Talk:1973 Chilean coup d'état/Archive 1

Untitled section
This article could also be entitled Views of the Chilean coup of 1973. This might be necessary if the facts regarding the events can't be described here... --Uncle Ed 12:55, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

It also might be a good idea to "merge" this talk page with talk:Augusto Pinochet, at least until that page gets unlocked. --Uncle Ed 14:08, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Cantus, you wrote:


 * The neutrality of this article is disputed.

Please discuss the flaws you see in this article, such as biased wording or leaving out significant facts or views. If you prefer, we can combine this talk page with talk:Augusto Pinochet. --Uncle Ed 17:45, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Ed, thanks for creating the article. I'm against combining the Talk.  A major aspect of the dispute over the Pinochet article is how much elaboration about the coup, particularly about U.S. role, is appropriate for the introductory summary of a Pinochet article.  There are different considerations for this article. JamesMLane 01:32, 29 May 2004 (UTC)


 * The main problem with this article is that it so totally misrepresents the POV of the Allende supports and the opponents of the coup; it is embarrassingly reductionistic, almost cartoonish. Ed, with all due respect, why don't you simply abandon trying to present both sides of the story in such situations and limit yourself to just articulating the pro-US, conservative Republican, anti-Communist POV that is your own? Your efforts to speak for the other side(s) simply don't work.
 * Also, at this point, I don't know why we need this dubious material in a separate article. -- Viajero 18:53, 30 May 2004 (UTC)


 * As it stands now, the article is of course just a beginning. It doesn't adequately present either side's position.  There's a great deal more to be put in.  For example, I don't think Ed intended that the finished article would ignore all the information about the CIA's role that's come from the documents declassified in recent years.  As for having a separate article, the material has logical relevance to the articles on Augusto Pinochet (where related issues are being wrangled over), Salvador Allende and history of Chile.  It makes much more sense to assemble all the information in one place and then link it from those articles, instead of having three different versions of the same facts.  (For that matter, the finished article should include Kissinger's lying Congressional testimony to the effect that the U.S. had no advance knowledge of the coup, juxtaposed with the CIA's subsequent admission to the contrary.  Then there should be a link here from Henry Kissinger.) JamesMLane 21:34, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Viajero, I had no idea my pro-US, anti-Communist conservativism was so obvious in what I wrote in Chilean coup of 1973. I honestly thought I was representing each side fairly, but if you say it looks cartoonish and embarassingly reductionistic, then much work remains. I hope you and Cantus will both explain in detail what's wrong with this new "coup" article, and help James and me fix it.

James, I simply ran out of time last week. I was painfully conscious of leaving out the CIA stuff. I think we should add that next. The issue of America's role in the 1973 Chile coup is so big and important that it really deserves an article of its own; it shouldn't just be in the Augusto Pinochet article. --Uncle Ed 13:59, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Ed Poor, you might be aware that accusations of being "pro-US" and "right-wing" are a dime a dozen around here and are often shot at anyone who tries to write something truly balanced. The article needs work, but the use of derision such as cartoonish is troubling. VV 18:34, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

All the discussion about the election of Allende is nonsense. He was elected according to the Constitution of 1925. He didn't have mayority, so the Congress had to decide, and they did. End of the matter. No serious person denies the validity of his election. If his actions illegitimized him or not later is really the dispute --AstroNomer 18:29, Jun 1, 2004 (UTC)


 * Astronomer, I disagree. The results of 1970 election are a key question to understand part of the inestabilty and political violence of Chile during the seventies. The results showed the country splited in 3, 3 different and totally against each other projects. The UP had to negociate with the Christian Democrats (DC)the election of Allende (with the DC votes Allende came to the Presidency) and the break of the agreement signed by UP with the DC made the last to join the opposition and initially supported the coup d'état. It's important to emphazise in the idea of the political biased and violent Chile of the 1970's as one the main easons of the coup (US intervented but it wasn't the main factor). --Baloo rch 21:15, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree completely with you, the facts about the election must be put forward, but to say that Allende was not elected but appointed but congress as a way of denying his initial legitimacy as president is nonsense. It might be argued (and I actually think, as a matter of fact), that he lost that legitimacy when he started violating the constitution, but that happened during his presidency.--AstroNomer 21:28, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Allende got more votes than any of his opponents, which is more than can be said for SOME leaders who claim to have been democratically elected. I don't think there's any basis for questioning the legitimacy of his assumption of power. Coming in with only 36% support, however, certainly meant that he was starting off from a weaker position than many elected governments, and is worth mentioning. It would also be worthwhile if people with more knowledge of the Chilean constitution could elaborate on the 1970 mechanism. For example, in the U.S., if no candidate has an Electoral College majority, the President is chosen by the House. Was a similar rule in effect in Chile? or did Congress step in to resolve a situation that wasn't addressed in the constitution? JamesMLane 03:21, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The mechanism was perfectly clearly written in the constitution. The Congress convenes to take knowledge of the results: if there is a mayority winner, that's the president, if not, Congress votes to decide between the two most voted candidates. The constitution gave a detailed account of the quorum needed, what to do in case of a tie, etc. Congress didn't have to improvise anything. The only thing that was talked and negociated was if the precedent that Congress always elected the most voted candidate would be followed this time. Congress could have voted for the second candidate, Allessandri, a former president himself, a there was effort invested by many sectors that wanted that to be the case. --AstroNomer 06:53, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

The legitimacy issue
Let me sum up what I'm hearing from everybody. Er, no, let me first thank you all for meeting me here in talk! We haven't had a single reversion war or nasty remark thrown amongst each other since starting this article. So we are probably on the right track.

Okay, the big issue is not:
 * how Allende came to power; but,
 * what Allende did after coming to power

I guess we say that Allende came to power through the democratic process, and is accordance with the Chilean constitution. He got a plurality of the vote, so he could not automatically or immediately become president. That is, he was not directly elected by the people; he was not elected by a majority vote.

However, this has nothing to do with the legitimacy of his coming to power; it only affects the perception of his having a "mandate" from the people. As Astronomer reminds us, there was indeed a provision in the constitution that the legislature was to vote between the two candidates getting the most votes. That would be Allende, who got 36% of the vote against Allesandri's 34% and Tomic's 27%. The two top candidates got 70% of the vote between them.

What did the legislature do next? Did it "affirm" the 36-34 split as a "victory"? Does this mean that Congress elected him rather than the people elected him? Or, does it not really matter that much?


 * It does not matter at all. Similar situations are not unusual in presidential systems, and recent examples from the US would come to mind. /Tuomas 14:27, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Here's one angle that explains why how he became president matters. Opponents of the 1973 coup, particularly those who opposed US anti-communist policy, condemn the coup as "the overthrow of a democratically elected president". They imply or sometimes state outright that the US had ulterior motives (like, financial greed) for supporting the coup; and that it was against American democratic principles to overthrow an elected leader. In short, America LIED about its motives and DENIED the yearning of the Chilean people to enjoy the socialist paradise which was right around the corner if only greedy American capitalist pigs hadn't jerked the rug out from under them.
 * There is a great difference between just "overtrowing a democratically elected president" and "substituting democracy with dictature", and this is a point which I wish you could ponder for a while. /Tuomas 15:05, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Am I hitting close to the mark, or what? (VV, please don't mind my "sarcasm", I'm only trying to figure this thing out; I'm a staunch anti-communist for religious reasons.) --Uncle Ed 21:43, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * It seems there's a point about Allende becoming President: he became to power in a legitimate way. The process was according Chilean Constitution of 1925.


 * Howewer, as I said, i think it's important to show the complete picture of 1970 Chile. Allende became to President of a biased country: he represented only a third of the votants and had 2/3 of the congress as opposition. As he said, he wasn't the President of all the Chileans (Yo no soy presidente de todos los chilenos, feb 4, 1971).


 * On this scenario, many groups decided the the violent ways were legitimate. Left-wing movements were impacient to make reforms and the democratic way to socialism was to slow, due the congress opposition, so they began to particpate on violent acts. Right-wing movements see no peacefully choice to avoid the socialist reforms and take the violent path too.


 * This one of the reasons of the coup. Things in Chile became progresively violent and all the dialog instances closed. Opposition turned harder and the goverment lost the control of the ways of expression of it supporters.


 * US. support to the opposition was relevant but not decisive in the coup. Internal factors were the most important catalyst to the violent ending of Allende's goverment. (There's no balanced chilean version of 1973 history signaling the coup as result of US intervention). Baloo rch 01:19, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * The US were seen as the beacon of justice, civil liberties, human rights and democracy in much of the world. In Latin America people might have been less convinced, but also there many idealists believed in American values. I think it's important to distinguish between the reaction in the rest of the world from the reaction in the socially divided societies of Latin America, where anti-democrats and anti-socialists were more than grateful for US support and a broad stratum of "ordinary citizens" (Chilean middle class) were happy that US economic warfare of the early 1970s had ended. For US supporters in Western Europe, US involvement in the overtrow of democracy in Greece and Latin America was a serious liability. Among educated people in the third world, the disappointment with US "hypocracy" - i.e. US repeated treacheries against what she said was her dearest values - turned many an idealist into corrupt cynics. US anti-democratic activities put her ideologically akin democratic allies in NATO, and other closely related countries such as Australia, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland, in a precarious position. Soviet propaganda tried to do as much out of it as possible, and the allied governments condemned the overtrowal of democracy and the human rights abuses in ways that were intended not to disturb the relations with USA.
 * The reason the coup of 1973 is more controversial than many other is that US-allied countries tried to prosecute Pinochet. In this context, it was a complicating factor that Pinochet was supported by the US. While many conservatives in Western Europe put a blind eye to during the Cold War, their domestic opponents did not, and today nobody does. To leave out references to US less honorable entanglement in the coup is in much of the world seen as a sign of bowing for US supremacy which not directly contributes to the credibility of this site.
 * /Tuomas 15:05, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Addenda to 2.1
I put these paragraphs to the Situation before the coup paragraph. After a complete deletion of my contrib by someone (no registered user, only IP), i decide to put the text for your discusion:


 * Allende's programme included major reforms like the statization of private companies, a reform to :educational system and others. The agrary reform became more violent. The so called Chilean way :to socialismwas refused by the Christian Democrats and the right-wing parties, who saw a crealy :attempt to impose a cuban-style government in Chile.


 * After a first year of goof results, Chilean economics crushed. Opposition organised themselve in :the Comité Democrático (CODE). In the latest days of Allende goverment, the commerce virtually shut :down and transportion stopped and organised protests against the government of a daily basis.


 * Also, there was an intensification on violence on extreme left and right factions. Left wings :movements like the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria and MAPU enforced their view of the armed :way to socialism. Although the violent way was not shared by Allende, her had sympathy for them. :Also right-wing movements enforced their violent actions, as they saw no alternatives to take the :UP out the government.


 * This situation became more tense day after day the Chamber of Deputies - with the votes of the :CODE members - declared Allende government out of the Consitution. This action was used by the :military to justify the coup.

My intention is to describe the social and political tension during Allende's government and before the coup. I think it is a missing part and important as background of the coup, and they ara significant in the way the posterior actions took place.

Please, send your comments. Baloo rch 21:55, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

With absolutely no endorsement intended -- I quite disagree with the general direction of this POV of this-- I've tried rendering Baloo rch's text into reasonable English. Unless he says I've gotten something wrong, I think any further discussion of this material should be based on my revised version, so we can focus on content rather than language issues.


 * Allende's programme included major reforms, including the nationalization of private companies and reform of the educational system. Efforts at agrarian reform led to increased violence. The so-called Chilean way to socialism was rejected by the Christian Democrats and the right-wing parties, who saw it as an attempt to impose a Cuban-style government in Chile.


 * After a first year of good results, the Chilean economy crashed. The opposition organised themselves as the Comité Democrático (CODE). In the last days of Allende goverment, commerce was virtually shut down, transportation stopped, and organised protests against the government occurred on a daily basis.


 * Also, there was an intensification on violence by extreme left and right factions. On the left wing, movements like the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria and MAPU increased their violence in support of an armed way to socialism. Although this violent way was not shared by Allende, he had sympathy for them. Also, right-wing movements increased their violent actions, as they saw no alternative means to get the UP out the government.


