More Victims of US Terror in Chile Identified

Again the media has drawn attention to massive atrocities which the US was directly responsible for and completely leaves out the operative fact of US involvement. A BBC article late last week reported that the "Chilean commission investigating human rights abuses under the former military leader Gen Augusto Pinochet" has " identified another 9,800 people who had been held as political prisoners and tortured" bringing "the total of recognised victims to 40,018." The official number of those killed or "disappeared" now stands at 3,065. A "victim" according to this commission is one who experienced the following under Pinochet:

• Detained and/or tortured for political reasons by agents of the state or people at its service
• Victims of forced disappearances or been executed for political reasons by agents of the state or people at its service
• Been kidnapped or been the victims of assassination attempts for political reasons

The article leaves out the fact that the Nixon administration in 1973 planned, promoted, and financed the coup, going on to help install the dictator Pinochet, where he remained until 1990. The US-orchestrated regime change, and subsequent decades of terrorism on the Chilean people, is extensively documented and widely known about. No matter how busy the media is presently reporting on America'scurrent regime-changes-in-progress, US culpability of past crimes should never be omitted.