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The Planning of a Coup against Venezuela: Chile, September 11, 1973: The Ingredients of a Military Coup. The Imposition of a Neoliberal Agenda


Chicago Economics: Neoliberal Dress Rehearsal of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)


By Prof Michel Chossudovsky


Global Research, February 20, 2019

The main objective of the US-supported military coup in Chile was to impose the neoliberal economic agenda. "Regime change" was enforced through a covert military intelligence operation. Sweeping macro-economic reforms (including privatization, price liberalization and the freeze of wages) were implemented in early October 1973.

Barely a few weeks after the military takeover, the military Junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet ordered a hike in the price of bread from 11 to 40 escudos, a hefty overnight increase of 264%. This "economic shock treatment" had been designed by a group of economists called the "Chicago Boys." "While food prices had skyrocketed, wages had been frozen.  From one day to the next, an entire country had been precipitated into abysmal poverty.

In 1973, I was teaching economics at the Catholic University of Chile. I lived through two of the most brutal US sponsored military coups in Latin America's history: Chile, September 11, 1973 and less than three years later, Argentina, March 24, 1976 under Operation Condor, which initiated Argentina's Dirty War: "La Guerra Sucia".

And today, the Trump administration is threatening to invade Venezuela with a view to "restoring democracy", replacing an elected president (casually described by the Western media as a "dictator") by a US proxy, speaker of Venezuela's National Assembly.

***

Author's Introduction

More than forty-five years ago on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military led by General Augusto Pinochet, crushed the democratically elected Unidad Popular government of Salvador Allende.

The objective was to replace a progressive, democratically elected government by a brutal military dictatorship.

The military coup was supported by the CIA. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a direct role in the military plot.   

Is Washington's ongoing initiative directed against Venezuela modelled on Chile?

In early 1970s, in a note to the CIA in relation to Chile, Henry Kissinger recommended "Make the economy scream." Visibly the same concept has been applied to Venezuela, with advanced techniques of financial warfare, which were not available in the 1970s.

Today it's Mike Pompeo and John Bolton who are calling the shots, in tandem with the CIA.

Bolton has gone far beyond the Nixon-Kissinger agenda formulated at the height of the Cold War. Bolton refers to "The Troika of Tyranny". The US sponsored coup against Venezuela is also directed against Cuba. And from Washington's standpoint "after Venezuela, Cuba is next".

"The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere-Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua-has finally met its match. In Venezuela, the United States is acting against the dictator Maduro, who uses the same oppressive tactics that have been employed in Cuba for decades."  (John Bolton)

The model of US intervention against Venezuela nonetheless bears some striking similarities with Chile 1973:

§   

§  A reshuffle within Chile's Armed Forces occurred barely one month before the military coup followed by the resignation of General Carlos Prats

§  It should be emphasized that in 1973, the US did not have the support of its European allies. There was a firm and cohesive movement both in North America and Western Europe against the US sponsored coup d'Etat under the  helm of General Augusto Pinochet.

§  In contrast to Chile in the month preceding the September 1973 coup, the Venezuelan military is firmly committed to the Maduro government and the possibilities of coopting the top brass are "limited" in comparison to Chile in 1973. But this situation could evolve. Washington is currently involved in an ongoing process seeking to create divisions within Venezuela's armed forces.

§  Linked to the Venezuelan Armed Forces, the National Bolivarian Militia, a civilian grassroots force created by Chavez in 2009 is slated to play a key role in the case of a Military Coup. In contrast, in Chile in 1973, the grassroots civilian militia linked to the cordones industriales were disarmed in August 1973.

The US sponsored Pinochet dictatorship prevailed during a period of 16 years. During this period, there was no initiative on the part of the US to call for the replacement of the dictatorship by a duly elected government.