 * This situation became more tense day by day. The Chamber of Deputies -- with the votes of the CODE members -- declared the Allende government to be in violation of the Consitution. This action was used by the military to justify the coup.

Again, I disagree with this as a direction to take the article in terms of POV issues, but it should be judged on its merits rather than handicapped by language issues. Jmabel 00:03, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * I find the above very POV (rather pro-coup). Nonetheless, it covers some ground that we should probably cover in the article. Does someone want to try a rewrite of this (here or in the article) that touches these bases without such a slant? It would certainly be worth mentioning:


 * nationalization of certain large-scale industries (notably copper)
 * reform of the educational system.
 * agrarian reform, but please some clarity, not just one vague sentence.
 * Christian Democrats slowly moving over to the right.
 * Economic problems, and at least one good citation from each side as to whether Allende or his (domestic and international) opponents were mainly to blame.
 * Comité Democrático (CODE) certainly merits mention, as does increasing level of confrontation prior to military coup. Street demos by both sides merit mention.
 * Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria and MAPU
 * I don't know about this Chamber of Deputies vote declaring the Allende government to be in violation of the Consitution. If it can be documented, it merits mention.

-- Jmabel 00:19, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel, thanks for the language corrections and opinions about the addenda. It wasn't my intention to write POV-ish, but I mean the article is too focused on US intervention and don't consider the coup d'etat of 1973 as result of internal process which started in the sixties. In the current state, the article only shows only few isolated antecedents in the way to the coup.

If you found some terminolgy POV, i've used the terms that the same groups used. (i.e., UP government declared is programme as La vía chilena al socialismo- the chilean way to socialism).

About the Deputies declaration, you can read more about at (i couldn't find an imparcial reference but the owner of the site - José Piñera - is not a strong supporter either).


 * This appears to be a broken link. Is it what you meant to write? -- Jmabel 05:44, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

If you understand spanish  - or trust on google translation - you can visit the site. The text is simple - it is a school-homework oriented site.

I'm looking info about the political violence during the 60-70 period in chile, but i havent' founded anything yet. Baloo rch 01:45, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This site (also in spanish, made by allende supporters) has a cronology of the 1970-1973 period. Baloo rch 01:57, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * It looks really impressive. I don't have the patience (or the devotion to this topic) to wade through so much material right now, but if someone else wants to, there is probably a lot to be gleaned. Because this is a clearly partisan source, it would probably be best to try to independently source any potentially controversial information gleaned here (especially where they, themselves, have not indicated their sources), or at the very least to be explicit in the article about drawing from this partisan source. -- Jmabel 22:30, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

, taken from Allende's Talk. It could considered POV, but it's in english and has a lot of references.

 MIT'S OCW timeline.

Here's a new link about the Declaration of the Chamber of Deputies on August 22nd, 1973. (there's and english version) I've also found the answer from allende (only in spanish). Note specially the terms (vocabulary) used in both documents. Baloo rch 14:32, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Declaration of the Conferencia Episcopal de Chile (bishops) asking for a delay on the Escuela Nacional Unificada Programm (the link is to official chilean catholic church website)

Chile en el siglo XX]

I don't understand what's intended by this passage: "However, by this point what had started as an informal alliance with the Christian Democrats [cite to http://countrystudies.us/chile/85.htm] was anything but: a proposal Christian Democrats now leagued with the right-wing National Party ...." Was it only a proposal that the Christian Democrats join with the right-wingers? or should the words "a proposal" be deleted? JamesMLane 23:37, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I self-edited sloppily and will clean up. -- Jmabel 16:09, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

Songs
Not sure what I think of the mention of the Toad the Wet Sprocket song "Chile". There are a lot of songs about the coup (at least one each by Holly Near and Arlo Guthrie leap to mind). Do we want to accumulate material like this in the article? In a "sidebar" list somewhere? Suggestions are welcome. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Differentiating the deposement from the coup
In my last edit summary, I wrote: "RV; the POV consists in failing to differentiate between the legitimate removal of Allende, and the *after the fact* refusual to relenquish martial law by Pinochet." The text redacted claimed: The oxymoric phrasing "in retrospect... was clearly not" is at best POV, and at worst, merely a redundancy (since "in retrospect", ie. after the fact, Pinochet clearly (did) not return power to the Chilean legislature after the legislature implored the military removal of Allende. What the passage fails to account for is that Allende's military ouster was implored by Resolution; the "coup" proper was a subsequent event, and consisted of Pinochet's refusal to return power back to civilian government.--Mike18xx 09:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
 * "Although this call (referring the Resolution of August 22, 1973) for "redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence" was invoked to justify the September 11 coup, in retrospect that was clearly not the agenda of the coup."


 * The coup was, in any event, an extraconstitutional act. The majority of the legislature approved a resolution saying that Allende had abrogated the constitution and called for extraconstitutional means to re-establish the constitution. Clearly, Pinochet et. al.'s coup was nothing of the sort: it was a seizure of power, that used the resolution for cover. This is a classic scenario for a coup: neutralize numerous elements of society at the crucial moment by having them believe, falsely, that you are acting on their behalf, then seize power for yourself. George Papadopoulos did much the same thing in Greece, as did Napoleon in the coup of 18 Brumaire. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:31, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the semantic differences aren't very meaningful as long as we include all the information. Do you consider "the coup 'proper'" to be the deposement, the seizing of power, the resolution calling for military intervention? Does it matter? We say what happened, let the reader decide which parts are part of a coup. I agree, though, that the "retrospect" sentence is awkward at best. DanKeshet 17:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I heard some people saying : "I was in favor of September, 11th but against September, 12 th". The declaration of the Chamber of Deputies is only one more of the signs of disgovernment and political turmoil of Allende's administration and the coup probably would occur with or whithout it. Depite I agree with Jmabel about the non-constitutionality of the events of 1973 (in my POV most of the political life and government acts where running out of consitutition before September 11th, 1973), it is insteresting to notice that prominent Democrat Christians - who oppossed military regime - appearead at the press during the first week with approbatory words for the removal (Pres. Frei Montalva, Pres. Alwyn). Baloo rch 12:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

too damn POV
are you kidding me?, the source of information is Jose Piñeras' page?, the man that made himself rich in the dictatorship by creating the AFP (privatization of pensions, but thats another topic). This page is really pov, lacking a lot of info, giving importance to info that didnt seem really all that important and most importantly, the vast rightitst POV that the page has, it just needs a lot of re-work, checking both sides, not just multi-millionaire Jose Piñera side. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.113.119.254 (talk • contribs) 23 Feb 2006.

Hello, anymous collaborator!. Despite you don't like the source, the documents are real. At this time it seems this is best source found. If you want to improve wikipedia you can do the following:
 * Transcript the documents to wikisource and link that page. (There are Chile's Chamber of Deputies public documents, so there is no problem to do so).
 * Find a more neutral source (v.g. try if there are at the Chamber of Deputies website).
 * Acknowledge that in article like this there's not one solely POV and if you want to know further you probably will find different opinions about the same event/topic. In this case there are both pro and against coup links and instead of delete all of them, they should explicitly marked and categorise in order to tell the reader what's is going to find.

Regards, Baloo rch 12:59, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Section "Allende becomes President"
A comment is made in the article of Allende's portion of the vote, and so on, and the question of whether he could claim a mandate. Such election victories and mandates are hardly unusual in the democratic world, e.g. Denmark, Italy, Norway, Israel. It seems wrong to me to raise these doubts without giving that context. I wonder if anyone has any comments on an appropriate way to add some wording along these lines?

I understand the point being made that Allende's actions in government went beyond what might seem reasonable given the election conditions (although that's hardly unusual either...), but as it stands the article doesn't seem to me to distinguish that objection clearly enough from what appear to be objections to the fact that he won the presidency at all. —WebDrake 09:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment
For all this political debate, has anyone even noticed that the coup execution (which this article is supposed to be about) is barely discussed? All we know is that someone bombed the Presidential Palace, then BAM Allende's dead and Pinochet is in charge.

Also, the U.S. section seems disproportionately large considering the almost non-existant role in this coup... could this be shortened to two paras with a link to the main article (its starting to look like one already). CJK 00:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Wait a minute, it is the copy of the main article. How dishonest.... CJK 19:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * While I do think that the politics of the matter are of more general interest than the tactics of the particular coup, anything on the practical execution of the coup would, of course be welcome. - Jmabel | Talk 00:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Appalling Vandalism
Please cease this appalling vandalism. The reason that there is such large deletions is because its a COPY of the MAIN ARTICLE. I shortened it with an accurate summary, if someone wants to know more click the link. CJK 01:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There are fundamentally two points in what you (jokingly?) refer to as vandalism. 1) This is an article about the coup. Even though it has its own article, the role of the US is very critical and must be treated seriously. 2) Removal of some very manipulative formulations – such as claiming that Pinochet just removed Allende, and thus implying that he did not assume power. Bertilvidet 17:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Btw, please also have a look at Ownership of articles Bertilvidet 17:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

1. There is nothing there that actually shows a U.S. role in the 1973 coup, thus the size is totally out of proportion. Besides, its (almost) an exact copy of United States intervention in Chile why have two articles that say the exact same thing even thoough 90% of the stuff I summarized has nothing to do with 1973. 2. Pinochet removed Allende on September 11 and dissolved Congress on September 13. Not the same day as the coup. CJK 19:13, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * See Guide to writing better articles. You're entitled to think that "there is nothing... that actually shows a U.S. role in the 1973 role", but not to delete 3/4 of articles. Each article is supposed to stand by itself & explain the context. Tazmaniacs 22:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Did you read what I said? I didn't say it didn't belong there, I said that since there is an entirely different article saying the same exact thing, a summary of the charges would be appropriate. CJK 17:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is not a question of respecting "your text", once submitted to Wikipedia it becomes public domain. As long as the dispute goes on, let's at least admit by keeping the POV-tag. Bertilvidet 19:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * And please, also stop labelling edits you disagree with as vandalism. You have to accept that Wikipedia is a community where we work together. Bertilvidet 19:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

When summaries are being systematically deleted and an "article within an article" is created, it is vandalism. See WP:SS CJK 19:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * If adding information to an article is vandalism, a good wikipedian is a vandal. Honestly, such respectless attacks on other people's edits are not reaaly fruitful for creating the optimal atmosphere for good cooperation. Bertilvidet 20:46, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * See WP:SS. You are violating our guidelines by insisting on having 2 articles in 1. CJK 21:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * At least, please be decent and the POV-tag. Noone can deny that it is disputed, even though you might consider other Wikipedians as a bunch of vandals. Bertilvidet 20:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I put a POV tag on, but I will eventually pull it if you can't make a decent arguement against Summary Style. CJK 20:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * CJK, your version is not factually accurate, and it is too short.Vints 06:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * CJK, a quite impressive perservere one-man army fighting the other editors' consensus on vandalizing "your" page by adding more well sourced info and ensuring accuracy. Bertilvidet 20:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Much of the content in the section "U.S. role in 1973 coup" is not contained in the main article (U.S. intervention in Chile). I think some of the text not relating to the 1973 coup could be merged to the U.S. intervention article, but not simply deleted. Vints 15:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chilean_coup_of_1973&diff=70108460&oldid=69935040

