment by the “junta”, came to this country to initiate legal actions against the US government. Yes, this courageous Chilean woman who suffered horrors beyond belief, actually wants to sue the government of these United States for its participation in orchestrating, instigating and sponsoring the attacks against the legitimate government of her country, and for aiding and abetting the criminal “junta” that killed her husband and imprisoned and tortured her. In her lawsuit, currently being prepared by a law firm in Washington, DC, she names Henry Kissinger as one of the main defendants. For those of you who may have forgotten this name, Mr. Kissinger was the Secretary of State of President Richard Nixon. In this capacity, Mr. Kissinger was the head of diplomacy and foreign affairs of the US, and the leading advisor to the president in matters of foreign policy. In 1973, and even before, in 1970, when President Allende had just won the elections, Kissinger, on behalf of the US government, and following a long-standing tradition in US foreign policy, orchestrated a massive conspiracy against the Chilean institutions, a conspiracy known by the code names of “Operation FUBELT” and “Operation Track II”, a conspiracy carried out by CIA agents at the US embassy in Santiago, a conspiracy that eventually would include acts of sabotage against Chilean factories and mines, threats and acts of psychological warfare against officers of the Chilean government and their sympathizers, massive operations of misinformation, the assassination of the commander of the Chilean army, and several attempts against President Allende’s life. And when everything else failed, when despite years of undercover terrorist operations against it, the Chilean people and government still refused to yield to pressure, then came the coup. We have now access to documents that prove what we always knew: that the US embassy in Chile, by direct and explicit orders from the Secretary of State, and with the complicity of several US-based global corporations like the telecommunications giant IT&T and the Anaconda Mining Corporation, was heavily involved in every stage of the planning and execution of the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 1973. Would you be too surprised if I told you that, while the rest of the world watched in horror and condemned the unfolding events and gasped at the images of destruction, Nixon’s White House recognized immediately the criminal “junta” as the legitimate government of Chile? Would you be too surprised if I told you that, less than three weeks after the coup, while thousands of Chilean citizens were being detained, tortured, “disappeared”, and even killed by the “junta”, the US government gave the criminals hundreds of millions of dollars in credits and foreign aid?

And this was not an isolated incident. US agents abroad have a long and sad tradition of instigating, actively supporting, and even directly carrying out all sorts of horrors and atrocities to promote the goals of the international agenda of the government of this country. We are talking, after all, about what was considered by Martin Luther King Jr. as “…the single greatest purveyor of violence in the world today –the US government”. As a Latin American, I unfortunately know all too well about it, because our countries south of the Mexican border have been the most frequent targets of this notorious tradition. I am using the horrendous events at the World Trade Center as an excuse to talk about Chile in 1973 because, by an ironical coincidence, those planes crashed against the twin towers as Chileans commemorated the 28 anniversary of their own September 11^th. But if the twin towers had been attacked on June 24^th, I would be talking about Guatemala in 1954. If the date had been April 17^th, I would be talking about Cuba in 1961. And if the World Trade Center had collapsed on April 28^th, I would talk about the Dominican Republic in 1965. If the date had been December 20^th, I would be talking about Panama in 1989. And I could go on and on with this list of examples. In fact, acts of US-sponsored terrorism against Latin American countries have been so frequent over the decades that, had New York City been attacked on almost any other day of the year instead of September 11^th, I would still be able to find an appropriate “ironical coincidence”.

The last entry in this long and sad series of incidents occurred just a couple of weeks ago, in Venezuela, my home country. Between April 11^th and April 14^th, a group of high officers of the Venezuelan military, in collusion with business leaders and political forces from the extreme right wing, and with the support and encouragement of the US government, attempted to overthrow the legitimate government of President Hugo Chávez Frías. President Chávez and his supporters, who have won five consecutive elections between 1998 and 2001 by the largest majorities ever in the history of Venezuela, are leading the most progressive and democratic government the country has had in nearly 60 years. Their accomplishments this far include: a new democratic constitution which broke the power monopoly of the two traditional parties and created mechanisms that enhance and increase participation of the populace in politics; a fundamental agrarian reform that has redistributed land from the large landowners to family farms and indigenous communities; numerous ecologically-oriented development projects; an educational reform which expanded schooling, doubled investment in education, and guaranteed free and universal access to educational services from pre-school through graduate school; a reduction of the official unemployment from 18% to 13%; the creation of financial institutions for the promotion of women and minority-owned businesses; a reform of the tax structure which reduced tax evasion by the wealthy and increased government revenue; a reduction of infant mortality from 21 0/00 to 17 0/00. And all of this in less than three years.

