09/11/23 09/11/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> there are still people buried in this house. they did not get the rescue they needed, so they died. i'm trying to get anything from the house. amy: the death toll from morocco has reached 2500 following the deadliest earth taken over six decades. rescue efforts have not even begun in some remote villages. we go to the historic city of

marrakech, about 40 miles from the epicenter. then today is nine/11, -- 9/11. today we look at another 9/11, 50 years ago, the u.s.-backed coup in chile that ousted president allende who would die in the palace that there. two coup led to a 17 year dictatorship led by general pinochet during which time more than 3000 chileans were murdered and disappeared. >> we have to unite to one day find the truth. i think we deserve it as a people. it is a silent vigil for women. amy: we will speak to writer a professor ariel dorfman. he was cultural and press adviser to president allende's chief of staff during the last month of his presidency in 1973.

>> it was a peaceful revolution. the attempt to put the resources of the country and the future of the country in the hands of the majority. basically, was a movement for social justice and for putting in the center of history the real protagonist of that history, which are the everyday men and women who built the country. america we will speak with ariel dorfman, author of a new book called "the suicide museum." all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in morocco, at least 25,000 people have been killed after friday's 6.8 magnitude earthquake. the epicenter in the high atlas mountains is located about 44

miles from marrakech, causing buildings to collapse in the city's old town, which is a unesco world heritage site. search and rescue missions have struggled to reach survivors in rural villages, where some of greatest devastation occurred. this is a resident from the village of moulay brahim. >> as you can see, our house is damaged. everything is gone. we lost everything. we lost the entire house. there is no help or aid. this is the will of god. >> as you can see, our family and colleagues, our neighborhoods -- everything is really difficult for us. no food. there is no water. we lost electricity. amy: a correction, the death toll at this point is about 2500. we will go to marrakech for more after headlines. the african union has joined the g20 group of the world's richest and most powerful nations. the addition of the bloc of 55

african states came as world leaders wrapped up the g20 summit in new delhi sunday with a joint declaration that stops short of explicitly condemning russia's invasion of ukraine. instead it declares, "all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition." ukraine, which is not a g20 member, called the statement nothing to be proud of, while russian foreign minister sergei lavrov, hailed the summit as an unconditional success. president joe biden used the occasion to announce a u.s. alternative to china's international development program known as the belt and road initiative. biden's plan calls for creating a rail and shipping corridor linking india to the middle east and european union. after departing the g20, biden traveled to hanoi for talks with vietnam's president and prime minister. biden insisted his visit was not aimed at countering china's influence in southeast asia.

pres. biden: that is what this trip is all about, having india cooperate, be closer to the united states. vietnam in closer with united states. it is about having a stable base in the end of pacific. amy: beijing responded to biden's visit by asking the u.s. to "abandon hegemony and a cold war mentality." biden's trip to hanoi came as jailed vietnamese climate activist hoang thi minh hong marked 100 days since her arrest on what supporters say are trumped-up charges of tax evasion. she's at least the fifth environmentalist to face such charges in vietnam in recent years. in the netherlands, police deployed water cannons at some 10,000 climate protesters and detained 2400 people as they rallied on a major highway to demand their government stop funding fossil fuel companies. the action was organized by extinction rebellion.

>> there are many ways. for me [indiscernible] i don't know if it is going to help. amy: in the united states, young activist with climate defiance confronted democratic congressmembers at a public event saturday. activists accused steny hoyer of paying lip service to combating climate change even as he defended fossil fuel subsidies in his campaign received over half $1 million from fossil fuel energy interests. >> i come here out of necessity to please stop taking money from fossil fuel corporations so that we might have a chance of

survival. mick of phoenix had a 55th consecutive day of 110 plus degree heat on sunday. in hawaii, the governor updated the official number of missing people from the lahaina wildfire to 66. the official death toll remains 115. in sudan, humanitarian aid and medical workers are reporting at least 40 civilians were killed sunday during an airstrike by the sudanese army on a crowded market in southern khartoum. some 70 others were severely injured, with many requiring amputations. doctors without borders described the scene as carnage. the attack is one of the deadliest since violence broke out between the sudanese military and the paramilitary rapid support forces in april. air strikes and bombings on residential areas have intensified as the two factions fight for territory. in lebanon, state media reports at least four people have been killed as clashes between rival armed groups inside the largest palestinian refugee camp resumed last week.