Now, CJK here says he reverted while keeping the Wikisource link to the resolution intact, yet the edit log shows that the link was not maintained. ...explanation?--Mike18xx 21:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Put a fork in Allende already
As I have demonstrated elsewhere repeatedly, it is you who are short on the facts, Vints; I have no objection to most of CJK's revision, and suffice to say that it won't be long before I've cleaned out the lingering propaganda from ALL of the Chile articles (some of which ought to be merged, btw). Basically, with the Mitrokin material and CoD Resolution Wikisourced, Allende is "done, put a fork in him", as they say, as a credible vehicle for socialism-with-a-human-face hero-worship (and: I've *yet* to get on the ball regarding Castro's 5000 stooges or the MIR). I reverted the last CJK merely because I was tired of seeing the link to the Resolution munged amongst all the rest. Otherwise, hard as it may be for you to fathom, voluminous blatherings of Kissinger's contingiency-planning (and fervent hopes, wishes and dreams, and by golly it'd be great if we won Vietnam too...oh wait, I was carrying on there...) aren't pertinent, let alone *necessary*, to the scope of THIS article (i.e., the removal of Allende and subsequent establishment of the Pinochet junta, an entirely Chilean affair); what matters are actions.--Mike18xx 08:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This quote from CJK's summary has never been proven: "That option was later turned off by Kissinger who thought it would fail." See United States intervention in Chile.Vints 10:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * As soon as I gut that sucker like a carp in the bottom of my boat tomorrow, you'll no longer have your usual "But this other Wiki clone-entry sez it!" argument to stand on anymore, and you'll have to go do some real work.Mike18xx 10:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have proven you wrong repeatedly before.Vints 10:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure you have.Mike18xx 10:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Your only objection is that the sources are not reliable. Vints 10:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh I said that about that, and that was my "only" objection, eh? I think you have me confused with one of your numerous other critics.--Mike18xx 10:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Given that your objective is "to pillage and destroy facts and history on the internet," ...Vints 16:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * After learning to read attributations, you should start watching more Monty Python to develop an appreciation for "s-s-s-arcasm".--Mike18xx 05:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * And you learning to spell "attributions", what should you do? - Jmabel | Talk 01:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Crucial to proper delivery of an ad hominem grammar put-down is the necessity of making absolutely certain that nothing is amiss with one's own sentence. (Better luck next time.)--Mike18xx 22:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Got me there. One point to Mr. Mike. - Jmabel | Talk 01:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ...I wouldn't be surprised if you rewrote that article too.Vints 16:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Whatever it takes to get the rubbish out.--Mike18xx 05:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for consensus edit
I see this is protected. I would like to reword "Those who opposed Salvador Allende point out that he received less than 1% more of the vote than his closest opponent…" as "Those who opposed Salvador Allende point out that he received a plurality of only 1% over his closest opponent…" Are there any objections? - Jmabel | Talk 07:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Lacking objection, I am editing. - Jmabel | Talk 18:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Protection
What's all the fuss about? I created this article a couple of years ago, as a spin-off from Augusto Pinochet to settle an edit war. Now, we're at war again. Why? --Uncle Ed 14:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Looking through the history, the fuss seems to be over whether there should be more than a paragraph or so on U.S. involvement in Chile. And, apparently, none of the parties to the disagreement have come to the talk page discuss it. - Jmabel | Talk 18:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There should be at least one paragraph, perhaps several. Possibly even a spin-off article on U.S. involvement in Chile or U.S. support for the Chilean coup of 1973. It's the aspect most readers are interested in, because it bears on the question of whether Pinochet did the "right thing" or the "wrong thing" by deposing Allende (the "democratically elected" leader). --Uncle Ed 09:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Creating a spin-off never solves an edit-war; it only multiplies the edit-war by "cell-division", and dilutes and obfuscates the main articles. There are at least a half-dozen articles that should just be merged into Allende and Pinochet main entries (some chapters of which are now longer and more detailed than the alleged independent "main" articles!). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mike18xx (talk • contribs) 5 September 2006.

There is a United States intervention in Chile. Probably the word "intervention" makes for an overly narrow article, though. I'll suggest that be moved to United States involvement in Chile or even Relations between the United States and Chile, because the current title more or less states a conclusion. - Jmabel | Talk 00:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

As for U.S. support for the Chilean coup of 1973: even speaking as a Lefty, I think that is a bit of a red herring. The U.S. government was certainly responsible for the creation of some of the economic circumstances that led to support for a coup in Chile, brought about some of the diplomatic and political circumstances that made it possible, was a cheerleader for the coup, and was happy with the results (obscenely happy, considering that those results included piles of corpses and an end to Latin America's longest-running tradition of democracy), but, still, it would be like writing Season-ticket-holders role in the Yankees winning the World Series. Which is to say, not totally off the mark, but not exactly well-focused, either. - Jmabel | Talk 00:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The reason for the edit war, on the deletion side that is, is because the material removed already exists in its entirety in another article: United States intervention in Chile. The choice would appear to be to leave it at a one paragraph synopsis here, or delete the other article. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 17:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Paragraph 7-12 (starting from "Once it became clear") in section U.S. role in 1973 coup is not contained in the United States intervention in Chile article. CJK's version is also factually erroneous.Vints 05:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The disputed description of the link
The page has been protected because of a dispute between two different ways of describing this link:
 * "which provides documents obtained from FOIA requests regarding the US's support for the coup and Pinochet" or
 * "which provides documents obtained from FOIA requests regarding US attempts to promote a coup in 1970".

The edit summaries are a little sparse in terms of actually discussing this issue. The most substantive is that of Jmabel, who said, in support of the second version, "Pinochet has nothing significant to do with that matter". If "that matter" is the 1970 coup, I'd agree, but the link is not by any means limited to 1970. If you go to the site, you find a list of the materials available there. The list includes:
 * "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Related to the Military Coup of September 11, 1973"
 * "CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet’s Repression: Chilean Secret Police Chief was a CIA Asset"
 * "On 25th Anniversary of Chilean Coup, Documents Detail Abuses by Chilean Military, U.S. Role in Chile" (dated 1998, so referring to 1973 not 1970).

On this basis, I believe the first description quoted above is clearly correct. The documents provided at that site do concern the US's support for the 1973 coup and for Pinochet. JamesMLane 04:19, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * The website mislabels some of the information. The U.S. had no role in the 1973 coup, contrary to rumors. Very Verily 23:30, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Without following up the link, I had made the mistake of presuming that the person who originally added the link had characterized it correctly, that it referred only to 1970, and that Pinochet was therefore a red herring. But, yes, now that I follow the link, it looks like ""support for Pinochet" is a perfectly accurate description of part of what it covers. Sorry, guess I made a mistake, although I will add that it didn't help any that the person who made the change failed to explain the nature of the factual correction. -- Jmabel 07:35, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * Jmabel, I agree with your last sentence, except that the unhelpful behavior came from both camps. On one side, VV kept reverting in support of his position in a good-faith content dispute and gave the misleading edit summary "rv vandal". In doing so, VV was in keeping with the regrettable and widespread tendency, which has been seen in edit summaries by him and in edit summaries by people reverting him, to use "vandalism" to mean "an edit with which I disagree". On the other hand, the anon(s) reverting VV in this instance didn't provide even a misleading edit summary. Which of these objectionable approaches is more objectionable is left as an exercise for the frustrated reader. JamesMLane 10:58, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, I probably more-or-less unconsciously took VV's edit summary at face value, since the other person wasn't refuting it. -- Jmabel 18:47, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * I called the user a vandal because the user is a vandal. I did not call the edit vandalism. The anon user (who logs in as Turrican) in question vandalized my user page several times and then began reverting all the edits I make to various articles. I agree that the trend towards calling good faith edits vandalism is an unfortunate one, which I myself resist taking part in, but this is not such an instance. Very Verily 23:30, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * So am I to understand that when you write "rv vandal", I should never assume that you have reverted vandalism and that you are simply making a disparaging remark about the previous editor? Normally, when I see a remark like that from an experienced wikipedian, I take it as an indication that I probably don't need to look at the edit, as (I'm sure) do a lot of other people. I would say that (1) if you believed that the edit in question was not vandalism, this at least borders on a deliberately misleading edit summary. -- Jmabel 23:51, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * That user vandalized my user page multiple times (see page history of User:VeryVerily or this version) and went through my contributions and started reverting them all. I reverted back with the edit summary "rv vandal", I believe a wholly appropriate description. Maybe you would feel differently if someone called you a "disgusting Nazi", posted implicit death threats, and pasted swastikas on your user page; in that case you get the "WikiLove" award. Not me. And, no, there was no need to look at that edit. If you want to track all the edits recently made to an article, the page history is available, and where I first made the edit in question is documented without allusion to vandalism. Very Verily 00:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that there's a distinction between "vandal" and "vandalism" and that I overlooked that point in characterizing your summaries. I retract my comment to that extent. Nevertheless, "rv vandal" is not an adequate edit summary when it's obvious that there's a good-faith content dispute. Whether or not the anon user was the one who vandalized your user page, even a vandal can make some good-faith edits when not vandalizing. Many people would read your summary the way Jmabel suggests above. I adhere to my view that neither side in the revert war adequately discussed the issues before the page was protectd. JamesMLane 23:57, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I explained my edit when I initially made it. Whether it was adequate is a separate question, but until now it was not challenged except by the vandal. Very Verily 00:09, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The links in question to FOIA contain documentation of US support of an aborted coup in 1970 as well as the 1973 coup. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.197.7.26 (talk • contribs) 11 September 2006. This is a response to a nearly 2-year-old exchange. - Jmabel | Talk 05:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Quotes
The quotations section seems to me to show a strong U.S. (or anti-U.S., or anti-Nixon/Kissinger, or some such) orientation. Given that this is not an article on U.S. involvement in Chile (we have United States intervention in Chile), nor is it Chile under Allende, and given that the U.S. government, while it certainly undermined Allende, was not, according to any widely acceptable account, directly responsible for the coup, there is an awful lot of focus here on U.S. policy and U.S. politicians. Indeed, an uncited Pinochet quote is the only quotation from a Chilean.

The coup in Chile was not primarily an event in U.S. history. - Jmabel | Talk 05:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree totally. Enough of so much POV. Let's get some facts here. Mel Romero 06:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Confusing change, probably should be reverted
Somewhere in the last month (I'm not going to try to track it down):

"Although the wide known support from the CIA, in In the book in which he the dictator General Pinochet recounts the coup (El Día decisivo), General Pinochet he affirms that he was the leading plotter of the coup and used his position as Commander of the Army to coordinate a far-reaching scheme with the other branches of the military. In recent years, however,, several CIA documents have been declassified, revealing that Pinochet was just a part of the coup. Also, high military officials from the time have said that Pinochet only reluctantly got involved in the coup a few days before it was scheduled to occur, and then only followed the lead of the Navy and Air Force, as they triggered it."
 * "the wide known support" is poor English; I'm not sure what it means to say (and at the very least it needs rewording) but as far as I know there continues (somewhat disconcertingly) to be no clear documentary trail for CIA sponsorship of the coup. Certainly the U.S. had put massive economic pressure on Chile; certainly they were involved in the 1970 kidnapping in which Schneider was killed; certainly the Nixon administration was thrilled with the coup and was involved afterward in Operation Condor. There is documentary evidence for all of that, and that makes it all the more notable that there is none for direct support for the coup.
 * "several CIA documents have been declassified, revealing that Pinochet was just a part of the coup" is hopelessly vague. Referring to "several documents" and not identifying any of them is simply not citation.

I'll leave at least a couple of days for someone to try to make this into something intelligible, but barring that I will revert. - Jmabel | Talk 07:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with your opinions, but I think you don't go far enough. This article should be ABOUT the coup (i.e. how it was organized, how it happened) instead it only talks about the situation before and after, and there's remarkable little information on the "during"... needs to be extensively rewriten. Mel Romero 08:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I would be entirely in favor of someone making such additions. Mostly, right now, I'm just trying to stop the article from deteriorating. - Jmabel | Talk 06:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Debate: against the coup
Problems with this paragraph: Gazpacho 18:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * "Of course", "In fact", "critics argue". See Words to avoid and WP:WEASEL
 * "Among the evidence against the coup being an attempt to safeguard democracy and prosperity..." Whose interpretation is this?
 * "the coup was an unprecedented event." What about José Miguel Carrera, Jorge Montt, 1925 Chilean coup d'état?


 * Also you can mention the lists in Chilean coup d'état to support the precedents Mel Romero 12:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Role of CIA
Writing about this coup without including CIA is like writing about Sept. 11, 2001 without Al Qeada. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.188.142.75 (talk • contribs).