In 1989, elections were held and parliamentary democracy was restored. Continuity prevails. Patricio Aylwin of the Christian Democratic Party (DC) who was elected president in 1989 had endorsed a "military solution" in 1973. He was largely instrumental in the breakdown of the "Dialogue" between the Unidad Popular government and the Christian Democrats (DC). In August 1973, Patricio Aylwin provided a Green Light to the Chilean Armed Forces led by Augusto Pinochet on behalf of the DC.

The following texts shed light on the Chilean Coup d'Etat. The first text first published in 2003 serves as an introduction to the text I wrote in Chile in the month following the September 11 1973 military coup, which describes the chronology of the 1973 military coup.

Chile, September 11, 1973: The Ingredients of a Military Coup. The Imposition of a Neoliberal Agenda, 

Global Research, Montreal, 20o3

The Ingredients of a Military Coup

Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, September 1973

Today our thoughts are with the people of Venezuela.

Michel Chossudovsky, February 11, 2019

****

Chile, September 11, 1973: The Ingredients of a Military Coup. The Imposition of a Neoliberal Agenda

Introduction

In the weeks leading up the 1973 coup, US Ambassador Nathaniel Davis and members of the CIA held meetings with Chile's top military brass together with the leaders of the National Party and the ultra-right nationalist front Patria y Libertad.  While the undercover role of the Nixon administration is amply documented,  what is rarely mentioned in media reports is the fact that the military coup was also supported by a sector of the Christian Democratic Party.


For details see: 

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KOR309A.html 

and references below.

Patricio Aylwin, who became Chile's president in 1989,  became head of the DC party in the months leading up to the September 1973 military coup (March through September 1973). Aylwin was largely instrumental in the break down of the "Dialogue" between the Unidad Popular government and the Christian Democrats. His predecessor Renan Fuentealba, who represented the moderate wing of the Christian Democratic (PDC), was firmly against military intervention. Fuentealba favored a dialogue with Allende (la salida democratica). He was displaced from the leadership of the Party in May 1973 in favor of Patricio Aylwin.

The DC Party was split down the middle, between those who favored "the salida democratica", and the dominant Aylwin-Frei faction, which favored "a military solution".

See Interview with Renan Fuentealba,   

http://www.finisterrae.cl/cidoc/citahistoria/emol/emol_22092002.htm )

On 23 August 1973, the Chilean Camera de Diputados drafted a motion,  to the effect that the Allende government "sought to impose a totalitarian regime". Patricio Aylwin was a member of the drafting team of this motion. Patricio Aylwin believed that a temporary military dictatorship was "the lesser of two evils."

See http://www.fjguzman.cl/interiores/noticias/tema

See also: El acuerdo que anticipó el golpe, http://www.quepasa.cl/revista/2003/08/22/t-22.08.QP.NAC.ACUERDO.html

This motion was adopted almost unanimously by the opposition parties, including the DC, the Partido Nacional and the PIR (Radical Left).

The leadership of the Christian Democratic Party including former Chilean president Eduardo Frei,had given a green light to the Military.

And continuity in the "Chilean Model" heralded as "economic success story" was ensured when, 16 years later, Patricio Aylwin was elected president of Chile in the so-called transition to democracy in 1989.

At the time of the September 11, 1973 military coup, I was Visiting Professor of Economics at the Catholic University of Chile. In the hours following the bombing of the Presidential Palace of La Moneda, the new military rulers imposed a 72-hour curfew.


When the university reopened several days later, I started patching together the history of the coup from written notes. I had lived through the tragic events of September 11, 1973 as well as the failed June 29th coup. Several of my students at the Universidad Catolica had been arrested by the military Junta.

In the days following the military takeover,  I started going through piles of documents and newspaper clippings, which I had collected on a daily basis since my arrival in Chile in early 1973. Some of this material, however, was lost and destroyed in the days following the coup.

This unpublished article (below) was written forty-five years ago. It was drafted on an old typewriter in the weeks following the September 11, 1973.

