Autopsy in Chile to show whether President Allende killed himself or was murdered during coup

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Autopsy in Chile to show whether President Allende killed himself or was murdered during coup
By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, May 21, 11:18 AM

SANTIAGO, Chile — Nearly 38 years after President Salvador Allende died in a military coup and became a Cold War martyr of the international left, his body is being exhumed Monday in an exercise that even now is fraught with political overtones.

The hope is that forensics can solve an enduring mystery: whether Chile’s socialist leader committed suicide or was murdered by the troops who mounted Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s ferocious attack on the presidential palace.

With the Allende family’s blessing, Judge Mario Carroza has convened a panel of top forensic experts, seven Chileans and five foreigners. He also seeks evidence that could support charges of crimes against humanity in the killing of hundreds of people who were tortured and disappeared in the days after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup, including many who shared Allende’s last stand.

“This will be tremendously important, because with this it will be possible to dispel any doubts or speculation,” Sen. Isabel Allende said recently as she went to court to ask for her father’s autopsy.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/autopsy-in-chile-to-show-whether-president-allende-killed-himself-or-was-murdered-during-coup/2011/05/21/AFxHNW8G_story.html

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Duer 157099]

2. It will probably also take us 38 years to start dealing with our own 9/11

Things like this should not wait a generation

[Keith Bee]

6. Hey, we haven't figured out JFK's murder,

after 48 years.

[roguevalley]

3. cruelties always should be sorted out. anything that is evil must be

sorted out.

[mitchtv]

4. I have always believed it was murder

and no, I have no other conspiracy theories

[blackdem76]

5. How could they possibly tell after all these years?

Not even Cold Case would put this in a script. No one could suspend disbelief.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Why leap ahead to that conclusion before the examination?

From what I've heard, some angles of entry for bullets are consider impossible for a person to accomplish in a suicide, and I know nothing at all about it, but DO believe the word of people who DO know these things, after a lot of study, if it can be determined no powerful political group is coercing their statements.

[blackdem76]

9. From what you've heard?

OK, that makes it true. :)

[rfranklin]

14. That's a useless comment...

Perhaps you can offer something more substantial next time.

[Tempest]

27. Since you're new we'll cut you some slack

Judi is our resident expert in some fields, foreign politics is one of them.

You would do well to listen to her.

[ngant17]

26. If Allende shot himself, it would have been a Soviet 7.62mm round

from an AK-47, as I understood he had this weapon in his possession on 11 Sept. 1973. I wouldn't think it would have been possible to fire off more than one round of this rifle if suicide was the case.

Pinochet troops would have likely been using different weapons. My guess is that they assaulted the Presidential HQ using the Swiss SG-510 automatic rifle with either the (Swiss) 7.5mm calibre or standard NATO 7.62mm as issued to Chilean army in the 1960's.

It's important to try to find out how many bullets struck Allende, and if he was hit with a lot of NATO rounds, it's easy to believe that suicide was not the factor in his death. Unless they enjoyed pumping bullets in a dead man. I think it would be possible to determine the origin of all the bullets which struck Allende, whether they were Swiss, NATO or Soviet.

US and Pinochet propaganda would have us believe it was suicide, but I suspect that was not the case at all. Allende was not a coward on that day.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Are you unaware of the OTHER Chilean officials assassinated by the Pinochet war on humanity? n/t

[blackdem76]

10. Of course, Allende was murdered along with 1000s of others.

What is your point?

[mitchtv]

13. if the bullet holes are in the back of his head

I might conclude he didn't do it himself , for example.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. I think the difference between a self inflicted gunshot wound and

one inflicted from anything other than point blank range may be clear. For an easy example, bullet wounds in the back are difficult/impossible to self-inflict.

It may be possible to prove that he did not kill himself but was instead shot to death, it may not be possible to prove that he committed suicide.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Chile to launch first probe into Allende's death

27 January 2011 - 19H02
Chile to launch first probe into Allende's death

AFP - Chile is launching its first investigation into the death of socialist president Salvador Allende whose body was found in the presidential palace during a 1973 coup, officials said on Thursday.

Until now Allende's death, during the bloody US-backed coup that brought military dictator Augusto Pinochet to power on September 11, 1973, had officially been ruled a suicide.

~snip~
Henry Kissinger, US secretary of state under then president Richard Nixon, made quite clear what US intentions were after Allende's election.

"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves... I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people," Kissinger said at the time.

More:
http://www.france24.com/en/20110127-chile-launch-first-probe-allendes-death#

[Kolesar]

12. & By perverted logic, people who criticize the Nixon government "hate America"...eom

[Judi Lynn]

15. Perverted is the right word! No room here for anything but right-wingers, as they see it. n/t

[jwirr]

16. Too bad all the perpetrators including the economic advisers from

the University of Chicago and the CIA are all dead. They should know that what they all started on that day is still with us - we shall not forget nor forgive.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. fucking kissinger is still fucking alive last i heard

and that fucking war criminal ordered the coup.