 * While I agree that the CIA should be mentioned, and presuming that you meant Al Qaeda, the above is quite an overstatement. Other than fringe theories, there is general agreement that Al Qaeda were the main force that brought about the 9/11 attacks. While the U.S. gov't as a whole did a lot to "make the Chilean economy scream", the precise role of the CIA in the '73 coup is pretty controversial, and the role of the Chilean military in that coup is pretty incontrovertible (whereas claims that the U.S. military was involved in the 9/11 attacks are, again, in the range of fringe theories). - Jmabel | Talk 07:36, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed, at the moment the lede refers to "CIA-sponsored General Augusto Pinochet". I'm not saying that is necessarily wrong, but nothing cited in the article backs it up. - Jmabel | Talk 07:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Still neither substantiated nor removed. - Jmabel | Talk 22:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I've added a pov tag to the US section. There is no evidence that the U.S. government supported the 1973 coup, that is what should be said in that section, as summary. Intangible2.0 08:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Blatant inaccuracies in Casualties section
The subject is the Chilean coup of 1973—not the Pinochet dictatorship of 1973-1989. Therefore, stating that approximately 3000± died in the coup is a complete inaccuracy. Those 3,000 died during the 16 years of the dictatorship (70% of them during the first nine months of the dictatorship), not during the coup itself.

Furthermore, the paragraph stating that "50,000 people died" during the coup is complete balderdash. As anyone who has even a casual knowledge of the Rettig Report and the Valech Report knows, such a claim is completely false. --TallulahBelle 01:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You are right, but if you read the section carefully, you will note that it agrees with your information. In total (according to different sources that differ slightly) only 39 people died in battle or as a consequence of the fighting that day. The rest were casualties that occurred directly as a consequence of the repressive action that followed inmediately. According to most sources, of all the 3,000 people that are supposed to have died during the military regime, more than half the deaths occurred during the first 100 days. I think the wording can be improved, but probably the best solution would be to rewrite the whole section. Your help would be welcome. Mel Romero 01:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Pinochetjunta.jpg
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BetacommandBot 02:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Grow up !
Inserting "interesting" words in place of an individual's name is just vandalism.

We may all have differing views on the rights and wrongs of certain situations (which would be POV if not backed up by references), but that is where it should end.

And is "diaper-rash" really the best you can do?

Not even a pun on the man's name?

Or a witty anagram of the name?

So stop acting like a child who wants attention from his mother. Mariya Oktyabrskaya 18:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Way to go, Mariya!!! Mel Romero 08:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"Quotes" Section
I don't believe this. This is some of the worst POV I've seen in my life. Can we get some quotes from people who actually opposed the Coup? I mean, come on, the people who supported it aren't the only people that exist, you know. Can you imagine if a kid who had to do a report on the Coup for school used this page for info, took one look at the quotes section, and before you can say "unfair propoganda" his essay covers the "vital" points that "Communism sucks", "no-one was tortured under Pinochet" and "Allende was a pig that deserved to die". None of which, in many people's opinion, would be considered true. So come on, let's get some anti-coup quotes as well as pro-coup. 172.143.192.163 17:25, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Opposition to Allende

 * The government's efforts to pursue these reforms led to strong opposition by landowners, some middle-class sectors, the rightist National Party, the Roman Catholic Church (which was displeased with the direction of the educational reforms [2]), and eventually the Christian Democrats.

There's something employed in this paragraph, enumeration, that makes it sound somewhat POV. From the look of it it would seem as Allende had a lot of opposition, but didn't he have the majority behind him? Perhaps it should be mentionned that the upper-class was very small in Chile in that time, and that the lower classes were the huge majority. Also, both the National Party and Christian Democrats take their support from the groups mentionned, so it's a bit futile to include them as well.


 * allende won by with about 30-something percent of the vote, while Christian Democratic candidate Tomic got in the high 20s and had run on a left-wing platform. however this was before the economy started to fall apart in the 2nd and 3rd years of his term. so you can imagine that opposition had grown by that time and as a consequence the Christian Democrats moved to the right and in the end called for the military to oust him and call new elections.


 * voting systems can result in odd results particularly if there are three or more parties standing. A good example is Tony Blair in the 2005 election in Great Britain. About 30% of people didn't bother to vote. Of tose that did (according to wikipedia), 35.3 percent voted for Blair's Labour Party, while about 32.2% voted for the main opposition party, and a further 22.1 percent voted for another opposition party. This results in Blair's party getting 55% of the seats in the parliament, despite overall only about 25% of people voting for him. In multiparty "first-past-the-post" democracies, these things can happen, without corruption. In fact, since WWII no Government in Great Britain has actually had got 50% of the votes cast. So let's not just assume that Allende had no mandate because less than 50% of people voted for him !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mariya Oktyabrskaya (talk • contribs) 04:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * i think that paragraph is a little excessive but if it is trimmed we shouldn't water down the opposition by tarring it as all wealthy interests when it wasn't. J. Parker Stone 02:23, 18 August 2005 (UTC)


 * While Mr. Stone and I are usually very far apart on politics, I think this should stand. Allende entered office with the active support of about a third of the country, the active opposition of another third, and a third in the middle ready to give him a chance. Part of the story of his fall is that the middle third moved variously toward neutrality and toward active opposition: at the end, few Christian Democrats remained in his camp (though it's hard to say how many had moved into active opposition, and they certainly regretted what replaced him). The list here accurately reflects a chronological progression. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:43, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Pinochetjunta.jpg
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— Save_Us _ 229  18:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

in the last paragraph, it's should be its. Also, in a section higher up, "black market" (hyperlinked) should be "black markets" or the sentence should be changed. 128.120.28.196 (talk) 20:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Chile Junta001.jpg
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BetacommandBot 20:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The Henry Kissenger quote probably does more to discredit him than to express support. 128.120.28.196 (talk) 20:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"Left-wing" opposition
One of the subjects of multiple reverts is the passage describing Pinochet's conduct immediately after the coup. Why should we say that he moved to crush "left-wing" opposition? That might be defensible if, for example, certain parties had been outlawed, and their members expelled from Congress, if they were charged with being Communists or Communist sympathizers or whatever. What the paragraph says, however, is that the junta dissolved Congress. Left-wing, right-wing, centrist, all opposition was crushed. Obviously, people on the left were more likely to oppose the dictatorship, but I don't see any justification for specifying "left-wing". We should just say that he moved to solidify his position against any opposition. JamesMLane 05:36, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * concur -- Jmabel | Talk 19:24, Oct 18, 2004 (UTC)
 * You know, now that I look at that passage, I agreed too easily. Although Congress was dissolved, the only parties that were banned were the UP parties, that is those in Allende's coalition. The people herded into the National Stadium were almost uniformly leftists, as were the arrested and disappeared. Pinochet snubbed the traditional conservatives and the Christian Democrats, but he did indeed try to crush the left. There is a distinction here, and it should be made, albeit more clearly than the unclear phrase in the earlier version of the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:58, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)


 * OK, I've taken another stab at it. I'd just prefer to avoid the phrase "left-wing" because I think it might, in some people's minds, marginalize the opposition -- as if, in the U.S., the government had arrested a few leaders of the Communist Party USA. Instead, I've tried to convey both ideas: that Pinochet moved to foreclose all opposition, and that his particular target was Allende's coalition. JamesMLane 06:17, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Much better. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:59, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)


 * people were killed and tortured, you dummy, thats why is called "crushing left-wing oposition". Was the right or centrist wing tortured, exiled or killed?... i think we all know the story. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.113.119.254 (talk • contribs) 23 Feb 2006.

The chilean Christian Democracy was a center party and was persecuted by the regime when its members opposed it, just so you know. 200.83.216.14 (talk) 21:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

deletions
In addition to the massive deletions of sourced material, there is an addition of this unsourced statement (pov) which is not accurate and not supported by the reference. You just threw it there under my reference, but its completely unsourced. You added:  "Their is no evidence the United States engaged in any overt actions that are conventionally defined as terrorism. Most of the claims made by Stohl and a small minority of other historians centers on military training the United States provided to the Chilean Army."

First there is lot of evidence. It might be a matter of dispute but this addition regarding "conventional defintion" is pure OR. And, no, it does not center on military training of the Chilean Army, that is just one small part. There was a whole program put in place with a sizable budget to topple the Allende Govt. If you want to add in these clams you need they need to be verified from a WP:RS. Also, you should get consensus before you make major changes that are contested. You did not do this with the other article, so I hope you will with this one.Giovanni33 (talk) 07:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's the mainstream view. Actually it doesn't belong at all and since it was a cut and paste from the other srticle and wasn't based in reality, I've removed it. --DHeyward (talk) 12:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, its the made-up out of whole cloth view that is pure OR. Now your new claim is that it's "not based in reality." Well, again that is your own POV but please read WP policy on this. I quote: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." See WP:NOTTRUTH Now I see that instead of supporting your claims, you have simply deleted the whole section. This smacks of censorship because you don't agree with the information.
 * Also, to correct you, I wrote this section for both articles. I believe that since WP is not Paper, allows information to exist in more than one place. I'm perfectly OK with cutting it down in size, per consensus, but not with false attribution (you added your claims as if they came from the sources I provided and said nothing of the sort you added), or your own OR/POV.
 * Unlike the other main articles where you are quickly reverted by other editors when you do this, this articles does not have lots of traffic so your blanking and/or insertion of OR may go unchecked for some time, and I can't fix it given I'm on a 1 revert/week parole. Therefore, I've asked a neutral 3rd editor to comment/get involved in this dispute.Giovanni33 (talk) 17:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * They were two separate events. You used information about Allende's election and opposition in 1970 and then tried to pass it off as part of the 1973 coup. It was incorrect and it's an extreme minority opinion. --DHeyward (talk) 18:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, all the information is relevant as it shows in context the concerted attempts to remove Allende from power by the US culminating with the violent coup, which is what it focuses on, and all of which you removed completely with no such discrimination. And, no this is not an opinion, these are historical facts. You keep changing your arguments to remove all this information, but it still comes down to asserting your own unsourced POV, and making large contested changes to the article without first even attempting to seek some consensus. All these practices are in violation of WP norms.Giovanni33 (talk) 19:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Third Opinions
(I'm commenting on both articles here)
 * In general, it appears to me that the material being removed could be more properly cited. It may not be necessary, but I'd rather see, , or complete with ISBN's where appropriate. I don't see one editor or the other being as careful at documenting contested facts as I would be in a similar situation.
 * If I have to vote for one or the other "The evidence that the U.S. instigated or provided material support to Pinochet's successful coup in 1973 is disputed" wins over "There is no evidence that the U.S. instigated or provided material support to Pinochet's successful coup in 1973" It's quite hard to prove a negative, really, but it's quite easy to say something is disputed--without looking at any of the evidence, the latter statement has a very high burden of logical proof that it must attain to displace the first one. A cancelled check from a relative in the U.S. to a coup participant could be evidence--flimsy, unreliable, inadmissable, impeachable evidence, but that's not no evidence.

I'd encourage you both to work with the premise that 1) some people believe that U.S. influence existed, and 2) others strongly dispute that claim. Or perhaps the folks in #1 are viewed as such crackpots that the people who would normally write #2 are too busy laughing at them to actually put anything in reliable sources. It really doesn't matter which--include all the WP:RS evidence, present it in a balanced matter, and give the reader sufficient references to make up his or her mind. Jclemens (talk) 05:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for offering your considered advice to this dispute. I have access to the book so I certainly can beef up that citation with ISBN, etc. It's from a reliable source, a university professor, and I have multiple sources I can add, in fact. What stands out to me is that sourced material being replaced by a completely unsourced statement.
 * I think we should always be guided not by our own POV's but by what the sources are saying. If there are good sources which strongly dispute the claim, this view should be stated, but it should be sourced properly, verifiable with attribution in the language. As it stood, it came off as just this editors POV, and when when it was pointed out, he just deleted the whole thing. This is the same pattern that took place on the other article.Giovanni33 (talk) 06:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Casualties
The most egregious and blatant inaccuracies were in the "Casualties" section of the article. I repaired them. I won't go into a point by point refutation--the very first line, which claimed that over 17,000 people were killed in La Moneda, is a howler: Everyone who's ever seen La Moneda would know that that number is physically impossible. The blatant inaccuracies went on from there.

