"To see on a piece of paper, for example, the president of the United States ordering the C.I.A. to preemptively overthrow a democratically elected president in Chile is stunning..." Documented the U.S. role to overthrow the democratic government of Chile, and to support the fascist junta.
Letelier described reading the declassified documents and discovering a memo from George Shultz, who served as secretary of state in the 1980s, to President Ronald Reagan.
“[Shultz] informs [the president] that there is a conclusive document from the CIA that shows Pinochet ordered the murder of my father. This is concrete information about how Pinochet covered up his responsibility,” he said.
I am not an expert on Egypt, or Chile – most of my knowledge about General Pinochet comes from a book by a Guardian writer, Andy Beckett. But I know enough that when Margaret Thatcher died, reminders of her enduring support and praise for Pinochet left a nasty taste in the mouth. While people are dying in the streets of Cairo, to read an expression of the same sentiment from a respected, globally-read newspaper is repellent.
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