Posted on 03/16/2013 8:58:15 AM PDT by Parmenio
Chilean film “No” recently vaulted into international consciousness after winning the Art Cinema Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, for its depiction of a plebiscite in 1988, in which General Augusto Pinochet peacefully relinquished his power after 7 years and 6 months as President.
The film generated a wave of international coverage, and brought the spotlight back to the administration of Pinochet, who passed away in 2006. Much of the focus of attention has placed more emphasis on his administration than the film itself.
In 1976, the KGB approved “Operation TOUCAN,” as a propaganda initiative to capitalize on Pinochet’s human rights violations. While an exact number may never be attainable, estimates place the number of extra judicial executions, and disappearances at 3200 during his rule.
The initiative was started as a reaction to the removal of their Marxist ally, Salvador Allende, by Chile’s military. Despite intensive efforts by the Soviet Union to prop up Salvador Allende as a close ally in their global effort to expand Marxist influence internationally, the Chilean military removed him from power for defying Chile’s Supreme Court, and wrecking the Chilean economy after only 3 years and 7 months in power through his drastic Marxist policies. A coup led by General Augusto Pinochet would remove him from power in 1973.
Smarting from the loss of such a staunch ally in South America to compliment Cuba in the region, the Soviet Union’s KGB launched Operation Toucan in conjunction with Cuba’s Dirección de Inteligencia (DI), as a propaganda campaign to influence the media globally and place a spotlight on Chile’s military rule.
After the first year of Operation TOUCAN, a survey of Articles in the New York Times in 1976 reported fully 66 articles focusing on Chile’s human rights record, compared to just 3 covering Cuba’s communist dictatorship, and a paltry four covering Cambodia’s communist Khmer Rouge. In that same year, Pol Pot was in the midst of an atrocious killing spree in Cambodia, responsible for the death of an estimated 1.5 million of Cambodia’s 7.5 million people. Operation TOUCAN worked.
This disparity of coverage from Western media is difficult to explain in the absence of Operation TOUCAN, as deaths under the communist Khmer Rouge regime have been estimated at as many as three million. Even Communist Cuba has been responsible for more human rights violations, and estimates reach as high as thirty three thousand deaths under Castro’s rule.
In 2008, “Che,” a film celebrating the life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, one of Castro’s closest assistants in the Cuban Revolution, received rave reviews from international media, including an award at the Cannes Film Festival, despite the thousands of political executions during the Cuban Revolution. Far from being ostracized by international press, the Castro regime is currently heading the CELAC (a Latin American political body) despite the atrocities its government has committed.
Ironically, the Soviet Union itself far out paced Chile, Cuba, and even Cambodia in terms of human rights atrocities, with estimates of deaths under the soviet empire reaching sixty one million people. Put another way, the organizers of Operation TOUCAN, were responsible for 18,750 deaths for every one under Pinochet’s rule.
Certainly, the tumultuous years under Allende and Pinochet will continue to be of intense cultural relevance, and the cause of much soul searching by Chileans, but one cannot help but imagine the KGB would be very proud of the reaction by international media over ”No.”
The ‘Film Industry” supporting Marxist propaganda. Nothing new to see here.
I’ve heard estimates of Cuba’s atrocities that reach almost 100,000 in total.
Let the left continue to smear Pinochet. Anyone who actually knows the history, can tell you that he was a hero to Chile, whose few human rights abuses were microscopic compared not only to those of communist regimes, but also his Latin American counterparts in other countries like Argentina. Leaders like him are few and far between today.
We can bitch about Hollywood, or we can fight them.
It wasn't just a fight between the military dictatorship and the left. The "no" campaign wooed the middle classes and appealed to Chile's growing consumerism and individualism. That's what they say, anyway. I haven't seen it myself.
You should send this very good idea to Declaration Entertainment.
Ever notice the hate, love, hate relationship between the movie industry and Franco?
Compare the difference.
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.
THE ANGEL WORE RED.
PAN’S LABYRINTH.
Thanks for posting this. I just finished “The Venona Secrets” and, as a follow-on, am reading “Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West.” The first couple chapters are about Willi Muentzenberg, the father of communist propaganda against the west, the protest march, disinformation campaigns, his use and manipulation of what he called “Innocents” (dupes and fellow travellers) and many other soviet instruments of lies and deceit.
I worked in Chile in 1977, just a few years after the military coup, so this story is of personal interest, too. The people I worked with were very glad to have Allende gone.
Although people now commemorate something else on that date, September 11 is the anniversary of one of the turning points of the Cold War—when Augusto Pinochet Ugarte led the coup that overthrew the Allende regime in 1973 and then proceeded to send the Soviets and Cubans packing. For that, the Left will never, ever forgive Pinochet.
Pinochet is a real hero, and not just for Chile.
Saved the country and its future generations.
Nice to see this article. I remember in the early 80s reading some stuff about Chile and then doing some research to figure out what the story was. It was just as reported here - they elected a Marxist that was well on its way towards turning Chile into another Cuba. The military put an end to it, apparently with CIA help, and Communists involved in the effort were rounded up and disposed of.
I also remember, VIVIDLY, Cambodia in 1975. I was young then, but I still could not understand why no one cared. Hell, the KR emptied, completely EMPTIED, their capital city and forced everyone to live in the countryside. But no big deal - why? Because they were not a friend of ours - that was all that seemed to matter. Then in the 80s it was the Philippines and South Africa. Again, countries aligned with us that were the evil of the world. Incredible.
After Obama is done wrecking our country we will need our own Pinochet to straighten things out here.
The irony is that it took the North Vietnamese Army to get rid of the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam was in the Soviet camp, and Cambodia was in the Chinese Camp.
“The irony is that it took the North Vietnamese Army to get rid of the Khmer Rouge. Vietnam was in the Soviet camp, and Cambodia was in the Chinese Camp.”
I remember that too. And for that, they were “thanked” by China by an invasion from the North. Not that I’m a fan of the North Vietnamese, but I loved it when they gave a China a black eye for that stunt.
In any case, people NEED TO UNDERSTAND just who it was supporting Pol Pot and arguably the worst home-grown genocide ever in world history (i.e., their own people taking out one third of the population). They left Hitler, Stalin and the others in the dust.
Despite intensive efforts by the Soviet Union to prop up Salvador Allende as a close ally in their global effort to expand Marxist influence internationally, the Chilean military removed him from power for defying Chile’s Supreme Court, and wrecking the Chilean economy after only 3 years and 7 months in power through his drastic Marxist policies. A coup led by General Augusto Pinochet would remove him from power in 1973.
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