the renewed fighting between members of fatah and a palestinian militant group known as muslim youth came as another round of ceasefire talks failed between the groups. heavy clashes at the ein el-hilweh refugee camp first erupted in late july, leaving at least another 13 people dead. the camp in the city of sidon houses some 80,000 palestinians. the maldives presidential election is headed to a runoff later this month after no candidate secured more than 50% of the vote in saturday's election. the runoff pits incumbent president ibrahim mohamed solih, who has close ties with india, against opposition candidate mohamed muizzu, whose progressive party of the maldives is more closely aligned with china. chile is marking the 50th anniversary of the u.s.-backed military coup that overthrew democratically elected socialist president salvador allende and ushered in a 17-year dictatorship under augusto pinochet. on september 11, 1973, chilean

armed forces bombed and stormed the presidential palace, beginning a reign of terror that saw thousands of people killed or forcibly disappeared and tens of thousands tortured. on sunday, gabriel boric joined thousands who marched through the streets of santiago to demand justice. this is alicia lira, president of the association of families of executed political prisoners. >> these 50 years, more than the absence of our relatives, this is an act of homage on the 50th anniversary of the military coup. we stressed military because civilians have enjoyed impunity for 50 years. and we will have more later in the broadcast with author and professor ariel dorfman. here in new york, investigators have used dna evidence to identify the remains of two more victims of the september 11, 2001 attacks on the world trade center. they're the first such identifications in nearly two years. 22 years ago today, the attacks took place and 40% of the

victims, or about 1100 people, remain unidentified. that includes dozens of undocumented workers. a judge denied a bid by former white house chief of staff mark meadows to move his election interference case from georgia to a federal court. a federal trial would have made it easier for meadows to claim immunity due to his official government position. it would also have offered meadows a more trump-friendly jury pool and a greater chance the case would end up at the trump-stacked supreme court. in related news, a judge released the report from the fulton county grand jury investigating trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election in georgia. it shows the jury recommended indictments for 38 people, including south carolina senator lindsey graham and other high-profile republicans. d.a. fani willis ultimately indicted 19 people, including former president donald trump. meanwhile, in new york, attorney general letitia james has updated figures related to trump's financial fraud case, saying he inflated his net worth

by as much as $3.6 billion a year, up from $2.2 billion, in order to secure loans and business deals. a federal judge ordered prison officials in louisiana to remove children locked up in the former death row section of louisiana state penitentiary known as angola. the judge also said children could no longer be held at angola, ruling it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. for the past 10 months, children, mostly black boys, have been held in solitary confinement, denied family visits, deprived of education and mental health treatment, among other inhumane conditions. in philadelphia, a police officer has been charged with first degree murder for the killing of 27-year-old eddie irizarry in august. mark dial fatally shot irizarry at near point-blank range as he sat in his car. irizarry's family described him as quiet and said he was being treated for serious mental illness including schizophrenia. relative said he moved to

philadelphia from puerto rico about seven years ago and that he had difficulty understanding english. charges against officer dial come after body camera footage contradicted the initial police account. this is philadelphia district attorney larry krasner. >> these videos speak for themselves. the law and the jury instructions in pennsylvania, the definition of these, are supported by this and other evidence and that is why we have charged ex-officer dial with these charges. amy: luis rubiales, the head of the spanish soccer federation, has resigned after mounting pressure after forcibly kissing soccer star jenni hermoso during the world cup trophy ceremony. rubiales had already been suspended by fifa and is being investigated by spanish prosecutors for sexual assault. and in other sports news, 19-year-old coco gauff has won the u.s. open. she is the youngest u.s. open winner since serena williams'