This original draft article plus two carbon copies were circulated among a few close friends and colleagues at the Catholic University. It was never published. For 30 years it lay in a box of documents at the bottom of a filing cabinet.

I have transcribed the text from the yellowed carbon copy draft. Apart from minor editing, I have made no changes to the original article.

The history of this period has since then been amply documented including the role of the Nixon administration and of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the plot to assassinate Allende and install a military regime.

Chicago Economics: Neoliberal Dress Rehearsal of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)

The main objective of the US-supported military coup in Chile was ultimately to  impose the neoliberal economic agenda.  The latter, in the case of Chile, was not imposed by external creditors under the guidance of IMF. "Regime change" was enforced  through a covert military intelligence operation, which laid the groundwork for the military coup. Sweeping macro-economic reforms (including privatization, price liberalization and the freeze of wages) were implemented in early October 1973.


Barely a few weeks after the military takeover, the military Junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet ordered a hike in the price of bread from 11 to 40 escudos, a hefty overnight increase of 264%. This "economic shock treatment" had been designed by a group of economists called the "Chicago Boys."

While food prices had skyrocketed, wages had been frozen to ensure "economic stability and stave off inflationary pressures." From one day to the next, an entire country had been precipitated into abysmal poverty; in less than a year the price of bread in Chile increased thirty-six fold (3700%). Eighty-five percent of the Chilean population had been driven below the poverty line.

I completed my work on the "unpublished paper' entitled "The Ingredients of a Military Coup" (see text below) in late September.

In October and November, following the dramatic hikes in the price of food,  I drafted in Spanish an initial "technical" assessment of the Junta's deadly macro-economic reforms. Fearing censorship, I limited my analysis to the collapse of living standards in the wake of the Junta's reforms, resulting from the price hikes of food and fuel, without making any kind of political analysis.

The Economics Institute of the Catholic University was initially reluctant to publish the report. They sent it to the Military Junta prior to its release.

I left Chile for Peru  in December 1973. The report was released as a working paper (200 copies) by the Catholic University a few days before my departure. In Peru, where I joined the Economics Department of the Catholic University of Peru, I was able to write up a more detailed study of the Junta's neoliberal reforms and its ideological underpinnings. This study was published in 1975 in English and Spanish.

Needless to say, the events of September 11 1973 also marked me profoundly in my work as an economist. Through the tampering of prices, wages and interest rates, people's lives had been destroyed; an entire national economy had been destabilized. Macro-economic reform was neither "neutral" -as claimed by the academic mainstream- nor separate from the broader process of social and political transformation.

I also started to understand the role of military-intelligence operations in support of what is usually described as a process of "economic restructuring". In my earlier writings on the Chilean military Junta, I looked upon the so-called "free market" reform as a well-organized instrument of "economic repression."

Two years later, I returned to Latin America as a visiting professor at the National University of Cordoba in the northern industrial heartland of Argentina. My stay coincided with the 1976 military coup d'État. Tens of thousands of people were arrested; the "Desaparecidos" were assassinated. The military takeover in Argentina was "a carbon copy" of the CIA-led coup in Chile. And behind the massacres and human rights violations, "free market" reforms had also been prescribed, this time under the supervision of Argentina's New York creditors.


Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order by Michel Chossudovsky

The IMF's deadly economic prescriptions under the "structural adjustment program" had not yet been officially launched. The experience of Chile and Argentina under the "Chicago boys" was "a dress rehearsal" of things to come.

In due course, the economic bullets of the free market system were hitting country after country.

Since the onslaught of the debt crisis of the 1980s, the same IMF economic medicine has routinely been applied in more than 100 developing countries. From my earlier work in Chile, Argentina and Peru, I started to investigate the global impacts of these reforms. Relentlessly feeding on poverty and economic dislocation, a New World Order was taking shape.

(For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky,The Globalisation of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Global Research, Montreal, 2003.

