Chile's Politics, 40 Years After the Coup

On Wednesday, when Americans commemorated the 12th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, Chileans contemplated the four decades since the coup d’état which toppled Salvador Allende — a benchmark that falls in the middle of a presidential election campaign in that country. Despite the 40 years that have passed, the events of 1973 still resonate throughout the Chile — but this should not be all that surprising. Here in the United States, domestic and foreign policy remain mindful of — and in many ways conditioned by — the lessons of the Kennedy assassinations, the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, and Watergate. In Chile, this anniversary provides an opportunity to discuss the causes of the coup, the dictatorship that followed, and the kind of democracy that has been built since then.