The inaccuracies were too blatant to be the product of being misinformed: Clearly, there was an effort at disinformation. Distorting the truth doesn't change the truth--it only puts a lie into people's heads.--TallulahBelle (talk) 02:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

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Mass Red/Hard Left POV
This article is so POV it is silly. Even though our first linked source includes the following,

"Regular Soviet contact with Allende after his election was maintained not by the Soviet Ambassador but by his KGB case officer, Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, who was instructed by the centre to “exert a favourable influence on Chilean government policy”. According to Allende’s KGB file, he “was made to understand the necessity of reorganising Chile's army and intelligence services, and of setting up a relationship between Chile’s and the USSR’s intelligence services”. Allende was said to react positively."

There is no section on Soviet/KGB activity under allende. Stephen W. Houghton II 70.150.94.194 (talk) 19:04, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Dubious data about arrested, dead and disappeared
The worst of the military's violent purging from society of thousands of Chilean Leftists and suspected Leftists—by killing or forced disappearance—occurred in the first months after the U.S.-sponsored coup d’état. The military imprisoned 40,000[citation needed]of their political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos was U.S. citizen Charles Horman and song-writer Víctor Jara, and the 70 political killings by the death squad, Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte) in October 1973.

Some 130,000 people were arrested in a three-year period[citation needed]; the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of military dictatorship[citation needed]. Those include the British physician Sheila Cassidy, who later brought awareness to the UK public of human rights violations in Chile. Among those detained was Alberto Bachelet (father of incumbent Chilean President Michelle Bachelet), an air force official; he was tortured and died on 12 March 1974,. The right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio (The Mercury), [16] reported that Mr Bachelet died after a basketball game, citing his poor cardiac health. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured in the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture centre on 10 January 1975.

These paragraphs contain doubtful references on the various petty news stories in the press but disregard the data of the official government comission. I think this incredible and soursless data should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.90.202.77 (talk) 19:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit war
I have restored text that got lost in the recent edit wars, at least text that was properly sourced. I did not restore the below passage as it was tagged as unsourced for 2 years:

The participants in the coup d’état and their civil supporters argue that the deposition of Salvador Allende Gosssens, the elected president of Chile, was essential for preserving freedom, democracy, and prosperity, claiming that the Socialist Allende Government sought to establish a Cuban-style dictatorship that would have destroyed human rights and economic prosperity. Therefore, the forcible, violent deposition of President Allende was a necessary, justified course of action. Right-wing supporters also contend that the subsequent Miracle of Chile economic boom of the late 1980s and 1990s directly resulted from Gen. Pinochet’s economic policies. Countering the right-wing justification, opponents of the coup d’état assert that the succeeding military government was a repressive dictatorship that committed thousands of documented cases of torture and forced disappearance. That Chile had no elected civil government for seventeen years, and, that in the early years of Gen. Pinochet’s dictatorship, unemployment increased, real wages decreased, and the poverty gap between rich and poor widened, decreasing the average Chilean’s prosperity. Later, many right-wing people and organisations, who supported the military coup d’état when it occurred, criticised the Pinochet régime. They considered the Allende presidency illegal, justifying the coup d’état, yet complained that the General did not restore the promised democracy.. Babakathy (talk) 12:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Refutation of source
The cited source is not fact, but opinion. Its sounds very POV.

Ronald Hilton, Chile: The Continuing Historical Conflict, World Association of International Studies, December 22, 1997. Accessed September 22, 2006.

I suggest removing this as it is not fact, my friends , but happens to be one's opinion. Remember To "CYF" (Check Your Facts / Fiction)!   April l809  18:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

name and ranks of servicemen/policemen killed in the military coup
Ejercito Suboficial de Ejército, Ramón Toro Ibáñez, muerto. Sargento 2o. de Ejército, José Castro Nieto, muerto. Cabo 2o. de Ejército, Hugo Mora Narváez, muerto. Cabo 2o. de Ejército, Agustín Luna Barrios, muerto. Cabo 2o. de Ejército, Luis Castillo Astorga, muerto. Soldado Conscripto de Ejército, Sergio Espejo Plaza, muerto. Soldado Conscripto de Ejército, Juen Segura Sepulveda, muerto. Soldado Conscripto de Ejército, José San Juan Naveas, muerto. Soldado Conscripto de Ejército, Julio Antilef Gáez, muerto.

Armada Teniente 2o. de la Armada, Carlos Matamala, muerto. Teniente 2o. de la Armada, Victor Parada, muerto. Suboficial de la Armada, Víctor Constant, muerto. Marinero, Manuel Yañez, muerto. Marinero, Carlos González, muerto. Marinero, Marcos Rebolledo, muerto Cadete de la Armada, Allan Murphy, muerto. Grumete, Moisés Pérez, muerto. Grumete, Juan Núñez, muerto. Grumete, Fernando Montenegro, muerto.

Carabineros Mayor de Carabineros, Mario Muñoz Carrasco, muerto. Capitán, de Carabineros, Héctor Dávila Rodríguez, muerto. Teniente de Carabineros, Ramón Jiménez Cadieux, muerto. Sargento 1o. de Carabineros, José Wettling Wettling, muerto. Carabinero, Martín Vega Antiquera, muerto. Carabinero, Raúl Lucero Araya, muerto. Carabinero, José Apablaza Brevis, muerto. Carabinero, José Maldonado Inostroza, muerto. Carabinero, Juan Herrera Urrutia, muerto. Carabinero, Manuel Cifuentes Cifuentes, muerto. Carabinero, Fabriciano Gonzalez Urzúa, muerto. Sargento 1o. de Carabineros, Anselmo Aguayo Bustos, muerto. Carabinero, Mario Barriga Arriagada, muerto. Carabinero, Pedro Cariaga Mateluna, muerto. Cabo de Carabineros, Orlando Espinoza Faúndez, muerto. --91.205.174.189 (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Removal of POV section
The section "Resistance to the regime" has been removed once again (see this for content: ).

I can't speak for other editors who object to this, but my reasons were as follows: Notmyrealname (talk) 05:54, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Blatant POV pushing as shown by the language (e.g. "left-wing organization" "terrorists" etc.).
 * Virtually all the content relates to the purported activities of the MIR long after the coup. This is clearly not the place for this information.
 * If any useful information is to be salvaged, it needs to be drastically cut down in length to avoid WP:undue.
 * Given the above, it makes more sense to delete the section and replace with the few fragments that are deemed to be appropriate.


 * I disagree to removing the entire section. Perhaps, most of the MIR and FPMR acts in opposition to Pinochet should be placed under Chile under Pinochet, but At least a brief mention of the creation and activities of left-wing guerrillas (perhaps as a consequence of the coup) should be also mentioned here. Likeminas (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok I cropped the section and also moved the state terrorism section to Chile under Pinochet.Likeminas (talk) 14:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Dubious article quality
This article seems to be relatively low quality compared to others of similar prominence. At times the article seems confused and misdirected. It is likely that many cycles of edit wars have done substantial damage to the overall quality of the article, forcing a focus on total nonbias rather than on expanding content and available information.

In comparison, the Spanish language version of this article is much more informative and much better written & organized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.23.79.75 (talk) 15:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Communist dictatorship?
This sentence from the intro doesn't seem to match the source it comes from:

"Chile's military believed that the KGB-allied[1] president Allende was seeking to establish a communist dictatorship, although Allende had not proceed as rapidly as Soviet officers demanded."

The article doesn't say anything about Allende trying to establish a communist dictatorship or the Chilean military believing that he was. It talks about subjects related to the content of this sentence, but the sentence seems to be pretty poorly worded.

I'm not saying such information shouldn't be in the article, if it is true, but this sentence just doesn't seem to match the source it was taken from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.16.234.46 (talk) 12:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It's true, the sentence misrepresented the source. The cited Times article is about how the Soviets did not help Allende because they thought he was weak. I've made an edit accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.6.102.32 (talk) 14:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Nonsense, the times article claims he was all but a direct Soviet asset until it appeared he was destined to fail THEN they abandoned him. Further referenced here- This article is a complete bias by way of omission of Soviet involvement. Not hard to imagine, as a US journalist exposing foreign intelligence escapades on our part could hope for a Pulitzer prize, while his Soviet counterpart could be guaranteed a trip to the gulags. When will you people realize this?Batvette (talk) 12:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

first external link is defect
--88.66.250.250 (talk) 02:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Moshe-paz is making very poor edits bordering on vandalism
He is against the following claim under the heading "Guerrilla Resistance":

The MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria) founded at the University of Concepción suffered heavy casualties in the coup's immediate aftermath, and most of its members fled the country.

Alongside the accompanying primary source to back up the above claim that the MIR fighers largely sought refuge abroad, Moshe-paz inserts the following nonsense:

''This is not true as the MIR was the only organisation that forbids its membres to seek asylum after the coup. They formed the Peoples Resistance movement, its leader Miguel Enriquez lead its resistance and was finally murdered in a shoot out in October 1974, October. In the late part of the 70's a wave of MIR fighters begun to engage with Picochet's security forces and a guerrilla camp was found out in Chiles's south at the beginning of the 80s.By 1984 most of the MIR military fighters were either incarcerated, murdered under tortured, disappeared or killed. In the next years following the struggle for a return to democracy (1984-1989) Chile saw the emergence of the MRPF (Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front) which carried our multiple attacks against repressive membres of the Junta including carrying out the failed assassination attempt against the dictator himself.''

Moshe-paz if you are adamant that US Intelligence got it wrong and that the bulk of the MIR stayed to fight it out in Chile (as you clearly claim), rather than seek refuge abroad, then please desist in inserting the above nonsense beside the primary source that is claiming otherwise. Please back up your claims properly. --Kondorloko (talk) 04:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"US Backed" and/or "CIA Backed"
Before going any further please read the section on the 1973 coup on the US Interventions in Chile page and the section called "US Backed" on the Augusto Pinochet talk page.

A perennial favourite of some editors is to claim the 1973 coup was US or CIA backed. Unfortunately, there is literally no evidence to support this claim. As soon as some actual evidence supporting it (which would also contradict the accumulated 30 years of evidence) is cited, then we can describe it in the terms used in the section header.

The 1975 Church Committee looked at the issue back in 1975: "Was the United States DIRECTLY involved, covertly, in the 1973 coup in Chile? The Committee has found no evidence that it was.source"

The CIA then looked back at the issue in 2000: We find no information—nor did the Church Committee—that CIA or the Intelligence Community was involved in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende.

CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency. In fact, many CIA officers shared broader US reservations about Pinochet’s single-minded pursuit of power.source

The CIA explains that it took care not to be involved with the coup plotters:"The CIA continued to collect intelligence on Chilean military officers actively opposed to the Allende government, but no effort was made to assist them in any way. Some CIA assets and contacts were in direct contact with coup plotters; CIA guidance was that the purpose of these contacts was only to collect intelligence. As coup rumors and planning escalated by the end of 1972, CIA exercised extreme care in all dealings with Chilean military officers and continued to monitor their activities but under no circumstances attempted to influence them. By October 1972 the consensus within the US government was that the military intended to launch a coup at some point, that it did not need US support for a successful coup, and that US intervention or assistance in a coup should be avoided.source"

Furthermore, the CIA explained what the station did exactly on the day of the coup:"On 10 September 1973—the day before the coup that ended the Allende Government—a Chilean military officer reported to a CIA officer that a coup was being planned and asked for US Government assistance. He was told that the US Government would not provide any assistance because this was strictly an internal Chilean matter. The Station officer also told him that his request would be forwarded to Washington. CIA learned of the exact date of the coup shortly before it took place. During the attack on the Presidential Palace and its immediate aftermath, the Station’s activities were limited to providing intelligence and situation reports.source"

OK, so there is very strong evidence from these two sources alone that the US did not do it. What evidence is presented on the opposite side?. In this edit, IP user 70.26.4.90 cites two references:


 * 1) Sept. 11, 1973: A CIA-backed Military Coup Overthrows Salvador Allende, the Democratically Elected President of Chile An interesting link. It literally consists in evidence of the following three sentences: "Sept. 11, 1973: A CIA-backed Military Coup Overthrows Salvador Allende, the Democratically Elected President of Chile. 30 years ago today President Nixon and Secretary of State National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger helped orchestrate the coup that put General Augusto Pinochet in power and President Allende dead. Pinochet would go on to kill at least 3,000 Chileans over the next 17 years."
 * 2) Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973 - National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8 Despite a somewhat 'juicy' name, the webpage itself does not actually contain any evidence to either show that the US involved itself in the 1973 coup. In fact the whole page doesn't prove anything. It's just an advert for a series of documents that relate to either a) the botched 1970 coup attempt or b) the human rights abuses for Pinochet.

