Latin America remembers Kissinger's 'profound moral wretchedness'

Source: The Guardian

Latin America remembers Kissinger’s ‘profound moral wretchedness’

US statesman’s encouragement of Pinochet’s coup in Chile and his backing for Argentina’s military dictatorship left lasting stain

John Bartlett in Santiago, Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires and Julian Borger in Washington
Thu 30 Nov 2023 20.16 GMT
Last modified on Thu 30 Nov 2023 21.13 GMT

Henry Kissinger’s death has brought out some bitter epitaphs from Latin America where the legacy of US intervention helped saddle the region with some of the most brutal military regimes of the 20th century.

Nowhere has been the reaction been more damning than in Chile, where Kissinger was instrumental in the 1973 coup that led to the death of a democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende and the installation of a dictator, Gen Augusto Pinochet, and his military junta.

Kissinger was a man “whose historical brilliance was never able to conceal his profound moral wretchedness”, wrote Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador in the US, on X, formerly Twitter.

The coup was seen a major victory by Richard Nixon’s White House, but it marked the start of 17 years of autocracy in Chile.

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Original Guardian link (registration required): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/30/henry-kissinger-chile-argentina-south-america