Havana.  June 26, 2008

Allende: a predecessor
BY NIDIA DIAZ

THE commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Salvador Allende Gossnes’ birth – an outstanding figure in Chilean and Latin American history – offers an opportunity to recount and recall a productive life dedicated to the defense of the popular classes, the independence of Chile and Latin America and to unyielding solidarity with the Cuban Revolution.

Beginning his long career at an early age, the young doctor became minister of health in the Popular Front government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda, representing the Socialist Party, of which he was already an outstanding member.

The contemporary history of Chile, and that of America, could not be written without devoting an important chapter to Allende, since he not only symbolized, but always played a leading role on the front lines of the battle, in action and ideas. Loyal, until the end, to the principles to which he was committed before the working people of his country and the whole world who, with interest and admiration, watched the confrontation in which United States imperialism and the national oligarchy attempted, by any means necessary, to definitively frustrate the unprecedented example of the ascension to government power of a coalition of forces committed to social change.

Allende was a forerunner. And like all those ahead of the times, he faced many who misunderstood, criticized and wronged him, yet they could not touch his determination and conviction.

He considered the so-called "Chilean road to socialism" realizable, although he knew, exactly as he denounced thousands of times, that U.S. imperialism and its local allies would not rest in their efforts to derail the process of change they recognized as dangerous and contagious.

Allende was not a utopian or a dreamer. He was a revolutionary entirely committed to the cause of the working class in Chile, to which he devoted and sacrificed his heroic life.

In a bipolar world, in the middle of the Cold War, a broad sector of the Chilean people, the political parties of the left, trade unions, student and youth organizations, the marginalized Mapuche people and some dignified and law-abiding officers within the armed forces, joined Allende in the difficult and risky struggle to transform Chile, within a regional context which included only the Cuban Revolution as an unconditional, trustworthy ally.

Who killed him? It wasn’t Pinochet alone.

Nixon, Kissinger and the Central Intelligence Agency have the martyred president’s blood on their hands, as do ITT and other U.S. multi-national corporations. They, all of them, planned and carried out the cunning, fascist September 11, 1973 coup against the Popular Unity government.

With these events began the dark days in Chile and South America of Operation Condor which left thousands dead and disappeared. The coup against Allende was needed in order to implement the sinister Plan Condor, extended across Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay, where U.S.- sponsored military dictatorships were imposed.

Re-establishing full diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba was the first foreign policy measure taken by the Popular Unity government, breaking the ironclad blockade of U.S. imperialism and setting the precedent subsequently followed by other Latin American countries which re-established relations with Cuba throughout the 1970’s and 80’s.

Salvador Allende’s solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and his genuine friendship with Fidel characterized the life and work of this exceptional man who, as the years passed, increasingly became a point of reference and an example, someone who was able to see, perhaps prematurely, new and unexplored roads which would enrich and diversify the paths taken by the popular struggle within the historic context of different countries.

The 100th anniversary of Salvador Allende’s birth will be celebrated in a new America which – despite facing difficult struggles and imminent danger – is full of progress and hope, being extended everyday more broadly across the continent.

As an historic seed and in its current development, the figure of Allende rises, facing the same enemies, defiant and undefeated. •


SOURCE:
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/junio/juev26/26allende-i.html