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Chilean Communist Party to Sue the US
The Chilean Communist Party will file a lawsuit against the United States on charges of covert intervention in Chile's internal affairs during the 1970s, the local newspaper El Mercurio said Tuesday.
Chilean Communist Party Secretary General Gladys Marin said the United States was directly responsible for the 1973 military coup which toppled the socialist President Salvador Allende.
"It was not a spiral of violence within Chile that led to the overthrow of the Allende government. It was the decision by a foreign power to intervene and to overthrow an elected government, with all the consequences that this decision has had," said Marin, who met last week in New York with lawyers from the Association of American Jurists, who told her there were no legal obstacles to present the case.
"It is totally possible that we will sue. The case will probably be heard under US jurisdiction, so we will have to be represented by US lawyers," Marin added.
According to Marin, the case will not be filed soon, but will hopefully be heard by US courts before the end of 2001.
Marin announced the new lawsuit following last week's declassification by the US Central Intelligence Agency of some 16,000 documents. The documents detail the involvement in Chile of the US State Department, the National Security Council, and the CIA prior to and during the Pinochet regime.
The papers contain descriptions of the role the US played in attempting to block Allende's rise to power and in destabilizing his presidency prior to the 1973 military coup.
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