So to conclude, lots of evidence saying it wasn't "US backed" or "CIA backed" and no evidence to say it was. Can we please now stop this canard of calling it a "US backed coup"? --yoctobarryc &#8258;  &#x260E; 23:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Errors on the 'suicide' of Allende
In the main wiki, it is said that a revolver given to Salvador by Castro was used in his suicide. However in the link directly posted on that wiki, it is said that he committed suicide with a AK 47 that was given to him by Castro. I cannot correct this as I dont know which post is true, if any. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.149.126.108 (talk) 04:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Article lead is patently false
..."On 11 September 1973, the democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d’état organised by the Chilean military..." -- This is categorically incorrect. The ouster was implemented by the military; it was authorized by the Chamber of Deputies eighteen days earlier (the Resolution of August 22, 1972 AKA The Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile's Democracy). The coup proper, was subsequent, and represented by Pinochet's refusal to return power to the civilian court and legislature (the CoD).Mike18xx (talk) 11:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please don't bring up this issue at every article talkpage it touches on - let's keep the discussion in one place (Talk:History of Chile) and see how that goes. Rd232 talk 11:34, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1211/p00s01-woam.html
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:31:28, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 2
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.latercera.cl/medio/articulo/0,0,38035857_178048856_151840537,00.html
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:31:38, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 3
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.latercera.cl/medio/articulo/0,0,38035857_178048856_151840547,00.html
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:32:18, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 4
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://docs.tercera.cl/especiales/2001/verdeolivo/capitulo01/entrevista01.htm
 * In History of Chile on 2011-03-29 09:26:16, Socket Error: 'getaddrinfo failed'
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:01, Socket Error: 'getaddrinfo failed'
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:32:49, Socket Error: 'getaddrinfo failed'

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 5
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.news.com.au/story
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:33:22, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 6
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.impunitywatch.com/impunity_watch_south_amer/2008/12/index.html
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:33:52, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:35, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 7
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=169298
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:34:34, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:35, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 8
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/1687/History_Chile_1970-73/martires.html
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 410 Gone
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:35:23, 410 Gone

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:36, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 9
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm?report_index=384
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 Not Found
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:35:55, 404 Not Found

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:36, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 10
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://docscanner.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/prisoner-of-pinochet-at-quiriquina-island-2/
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 410 Gone
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:36:36, 410 Gone

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dead link 11
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
 * http://www.mvariety.com/editorialpage/editorial01.htm
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-05-25 04:34:05, 404 NOT FOUND
 * In 1973 Chilean coup d'état on 2011-06-06 15:37:36, 404 NOT FOUND

--JeffGBot (talk) 15:38, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Supreme Court's resolution
The article says: "On 26 May 1973, Chile’s Supreme Court unanimously denounced the Allende régime’s disruption of the legality of the nation in its failure to uphold judicial decisions."

Excuse me, but what judicial decisions did it fail to uphold??? We (meaning, otherwise uninformed readers of this article) would like to know. Clearly more info about this should be added into the article. Thank you. WillNess (talk) 11:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Citing Wikipedia itself
This paragraph:

"While U.S. government hostility to the Allende government is unquestioned, the nature of the U.S. role in the coup is highly controversial. Claims of the direct US involvement in the coup have not been supported by publicly available documentary evidence.[29]"

... has a bad reference, since it just cites another Wikipedia article of the same topic. Bad scholarship. 174.89.158.212 (talk) 01:00, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes
While the WP:SYNTH about laissez-faire is symptomatic of the imperfections of the following text, it could be salvaged. It just doesn't belong here.


 * "During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States put forward strategies ranging from funding political campaigns to funding propaganda aimed at impeding the presidential aspirations of Salvador Allende. Throughout this time, the United States successfully impeded the left-wing parties from gaining power. In the 1958 presidential election, Jorge Alessandri - a nominal independent with support from the Liberal and Conservative parties - defeated Allende by nearly 33,500 votes to claim the presidency. His laissez-faire policies, endorsed by the United States, were regarded as the solution to the country’s inflation problems. Under recommendations from the United States, Alessandri steadily reduced tariffs from 1959, a policy that caused the Chilean market to be overwhelmed by American products. The government’s policies angered the working class, who asked for higher wages, and the repercussions of this massive discontent were felt in the 1961 congressional elections. The president suffered terrible blows, sending the message that laissez-faire policies were not desired. As the “grand total of $130 million from the U.S. banking Industry, the U.S. Treasury Department, the IMF and the ICA” accepted by Alessandri illustrates, laissez-faire policies only made Chile more dependent on the United States.


 * Allende was a top contender in the 1964 election. The US, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), covertly spent three million dollars campaigning against him, before and after the election, mostly through radio and print advertising. The Americans viewed electing Christian Democratic contender Eduardo Frei Montalva as vital, fearing that Alessandri’s failures would lead the people to support Allende. Allende was feared by the Americans because of his warm relations with Cuba and his open criticism of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Furthermore, clandestine aid to Frei was put forward through John F. Kennedy`s Latin American Alliance for Progress, which promised "$20 billion in public and private assistance in the country for the next decade."


 * In direct terms, the United States contributed US$20 million to the campaign, but they also sent in about 100 people with assigned tasks to prevent Allende`s victory. In order to influence the public opinion, the CIA also embarked on a massive propaganda campaign through radio, television, posters, wall paintings, and pamphlets, with a goal of connecting "communist" atrocities to Allende."

Perhaps it could be added to United States intervention in Chile.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 06:47, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

RFC on JTBX's Changes
User:JTBX has made some very odd changes to the lead of 1973 Chilean coup d'état. For example, he has included a one-sided and unsourced discussion of Milton Friedman's subsequent advice to the junta, but doing so appears to violate WP:WEIGHT. He has also rewritten the text to state that the so-called "Miracle of Chile" actually did not occur until after Pinochet left office. Furthermore, he has changed the text about the "extended period of social and political unrest" leading up to the coup so that it now reads "an extended period of social and political unrest orchestrated by the United States". Although the U.S. played a role, no serious historian maintains that there was no internal discontent in Chile (the primary sources cited fail verification): Indeed, the Chilean Congress blamed Allende, not the CIA, for the breakdown in law and order throughout the country! Finally, the current revision implies that the U.S. directly helped Pinochet assume the Presidency (or perhaps even chose him as the best man for the job), which is factually inaccurate. Since JTBX has rejected previous attempts at discussion, is already resorting to personal attacks about my supposed inability to read, and is edit warring; I invite other editors to judge the merits of his revision. Thanks,TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Having recently been unblocked for edit warring with other users and censoring material critical of US policy from Wikipedia, Times is at it again. I have already discussed with him on my talk page regarding his conduct in which he mostly failed to justify himself. I do not wish to take this out of the scope of this RFC but essentially either Times misunderstands Wikipedia policies and tries to "balance" or neutralise articles, or more worryingly has a right wing ideological agenda. In either case most of his editing on the wiki has resulted in large amounts of deletions of sources and policies critical to the US and the restructuring of words. I initially gave Times the example of other articles such as the Prague Spring which is rated a GA class article and has its introduction phrased as "was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union" and yet if these words are included on US related articles Times reverts them constantly while overlooking those critical of others, favouring the inclusion of immature words such as "dictator", "Soviet Empire" etc. Again, this has been pointed out over and over again by multitudes of different users, just look at the pages for Talk:Covert United States foreign regime change actions, Indonesian killings or Vietnam War casualties for example.

Again I did not wish to escalate this out of the RFC and will probably contact Admins regarding this issue as it is becoming serious. Times is constantly on Wikipedia all day and has been following me and other users edits, reverting them just for the sake of it as in the case of The Dark Knight (film) and is worrying me that he is purposely intent on harrassment and using baiting tactics as he has done on my talk page history in order to provoke a response. He has done this other users again and again resulting in the blocking, most recently, of User: Zrdragon12, but the admin unblocked Times because of his "clever" style of appearing neutral. He simply whips out policies (sometimes which are not even wiki policies but essays) at whim to justify himself and instead of discussing runs off to admins as he has done above, to make himself appear to be neutral and acting in the best interest. It is remarkable that someone like him is still editing. I have said most of what I can think of now.

In regards to the introduction of Chile again, it is just a joke discussing it with Times. He has removed cited US declassified documents here while at the same time supporting his right wing friend in adding this disgusting nonsense to the War Remnants Museum article and doing very little (read the talk page of Times and you see that he is very apathetic towards it as it possible leans towards his POV). I mean, do we include Neo-Nazi opinions of Holocaust museums? But he pounces on the opportunity of eradicating and revising history including factual edits critical of the US. I based my intro on 1953 Iranian coup d'état & 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. The conservative congress were backed and funded by the US of course they would accuse Allende while the CIA orchestrates chaos on the ground. Again, why I am doing this apart from justifying my self yet again as on admin's talk pages that Times has run off to, exposing him for the abusive person he really is. Apologies as this belongs on RFC for Users or ANI, but this is the truth and must be brought to light. --JTBX (talk) 05:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Times placed my following response into the above template and my response was : "no its fine, keep this template so that others can see for themselves what you do." JTBX (talk) 06:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Made some changes in regards to Times' points.--JTBX (talk) 21:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to close this if JTBX would accept my alterations as a compromise. But I won't hold my breath.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:10, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Fine with some of your changes, I added Western support since he was also supported by Britain for example, but I might remove it because the sentence does not flow correctly, the whole intro needs to be restructured to reflect that these are puppets of Western power and as such kept in power. These dictators are usually not dominos that the US flicks over and lets run, but are controlled all the way through as in the case of East Timor. --JTBX (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

We barely got through the intro of an article together without an RFC because you kept reverting and pushing it in regards to WP:OWN, I compromised and so now I am wrong? *claps* --JTBX (talk) 04:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Infobox military conflict
I find it a little morbous to use this infobox for the coup de etat, but any way, use it if you can't do it better. But I can't accept to write that: I deleted such non-sense and hope for an explain before my changes are reverted. --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 13:53, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The Unidad Popular was a military Unit (is the Republican Party of the USA a Terror Organization?)
 * Orlando Letelier was a military leader (belong G.W.Bush to Navy Seals Team 6?)
 * The CIA has fighting troops in Santiago
 * Ariel Fontana (who is that?) was a military leader in Chile

I deleted the infobox because the "battle" at the Moneda was important but the true importance of the coup de etat was a political one. From a military point of view, the "battle" at la Moneda was a skirmish and the article doesn't deal with this issue. --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 12:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

What is this article about?
I think this article should deal about the events on 11 September 1973 and some others directly related to them. About the total number of desaparecidos, killed and arrested is the article Chile under Pinochet, Rettig report and Valech report. Also the events occurred later (Neltume?) should be written at another places. --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 09:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Casualties
In my opinion this is not a scientific based article. How is it possible to just count the dead of the military junta with number precision but just mention that some hundred detainees were killed???. In my opinion the people/person behind this paragraph are/is a pro-Pinochet american. Just see the use of words like: "... counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia" this a disgusting use of american propaganda terms: "counterinsurgency", do you mean people defending the democratic elected president were "insurgents"??. If the article has to mention : On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old Army Corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, why not mention the name of the people that died defending the democratic elected government. This is just a way to create heroes from only one side.

Terms like "counterinsurgency" or another like "contractors" instead of "mercenaries" are words with ideological undertones.

A lot of absurdities are smuggled in this non serious article: As an example this piece of information extracted from a dubious source: the Chilean security forces sustained 162 dead in the three following months as a result of continued resistance....

