The Other September 11: Chile, Terrorism, & US Foreign Policy
A message from Isabel Allende, followed by discussion with
Chappell Lawson, Elizabeth Garrels, Nyna Brael Polumbaum, Sergio Reyes, & Noam Chomsky
Saturday, October 18, 2003, 1 pm - 6:30 pm
MIT Wong Auditorium (E51)
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After losing elections in 1952, 1958, & 1964, Salvador
Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970. Before he could
take office, the US government, serving the needs of ideology &
business interests, began working with Chilean allies to
destroy the first freely elected socialist government in the
Western Hemisphere. Eventually, the goal was achieved:
on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military led by General
Augusto Pinochet mounted a coup d'état. The presidential
palace was bombed; Allende died; & thousands of innocent Chileans
were then subjected to decades of terrorism and abuse by
the military dictatorship.
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Sergio Reyes was a student activist in Chile during the Allende period.
After the coup, he was imprisoned for four years on Dawson Island, a concentration
camp near the southern tip of Chile. Thirty
years on, he is organizing a reunion of those who were imprisoned with him.
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Elizabeth Garrels is a professor of Spanish & Latin American
Studies at MIT. In the 1970s, living & working in Caracas, she
was a member of the Venezuelan Committee of Solidarity with Chile—part
of a larger network of such committees active around the world.
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Isabel Allende, the niece of Salvador Allende & now
one of Latin America's foremost writers, went into exile
after the coup. Her first novel, The House of the
Spirits, was based on her family experience.
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Nyna Brael Polumbaum is the co-author, with her late husband Ted,
of Today is Not Like Yesterday: A Chilean Journey, which chronicles
the lives of shantytown dwellers, miners, & peasants during the Allende
years & returns after Pinochet's fall to find the same people.
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Chappell Lawson served as Director of Inter-American Affairs on the National
Security Council in the Clinton White House. Now a professor of political science
at MIT, he will review US foreign policy in Chile & in Latin America generally.
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Noam Chomsky is an activist, writer, & Institute Professor
at MIT. Author of numerous books on international affairs, he will discuss
terrorism & US foreign policy in Chile & elsewhere.
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If you are interested in this event, you should know about
a talk on October 22 by Peter Kornbluh, director of the National
Security Archive in Washington & editor of a new book The Pinochet File; & our on-going
photo exhibit in the MIT Student Center.
Our co-sponsors are: the MIT Large Event Fund; the MIT Council for the
Arts; & the Office of the Associate Provost for the Arts.
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