U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday said her country’s government should declassify documents related to its role in the violent 1973 overthrow of Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, nearly five decades ago.
“It’s very important to frame the history of what happened here in Chile with Pinochet’s dictatorship. And also to acknowledge and reflect on the role of the United States in those events,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in a video conversation with Camila Vallejo, a spokesperson for the Chilean government.
“The transparency of the United States could present an opportunity for a new phase in our relationship between the United States and Chile,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who led a congressional delegation to Chile and other Latin American nations — an effort sponsored by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The Nixon administration was closely involved in efforts to prevent Allende, a democratic socialist, from assuming power in 1970 and in the subsequent overthrow of the Chilean government on September 11, 1973. The CIA has acknowledged that it “actively supported” the viciously repressive military junta led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who was later arrested and indicted for human rights violations.
While some U.S. documents related to the Chile coup have been declassified, Ocasio-Cortez has called for the declassification of “all information” at the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon detailing U.S. involvement in the coup.
In July, Ocasio-Cortez introduced an amendment to the annual U.S. military policy bill that would have aimed to declassify the documents, but the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee blocked the amendment from receiving a vote.
“It’s time for the U.S. to acknowledge its history of contributing to regime change and destabilization in Latin America,” the New York Democrat said at the time. “To reset this relationship, we must take full, public responsibility for our historical role — and demonstrate with our present actions that we will not support human rights abuses.”
Ocasio-Cortez and fellow lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), are now set to travel to Colombia.
In a statement earlier this week, Casar noted that “U.S. foreign policy has too often contributed to instability in Latin America: we should be protecting democracy rather than supporting coups, and we should be creating peace and prosperity across the Western Hemisphere rather than replaying the Cold War.”
“Now is the time to talk about our history, jointly fight the climate crisis, and invest in lasting peace,” said Casar.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.