This story was published between issues of the newspaper on The Virginia Defender Facebook page. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes.

By Phil Wilayto

On Sept. 11, 1973, the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, a Marxist. Then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger oversaw the military coup on behalf of the U.S.-owned copper mining companies Anaconda and Kennicott. Allende was moving to nationalize their Chilean copper mines, reclaiming Chilean natural resources for the Chilean people. Later addressing the fact that Allende had been democratically elected, Kissinger explained, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” (1)

This wasn’t the first the U.S. had engineered a coup against a foreign leader. In 1953 the CIA overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh of Iran who was moving to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, which was largely owned by Great Britain. (2)And in 1954 the CIA coordinated a coup against democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz, who was moving to nationalize lands owned by but not being used by the United Fruit Company. (3)

All three coups resulted in decades of tremendous repression and suffering for the poor and working people of those countries, while ensuring that huge profits poured into the coffers of U.S. corporations.

This history is good to remember at a time when we’re being told the U.S. is trying to “restore democracy” in Venezuela by overthrowing the democratically elected president, Nicolas Maduro, a socialist who wants to use the country’s vast oil resources to benefit its people instead of U.S. corporations.

It’s a system, folks. It’s called Capitalism in its Imperialist stage, and if there’s to be any justice in this world, it’s got to go.