Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses

by Mark Curtis

  The strategy was to restructure society based on three different classes of ownership (state, mixed and private), through the rapid extension of state control over large parts of the economy. This involved the state takeover of both foreign and domestic private interests either by direct nationalisation or by government investment.

  These policies improved the position of the poor, especially in the early part of the Allende presidency, through a rise in the minimum wage and special bonuses paid to poorly paid workers. This was matched by growing popularity for the government; in Congressional elections in the year of the coup, 1973, the Popular Unity coalition increased its vote to 44 per cent.

  The US government and the CIA had sought to prevent Allende taking office; subsequently their policy was to overthrow him. A declassified CIA report reveals that throughout the 1960s and 1970s the US promoted 'sustained propaganda efforts, including financial support for major news media, against Allende' while 'political action projects supported selected parties before and after the 1964 elections and after Allende's 1970 election'. In the 1960s, actions included financial assistance to the Christian Democratic Party and other parties, the distribution of posters and leaflets, and financial assistance to selected candidates in Congressional elections. By the time of the 1964 election, won by favoured US candidate Eduardo Frei of the Christian Democratic Party, the CIA had provided $3 million to prevent Allende winning.

  In the run-up to the 1970 election, the CIA conducted 'spoiling operations' to prevent an Allende victory and President Nixon authorised the CIA 'to seek to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office'. A few days after Allende was elected, the CIA was authorised to establish direct contacts with Chilean military officers 'to evaluate the possibilities of stimulating a military coup if a decision were to be made to do so'. Arms, including machine guns and ammunition, were provided to one of the groups plotting a coup. Ten million dollars was authorised 'to prevent Allende from coming to power or unseat him'.6

  Once Allende was in office, the CIA funnelled millions of dollars 'to strengthen opposition political parties' and 'also provided assistance to militant right-wing groups to undermine the President and create a tense environment'. CIA money was also used for 'forwarding worldwide propaganda information for placement in local media' and promoting public opposition to Allende among leading Chilean newspapers. Further CIA covert action initiatives were launched in 1971 and 1972 aimed principally at keeping Allende's opponents active by supporting opposition parties.

  Also approved were efforts 'to encourage Chilean businesses to carry out a program of economic disruption'. US ambassador Edward Korry explained that the strategy was to:

  do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty, a policy designed for a long time to come to accelerate the hard features of a Communist society in Chile.7

  After the Pinochet takeover, the CIA notes that it 'continued some ongoing propaganda projects, including support for news media committed to creating a positive image for the military junta'.8

  Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee recognised that 'the Allende government has been directing its economic efforts primarily at effecting a redistribution of income' in which prices had been held down and salaries allowed to rise. The strategy was recognised as an attempt 'to put right what they regard as economic and social injustices (including foreign domination of certain sectors of the economy)'; Allende was known to be 'committed to proving that socialism can be brought to Chile in a peaceful and democratic fashion'.9

  Allende's chief heresy was nationalisation. In July 1971 the copper industry – which provided 70 per cent of Chile's export earnings – was fully nationalised and the US-owned copper mines completely taken over by the government, with the unanimous approval of the Congress. The US reacted sharply and cut off all credit and new aid to the government and pressed the World Bank to do the same. The chief US mining corporations, Kennecott and Anaconda, began legal proceedings against the government.

  The US ambassador, Davis, told his British counterpart, Reginald Seconde, that the US government were concerned:

  not only about the loss to the copper companies, bixt also about the precedent that the Chilean action would set for the nationalisation of other big American interests throughout the developing world.10

  Several banks were also nationalised. In early 1972 the government announced its intention to take over 91 key firms, which accounted for around half of Chile's output. A British Conservative-party briefing paper noted that British companies had been affected by nationalisation 'but it was generally considered at the time that where nationalisation of British assets had taken place the compensation agreed upon had been fair'.11

  In a despatch just eight days before the coup, British ambassador Seconde admitted that Chile:

  has at least caught her social problems by the tail: many people in the poorer and most depressed sections of the community have, as a result of President Ailende's administration, attained a new status and at least tasted, during its early days, a better standard of living, though it has been eroded by inflation.

  Seconde concluded that 'this is a major achievement and has set Chile apart from most other Latin American states'.12

  Just three months after Allende assumed office, the Joint intelligence Committee was concluding that 'Washington is clearly very perturbed by developments in Chile'. As well as nationalisation of US business interests, 'the United States must view the prospect of a moderately successful extreme leftwing regime in Chile with considerable misgiving if only because of the effect this might have elsewhere in Latin America'.