1999 victory when she was just 17. following her win, gauff thanked serena and venus williams, along with other black women tennis players who preceded her. during the awards ceremony, gauff also thanked tennis legend billie jean king for fighting for equal pay in tennis. >> thank you, billie, for fighting for this. amy: coco gauff received a record $3 million, the same as her male counterpart novak djokovic. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. coming up, the death toll in morocco has reached 2500 following the country's deadliest earthquake in over six decades. we will go to marrakech. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: western saharan artist nayim alal. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by democracy now!'s juan gonzález in chicago. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: at least 2500 people have died in morocco following a 6.8-magnitude earthquake on friday night. another 2500 people were injured and the death toll is expected to keep rising. the epicenter of the 6.8 magnitude earthquake was in the high atlas mountains, located about 44 miles from marrakesh. many villages remain inaccessible. some areas can only be reached by helicopter. the hardest hit areas are among the poorest in morocco where many homes lack electricity or running water.

the earthquake also damaged parts american ash, including its old city which is a unesco -- damaged parts of marrakech, including its old city which is a unesco world heritage site. these are some residents in marrakech describing what happened when the quake hit on friday hit. >> i live in the old city of marrakech. the earthquake struck around 11:30 p.m. and at that time i was out shopping. i left my son and daughter at home. i was terrified when i saw the house shaking violently, almost as if in a nightmare. i rushed back, gathered our clothing and blankets and prepared to sleep outside. we have lost nine people that i know of, and putting a family member and her newborn. >> i don't know what to say. it was a surprise. we were sitting here when the catastrophe happened. the wall collapsed. i taylor was in the shop.

he was leaving and the wall fell on him. people came and ducked to find him and got him out. amy: morocco has declared three days of mourning for what has become the deadliest earthquake to hit the country in over six decades. the king at the time was in paris where he owns a mansion. he was returned to morocco but has not spoken publicly about the growing humanitarian crisis. the king has not publicly requested international assistance. morocco has accepted aid offers from spain, britain, qatar, and the united arab emirates but it has not responded to an offer from france. we are joined now by two guests. brahim el guabli is chair and associate professor of arabic studies at williams college. he is author of "moroccan other-archives: history and citizenship after state violence." he's from ouarzazate, morocco, which was hit by the earthquake. and joining us from marrakech is abdellah el haloui, the head of the english department at cadi ayyad university. he's also the director of the master of linguistics and advanced english studies.

we welcome you both to democracy now! let's begin in marrakech. let's go to abdellah el haloui. can you talk about the situation on the ground right now? >> thank you very much. the situation on the ground right now is very scary. people are worried about potential aftershocks. everybody here is talking about the earthquake and the incident i friday at 11:00 still hovering. yeah, it is very scary. the death toll is increasing. the last number i have is 2500. people are still complaining about the lack of food supplies and their houses are all

destroyed, especially in the mountainous area. juan: you are joining us from marrakech. where were you when the earthquake hit? how did it affect the city? again, there are reports a lot of the areas in the rural areas are cut off from immediate help. >> yes, i am in marrakech. i was at home exactly at 11:00 p.m. i was sitting in the living room. my little kid was in front of me and all of a sudden, my little kid was shouting "earthquake! earthquake! it was easy for me to recognize it was an earthquake. we live in a high building so we had to run downstairs just to find all people climbing and

shouting downstairs, not knowing what happened exactly. some of them were sure it was an earthquake. others were not. thank god we did not experience any debts in my building -- deaths in my building and in my neighborhood. my family lives in an area very close to the epicenter of the earthquake and some of my family members died there. i am trying to get in touch with them every day just to learn about their condition, their whereabouts. yes, they are cut off. they are complaining because they don't have food. some of them have to sleep in open air, open space because their homes are destroyed. so the situation is still scary and very problematic. juan: how are the local authorities and the government responding to the crisis?