I should mention that the ongoing US-led economic destabilization of Venezuela including the manipulation of the foreign exchange market, leading to the collapse of the national currency the Bolivar  and the dramatic hikes in the prices of essential consumer goods, bears a canny resemblance to the months preceding the September 1973 military coup in Chile.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 11 September 2003, updated 11 September 2018


See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/world/142272-coup_venezuela/

the red cross belongs to the red cross....

The largest international aid organization has demanded that activists at the Venezuela-Colombia border not use the insignia of the Red Cross, which isn’t participating in what Caracas has dismissed as a US “propaganda show.”

The Red Cross learned that some “people not affiliated” with the agency are trying to disguise themselves as aid workers to smuggle cargo for Venezuela’s opposition across the closed frontiers.

“They might mean well but they risk jeopardizing our neutrality, impartiality & independence,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/452272-red-cross-emblems-venezuela-aid/

when help means corruption of intent...

SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.

Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido says that the humanitarian aid that will be sent to Venezuela from Colombia will enter, no matter what. The government of Venezuela, under President Nicolas Maduro, however, has said that this aid will not pass its borders because it does not meet international criteria for aid, and it is designed as a political provocation. Now, international aid groups such as the International Red Cross and the UN have also refused to participate in the aid convoy being planned by the U.S., Canada, Colombia, and Brazil thus far because it is saying that this aid being offered has been extremely politicized.

One of the main countries behind this aid is, of course, Canada, which has promised $53 million worth of aid, more than double the U.S. commitment here. And we have to question why. Why it is committing all this money, $53 million, as aid, which is unusual for Canada in terms of the level of aid being provided to any one country.

Now joining me to discuss all of this is Yves Engler. Yves is a Canadian commentator and author of several books, and the most recent among them is Left, RIght: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada. Thank you so much for joining us, Yves.

YVES ENGLER: Thanks a lot for having me.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Yves, let’s get into this issue of the aid, particularly coming from Canada, as humanitarian aid. You say in the article you just recently wrote that this aid is being used to stoke a military conflict. What did you mean by that, and and how is Canada, first of all, producing $53 million in aid, which is an unusual amount for Canada? And why do you say what you just said?

YVES ENGLER: Yeah. Well, in the article I give a bit of background on Canadian aid. You know, people have a very positive perception, because it sounds good. It’s aid. It’s supposed to be helping the poor, or whatnot. And if you look more generally at Canadian aid you find that there’s a long association of military intervention and Canadian aid. And that goes back to the Korean War of the early 1950s. Where U.S. and Canadian troops are killing people, Canadian aid usually gets delivered. South Vietnam during the U.S. war there. Grenada after the U.S. invasion. More recent years Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, top recipients of Canadian aid in the mid-2000s. That’s because they were Canadian–U.S. and Canadian troops in those countries.

So what I’m proposing in this article is that this is something a little bit unique about the situation in Venezuela today, where the aid actually looks like it’s–well, first of all, it’s designed to try to overthrow the government. But the aid is actually been using in an effort to maybe even stoke a war, to provide some sort of pretext for a U.S. or maybe Colombian military intervention into Venezuela. And obviously Juan Guaido, the self-declared interim president of Venezuela, is making all these declarations that he will force this aid into the country, that the Maduro government says that they won’t accept. This aid is being delivered mostly by U.S. military planes. U.S. military planes have delivered most of this aid to Colombia and to Brazil. And so this would be, I think, a somewhat unique scenario. I mean, I know in U.S. foreign policy history there are examples of aid very clearly being used to bring in weapons, and to stoke military conflict; notably in Nicaragua in the 1980s. One of the players behind that, Elliott Abrams, is also the appointee on Venezuela for the Trump administration.

