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The truth about Pinochet did for Chile is this:

• Salvador Allende and his Marxist-Communist coalition party Unidad Popular, employing massive electoral fraud and with financial backing from the Soviet Union, barely squeaked out a plurality of 36 percent in Chile’s 1970 presidential elections.

• With an army of some 14,000 foreign Communists, Allende began to transform Chile into a totalitarian dictatorship.

• Allende’s administration was thoroughly packed with Cubans, Soviets, and other international Communists.

• In short order, the Allende forces had looted the treasury, destroyed the economy, illegally expropriated thousands of private farms, homes, and businesses, and unleashed a wave of terror.

• Chile’s judiciary and legislature, as well as prominent leaders of all sectors of Chilean society, repeatedly condemned Allende’s actions and called upon the military to intervene.

• The Pinochet-led coup was supported overwhelmingly by the Chilean people, who also voted to approve the new constitution offered by the junta.

• Documents and arms captured when Allende was overthrown on September 1l, 1973, proved that Allende was planning to stage his own coup on September 19th, and to slaughter his opposition.

• The international Communist apparatus has continued an unceasing war of terrorism, subversion, and propaganda against Pinochet’s Chile ever since.

• The Pinochet junta reacted with remarkable restraint toward its violent opponents.

• The Pinochet junta has never received credit for the peace and freedom it delivered to the Chilean people, or for the marvelous economic and social reforms it accomplished.

• President Pinochet, as he promised, voluntarily stepped down from power, returning the reins of government to civilian control, after establishing stability, security, and constitutional reform.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/09-13-99/vo15no19_pinochet.htm

I, for one, did not ever endorse the Allende regime or say that an overthrow of Communism was a bad thing. What I do not support is the hero worship of a man who ALSO suspended the constitution and either turned a blind eye to or willingly agreed to summary executions without benefit of the rule of law.

Typical mob-justice on this thread that anyone who disagrees and states an opinion immediately becomes the enemy. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Some of us would rather the Pinochet regime had been a bit more law abiding while stamping out communism.