>> i received very contradictory stories depending on the area. it seems the authorities are responding in positive ways, trying to help the locals with food supplies, with tents, and sometimes with clothes and blankets. but some people in other areas are complaining about the lack of communication with local authorities. someone called me yesterday saying they called -- like the mayor of the area. he was on occasion and would not -- the response was he was on vacation and would not help them. we are not sure that the stories

because there contradictory most of the time. amy: i want to bring professor brahim el guabii into this conversation from williams college. your hometown in morocco is the epicenter of the earthquake. also condolences to both of you for what has happened in your country. this death toll only expected to rise. if you could talk more about what you are hearing from family, friends, community in morocco but also where is the king? the word we are hearing of growing anger, that the king has been absent -- does he even lived in morocco or does he live in france? >> thank you so much for having me on your show. these are great questions.

it is a little removed from the epicenter of the earthquake. however, because of the way moroccan governance is our divided, they do share border sometimes. areas closer to the epicenter are affected. these are areas closer to where the epicenter is and people's houses are damaged. of course, there is loss of life. however, the city itself in the villages around -- safer come in despite the fact they experienced the shock and trauma of such a tremendous magnitude

thot of them had never experienced before. when it comes to government politics and where officials are, i think the king lives in morocco. i think he went to france a few days before the earthquake happened. people of course were left with a lot of questions about, like, the government, the response of the government, its immediacy -- whether it responded urgently and all of that. these are really interesting questions that i don't have answers to. but what i really think is most important right now is for the aid and help and for people to really be on the ground to support the families, to think about plans to help people rebuild their homes, kind of like resume some sort of normal life.

the bigger political questions of course will be asked later. i think they could be a diversion if we ask them immediate now when people are still mourning and just trying to figure out who died, who survived, who is still under the debris, who has a chance at life. of course, i wrote a book about moroccan politics and all of that and i would be happy to talk about it another time, but for me now, the focus should be rescuing people, making sure every salvageable life is made in a chance is given for people still struggling under the debris. and of course, like my colleague, there are so many versions and stories that people are saying. there are areas flooded with aid. last night i was talking to people in the mountains like really far and they are saying

nobody has reached them and they think our message should be that we have to reach these people, we have to make sure if they have even a fraction of a percentage of possibility of life that they be given that chance to survive and live and continue to exist. juan: professor, in addition to the loss -- the tragic loss of life, there are reports that many historic sites in your country have also been damaged. have you been able to verify that or can you give us an idea of what that means? >> high atlas is a really important historical site in morocco. it does not just have classified historical sites the state has declared as national patrimony or heritage, but it has a lot of buildings and constructions that have been important for moroccan

history. for example, very important national monument. one was built in the 12th-century, destroyed in the earthquake. there are smaller houses where people -- like saints, for example, very important spiritual importance. a mosque in marrakech for example was destroyed. i am trying to track down some places that have been destroyed. some i know the names and importance in others i don't know. went to aggregate this data and come up about writing later so people know about it. the damage is huge in the region

for the architecture. eco-friendly types of buildings with thick walls that are very warm in the winter because the winters are very harsh, and cooler in the summer. i think with his earthquake, what we will see is a total reinvention of the architecture in the area. i hope that that type of architecture can be strengthened and made earthquake-resilient rather than scraping it off entirely. because that would be another way, like, this earthquake is going to change national heritage and national culture in morocco. in addition to the fact the majority of this area is -- i hope this doesn't happen because then people will move into this city and that would start losing their mother tongue , which would be a tragedy for a

million language. amy: professor abdellah el haloui in marrakech, the medina is world renowned, the unesco heritage site. when democracy now! was in marrakech for the u.n. climate summit, we were amazed by the history embodied in these buildings in this area. if you could talk more as we wrap up about what you think -- what people need right now? >> if you allow me to go back to one important point about the mountainous area before i answer your question, i would like to say the disaster that people have been undergoing is not only about the earthquake itself. but it is also because the area is mountainous. and because the big rocks rolled down from the top of the