At the same time, President Chávez has pursued a very independent and non-aligned foreign policy. The Venezuelan government stands against globalization, against the expansion of NAFTA, against the war in Afghanistan, against the illegal US-sponsored embargoes that are starving the Iraqui people and the Cuban people, against the intervention of the US in Colombia. The Venezuelan government was the only one in the entire continent that refused to sign the final declaration of last year’s “Summit of the Americas”, a document, prepared at the instance of the US government, that opens the doors for the expansion of NAFTA to the entire hemisphere and for the creation of the “Free Trade Agreement of the Americas”. The Venezuelan government has stated its full support for the creation of the International Criminal Court. The Venezuelan government asked the US embassy in Caracas to withdraw its military mission, calling it an unwarranted anachronism from the cold war and an offense to Venezuela’s sovereignty and national dignity. The Venezuelan government refused to provide US police agencies with private information about the country’s large Arab and Muslim populations, on the grounds that cooperating with US intelligence services could lead to violations of the human and civil rights of those individuals. In short, the government of President Chávez has stood for social justice, for true democracy, for peace, and for human rights all over the world.

The details of the attempted coup against President Chávez two weeks ago are still unclear, and the nature and involvement of the US government are not yet fully known. But in just a few days we have witnessed how the US foreign services have wavered several times trying unsuccessfully to deny their involvement in the events. From April 11^th, day one of the failed coup, when Ari Fleischer, spokesman for the White House, celebrated the attempted destruction of the longest-standing constitutional government in Latin America as “a positive development for democracy”, the entire world has had serious suspicions. Since then, new pieces of information which confirm those suspicions have emerged almost daily. The government of Mr. Bush had already started the process of recognizing the military junta even before the outcome of the events in Caracas was certain, despite the fact that all the other countries in the world were condemning the coup and demanding the reestablishment of the legitimate government. When, two days later, the sheer power of the Venezuelan masses defeated the usurpers and reinstated President Chávez as the legitimate leader of the country, the US government found itself in a very uncomfortable position, first trying to rationalize and justify its premature support for the attempted disruption of democracy and constitutional values, and later, trying to deny its involvement. Last week, it was revealed that the conspirators against democracy had been in contact with the US embassy at least since November, and had received “implicit encouragement” from US officials. Later, Venezuelan journalists discovered that two of the generals that led the coup are distinguished alumni of the “School of the Americas”, and were frequently in touch with high officers of the US military and foreign services. And early this week, it was revealed that Pedro Carmona, the would-be president of the defeated military junta, was in permanent contact via cell phone with Otto Reich, Assistant Secretary of State of the US, as the coup was developing. This week’s edition of the magazine Newsweek even suggests that Reich was in fact stage-managing the failed coup directly from Washington. It must be remembered that Otto Reich has had lots of experience undermining democracy in Latin America during his years as ambassador in several countries of the continent, and during his previous tenure at the State Department of the Reagan-Bush administration.

Since I started this presentation pointing out a historical coincidence –September 11^th, 1973 / September 11^th, 2001–, let me continue pointing out yet another striking coincidence: the US-sponsored coup against the Venezuelan government was defeated by the power of the masses on April 14^th, as the Cuban people were preparing to celebrate the 41 anniversary of the defeat by the power of the masses of the US-sponsored attacks against the Cuban Revolution on April 14^th through April 20^th, 1961 in the so-called “Bay of Pigs” incident. These two cases stand out amongst the hundreds of acts of aggression by the US government against Latin American countries because, unlike all the others, in these two the imperial designs of the US government were foiled. But with the exception of the final outcome, the similarities between the coup in Venezuela and many others in many countries over the years, are remarkable. Notice, for example, the similarities between the Venezuelan situation in 2002 and the Chilean situation in 1973, which I described earlier. In both cases, legitimate, democratically elected governments, with domestic policies that benefited the majority of the people at the expense of the wealthy elite, and with foreign policies that opposed the hegemony of the US, were attacked by the local oligarchies and the upper echelons of the military with the support and encouragement of the U.S government. The details are not exactly the same in both cases, but the basic forces in play, and the basic processes that took place in both countries, are identical. In both cases, it came down to a struggle between social justice and privilege, between true democracy and profiteering, between national sovereignty and global hegemony. And in both cases, as in many others, the US government positioned itself, like Martin Luther King Jr. said, “on the wrong side of a global struggle for democracy and human dignity”.

The fact of the matter is that state terrorism has long been an integral part of the foreign policy of the US. So much so, that this government, your government, has the dubious distinction of being the only government in the world since 1945 officially found guilty of terrorism by an international court of law. Yes, the US government, during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, was brought to trial in front of the International Court of Justice in 1984, accused by the Nicaraguan government of acts of sabotage against Nicaraguan ships and ports. Notice, by the way, that Otto Reich –the same Otto Reich that was involved in the recent events in Venezuela– was at the time the head of the Office of Diplomacy of the US Department of State, an office that was instrumental in the coordination and funding of the terrorist activities against Nicaragua through the infamous “Iran-Contra” operation. The International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled in favor of the Nicaraguan government by a vote of 16-0, and ordered the US government to cease its terrorist actions immediately and to compensate Nicaragua for the damages. This decision was confirmed by a vote of 95-3 in the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1985, and by a second ruling by the International Court in 1986, ordering the US government to cease its illegal and unilateral acts of sabotage and blockade against Nicaragua. Would you be too surprised if I told you that the US government ignored those decisions by the supreme governing bodies of the international community, and continued its operations against the Nicaraguan people and government for an additional four years? Who was the rogue nation in this case?