If this is the case how could an ill armed and with few members resistance (compared with the thousands of soldiers in the Chilean army) kill exactly 162 soldiers but almost no war casualties from MIR and GAP? (Not only MIR and few GAPs resisted, many socialists and communists resisted and were killed too.

Whoever wrote this passage has NO IDEA how the situation was during the days after the 11 of September of 1973. Most of the documents and graphic documentation from the days around the coup and the 16 years of dictatorship are still today 2013 not entirely free of censorship. If you doubt please read the book: “La danza de los cuervos” by Javier Rebolledo published only 2012. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.103.36.0 (talk) 20:50, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

9/11/2001 reference
What is the point of the reference to the September 11th attacks in the lead? I do not see the relation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamjp180 (talk • contribs) 04:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see a reference to the September 11th attacks in the lead.  What is striking is the odd use of '11 September' (date, month, year) format throughout this article.  This contrasts the standard 'September 11' (month, date, year) format used predominantly in Wikipedia.

It is almost as if some editing was done out of concern that some people might believe the September 11th attacks were chosen with this 1973 date (and US involvement) in mind. Seems like a silly concern and a silly remedy for such a concern. 70.171.44.124 (talk) 06:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)BGriffin
 * As far as the British use is consistent (DD MM format), there should be no problem. This format resembles more the Spanish-language use of dates (11 de septiembre). Küñall (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Has no connection with the Cold War
The burden of proof is on those who assert Cold War connection. None exist.

Alleged Cold War links
MasterCell has repeatedly deleted my contribs to this entry, claiming that there was "original research and speculation from lead; sourced viewpoints could potentially be elaborated, but not editorialization". The issue is very simple: as it stands today, the entry links the Chilean coup only to Cold War concerns. This is editorialization. I am not removing this point of view, but simply stating that there are other views, that the Cold War explanation is not unanimous. What right do you have to remove a point of view and establish only one view as true?

Here is my original text, which comes right after the third paragraph of the text ("It has sometimes... geopolitical impact"). I would not like to act as MasterCell has and impose the information I see as fit. But how is this going to work? Is it going to become an undo|do war? I'm not willing to take part of this ridiculous ritual. My point here is that claiming that the Chilean coup was part of a Cold War conflict is not an exempt opinion. If you leave it as it is, you are editorializing the entry. The least that should be done is to offer all takings on the topic.

Here is the paragraph:

However, the claims that Chile's democratically elected socialist government was within the Soviet realm of influence are often questioned as part of the justification of the coup, since they place the Chilean conflict within a broader "Cold War" (East-West) dispute – which softens the idea of overthrowing Allende –, while removing "North-South" connotations to the conflict – that is, the idea that U.S. corporate interests (which were affected by nationalizations) may have been a driving force of the United States' foreign policy. 189.10.1.164 (talk)

Archived

 * Talk:Chilean coup of 1973/Archive 1, mostly about (1) a much earlier state of the article and (2) the 1970 Chilean presidential election, now a separate article.

U.S. role
The only way we are going to NPOV this is to cite (conflicting) sources and indicate what they say. Right now we refer to documents declassified in particular years, but don't cite documents in any useful manner. I hold no brief for how the U.S. behaved: they certainly welcomed the coup, doubtless played a major role in creating the circumstances that led to a coup, and probably in some degree backed the coup materially, but it's a controversial matter and we should have better documentation (including any appropriate documentation of contrary beliefs). The fact that an article leans toward one's own views in a controversial matter shouldn't reduce one's standards of proof.

On the basis of what is present in the section "US role in 1973 coup", I think the wording in the lead overstates the case. The lead says, "the Chilean armed forces, with the backing of the US government, overthrew... [Allende]]". The section "US role in 1973 coup" suggest thats this may be too strong a wording. -- Jmabel 21:22, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest that a prerequisite for such additions is that users such as 172 and VV grow up and start behave as adults. There is little use in serious contributing to these articles as long as these editors cut away whatever they feel damage their propagandist agenda. /Tuomas 14:17, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

capital flight
In many of the histories I've seen of Chile, it's said that during the Allende years one of the chief causes of economic problems was the flight of foreign and domestic capital to other countries following the beginning of the reform programs. This was both the natural capitalist response in order to maximise profits and also a concerted effort to destabilize the country along the lines Kissinger discussed. However, I don't have references or in-depth knowledge. This is not discussed in any of the relevant articles: History of Chile, Salvador Allende, etc. Does anybody have information on this topic? Thanks! DanKeshet 20:37, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Good catch, Dan! I brought this up once, but I don't remember if it was a talk page comment or an article edit. We should definitely mention the effects of capital flight on the Chilean economy in the 3 years leading up to the coup of 1973.

Have any economic or political scholars discussed this issue? Has any "capitalist" said something like the following? Or have any socialists blamed foreign investors?
 * Serves him right, that no good Allende, for trying to steal from the rich (copper mine nationalization) and give to the poor (socialism).
 * Those greedy capitalists deliberately sabotaged the Chilean economy just to make an excuse to have a coup and throw out Allende. Everything was going fine until then.

It probably is not as simple as "Nixon got the CIA to overthrow Allende so his buddies could get rich". On the other hand, if that's a popular viewpoint, than that POV should go into the article. --Uncle Ed 22:35, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

...and other matters
I've probably done about all I will in this article by way of major additions for a while, although I do still plan to look over Allende's response to the August 22 document and see what can be used.

Here's what I'd urge someone else to take up next:


 * 1) I think the now-separate article about the 1970 Chilean presidential election needs more material on the various efforts to prevent Allende taking power, and this article then needs to give a quick summary of that
 * 2) I agree that capital flight should be discussed, as should more specific accounts of Allende's economic policies.
 * 3) We could use more on agrarian reform.
 * 4) We could probably have more on the various street demonstrations and the gradual break between the elected government and the military. After all, that's a big part of the story of the coup.
 * 5) Closely related, we should have more about the accelerating cycle of violence by the radical left and right. There were a lot of political assassinations in this period, and they are not yet covered in the article (nor is there an account of the appalling murders in the immediate wake of the coup, when tens of thousands were herded into the soccer stadium and thousands were killed, among them Victor Jara.

Thanks to Baloo rch for turning up multiple useful documents. -- Jmabel 23:24, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

Citation on US involvement in coup
From a review of The Pinochet File in Foreign Affairs:
 * But what is very clear in all of this is that the coup in Chile is exactly what Kissinger's boss wanted. As Nixon put it in his ineffable style, "It's that son of a bitch Allende. We're going to smash him." As early as October of 1970, the CIA had warned of possible consequences: "you have asked us to provoke chaos in Chile. ... We provide you with a formula for chaos which is unlikely to be bloodless. To dissimulate the U.S. involvement will be clearly impossible."

-- Viajero 00:14, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Recent insertion of POV
The recent edits by User:200.68.31.209 strike me as little but insertion of POV. I am inclined to revert them all, but as a major author of this inevitably controversial article, I'm hesitant to unilaterally prevent other voices. Do others agree with me on reverting this? Do you see anything in these edits worth salvaging? Maybe some additional content for the section on what was believed by supporters of the coup? -- Jmabel 05:11, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe his edits, or a substantial share of them, in this and correponding articles could be rephrased in wikipedia weasel term style. Of course it would have been much better if that pov could have been given references and quotations, but that might be too much to ask for - initially. /Tuomas 06:19, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I gather this is sarcasm, but I'm not sure what your point is. Again, I'd have no objection to expanding the section on what was believed by supporters of the coup, but permeating the article with POV is another matter. There is probably at this point a slight bias (in selection of material) in favor of Allende, and I'd love to see it balanced better, but by adding relevant material, not by slanting the writing. -- Jmabel 06:39, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Of course it was POV, of the ugliest nature, and I have removed it. --Cantus 06:24, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"even though"
The reason I took "even though" out of the sentence re: the CIA paying the coup officials is because there is no evidence that the CIA was opposed to the torture as "even though" implies. "because" would be a much better connector. The CIA (and the US generally) "established the conditions" for the coup; they gave quite a bit of aid to the military generally (meaning they know who they were), and they generally praised it. Their School of the Americas has taught many "anti-torture" classes on torture techniques among Latin American torturers. There is no reason to infer that they were opposed to the torture. DanKeshet 15:15, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * The even though alludes to the supposition that the CIA perhaps should not have worked with contacts with human rights problems but did anyway. Because is ridiculous. And yes of course they were opposed to torture; don't be absurd. The use of such contacts was a subject of fierce debate back then. V V   20:00, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

broader U.S. reservations?
I removed this phrase:
 * and in fact that many CIA officers shared broader U.S. reservations about Pinochet's single-minded pursuit of power.

Yes, I know it is on the first page of the report. What "broader U.S. reservations?" Can someone substantiate this vague statement? -- Viajero 05:44, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * The text merely states what the report concluded, which is useful information. Anyway, it's clear what it means, no? V V   05:59, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * It probably means "Pinochet sure is useful to us but he's going so far that we'll look bad if some of these facts come to light." JamesMLane 06:37, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Global recession
The article doesn't really mention the global recession/oil crunch at all - it mentions the hyperinflation in Chile, but then doesn't say that there was global (near) hyper-inflation at the time. I don't know if it's relevant (don't know enouygh about the Chilaen exposure to oil in 1972) but surely it's relevant.

Edit wars
Can we please try to use the talk page to sort out the various matters that keep going back and forth instead of engaging in edit wars? It looks to me like we have consensus now on one passage, at least among those of us who bother to state our views rather than make uncommented edits, or edits that are justified only by their view of the character of another editor.

One passage in the article as it stands at this writing says, "His personal doctor said that he committed suicide with a machine gun given to him by Fidel Castro, and an autopsy labelled his death as suicide, while others insist he was murdered by Pinochet's military forces while defending the palace." This breaks down to several assertions: I also suspect there is more to say in the matter, like whether the autopsy was performed by anyone who should be considered a trustworthy source and whether Allende's doctor (1) made this statement on the basis of first-hand knowledge or just hearsay (i.e. did he actually see the death scene and/or the body) and (2) made this assertion in a context where he could be presumed free of coercion.
 * 1) "His personal doctor said that he committed suicide": I'm pretty sure I've seen this from an entirely reliable source, though citation would be welcome.
 * 2) "His personal doctor said that he committed suicide with a machine gun": I believe this, too, is true. Again, citation would be welcome.
 * 3) "His personal doctor said that he committed suicide with a machine gun given to him by Fidel Castro". Well, I believe he did indeed own a machine gun given to him by Fidel Castro, but I don't believe his doctor said anything about that being the machine gun with which he killed himself. I'd want to remove this assertion unless it can be cited.
 * 4) "an autopsy labelled his death as suicide": I believe this is true. Again, citation would be welcome.
 * 5) "...while others insist he was murdered by Pinochet's military forces..." Certainly a true statement, but citations of who says this would be in order.

Clearly there are other passages at issue. I'd welcome similar summaries of what is at issue on the others. This matter should not be settled by who has the most endurance at reverting edits. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:41, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)


 * Just to note, most of the revert warring is due to the user Turrican, who is anonymously reverting edits of mine largely at random as well as (formerly?) vandalizing my user page repeatedly, all with personal attacks. One of his IPs was blocked, but he switches to others. Just revert him on sight. The information about Fidel Castro needs to be cited and possibly clarified by rephrasing, but what is there is fairly sound. I agree the additional information you seek would help as well. Very Verily 23:49, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * As is evident from my most recent and somewhat bilious edit summary, I agree wholeheartedly with Jmabel. I do not agree with "revert him on sight" as a policy. VV has a pending arbitration request re Turrican, but until the ArbCom acts, neither VV nor anyone else is authorized to declare that Turrican is a free-fire zone and his edits can be reverted without being read. JamesMLane 00:11, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I imagine you might feel differently if this was done to your user page. Also, all of his edits for quite some time have just been reverts, usually of me. And yes I can revert him, it's a wiki. Very Verily 08:34, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Back on that "personal doctor" thing
I've edited slightly (per discussion above) and cited some sources, but where exactly does the vague, uncited claim, "His personal doctor said that he committed suicide with a machine gun" come from? Róbinson Rojas The murder of Allende available online but published in 1975 by Harper and Row says Allende's personal doctor was Enrique Paris. Is this in dispute? Rojas gives an account of Allende's death as murder, not suicide, with Paris supposedly arriving moments later.