  The JIC also expressed the same fear from a British perspective, saying that the course of events in Chile is likely to have 'important repercussions throughout Latin America and perhaps beyond'. 'Allende's victory has been hailed as strengthening the prevailing radical, anti-American trend in Latin America' and may lead to a bloc of 'like-minded states comprising Chile, Bolivia and Peru whose negative attitude towards foreign investment has already been demonstrated'.13

  Seconde and other British officials also convinced themselves that Ailende's policies were leading the country to economic ruin and political chaos. They omitted to mention that this had been aided by the US destabilisation campaign. The main British concern was the threat to Western business interests. Seconde noted that one future option for Chile was a coup: 'If this were to be followed by a military-guided regime', it would likely lead to US aid; 'it is on this that the business community are pinning their hopes'.14

  The wishes of the business community – along with the US and British governments – were fulfilled. On 11 September, the Chilean military effected what British officials described as a 'cold-blooded' and 'ruthless' coup. Allende's palace was rocketed by the military and the President apparently committed suicide. Thousands of prisoners were taken, Congress was suspended and all political parties and the trade-union movement were banned.15

  Summary executions took place throughout the country while the junta, in the words of a British Conservative-party briefing paper two months after the coup, 'is hunting down the former leaders of the Left in order to, in the words of [junta member, Air Force General] General Leigh, "extirpate the Marxist cancer from the country".'16

  The coup was widely condemned throughout the world as an illegitimate, violent and repressive overthrow of a progressive democratically elected government. It elicited much public outrage, including in Britain, especially as the Heath government did little in public to condemn it. Had the British public known what the government was doing in secret, public outrage would have been even greater.

  British interests

  The files clearly show that British planners in Santiago and London welcomed the coup and immediately set about conducting good relations with the military rulers, even secretly conniving with the junta to mislead the British public.

  British officials were aware of the scale of atrocit
ies. Three days after the coup, Ambassador Seconde reported to the Foreign Office that 'it is likely that casualties run into the thousands, certainly it has been far from a bloodless coup'. Six days later, he noted that 'stories of military excesses and mounting casualties have begun increasingly to circulate. The extent of the bloodshed has shocked people'.17

  But it did not appear to shock Seconde and his staff in Santiago. He commented that 'we still have enough at stake in economic relations with Chile to require good relations with the government in power'. However, 'it would not be in anyone's interests to identify too closely with those responsible for the coup' – i.e., those good relations should be kept secret.18

  After cabling London about casualties reaching into the thousands, Seconde told the Foreign Office that 'whatever the excesses of the military during the coup' the Allende government has been leading the country into 'economic ruin'. Britain should welcome the new rulers since 'there is every reason to suppose that they will now . . . try to impose a period of sensible, orderly government'. Indeed, Seconde effectively condoned the political repression, noting that 'the lack of political activity is, for the time being, no loss'.19

  The ambassador also told the Foreign Office that 'most British businessmen . . . will be overjoyed at the prospect of consolidation which the new military regime offers'. British companies, such as Shell, he added, 'are all breathing deep sighs of relief. 'Now is the time to get in', he recommended, urging the British government to provide early diplomatic recognition of the new regime.20

  Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home sent an official 'guidance' memo to various British embassies on 21 September outlining British support for the new junta. It said:

  For British interests . . . there is no doubt that Chile under the junta is a better prospect than Allende's chaotic road to socialism, our investments should do better, our loans may be successfully rescheduled, and export credits later resumed, and the sky-high price of copper (important to us) should fall as Chilean production is restored.21

  The Foreign Office decided to go to extraordinary lengths to assure the Chilean junta of the British desire for good relations. Eleven days after the coup, Ambassador Seconde met Admiral Huerta, the junta's new Foreign Minister. Seconde's briefing notes for this meeting state:

  I shall put it to him frankly that HMG [Her Majesty's Government] understands the problems which the Chilean armed forces faced before the coup and are now facing: this is a particular reason why they are anxious to enter early into good relations with the new government.

  Then Seconde said he would refer to 'our own problems of public opinion at home. It would therefore help us if he [Huerta] could agree that we should be able to say something to reassure public opinion at home'.22

  Seconde's record of his meeting with Huerta confirms that he said that the British government 'understood the motives of the armed forces, intervention and the problems facing the military government' – diplomatic language for support for the junta. Seconde then gave Huerta a draft form of wording to be used in public by the British government, to which Huerta was asked to agree.23

  This agreed statement is an apologia for the military junta's actions, undertaken to placate public opinion in Britain that the government should express concern about the situation in Chile. It said that Britain accepted that the internal situation in Chile 'is of course a matter for the Chilean government only' and that the British ambassador had expressed 'the very strong feeling which exists in many quarters in Britain over the deaths of President Allende and others and over the many people arrested'. It added that 'the Chilean government offered assurances that they will deal in a humane manner' with those in detention and in political opposition – an obvious lie, since Seconde and Whitehall were aware of the atrocities being committed.24

  Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home was delighted with Seconde's success in reaching an agreement with the junta on a form of words. He cabled the ambassador praising him for carrying out a 'difficult brief, adding: 'the statement helped us to defend our relatively early recognition of the new govern- ment against domestic criticism'.25

  A Foreign Office brief noted that 'our major interest in Chile is copper', which accounted for one-third of the UK's copper imports. The disruption in Chile and 'fear for the future' had recently meant large rises in copper prices which were costing the UK an extra £500.000 in foreign exchange. 'We therefore have a major interest in Chile regaining stability, regardless of politics'.26

  For 'regardless of politics' read: 'regardless of the people of Chile'. That the loss of half a million pounds was deemed more important than the overthrow of a largely successful democratically elected government – recognised even by British officials as improving the condition of the poor – says a lot about the priorities and values of British elites.

  According to the government files, there was only one mention in the Cabinet of the coup, when on 13 September:

  the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said that following a coup in Chile, President Allende was reported to have committed suicide and a military junta had taken over. It was not yet clear whether the junta was in effective control of the country but he proposed that the question of recognising the new regime should be determined in accordance with the usual criteria.27

  In a reflective 20-page despatch three weeks after the coup our man in Santiago said that 'the overthrow of constitutional government was not what it may seem in Britain' and that while he recognised that the armed forces were being widely condemned internationally 'this must be put into its proper perspective'. Seconde's analysis referred to the regular defeats that Allende's government suffered in the Congress and the government's retention of power on the basis of a 36 per cent vote, which, he was convinced, would never happen in Britain.

  As for the new military junta, Seconde noted that 'circumstances also will push them into directions which British public opinion will deplore' and 'the next few years may be grey ones, in which freedom of expression may suffer'. 'But this regime suits British interests much better than its predecessor . . . The new leaders are unequivocally on our side and want to do business, in the widest sense, with us'.28

  Political as well as business relations with the new military rulers deepened, despite clear recognition by British planners that 'torture is going on in Chile' and also of the 'allegedly quasi-fascist inclination of the new leaders'. It made little or no difference to British policy that, in the words of one Foreign Office official, 'it seems very hard to foresee a return for many years to anything like democratic government of the kind to which Chile has been accustomed for many years to come'.29

  Foreign Office minister Leo Amery made clear in private meetings with Judith Hart, Labour's shadow minister for overseas development, that Britain would not suspend its aid programme and credit lines, as some donors had done. In a draft reply to a parliamentary question, the Foreign Office stated:

  Our priorities in Latin America are determined largely by our trading and investment interests . . . On the recent events in Chile, our public policy is to refuse to be drawn into the controversy of the rights or wrongs of President Allende's government or the new military government.30

  British arms exports to the junta had an instant precedent: aircraft supplied by Britain had been used in the coup to attack President Allende's palace and his residence. The ambassador wrote that during the coup 'Hawker Hunters swept down with their aerial rockets, directed with remarkable accuracy at the Palace, which was severely damaged and set on fire'.11

  With the junta in power, British officials made clear that arms contracts agreed with Allende would be honoured, involving eight Hawker Hunters and other equipment worth over £50 million. But they went further, saying in the secret files that 'we shall want in due course to make the most of the opportunities which will be presented by the change in government'. Expectations were for new requests for arms from the junta but 'we shall wish to play these as quietly as possible for some time to come' o
wing to widespread public opposition. The Heath government defied calls from the Labour party to impose an arms embargo on Chile; all the Hawker Hunters had been delivered by the time of the 1974 general election.32

  A further major task was to counter the British and international opposition to the military regime's atrocities. One extraordinary note from Foreign Office official Hugh Carless to Ambassador Seconde, in December 1973, states that 'unfortunately, there is (as you have pointed out to us) a good deal of fact behind the atrocity stories and that alone makes it impossible for us to counter the propaganda'. 'We can do little about the press', he added 'but you can assure them [the Chilean junta] that we and our Ministers do understand the facts'. Carless also mused that 'Chileans must be wondering why on Earth . . . so much unfair attention is being paid to their change of government'. Another obstacle was the emergence of a worldwide Chile Solidarity Movement, which was likely to remain while the junta remained: 'this means we shall, occasionally, have to adopt a lower profile than we would like' especially when attempting to provide arms, to help the junta with debt relief and to 'rescue them from being pilloried in international meetings'.33