Just a few weeks ago, the alleged terrorist Kissinger decided to cancel a scheduled trip to Brazil, where a wide coalition of forces, both Brazilian and international, were planning a series of demonstrations protesting his presence there. The demonstrations were part of an ongoing international effort, led by global human rights organizations, to bring Kissinger to trial for his participation in a number of cases of terrorism and human rights violations all over the world during his tenure as US Secretary of State. There are even several judges in various countries who have threatened Kissinger with arrest warrants for crimes against humanity if he ever sets foot on their countries. Among these judges are Baltasar Garzón of Spain and Juan Guzmán of Chile, both famous for their failed attempts at processing General Augusto Pinochet, Kissinger’s partner-in-crime during the attacks of September 11^th, 1973. No wonder Kissinger decided to stay home.

In light of these cases and many others like them, perhaps it is not surprising, after all, that the US government has resisted the global initiative to create a new International Criminal Court. Most countries in the world have pledged their support for this initiative, and just a handful, including the US, have opposed it. The US Congress, in fact, has even considered for approval the so-called “American Servicemembers’ Protection Act”, a bill that would exempt US officers and agents from the jurisdiction of the International Court, and would essentially render it useless for all practical purposes. The US government recoils at the idea that its officials should be held to the same standards of justice that would apply to everybody else. By contrast, France and Germany, and even some Latin American countries, have approved or are considering changes to their constitutions to make their citizens fully accountable under the International Criminal Court. Why not the US? Is the US government afraid of justice? Why would US agents need protection from the supreme tribunal of the international community?

While dozens of countries have already ratified in full the treaty that creates the Court, only seven countries, out of the 161 that attended the conference that launched the idea of the Court in 1998, have officially objected to its establishment; that small group of renegades includes the US, Iran, Irak, and Lybia. These three latter countries explained that they opposed the creation of the Court because they feared that the US government would use this new organization in the same way that it has used the United Nations many times in the recent past: as a tool of hegemony and domination at the service of the only imperial power remaining on the face of the earth. On the other hand, the very US government and media frequently accuse those three other countries as “terrorist rogue nations”; if this accusation is true –and please, keep in mind that it might be not so true after all– then, why is the US government in agreement with those countries on the issue of the International Court? Perhaps a quotation from the bible, applied to the US government, might offer us some insight: “Your own lips utter your iniquity”; bluntly put, perhaps the US government is guilty of the same crimes that it blames on others.

This is, I believe, one of the central issues of international politics nowadays: who says what about whom? Who controls the debates and opinions of the international community at large and within each country in particular? Ultimately, who decides who and what is a terrorist and who and what is not? Was the mining and sabotaging of the Nicaraguan harbors by US agents an act of terrorism? According to the International Court of Justice and the majority of the members of the General Assembly of the United Nations at the time, the answer was an unequivocal yes; yet, according to the US government, the answer was no, and those who performed the attacks against Nicaragua were even praised by President Reagan himself, and I quote, as “freedom fighters” and “the moral equivalents of our founding fathers”. But what is, after all, the difference between arming, funding, and training a band of renegades to attack Cuba or Chile, and arming, funding, and training a band of renegades to attack New York City? Why are the ones praised as “freedom fighters” and the others despised as “radical fanatics”?

The answer to this last question is, of course, because the US government and media have the wherewithal, the tools and resources, to frame and direct the opinions and debates of the international community. It is the consortium of the US government and the US-based media that decides who and what is a terrorist and who and what is a legitimate warrior –if such a thing as a legitimate warrior even exists. At this point, the mainstream definition of terrorism seems to be whatever the powers-that-be want to consider as such, and only what the powers-that-be find convenient to consider as such. Critical historians abide by an axiom: “it is the winners of the wars who usually get to write the history books, and the losers very seldom get to tell their side of the story”. The same, I believe, can be applied to everyday events and news: “it is the powerful who usually get to write in the newspapers and talk on TV”; and the problem in this case, of course, is that the powerful are also the perpetrators of many of the terrible acts of violence about which they talk and write. Would they condemn their own atrocities as they condemn the atrocities of others? Apparently not. As we address the issue of the nature and causes of terrorism, perhaps we could use in our deliberations a healthy dose of that skepticism that critical historians have about the “objectivity” of their own profession.