“We want to emphasize that this is a time when the transparency of the United States can be an opportunity for a new cycle in our relationship between the United States and Chile,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said in Spanish in an Instagram video accompanied by Camila Vallejo, spokesperson for the leftist government of President Gabriel Boric.
The Democratic representative for New York is part of a delegation of US legislators that traveled to the capital Santiago on the occasion of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the military coup in which President Salvador Allende was overthrown on September 11, 1973.
The delegation first visited Brazil and will now travel to Colombia, which also has leftist governments.
The objective of the trip is to “begin to change… the relations between the United States and Chile and the region, Latin America as a whole,” Ocasio-Cortez declared outside the Museum of Memory and Human Rights that remembers the victims of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.
“It is very important to frame the story in what happened here in Chile with the Pinochet dictatorship. And also to recognize and reflect on the role of the United States in those events,” said the US legislator.
Ocasio-Cortez said he has filed an initiative to unseal documents related to the coup in Chile, and Vallejo noted that the Chilean government had made a similar request.
“Also here in Chile, the Foreign Ministry requested… to declassify files during the Nixon government, particularly some testimonies from the CIA director, to have more truth about what happened and how the United States was involved in what was the preparation for the civil and military coup and the years they lived through,” Vallejo said. “That’s very important to our story.”
US Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, said at the end of the delegation’s visit to the museum, which lasted about an hour, that it is important that “the” truth” be recognized that “the United States was involved with the dictatorship and with the coup”.
“That is why we are here, to recognize the truth, to start a new future,” Casar told reporters in Spanish.
US Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas said the visit to the museum was a reminder of the importance of “guaranteeing that tragedy and horror like this never happen again in Chile, or in Latin America, or in any other part of the world.” ”.
Hours before, the delegation met with the mayoress of Santiago, Irací Hassler.
Representative Nydia Velázquez of New York and Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida also traveled to South America as part of the delegation sponsored by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based think tank.
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Politi reported from Buenos Aires.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
