The Other 9/11
The participation of Australia in 1973 Chile's coup
The Other 9/11 is an investigative multimedia project examining a largely overlooked chapter of Australian history: Australia’s secret intelligence involvement in Chile during the years leading to the 11 September 1973 military coup against democratically elected President Salvador Allende.
The 2013 investigation traces how, following a request from the United States, officers from the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) were stationed in Santiago and managed agents on behalf of the CIA while the United States was conducting covert operations aimed at undermining Allende’s government. It explores what Australia knew, what its intelligence officers were doing, and the questions that remained unanswered decades later about the extent of Australia’s involvement.
But the project also follows what happened after the coup. It documents the repression, torture, forced disappearances and exile that followed under Augusto Pinochet, and the complicated relationship Australia developed with Chile: providing sanctuary to thousands of Chilean refugees while allegations emerged that people associated with Pinochet’s intelligence apparatus had also made their way to Australia. It also examines evidence of Australian intelligence surveillance of Chilean political activity in Australia.
The investigation ultimately brings this history into contemporary Australia through the stories of people who lived its consequences. Among them is Adriana Rivas, a former member of Chile’s DINA secret police who moved to Australia in 1978 and whom I located and interviewed in Sydney, and Mariana Minguez, a survivor of detention and torture who later rebuilt her life in Australia. Their very different experiences reveal how the unresolved history of Chile’s dictatorship continued thousands of kilometres from South America.
Combining archival records, declassified intelligence material, historical research and original interviews, The Other 9/11 is ultimately an investigation into intelligence, foreign policy, human rights, historical memory and accountability — and the hidden consequences of decisions made in the name of national interest.
Florencia Melgar Hourcade
https://www.sbs.com.au/theother911/