But this isn’t–from the standpoint of Canadian foreign policy, and with Canada being so far at the front of this aid endeavor, and announcing, like you mentioned, $53 million, more than 2 1/2 times what the U.S. announced. And we don’t know that much about the details of where, of exactly what that aid is or where it’s going to. All we really know is it’s being, according to Chrystia Freeland, the foreign minister, almost all of it is going to the border countries; to Colombia and to Brazil. So again, that also, you know, fits with this this developing scenario we see if aid being stockpiled on the border, most notably in Colombia, but also in Brazil. And then some sort of effort this weekend to force that aid into the country, and possibly lead to some sort of–some sort of conflict of some sort.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Yves. Now, in an interview on The Real News with Foreign Minister Arreaza, he indicated that Venezuela is currently receiving aid. It is receiving aid from UN agencies; also from Russia. And it is accepting that aid and rejecting this kind of politicized, militarized, potentially conflictual conflict-driven aid that it is getting from Canada, U.S., and Colombia. Now, give us a sense of why Canada is providing this kind of aid at the border and trying to push the conflict at the border. Why is it doing that?

YVES ENGLER: [00:07:32] Yeah, I mean, I think that even if this aid effort doesn’t lead to some sort of military conflict, from the standpoint of Washington and Ottawa it’s part of a PR battle. It’s part of trying to make the Maduro government look bad. It’s to hype up the level of economic problems within Venezuela; to exaggerate the level of, the number of people not getting enough food. So from that standpoint it serves that purpose. And one of the things that’s going on alongside this aid effort on February 23 is the night before, Richard Branson, the multibillionaire British capitalist, is organizing a Live Aid-style concert in Cucuta, on the border with Colombia. And that’s designed, he says he’s trying to raise $100 million to help the humanitarian crisis within Venezuela. That’s clearly designed as part of this sort of international PR battle to demonize the Venezuelan government.

And so from Canada’s perspective, that’s obviously what they’ve been trying to do for a number of years now. And so this aid announcement from a couple weeks ago of $53 million contributes to that. I also think there’s a public relations purpose within Canada. And even people–some people who are sort of critical of Canada joining this Trump administration-led effort to try to oust Maduro’s government, that they’re actually supportive of aid. And so notably the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the biggest union in the country that has actually quite courageously criticized Canada’s policy for regime change in Venezuela, they’ve been under pressure by the corporate media over that position. And in an internal communique to try to, you know, justify their policy, they said that they are supportive of Canada’s aid objective in Venezuela. So a lot of people who are critical of Canadian policy get sort of seduced by the idea of aid, and don’t see it as just–you know, the aid and coup policy are sort of one and the same. Which is, of course, what I believe.

So from the government perspective, making a big announcement has a PR utility internally. And also I think it’s just–it’s about, again, it’s about rallying the international support. Canada has been at the forefront of rallying international support through the Lima Group of countries around the world to oppose Maduro’s government through the Prime Minister calling different leaders around the world, and making a major aid announcement like this $53 million Canada announced. It also puts pressure on other governments. And there was a [inaudible] about a week ago. I think Canada’s big contribution puts pressure on other governments to contribute a certain amount. And again, this is all tied into–you know, this aid is being shipped by U.S. military planes to the border. I think that in and of itself it sort of tells us, you know, what’s going on here. This is a very politicized endeavor. And that’s why the aid agencies are not going along with this and are explicitly rejecting participation in bringing this aid into Venezuela.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Yves, we’ll leave it there for now, and looking forward to having you back, as it looks like you’re going to be writing a lot more about what is going on. And we’ll keep an eye on what’s happening on the weekend on the border. And we’ll be looking for you next week. Thank you so much for joining us now.

YVES ENGLER: Thanks a lot for having me.

SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.

 

Read more:

https://therealnews.com/stories/canadas-humanitarian-aid-for-venezuela-provocation-or-genuine-concern

 

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home-decreed crony fascism in the USA...

By Steve Horn

The oil and gas industry has started its 2019 lobbying efforts with a bang.

