Jeremy Corbyn MP  
Morning Start December 14th 2006.
 
I first stood on the pavement outside the Chilean Embassy in Devonshire Street on September 12th 1973. I was there again on Monday and bizarrely the same ancient drain cover was my spot. The first time in protest at the military coup of September 11 th 1973, on Monday to call for justice for its victims despite the death of Pinochet.  

The dramatic victory of the Popular Unity coalition in the 1970 election in Chile gave the Presidency to Salvador Allende on just over a third of the popular vote. His victory and his ambitious programme of public ownership of mining, banking and key economic sectors aroused the wrath of the international money community. His land reform and re-distribution policies aroused the wrath of the Chilean rich. His international policies of linking with socialist countries aroused the ire of the USA who thought the Monroe doctrine protected their back yard.   

The Allende victory created the same kind of excitement across the continent that the elections of Chavez and Moralles have today. I was in Santiago on May Day 1969, just as Popular Unity began the campaign for the 1970 election and well remember the huge march and hopes of the industrial and rural poor, and the concern at how the right would react when a socialist Government started attacking privileges.   

In three years Popular Unity achieved a great deal and social justice was coming about. The poor were being better housed, fed and educational opportunities were opening up. The enormous problems of the Popular Unity Government were like an enormous an ominous storm cloud - the USA with Nixon in the White House and Kissinger running the Cold War was a constant threat. Their allies, the rich and privileged in Chile ran a vicious campaign against Allende and the Government; they created inflation, food shortages and economic strangulation. The military were divided. Brave and constitional officers such as Prats were undermined by the conspirators and the plotters. The President tried to negotiate his way through with new hardware and some promotions and some removals. Pinochet, for all his self important bluster as a true Chilean was nothing more than a dishonest poodle of Kissinger.   

When the coup happened in 1973 the image the rest of the world saw was of British made Hawker Hunter jets strafing the Moneda Palace, the fighting on the street and the death of Allende. The stadium, the scene of the world cup final in 1962, became a concentration camp and the last place of life for many brave people and true leaders like Victor Jara. The torture and reign of terror began, Villa Grimaldi became the torture centre of the military, unmarked prisons were established, silent killers assassinated left activists, informers helped the terror.  
All the while the USA and its allies recognised the "need" for the coup, provided support for the new Government and did nothing to help the victims. Those able to escape went to Cuba, Mexico and Europe to continue the struggle.   

As solidarity movements sprung up all over the world a new "age of the Generals" took over in Latin America where Pinochet linked up with his mates in all the neighbouring countries and launched Operation Condor to clean out the left. Over 25,000 perished. Further away, Orlando Letelier, effectively the leader in exile, was assassinated in Washington DC.   

Whilst the CIA no doubt did contain some wholly bloodthirsty elements the real reasons for the US support for the coup was the fear of an example being set by a socialist Chile for the rest of the continent. The Cuban example further north was already an ever present nightmare for Washington. Thus the US interests were economic and as Pinochet's own limited grasp of economics meant Chile foundered they sent Milton Friedman and the Chicago School to use the people of Chile as a laboratory. The experiment worked; privatisation of all public services, a free market in education, high unemployment, weaker Unions and rapidly enriched upper middle class. All this backed up by state terror for any group that challenged. No wonder Thatcher and Reagan were impressed as their advisers travelled to Chile to wonder at the marvels of injustice and inequality.   

Chile was important to Thatcher. When Argentina invaded the Falklands she refused all offers of a negotiated settlement via the UN and launched the taskforce which only succeeded through Chile's secret help and use of its bases for British planes. Pinochet's reward was more support and more weapons from Britain's Tories.  

Because of the drama of the coup, the well-documented violence of the regime and the numbers of politically experienced exiles the world over solidarity with Chile was strong everywhere. The music of Inti Illimani brought a whole generation of western youth an education in itself.   

Pinochet's formal rule finally expired after he lost a referendum but it was not over for him and the right. A huge tableaux in the national stadium in 1990 was correctly dubbed "cambio de mano", for he was still head of the Armed Forces and Senator for Life and thought he was protected.   

His arrest in London eight years later whilst on an arms buying spree was for extradition to Spain. He was held for 500 days in luxury in Surrey where his only discomfort was the constant drumming from "el Pikete" who paid a weekly visit to remind him of his violence and his victims. He also had the dubious honour of being visited by Margaret Thatcher and the support of Norman Lamont. The defence that he was "only giving orders" did not work and the Law Lords ruled he had no immunity and that they had universal jurisdiction in human rights cases was a great step forward for justice.   

Throughout the 500 days the Government of Chile asked for his return and optimistically claimed he would face justice there; pressure from the Clinton administration asked that the British let him go.  

An excuse was found, Jack Straw as Home secretary announced that he was unfit to stand trial in Britain and he would let him go back. This was always a fig leaf as the Lazarus like walk on the supposedly frail and demented General showed when his chartered plane reached Santiago. The revelation of the "Stadlen Memorandum" in the Courts when Belgium also tried to extradite Pinochet showed that officials in the Home Office were trying to engineer a suitable political cover to let the brute go for some time.  

Unlike his victims Pinochet died in comfort surrounded by his family; he never faced trial for his brutality or the tax evasion, corruption or cocaine smuggling charges that later appeared.   

Like many I was depressed when in 2000 he went home; however I went to Chile for Human Rights Day that year and have never forgotten visiting The Committee for the Disappeared and they had a banner up counting his days under house arrest. Those 500 days had been well used in Chile to educate a youth ignorant of their own history and mobilise for justice.  
Pinochet and the Chilean experience should not be thought of as a grim and isolated chapter. The forces of wealth and privilege that destroyed the Popular Unity Government thirty-three years ago also undermined the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980's and are now looking for ways to defeat the process in Venezuela and Bolivia.   

The activities of the landowners and business community in Bolivia have ominous rings to those of their southern neighbours in 1972.  

Pinochet is gone; his accomplices remain and should face trial, his victims deserve honour and closure.