Azad
coupkuː/noun
- a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.“he was overthrown in an army coup”
“USA?”
“Big buildings! Freedom! Babes! Miami! Hollywood! LA! Casinos! Democracy! Jobs! Security! Future…”
Ask anybody this question, answers will be on similar lines. What people forget is how USA has sustained itself as the sole world power of any consequence after the Second World War. It takes much more than making movies to keep it a world power. A modern economy leads the nation. Gone are the days when a country would conquer a country based on a perpetrated ideology like ‘Black man is stupid, it’s a white man’s job to civilize them’ and then companies would follow to extract what they could. Now, Companies, multinationals, corporations make inroads into a country without an army and when their existence is in danger, army swoops in.
You don’t believe us? Let us take you through a journey.
1. 1953. Iran.
Britain was still trying to remain an empire. Like every middle aged man about to die from diabetes and lung cancer as a result of a life full of bad decisions, Britain was prone to being stupid. They had a company in Iran – Anglo Persian. Guess what that company dealt into? Of course. Oil! British would take all the Oil out of Iran and Iranis used to end up earning on 30% of what their Saudi competitors were earning by selling oil to Amreeekah! So there was this politician named Mohammad Mosaddegh. He was elected as the Prime Minister of the country. So like any good ruler, he thought “Oh, my country, my resources, why the fuck should my people not get the profits?” After trying to negotiate with the British for a better deal, he realized that Britain has still got the Colonial hangover where it thought it ruled the world while in reality Hitler had gone all kamikaze on their empire.
In 1951, Iran’s Parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry and legislators backing the law, elected its leading advocate, Dr. Mosaddegh, as prime minister. Britain responded with threats and sanctions. Iran didn’t back down. This came as another major blow to already crippled British economy. But wait. Wasn’t this story about Americans? Yes. What did the British do? Since the war had left them almost powerless, they went and cried in front of America. Americans were levelheaded and initially scolded the Brits. But some intelligent guy in British administration thought of that one thing that USA was irritated about the most – Communism! Cold war was at its peak and Britain convinced USA that if the ‘allies’ lost hold of Iran, all these natural resources would come under Soviet control. “Those soviet motherfuckers!” is what we think US collectively screamed.
CIA funded a coup against Mosaddegh. Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of Ted Roosevelt was an intelligence officer and in charge of the Operation. He devised a genius method. Newspaper editors were given obscene amounts of money to write stories against Mosaddegh and then place a small retraction on page 13 few days later. People noticed the headlines and by the time retractions came, nobody cared about them anymore. Basically, they were the TOI and Indian Express of Iran. Strange religious organisations, whom nobody had heard of before, started condemning Mosaddegh and getting front page coverage.
CIA also hired a mob to run rampant in Tehran, breaking windows, looting shops and shouting, “We love Mosaddegh.” “We love Communism”. This was to project a negative image while another mob was hired to fight the first mob so that everybody thinks there is a big tussle going on. And then these small skirmishes were given front page coverage again. And these are the pre-internet days, pre TV days that we are talking about. Soon the inevitable happened.
A democratically elected Prime Minister was forcefully removed by the royalist part of the army and The New York Times had a nice editorial about it saying, “Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.” Crie anybody? Shah of Iran swooped in with his majestic Dictatorial skills powered by the Americans. Then comes 25 years of terror, atrocities, violence, finally leading to the revolution in 1979 and the overthrow of the Shah. Basically whatever shit Iran is in today can be traced back to 1953. And this was just the beginning. USA learnt two important things from this event. 1. They can overthrow governments. 2. It was easy.
2. 1954. Guatemala.
Yes. It is a country. And it is a beautiful country full of natural resources and nature’s beauty. In 1944, a revolution led to the ouster of an US backed dictator from Guatemala and democracy was established. In 1950, Jacabo Arbenz was elected the Prime Minister of the country. He realized 3% of people owned and held more than 75% of Guatemalan land resources. A lot of poor peasants were well, very poor. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? Proper distribution of unnaturally acquired wealth by colonialists. Just so that you know it was not a looney thought in a stupid person’s mind, at the same time a cool man named Vinoba Bhawe was trying the same thing in India. That movement was known as ‘Bhoodan Andolan’.
So, Arbenz thought, “Oh, my country, my resources, why the fuck should my people not get the benefits?” But as we know, USA doesn’t like that kind of thinking. He tried to address the problem by introducing land reforms which said all the unused land will be bought by the government and distributed amongst the poor. This law was passed in the parliament. He even took his family owned lands and distributed it amongst poor. For the small period that law was implemented, farm productivity rose and people were happier. A lot of that distributed unused land was owned by a company named ‘United Fruits Company’. Such an innocent sounding name, right? Wrong! It was an American company and obviously the owners went home and cried.
Uncle Sam was still high from its success in Iran. But this time they wanted to do it all in the open. Accusations of Arbenz being a communist were floated in the air, at home and in Guatemala through usual ways. Newspapers and religious organisations were bought. They trained a rebel army of 498 people. These 498 people camped a few meters inside the Guatemalan territory and chilled with their beers. Now imagine getting up in the morning, turning up the news and hearing news about an invasion from a neighboring country. Fake Radio stations installed and operated by CIA started spreading news of an invasion from a freedom force. They kept repeating news of how people are joining this new liberating army. How columns of Guatemalan army was also joining them. Nobody knew what was going on and from whom to take orders. To give the entire illusion a good effect, a couple of CIA planes randomly bombed cities. “Hey Maverick look, I can hit that clock tower there”. Widespread panic ensued. The invasion force fared poorly militarily, but the psychological warfare and the possibility of a U.S. invasion intimidated the Guatemalan army, which refused to fight. Árbenz resigned on 27 June, and Carlos Castillo Armas became President on 7 July 1954. Arbenz had to go into exile. Carlos quickly assumed dictatorial powers and repealed all the social reforms and obviously United Fruit Company got its land back. Guatemala was sent into turmoil and political uncertainty, till 1996.