Eight different statehouses across the nation are considering bills criminalizing protests on property owned by the the oil and gas industry which critics say could squelch pipeline protesters and others calling attention to climate change-causing infrastructure.

The bills offer steep criminal penalties for trespass onto oil and gas industry-owned private property defined as “critical infrastructure” under state law. The legal definition of “critical infrastructure,” which incorporates essentially all assets serving as the bedrock of the current economic system, has greatly expanded in the post-September 11 era. With that expansion came increasingly harsh criminal enforcement mechanisms available to prosecutors in the name of protecting national security.

It is no coincidence that the bills are rolling out simultaneously with nearly identical language, in various states. The Real News has traced these bills back to model bills emanating from two organizations, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Council of State Governments (CSG), both of which receive generous financial backing from the oil and gas industry. In turn, the organizations serve as facilitators for doling out model legislation to state legislators.

Critical infrastructure bills of this sort, first passed in statehouses in early 2017 following the mobilization at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota, have been taken up by both ALEC and CSG for use as model legislation.

In the first month of the year, Indiana, Wyoming, Illinois, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Idaho, and Ohio have all taken this template-based model legislation under consideration, which mirrors two bills passed in Oklahoma in 2017. Sandwiching them together as one, ALEC created the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act at one of its annual meetings held in December 2017. And the lobbyists and legislators involved in the organization in the room that day gave it a “yes” vote.

ALEC is a corporate-backed organization of state legislators and lobbyists; its membership base mostly consists of Republican members of state legislatures. It convenes three times per year for educational panel sessions, networking, and to vote on model bills. Those model bills then get distributed to state legislators nationwide, often becoming state law.

 

Read more:

https://therealnews.com/columns/bills-criminalizing-pipeline-protest-ari...

 

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do the right thing...

US national security advisor John Bolton has been flooding Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino with messages asking him to "do the right thing," playing the "Good Cop" to his own "Bad Cop."

Bolton's most recent "do the right thing" tweet implores Padrino and the army to "protect the Constitutional order from Maduro's usurpation of democracy" - though US special envoy Elliott Abramsadmitted earlier this month that Juan Guaido's self-appointed presidency was technically in violation of Venezuela's constitution, until he unilaterally opted to change it.

Gen. @vladimirpadrino: The FANB has a historic role & opportunity to protect the Venezuelan people from violence conducted by Maduro’s ‘colectivos’, to avoid further bowing to Cuba, & to protect the Constitutional order from Maduro’s usurpation of democracy. Do the right thing.

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) March 28, 2019

"Mr. Bolton, I tell you that we are doing the right thing," Padrino responded in a televised address. "Doing the right thing is doing what's written in the constitution. ... Doing the right thing is respecting the will of the people."

General @vladimirpadrino: Venezuela should be the wealthiest nation in the region. Maduro’s greed and corruption has led to pauperism. FANB’s role in Venezuela’s transition to democracy and prosperity is vital. Stand by the Venezuelan people and Constitution, not Maduro and Cuba.

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) March 29, 2019

Bolton has been tweeting at Padrino all week – and those are just the messages he's sent publicly. The Venezuelan military's refusal to throw its support behind Juan Guaido, the opposition leader turned self-appointed US-backed "interim president," is clearly a thorn in his side.

"We call on the Venezuelan military to uphold its constitutional duty to protect the citizens of Venezuela," Bolton tweeted in a statement in which he also "cautioned" "actors external to the Western Hemisphere" – i.e. Russia, mostly – to cease their "provocative actions" lest the US be forced to "defend and protect" its interests.

ALSO ON RT.COM Venezuela regime-change champion John Bolton says US won’t tolerate foreign meddling in the country

Padrino does not look interested in Bolton's love letters, however, denouncing Guaido as "a self-proclaimed outlaw."

"We, the soldiers of the Motherland, do not accept the president imposed in the shadow of dark interests," he said.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/455115-venezuelan-defense-minister-messages-bolton/

 

 

 

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