mountain the valleys. many of the stories i heard witness to the fact their houses were not destroyed by the earthquake per se, but by the rocks rolling down. what is important to say about this disaster is that it is not only about the earthquake. the people living there are suffering from very cold winters during the wintertime, from floods during the summertime, and now we learn the area is an earthquake area -- which means another type of disaster adding up to the list of disasters. it is very important to note. now going back to your question about marrakech itself, i took pictures of the really precious monuments inside marrakech like a tower which is one of the oldest prayer towers that was

totally destroyed. i heard some rumors about another tower that was damaged, but it is not true. i checked the tower. it was not damaged. marrakech is historically well-known for being representative of tradition in morocco. and now the fact that marrakech and the areas around it are being affected this way, there is a risk of this tradition being undermined and potential exit of people. as far as i can see, it will be an accessory, consequence of this disaster. because of this, there's is the potential risk of losing the heritage, linguistic and

architectural heritage. amy: i want to thank you both for being with us. abdellah el haloui, the head of the english department cadi ayyad university. also the director of the master of linguistics and advanced english studies, speaking to us from marrakech, about 40 miles from the epicenter of the atlas mountains of this earthquake. and brahim el guabli, chair and associate professor of arabic studies. thank you so much for joining us. we will continue to cover what happens in morocco. coming up, 50 years ago today, the u.s.-backed coup in chile that ousted the democratically elected president salvador allende who would die in the palace that day. the coup led to the 17 year reign of the dictator general pinochet during which time more than 3000 chileans were murdered and disappeared. we will speak to the chilean-american author ariel dorfman who served as cultural

advisor to salvador allende and has a new book out called "the suicide museum." stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: victor jara's cover of violetta parra's "the letter." he was tortured and executed during the chilean coup. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. today is 9/11. 22 years ago today, 3000 people died at the world trade center, the pentagon, and inching spoken of his of a new. we are turning now to look at what is sometimes called the other and 11. 50 years ago today, september 11, 1973, a u.s.-backed coup led by general augusto pinochet ousted chile's president

salvador allende, a democratic socialist who had been elected just three years earlier. allende died in the palace on that day. under the pinochet military dictatorship, which lasted until 1990, more than 3000 people were disappeared or killed. some tortured as political 40,000 prisoners. chile's president gabriel boric commemorated the 1973 coup sunday with a ceremony in santiago, along with mexico's president andres manuel lopez obrador, who he thanked for the country's historic solidarity with the chilean people. both called for strengthening democracy in latin america. boric also joined a march near santiago's la moneda presidential palace, with relatives of victims of pinochet 's dictatorship. country protesters attacked and according to boric "brutally violated graves in the general cemetery." this is president of the association of fellows of

executed political prisoners. >> these 50 years, more than the absence of our relatives, this is an act of homage on the 50th anniversary of the civil military coup and we stressed civil military because civilians have enjoyed impunity for 50 years. amy: another silent vigil sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the chilean coup and focused on the role of chilean women as part of the resistance. women dressed in black and carried signs with pictures of victims of the dictatorship. >> we have fellow women who have been detained, who have disappeared. women who still have not been found. families, crying. we have to unite to one day find the truth. i think we deserve it as a people. it is a silent vigil for women. amy: last month, the chilean government launched the national search find a search for people who disappeared during the pinochet dictatorship. past governments have discovered mass graves in chile your former

interrogation sites, but they did not properly identify the remains. for the rest of the show, we're joined by ariel dorfman, who served as a cultural advisor pinochet. after the coup, he went into exile. today he is recognized as one of latin america's greatest writers. his essays, novels, poems, and plays have been translated into more than 40 linkages. his new piece in the nation is headlined "fifty years after the chilean coup." his opinion essay in the new york times is headlined "i watched a democracy die. i don't want to do it again." his new novel is just out. "the suicide museum." welcome back to democracy now! it is great to have you with this, though this is a very solemn day, the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the u.s.-backed coup, backed by nixon, backed by kissinger,

backed by itt. if you can talk about what happened on that day. you are in chile. when were you last -- when have you last seen salvador allende when he died on this date in 1973? >> first, i would like to thank you for having me on this mourning and resistance and memory. it turns out i was supposed to be there at dawn. i was supposed to have slept the night there. you're supposed to receive the news whether there was a coup happening. i switched places with one of my dear friends who in fact was captured on the 11th. he was tortured and executed. i am a survivor because of him.