[Judi Lynn]

21. He's up to his gnarly eyebrows in the butchery that came with Pinochet.

Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
Published on Thursday, December 11, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Kissinger's Dark Legacy
by César Chelala

~snip~
Rogers' defense of Kissinger is under increasing attack particularly as new evidence has emerged of Kissinger's connections to human rights abuses in countries such as Chile and Indonesia. Kissinger is facing legal troubles related to Dr. Salvador Allende's rule in Chile, and of former president Richard Nixon and Kissinger's support for a coup that installed a bloody military dictatorship that ruled in Chile until 1990.

In addition, two sons of Gen. Ren� Schneider, a Chilean military commander slain in Chile in 1970, filed a lawsuit in Washington D.C. charging Kissinger of complicity in the murder of their father. According to the lawyer for Gen. Schneider's sons, the suit is based on documents declassified over the last two years which indicate that Kissinger was a coordinator of a "Track II" plan that gave $35,000 to those who carried out the assassination.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1211-04.htm

http://farm3.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/2468/3912248497_4e0d072293.jpg http://www.johnnyvalencia.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pinochet.jpg

Kissinger schmoozing with Pinochet, Pinochet wearing his beloved Nazi-like cape.

[jwirr]

22. Yes, I forgot about him. How I would like to see them pay. Not just

for Allende but for all the countries that came after as well.

[mattvermont]

18. did not George Bush Sr.

essentially pull that trigger as head of the CIA?

[Judi Lynn]

20. Here's an article discussing Bushes & Pinochet: Pinochet's Death Spares Bush Family

Pinochet's Death Spares Bush Family
by Robert Parry | December 12, 2006 - 8:43am

Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s death on Dec. 10 means the Bush Family can breathe a little bit easier, knowing that criminal proceedings against Chile’s notorious dictator can no longer implicate his longtime friend and protector, former President George H.W. Bush.

Although Chilean investigations against other defendants may continue, the cases against Pinochet end with his death of a heart attack at the age of 91. Pinochet’s death from natural causes also marks a victory for world leaders, including George H.W. and George W. Bush, who shielded Pinochet from justice over the past three decades.

~snip~
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency confidentially informed Washington that the operation had three phases and that the “third and reportedly very secret phase of ‘Operation Condor’ involves the formation of special teams from member countries who are to carry out operations to include assassinations.”

The Condor accord formally took effect on Jan. 30, 1976, the same day George H.W. Bush was sworn in as CIA director.

More:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/3874

This article was published in other sources, including Consortium News:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/121106.html

[jwirr]

23. More of them still alive. Probably some of the Chicago Boys also.

[Kolesar]

29. How is the "University of Chicago" tied into this?

I had heard UC economics mentioned before as some sort of "corporate ideal", but I surely don't know the length of it.

[Judi Lynn]

30. Undoubtedly a LOT of them still gracing us with their presence.

Unbelievable impact on the human race, unfortunately.

Shock treatment
03 December 2006

Greg Grandin recalls Milton Friedman, Augusto Pinochet & the Chicago Boys.

http://evatt.org.au.nyud.net:8090/news/images/Friedman_Pinochet.jpg

Milton Friedman had no idea that his six-day trip to Chile in March 1975 would generate so much controversy.

He was invited to Santiago by a group of Chilean economists who over the previous decades had been educated at the University of Chicago, in a program set up by Friedman's colleague, Arnold Harberger. Two years after the overthrow of Allende, with the dictatorship unable to get inflation under control, the "Chicago Boys" began to gain real influence in General Augusto Pinochet's military government.

They recommended the application of what Friedman had already taken to call "shock treatment" or a "shock program" -­ immediately halting the printing of money to finance the budget deficit, cutting state spending 20-25 percent, laying off tens of thousands of government workers, ending wage and price controls, privatising state industries, and deregulating capital markets. "Complete free trade," Friedman advised.

Friedman and Harberger were flown down to "help to sell" the plan to the military junta, which despite its zealous defense of the abstraction of free enterprise was partial to corporatism and the maintenance of a large state sector.

Friedman gave a series of lectures and met with Pinochet for 45 minutes, where the general "indicated very little indeed about his own or the government's feeling." Although he noted that the dictator, responsible for the torture of tens of thousands of Chileans, seemed "sympathetically attracted to the idea of a shock treatment."

More:
http://evatt.org.au/news/437.html

[Faygo Kid]

24. He was murdered. I remember it well.

Of course he was taken out. I think it was likely similar to Diem in Vietnam; we wanted Allende out, but not necessarily killed. The Chilean forces, like the Vietnamese, took care of the rest.

Fuck you, Kissinger.

[Shining Jack]

25. K&R n/t

[RainDog]

28. k&r n/t

looking forward to seeing the results.