QWhat was the US government's involvement in these events?
AThe US resolutely opposed Allende fearing he was another Castro who would create a Soviet satellite state in Chile and use it to export revolution throughout South and Central America. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger referred to Chile as 'A long thin dagger pointed at the heart of America'. The CIA backed and economically spported the coup and the US, Britain, France and other western powers recognised the Chilean dictatorship and aided it.
QWhat happened afterwards?
AWith the end of the Cold War Chile held a plebecite in 1988, to decide if Pinochet should remain in power. The Chilean people voted 56% to 44% to restore democracy. But Pinochet wasn't willing to leave the power, as his former Junta's members recognize after, and he wanted the militaries on the streets right ahead. Foreign pressure and the fact that General Matthei recognized the triumph of the "NO", forced Pinochet to leave the power, but he will not ceded power unless the condition of a blanket amnesty for the junta's actions during the coup and afterwards. Various attempts were made afterwards by the victims' of the regime and their famillies to bring former members of the dictatorship to trial for their actions but for the most part these have been ineffectual, Pinochet himself dying of natural causes in retirement in 2006.
QWhat is the background to the film?
AIn 1970 socialist president Salvador Allende was democraty elected in Chile. He introduced sweeping economic reforms designed to aid the Chilean poor, forged close links with the communist regimes of Cuba and the USSR. Both the Chilean supreme court and parliament accused him of attempting to establish a totalitarian state and in 1973 Chilean Army General Agusto Pinochet staged a coup, killing Allende and establishing a right-wing dictatorship. Under Pinochet's leadership thousands of left-wingers, sympathisers and anti-military citizens were arrested, tortured and executed or simply disappeared.
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