a series of other circumstances meant i did not get there because i slept in my home on the 10th instead of that llama nara. i was supposed to be called by the minister was serving, the chief of staff of president allende called on a list and nobody called me. i woke up much later and i was unable to get there. what happened years later when i met him and i asked him, why did you take me off the list? why wasn't i called? he said, somebody had to tell the story. i had already figured out some sense that is why i was spared or at least that is why i made sense of the darkness that surrounds all of this, the chaos that surrounds us. , that i was meant to tell the story. in some sense, i am doing that right now. i was 31 years old then.

i was almost a kid. 31 years later i'm still telling that story and now i have told it again in this new novel. i have been telling it -- in fact, i have been telling it on democracy now! many times now, which the story of chile, how it happened, white happen, and how we changed history by resisting and how we are an example of how if you believe enough in democracy now and tomorrow in the future, then you will be able to be the dictators of now, tomorrow, in the future. juan: what is the significance of having the new president of chile, gabriel boric, be part of the commemoration to make sure the world doesn't forget what happened 50 years ago in chile? >> when boric was elected, the first thing he did -- when he

was inaugurated, the first thing he did when he entered la moneda , the palace that was bombed and assaulted and destroyed and where allende died, he broke protocol and he moved on the platform in front of where the presidential palace is and he went to spend a minute contemplating in silence the statue of allende arrested there, and then he went into the building and quoted allende's last speech and said "never can will this happen." boric is not allende. you can't repeat history. he is a wonderful example of how the new generations have not forgotten. what boric is trying to do, and very important to mention, he's trying to get all of the presidents of all the political parties, right or left, decided declaration deploring that coup and saying there will never be a

coup again. the four right-wing parties have refused to sign that declaration. so he is looking to the future. he is looking toward the fact that he is living in a country where 36% of the people still justify the coup and still say the coup was good, still think it was a great statesman. we are still living in some sense under the shadow of pinochet. of course, we are living under the gigantic light -- lighted shadow of salvador allende. in some sense, i think for many years we will still have the struggle going on. i will privileged and honored and humble to be part of that struggle to keep that memory alive and not forget what happened there and not forget the glorious days of allende where he tried for the first time in history to create a society that was just an equal and liberated without shedding

blood. all the revolutions before that, from the freshly revolution onward, -- fridge revolution onward, had violence at its origins and killed many of its own supporters. we never, ever did that. we did not only kill ours, we did not torture anybody. we did not close the newspapers. we did not close the organizations or the trade unions. we did not persecute anybody, which are all things that began to happen immediately on september 11 50 years ago, more or less at this time i was hearing the last words of allende and we were being hunted down. amy: can we talk about the u.s. role, which was so significant? 50 years after allende's electoral win, the natural secure archive released a series of documents showing why and how president nixon as national security advisor and are kissinger, who just turned 100, sought first to prevent allende

from being inaugurated and later to oust him from the presidency. in a secret briefing paper on october 18, 1970, just weeks before allende was to take office, kissinger wrote -- "our capacity to engineer allende's overthrow quickly has been demonstrated to be sharply limited. the question, therefore, is whether we can take action -- create pressures, exploit weaknesses, magnify obstacles -- which at a minimum will either insure his failure or force him to modify his policies, and at a maximum might lead to situations where his collapse or overthrow later may be more feasible." two days after his inauguration in santiago, kissinger wrote -- "the election of allende as president of chile poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere." if you, ariel dorfman, can talk about the role of the united states, kissinger continually threatened and clearly, though he does not write specifically about this in his books, now that the documents are out,

