Before the twin towers

September 11th is a notorious date for Chileans, but it has nothing to to with New York. September 11th, 1973 is the date of the coup d'état that plunged Chile into nearly two decades of a military dictatorship.

Salvador Allende was the democractically elected president at the time. And he was Socialist. There were some people, including the US government, who didn't like socialism and the changes it brought about to the structure of the state and the economy. Various forces, including millions of US dollars and the presence of the CIA, came together, the democratically elected government was destabilized, and Augusto Pinchet led the junta that overthrew the government on Sept. 11 ,1973. Though given the chance to pre-emptively flee the country, Allende stayed on, and so Sept. 11, 1973 is also the date of his death by self-inflicted gunshot.

The 17 years of dictatorship that followed the coup d'etat were bloody by any account, with many human rights violations, limits on expression and thousands of people that mysteriously "disappeared". Thousands of Chileans fled the country, many to Sweden and Canada, two countries that were the first to welcome Chilean refugees.

Eventually reports of human rights abuse began to attract international attention, and pressure was put on Pinochet to hold a national referendum on whether the dictatorship was to continue, or whether the country would return to democratic rule. With many international observors present, the "No" side won the referendum and the country returned to democractic rule in 1990.

But the dae continues to be one that evokes a lot of emotion amongst Chileans. Every September 11th there is a march to commemorate Allende's death that winds through the city, and ends up in the Cementario General at his grave. The march is not exactly looked upon favourably by the police and the government, and so there are often confrontations between the protestors and the police. And this year was no exception.

Claudia always attends the march, held this year on Sunday the 10th, and I was going to join her. But before we could even leave the house there were reports of violence on the TV, so we decided to stay home, as I didn't fancy finding myself in a Chilean jail. Violent protests in a few neighbourhoods of greater Santiago continued into yesterday.