Funny part is, Arbenz was strictly a liberal socialist and had no links to the communist party. Funnier part is, the entire operation was codenamed ‘Operation pbSUCCESS’ by USA. Funniest part is, Guatemala descended into three decades of a brutal civil war in which as many as 200,000 people died, many of them peasants, killed by security forces. USA learnt two things out of this entire episode. 1. It was better to indulge in Economic Colonialism with lesser liabilities. 2. American people would support them as long as they uttered the magic words. C O M M U N I S M !!! And that folks, is a classic example of a Banana Republic.
3. Chile. 1973.
Chile was one of the beacons of democracy in Latin America. But as we have noticed, the country that shall not be named loves to be democratic while it hates everybody else who is. But by now, they realized that even though they could, they shouldn’t be directly barging into somebody’s home and shouting, “Coup”, Coup, it’s our home now.” It is considered impolite in international circles. But wait, Iran had oil, Guatemala had land, what did Chile have? Chile had Copper. Lots and lots of it. And they had been exploited for this copper since..umm..only 15th century! So it was obvious they said no to anybody who exploited them now and move on.
Chileans decided to pass a law where Multinational companies would have to pay for the resources as per international standards. President Salvadore Allende was elected on this plank and he was hellbent on implementing it. Because logic from all the books on the planet says that resources of a country should be used for the welfare of the residents of that country. This idea was based on the concept that the multinational corporations had reaped profits far in excess of what was considered “normal business practice”. The way this was done was by comparing copper profits in Chile with the companies’ profits elsewhere in the world. It was calculated that twelve percent was the worldwide profit rate for these companies, and that they had made $774 million above this in Chile from 1955 to 1970.
Pepsi was huge in Chile. Our sources say that Pepsi was also exploitative and came into the periphery of this law. They realized which way were the political winds blowing. Richard Nixon was the President of United States back then. He used to be the lawyer for Pepsi before he was the President. He kept very close relations to higher ups in Pepsi. The Director of Pepsi in Chile met President Nixon and explained him how Chileans were about to fuck things up for American business and how Chilean lives are worthless when compared to their business. So this time they took a different route.
Nixon instructed his foreign, security and intelligence services to “make the [Chilean] economy scream.”
“All’s fair on Chile,” Nixon told Kissinger. “Kick ’em in the ass. Okay?”
Screw you if you think I am making this shit up. He actually said this. USA started voting against Chile on all the international forums. And we all know that USA has Veto powers in all the important international organisations. Heck, I think they even have veto powers in our Ram Leela committee and local Safai karmchari associations. Credit rating for Chile started taking a hit. There was an unofficial diktat for all the major banks to stop giving loans to Chilean companies. Spare parts for industries would be delayed by months just to wreck a havoc on Chilean economy. Because when “Acche din” don’t come, people get frustrated very quickly. But for a successful coup, military help is very much required and that is where Chile was blessed to have an apolitical Military. They tried to infiltrate the military but one man named General Rene Schneider always stood in their way. Honest men end up dying almost always, be it bollywood or be it real life. That is the reason why this author chooses to be as dishonest as he can. However, to take care of Gen. Rene, a firearm was sent in a diplomatic pouch with all the official US seals and he was assassinated by that pistol very soon. With that, the last man standing between Chile and Military take over was eliminated.
Gen. Augusto Pinochet announced a coup. The seat of Chilean democracy was a palace called La Moneda. Suddenly President Allande woke up to sirens and broadcasts about full blown coup. He sat in his car and rushed off to La Moneda. Where he tried to control things. By 9:00 am, the armed forces controlled Chile, except for the city centre of the capital, Santiago. Allende refused to surrender, despite the military declaring they would bomb the La Moneda presidential palace if he resisted being deposed. Finally, Allende gave a farewell speech, telling the nation of the coup and his refusal to resign from his elected office under threat. Soon enough two British made Hunter jets of Chilean Air force bombed the palace. Commandos were ordered to capture Allende and no negotiations were to take place. Salvadore Allende chose to take his life inside the palace, the beacon of democracy.
Pinochet took power and ruled for 17 years. Everybody who was even suspected of being an Allende supporter or ‘communist’ was killed. Chilean intelligence operatives swept through the country in what became known as “the Caravan of Death,” executing Allende loyalists. To keep things in perspective, today if some dictator takes over and decides to kill Modi supporters, 32% people of India will lose their lives. Chile remained an economic colony of US for next 4 decades. Officially about 30,000 people lost their lives in those 17 years. Unofficially, the figure is 200,000.
Before and after then US has taken over many countries economically. Countries have been ruined, dictators imposed, Human rights violations ignored and what not. Africa has been milked like a Jersey cow by imposing dictators who can make Raavan look good.
This part will be incomplete without including some of the excerpts from Allende’s farewell speech:
“They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.”
“The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.”
“Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!
These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason.”
Iran, Guatemala and Chile are but a few names among many. If you dig further into the history, you will find the likes of Brazil, Venezuela, Iraq (big surprise!), Bolivia, Equador and many others waiting to be mentioned in the list of victims of democracy’s mass murder strategy so far as this article is concerned.
I have nothing against USA. I would also take this opportunity to request the US embassy guys to not cancel my visa application. I promise to spend all my money in Vegas. Peace. Jai Democracy!
