What’s happening in Egypt is nothing new. On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet backed by the United States staged a military coup in Chile. He took power from the previous democratic elected government of president Salvador Allende. Sounds a bit like Egypt doesn’t it? Actually that sounds exactly like Egypt!
• In the years that followed, Pinochet’s regime would become responsible for the disappearance or killings of more than 3000 Chilean activists. The U.S didn’t like Allende’s government who somewhat posed a threat to them, so they supported Pinochet in an ‘any means necessary’ coup to take control of the country.
• People kept disappearing the louder their voices became.
• Pinochet quickly built one of the largest concentration camps since the time of Hitler. And within less than a year, he detained a quarter of a million people in these camps; away from their family, away from their loved ones and so on and so forth. Many of the women prisoners admitted they were raped but did not want to go in detail of what occurred. The prisoners were beaten everyday without mercy in the concentration camps. Most of them died.
• Why did so people step down against Pinochet? Because they couldn’t take it anymore. Women kept becoming widows, sons were being taken away, fathers were being killed and fear was spreading throughout all of Chile
• The people became scared and simply started to live a life of depression with general Pinochet running the show. Suicides started to occur in high numbers.
• When the world started to see the tyranny of General Pinochet, the U.S (Henry Kissinger) publicity denied helping take out Allende (the democratically chosen president), although CIA documents which were later leaked clearly showed their support.
• The argument made after was “Chile only exist today because of Pinochet...it just came at a huge price".
The price? “thousands of deaths” verses “stability in the economy long term”.
[In Islam, there is no argument in this. This is a crime.]
Pinochet had no regard for the people’s and their opinions. He was a truly ruthless military dictator.
• Near the end of his life, Pinochet wrote, “exile is my fate…and a kind of loneliness that I never could have imagined, much less desired”
This was the same man who once in his prime said: “Not a leaf moves in Chile without me knowing it”. SubhanAllah how close is this to the ayah in the Quran?
وَمَا تَسۡقُطُ مِن وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعۡلَمُهَا
(not a leaf falls, but He (Allah) knows it) [Surah An’am (6):59]
- This statement just shows how much control Pinochet had over the country. One can only imagine what Sisi will do if acquires this much power.
Today in Chile there is a famous saying, “Para que nunca mas en Chile (so that never again in Chile…)”.
Chileans gather every year on September 11 (the same day the military coup took place in 1973) to remember what they went through and to hope that never again does it ever happen in Chile.
We all can hope that never again will what happen in Chile happen in Egypt (or any other country for that matter). But resemblance so far is scary.
May Allah protect the Muslims in their faith wherever they are being tested.