shows how he fought to engineer this coup -- at least to support it wholeheartedly. >> kissinger is a war criminal. we all know that. it is shameful how he is lionized by the press and the bipartisan press in that sense. kissinger was right. he was right in the following sense. allende was setting an example because the gorillas of latin america have basically failed -- the urban guerillas. that was not the way which would go forward for latin america. give a series of left-wing governments that have won the ballot box. he understood clearly allende was more of a threat than cuba was to him because the cuban

example could be suppressed with military aid or with counterinsurgency is. how do you out to a counterinsurgency against a people who are armed with a vote were armed with consciousness or armed with their desire for liberation and love for one another in solidarity? he understood he had to destroy allende because allende's example would have spread through latin america and then use interest would have been terribly -- u.s. interest would have been terribly compromised, which was the moment of the cold war. that was yet. let me tell you a little anecdote. perhaps a month before the coup, there was a truck drivers strike most of we went up into the hills ascend? to do a little military -- hills of santee go to do a little military training. we saw the truck drivers and we are having this norma's feast with the grills and all the

stuff which had been hidden away to sabotage the economy. they saw and recognized as as allende supporters. you know they did? they took out these dollar bills and waived them at us. they waved color bills in us. i am talking about the every day . this is something that happened. we know the cia was helping the media, they helped the campaign, and they were allowing the cia having trained school of americas officers to take over. and they engineered, if not the coup directly, they created movements. they also sabotaged our economy with the invisible blockade. the united states is very directly responsible for this. i do want to say the following, however, and i have said this over again. we should expect the united states to have acted in this

way, and we should have expected and we did expect the chilean oligarchy, those who are prosperous and rich in chile and lived off the exportation of our workers and intellectuals and peasants for centuries, we should have expected them to use every dirty tactic against us. that does not signify we don't have to think about what we may have done wrong. we have spent 50 years thinking about this, and the result is our current democracy. what i mean, the defeat of allende is not only the victory of right-wing people and of the united states, it is also a defeat in the sense it was a failure on our part to do as much as we could. we were much too divided, touched to sectarian, we did not do what we should have done and what we have done since then, which is created coalition as much as possible. i deplore what the united states

did, but you cannot blame them for doing what they did -- so many of the american people were in extraordinaire solidarity with us. the american people should be proud of what they did in favor of democracy in chile even as the government was trying to destroy us. juan: in terms of the impact of the pinochet years on the rest of latin america, this period of darkness not just in chile but brazil and argentina and other countries where military and extreme right-wing government seized power, what was the impact for those who are not familiar with that history on the rest of latin america? >> uruguay had already had its coup and argentina's coup was coming soon. soon they got rid of the bolivian and peruvian progressive leaders who were in that country. so the chilean example spread.

so it is not just in latin america. in 1981, pinochet said, we were alone when we did the coup but now everyone is imitating this. what he meant is the neoliberal economics of the chicago school milton friedman and his chicago boys had used chile as a laboratory. that laboratory, what was done, free market fundamentalism. that example is the one that then is prevalent in the world and is part of the crisis of the world today. chile created this situation where both the repression and the condor countries created this repression, which has been spoken about. that situation repression was also accompanied by an economic auto which is the model where

profit is all that matters, the bottom line is all that matters, solidarity does not matter. and it took over the world. it took over england and then trickle-down economics where the idea is to reduce the state to its minimum except for defense, of course, and surveillance, and not use those resources for the development, the welfare, and happiness of the people. juan: "the suicide museum," the narrator is a chilean american author, playwright and activist by the name of ariel dorfman. tell us why you decided 50 years after the coup to write this novel. >> i had been thinking for many, many years that somebody -- i did not think it would be me, of course -- would be going back to chile to find out and investigate whether allende

committed suicide or have been murdered. i felt this was the central enigma of our country because there were men who said, oh, he died heroically. and many who said, no, he was a coward and killed himself rather than face the consequences of the disaster he had let his people into, the coup. for many years, i kept thinking, who would narrate this? two things happen. one was i realized the person who should go back was an avatar myself, and alter ego, somebody who just like me with my family, friends. go back when i went back in 1990, went back from exile, and create a sort of alternative reality like in the multi-verse where this person, who is me and wasn't me because i treat him with ruthlessness. i treat him like he is one of those brothers that your costly criticizing. he lies much more than i do -- at least i hope.

