Irony, anyone?

Okay, so what is the textbook, classic example everyone thinks of first when they think of a US-sponsored coup in Latin America to install a murderous dictatorial regime?

Hint: Castro told Chavez not to become the assassinated President of this country on the phone during the April 2002 coup in Venezuela.

Hint #2: Kissinger said, about this country: “I don’t see why we have to sit back and let a country go communist just because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”

Answer? The same country that is sending more troops to help the US with its post-coup occupation of Haiti, of course!

Yes, it’s true. Chile, the country that suffered so brutally under Pinochet’s dictatorship, is now sending soldiers to occupy Haiti, or so said Chile’s ambassador to Haiti Marcel Young, today. There are over 300 Chilean troops in Haiti, along with US Marines, Canadians, and French soldiers.

(On the hints: Castro apparently told Chavez ‘No seas un Allende’, or ‘Don’t become another Allende’: Salvador Allende was the president who was murdered during the 1973 coup in Chile — on 9/11, as I’m sure most people reading this blog know. The Kissinger quote comes via Noam Chomsky, of course, so I’m sure most have read that one as well!)

Author: Justin Podur

Author of Siegebreakers. Ecology. Environmental Science. Political Science. Anti-imperialism. Political fiction. Teach at York U's FES. Author. Writer at ZNet, TeleSUR, AlterNet, Ricochet, and the Independent Media Institute.