I'm not saying I unquestioningly trust Rojas's account, I'm just saying it casts doubt on our statement about what Allende's personal doctor may have said, so I would really like to see a comparably respectable citation for Wikipedia's version: I've looked, and I can't find a thing. (BTW, Paris himself appears later to have been arrested and killed ; his son, who has the same name is still alive, so be careful in any checking of sources to know which one is meant). -- Jmabel | Talk 05:52, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

One of his doctors, Patricio Guijon, was found with the body by the military. According to the witnesses, Allende had ordered a capitulation, and he stayed at the end of the line of the people leaving, entered to the independence hall and commited suicide. Only Dr Guijon came back after noticing that Allende was not there, and found him dead, with the gun between his legs. For a long time his was the only account, apart from the autopsy, that he had commited suicide. Another doctor from the group, Jose Quiroga, revealed in 1988 that he had also witnessed the suicide, as told in a couple of paragraphs here and here. On september 11 2003 he said in another interview that there were a total of six witnesses to Allende's suicide, that they saw him through the smoke and the antigas mask. And that they didn't say anything because they thought it was important that Allende was considered to have been killed by the military. The interview is in Spanish, in a Los Angeles newspaper La Opinion No serious person talks about Allende being directly killed by the military anymore. --AstroNomer 15:35, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

POV again
Johdl, who has obviously done a ton of research, recently added a large amount of generally good material to this article, his/her first contribution to Wikipedia, at least under that name. Unfortunately, a lot of his/her writing was very POV; I'm trying to remove the more blatant POV sentences (which mostly just overtly restate in POV terms facts that speak for themselves). -- Jmabel | Talk 00:43, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Factor out Chile under Pinochet?
A lot of what Johdl has written seems to cover a much broader historical period than the coup itself. We've been slowly accumulating a lot of material on the history of Chile (here and elsewhere, including -- surprise! -- History of Chile). Maybe the time has come to do a proper article series on the History of Chile, as was earlier (prematurely) proposed? If so, a lot of this would probably move to an article on Chile under Pinochet or some such, because it's not really about the coup. Johdl, if you are checking this page, would you agree to that? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:43, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * And some of this probably belongs in a new article Chile under Allende, too. Which is to say, there is a lot of good material here, but it doesn't all belong in an article on the coup itself. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:56, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

I have fixed the Debray reference, I am assuming that is the only one I omitted? I checked the references fairly carefully (I added quite a few) and I must have failed to see the reference in the text and thus deleted the reference (because I thought it wasn't referred to in the text).

I am happy with the stuff I have added. You are free to delete the section "Chile under Pinochet" if you don't think it's relevant to this article. You can place it somewhere else or delete it altogether if you wish.

I would appreciate if you left alone the paragraphs I have added in the other sections. I added a bit about Chile under Frei throughout the article because what happened under Frei was directly relevant to what happened to the economy under Allende. I have also added a bit to the section on US involvement. If you want to change some of that I don't mind you doing so, but I'd appreciate it if we had a discussion about what you want to change before you change it. I referred to a couple of the documents Clinton released which were not previously referenced in the article.

Let's have a discussion about what you want to change. I have directly quoted Karamessines and Kissinger. I think these cables proves that the US was plotting behind the scenes for a coup to happen (was it Karamessines who said it is essential that the US Government's role be well hidden?).

As for the references, as far as I know there are none missing (now that I have fixed the Debray reference as requested).

Regards. Joh.


 * Much of the material in this article clearly doesn't belong here. Discussion of post-coup Chile is appropriate only to the extent that it represents the "mopping-up" phase of the coup, including the arrests of the junta's opponents and the dissolution of Congress. I suggest that the rest be moved immediately to History of Chile (with, of course, a wikilink here). Similarly, the lengthy discussion of the Allende years doesn't belong here. What's appropriate is a much shorter section that would give the highlights of the origins of the opposition to Allende. We have an article on Salvador Allende, although that should be primarily a biography and most of the information about the government's policies during the 1970-73 period should also be moved (initially) to History of Chile.


 * There would then be the separate question of whether History of Chile was getting long enough to justify spinning off daughter articles to cover some of the particular time periods. As matters stand, History of Chile has fairly detailed sections on History of Chile and History of Chile; much of what's in this coup article unnecessarily duplicates the information there, e.g., the involvement of the Chicago School economists and the results of their policies. JamesMLane 06:21, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've agreed that the Post coup section can go. I will remove it as soon as I finish typing this message. I disagree about removing the discussion of the Allende years. You say it doesn't belong here, I disagree, because it is directly relevant to why the coup happened. It should stay in the article, otherwise you end up with a short article about the coup itself and no explanation of what led to it or what the conditions were that led to it. I am off to delete the post-coup stuff. It can go elsewhere, but I won't touch the information that directly refers to the reasons for the coup happening. That is necessary background to the reason this article exists in the first place. Regards. Joh.

OK I have removed the Post-coup section from this article. With it goes the following references: Roberts, Valdes, Contreras, Remmer, Sznajder, Petras & Vieux, Schatan, and Christian. I won't touch the article again as I am happy with its contents. If you want anything else removed let's discuss it. Regards. Joh.


 * By saying remove from the article, I certainly didn't mean remove from Wikipedia. Give or take some too-POV wordings, this is good stuff. It just needs to be factored out to a more appropriate place. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:50, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've now moved it all to Chile under Pinochet -- Jmabel | Talk 07:04, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)


 * With regard to the post-coup material, I completely agree with preserving it, and I think Chile under Pinochet is a good way to go. As for the pre-coup period, I agree that the scene has to be set, but what we have is too detailed. Much of it would belong either in History of Chile or in a new daughter article, Chile under Allende. I set up a sandbox to facilitate the process of keeping the basics necessary for this article. You can see it at User:JamesMLane/Temp:Chilean coup. I began by copying the material now in the section on "Situation before the coup" in Chilean coup of 1973, and then editing it, so you can see what I did. Even with these cuts, I think it may be too detailed. I'll try to revisit it and see how it looks when I'm not immersed in it, but in the meantime, everyone is invited to edit it or to discuss it. JamesMLane 08:59, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm probably going to trust others to work out this scene-setting part unless I'm explicitly asked for my help. Just remember to move/copy references in parallel with moving/copying other material. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:51, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Summarizing my edits downstream of Joh
I've made a number of edits. I don't think any of them are drastic. I've kept 100% of Joh's citations. Mostly I have:


 * 1) Rearranged so that overview statements come at the start and end of sections
 * 2) Tried to remove phrases and sentences that do nothing but add POV (e.g. "It is important to note that...")

At this point I am pretty happy with what we have (with the one exception about Debray, noted below), although I suspect that some people well to my (and, I presume from his choice of sources, Joh's) political right are going to want to add information from some different sources. Again, more of this may eventually end up summarized here and rendered in full elsewhere: that's part of the usual process of growth of an article. This article has now had at least two good articles factored out (1970 Chilean presidential election and Chile under Pinochet). -- Jmabel | Talk 07:55, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Regis Debray
The thing here that most gives me pause in terms of POV is the paraphrase of Regis Debray, a very partisan source. I'd rather see a direct quote (or even an indirect quote) from Debray, explicitly presented as such in the article, rather than paraphrasing him in the article's narrative voice. Joh, is there one single apropos quote from Debray that says most of what you use here (I notice your reference has a single page number, so I'm hopeful). If not, we can use indirect quotation style. Either way, it should be made clear that terms like "organised financial panic" and "terrorism" (this last being a word we usually try to use very sparingly) are Debray's, not those of the narrative voice of the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:55, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Debray removed
OK I deleted that whole paragraph (and the reference). I also have a copy of Allende's first speech to the Chilean parliament after his election (speech was 21 May 1971). If someone wants to format it and post it in the history of Chile section you are welcome to do so. You can find a copy here...

Inaugural speech and other Allende-years matters
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ftr/allende_speech.html

It's on the public record in Chile so there should be no problem posting it here. There is no copyright for it. I copied it word for word from a 30 year old pamphlet in the University library a couple of years ago.

Regards. Joh.

Jmabel | Talk 23:06, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * Joh, thanks for just removing that, it probably will make all of this less contentious.
 * 1) The speech would be more appropriate for Wikisource and/or source.wikipedia.org, and any mention of it probably belongs either in the article 1970 Chilean presidential election or the new scene-setting one JamesMLane has started (which I'd suggest titling Chile under Allende by analogy to the Chile under Pinochet that I just started with your material). You might want to take a look at the second link in section Chilean_coup_of_1973, which links to my translation of Allende's last speech.
 * 2) By the way, the easiest way to sign your comments here is with ~, which will add your username (linked to your user page) and a timestamp. Makes it clearer what's going on.


 * I agree about putting the speech on Wikisource. Just to clarify, my sandbox at User:JamesMLane/Temp:Chilean coup isn't intended to be the new article. It's my first draft of the "Allende years" section of this article. That's why I cut out some detail. My suggestion is that the sandbox or something like it be substituted into this article. The full level of detail about 1970-73 from the current version of this article would be preserved, but in a separate article. Most of it would be in History of Chile or, as Jmabel suggests, at a new article called Chile under Allende. For the specific election information, like the table of votes, 1970 Chilean presidential election would be a more appropriate place. JamesMLane 01:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've created that Chile under Allende article with material from here, so people can feel free to edit down in this article. Please don't remove from this article any of the material about Congress's accusation and Allende's response: that is directly germane to the coup, and the Chile under Allende article merely summarizes it and refers to this article as the main place it is covered. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:44, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Similarly, I have copied to U.S. intervention in Chile all of the relevant information from this article; I've also organized it a bit better there than it was here. I am pretty certain that my copy was without loss of information, but I might have missed something. Feel free to check on me! In any case, the intent is that information about U.S. involvement that might exceed what is relevant to this article on the coup can be edited down without any fear that it will be lost to Wikipedia. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:11, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Links
I added a link on the page to the wikisource article containing the May 1971 speech to Congress. I also added it on the Salvador Allende page. If you notice a few edits, it was just me trying to get the link working. For some reason it took a few attempts. Anyway, the link is working now. I also borrowed some of your links from this page and added them to the wikisource article.

I also added full given names in the references section for those whose full names I could find (replacing the initials).

Regards, Johdl 22:19, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

grammar
A recent edit by User:Trey Stone ended up with a sentence beginning "Later, Kissinger The CIA provided funding and propaganda support to political opponents..." I'm not sure what he meant here, so I can't fix it. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:58, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Opposing views of the coup
While some of User:Martin Wisse's recent edits to "Opposing views of the coup" may be legitimate, others are clearly blatant POV. We can not, in the narrative voice of the article, call a view "ridiculous and hypocritical". If this came from an anonymous user, I would simply revert without reading more closely. Also, why single out one particular victim just because he happened to be a U.S. citizens? Martin, can you please re-read what you wrote and see if you can do an NPOV version of your recent work yourself? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:31, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

I took the "ridiculous and hypocritical" line from the previous version of the article. I'm not sure I agree with your view that the narrative voice of an article should not call something this if it is ridiculous and hypocritical, but neither am I opposed to making it clearer this view is of course held by the coup's critics and opponents.

The Charles Horman article was linked to because it was a clear, well known example of the consequences of the coup, making it somewhat more immediate.

I myself do not find my altercations to be non-NPOV and made them because I felt the previous version of this section was too mealy mouthed, too much "he said, she said" rather than NPOV, making it look as if the arguments by the coupists and their opponents have equal weight, when they in fact pit hypothetical dangers against actual facts. --Martin Wisse 21:41, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Who backed Allende?
So we know what branches opf the army and police backed Pinochet. Who backed Allende? &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ksenon (talk • contribs) 21 Jan 2006.


 * investigations school, that was the last one who stayed with Allende. Also, with Allende was the GAP, who acted as their personal guard. Other groups that have no affiliation with Allende, but were leftists (although trotskist) were MIR, VOP and later the FPMR in the 80s &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.113.119.254 (talk • contribs) 23 Feb 2006.