and he is scared more than i am, i think. so i created this character who is myself and not myself because i felt it was the best way of going into the story of chile without the limitations of history. i quote and epigraph by a german poet of the 18th century. he says, "the novel is more of the deficiencies of history." so the novel allows us to explore this. i could not take the story of chile's -- allende's suicide and do sort of essay on it because that would not tell the story, the deeper story of chile. this allowed me to interview all sorts of people, real and false, and go into that. the second thing that happened, suicide, that is much related to the fact i'm not sure about that. it is much related to the fact

we are committing suicide as a species. i had the person was sending this ariel dorfman character back to chile mischievously in order to find out if allende committed suicide because this man, this billionaire who sent him there, is worried about climate extinction. he thinks we are going to the apocalypse and he needs a colossal cm dedicated -- museum dedicated to the suicides of history and ending up with the suicide of community so we can wake up humanity to this. those two things came together and i thought, ok, this allows me to bring together my tube sessions. one is salvador allende, bring him back to life, rescue him from the iniquities of history, tell his whole story in some sense, and go to la moneda where i was unable to go. i go back and imaginatively.

one saying he committed suicide and one that he was murdered. i bring this together in one colossal novel. amy: what do you conclude about what happened to salvador allende, who died in the palace? >> i can't undercut my own characters. seriously. you have to respect them or they take terrible revenge on you. they come in the night like ghost. i have to believe that characters -- i leave it up to the people of chile and the people who read the novel to decide which of the two pieces are correct. i don't want to take sides in that as an author. if i take sides, i will be undermining my own novel. so i have my own opinion of this and i sort of get to that opinion, but as soon as i get to an opinion in the novel, i

change my mind. which is what you want in a novel, suspense. suspense in relation to the enigma of allende and also in relation to whether this character ariel will come to terms with the trauma he suffered because he survived the coup and whether the billionaire who sends him there will manage to overcome the trauma that he himself is a secret he has. it is a story of a journey of two men trying to figure out -- empowerment of women is also central in this novel. i'm always trying to find a way in which i can tell that story so that people see it in a different light. it is sort of a model of what i would like the world to see.

i say at the end of the novel, "allende is relevant today to the world because his example that democracy and more democracy and more democracy is the solution, that everyday people who are protesting today, they are the glue and the key, really, to how we solve the dilemma we are in, allende is still speaking to us today and i continue to think that is so. i said so in a long essay in "the new york review of books" that came out this week. juan: we only have about a minute left, but following the coup, you would into a long period of exile. how did that shape you and the writing you have come to do? >> it changed me significantly because i opened up to the world and the world opened up to me.

i have been brought to the states, and that is why i speak english that i do, that was one of the great weapons i had. but i spent many years seeking solidarity and seeking help the people of chile, then i began to write. it really created i think this person you're looking at a sort of a bridge. i feel as i am a bridge between spanish and english, the united states and chile, between the first and third worlds, between readers everywhere in that sense. i think if i'd stayed in chile -- which i wish i had. i asked the people to let me stay. they said, you want to write the great novel of the resistance, get out of here. you are so valuable outside. and they were right. so i went out and it changed me too much. he changed me to such a degree that i ended up leaving chile after i went back in 1990, which is also in the novel "the suicide museum."

i repent of having been in exile but i don't repent of the results that happened to me. i'm so sorry for all those who died in my place. amy: ariel dorfman, thank you for being with us. author

hello and welcome back to nhk newsline. north korea and russia have both announced north korean leader kim jong-un visit russia to hold talks with president vladimir putin. the agenda could include the possibility of the north the play weapons to russia. north korea announced that kim left