41INDEXONCENSORSHIP.ORGDaniel Carter looks back on Pinochets Chile and the role of a media empire in the military dictators propaganda machine. Its high circulation newspapers justied and provoked a military coup in a country previously famed for strong democratic traditions, and then actively collaborated with the regime43(1): 41/44 | DOI: 10.1177/0306422014521742Weapons of disinformationTHE DAY WILL not be easily forgotten in Chile. September 11 1973 saw the violent overthrow of democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende and the installa-tion of one of the longest of Latin Americas 20th century military dictatorships.InChileduringthe1960s,aconsensusin favourofradicalmodernisationpolicieshad emerged across much of the political spectrum. Policies including the redistribution of land to peasants or the nationalisation of wealth-gen-eratingresourcessuchascopperrepresented an existential threat to the closely knit families who had historically controlled most of that wealth, along with the political power deriving from it. A key name in the pantheon of Chil-eanoligarchsistheEdwardsfamily,owners since 1849 of their countrys largest circulation daily newspaper, El Mercurio, and a number of local and national subsidiaries.OnefeaturethatmakestheChileancase standoutamongthemilitaryregimesthat held much of Latin America in their grip dur-ingthelastthirdofthe20thcenturyisthe role of the media and in particular El Mer-curio and its subsidiaries in consciously pro-moting a perceived state of war, both before andafterthecoupwhichbroughtGeneral Augusto Pinochet to power. The planting of exaggeratedorinventedreportsonforeign infltration,unsubstantiatedwarningsabout scarcity of basic goods (which became a self-fulflling prophecy as a result of panic buying) or false revelations of sinister leftist plots was, by most historical accounts, a major factor in both justifying and provoking a military coup in a country previously famed for its strong democratic traditions. A logical consequence ofthemissiontobringdownapresident whosepoliticalopinionsdifferedtoomuch fromtheirownwasthepaperssubsequent roleasmouthpieceforthePinochetregime, alongwiththeconsistentcoveringupof crimescommittedbythedictatorshipuntil the transition to democracy in 1990.A flm, made by students of the School of Journalism at the University of Chile in 2008 (ElDiariodeAgustnbyIgnacioAgero, 2008, referring to Agustn Edwards, founder and owner of El Mercurio), tells the story of howapaperthatclaimedtocampaignfor freedomandtopreventwhatitsawasthe seedsoftotalitarianismendedupdestroy-ing democracy and actively collaborating in crimes against human rights. It features inter-views with journalists, commentators, theSPECI AL REPORT by guest on June 29, 2015 ioc.sagepub.com Downloaded from 4 3 . 0 142INDEXONCENSORSHIP.ORGpapersdirectorsandvictimsofhuman rights abuses.Near the beginning of the flm, prize-win-ningsociologistManuel AntonioGarretn arguesthatElMercuriotransformeditself from a traditional conservative daily news-paper dedicated to forming public opinion into an element dedicated to political desta-bilisation. Already in 1967, years before the electionofAllende,massmobilisationby students and peasants was being supported bytheChristianDemocratadministration ofEduardoFrei,givingwaytosweeping reformsthatopenedthegatestouniver-saleducationandmasslandownership. According to Garretn, El Mercurio under-stood what was at stake, causing it to take upanextremepositionthatmadeit not onlyintoanti-Allendenewspaper,butalso ananti-democraticnewspaper,basically apromoterofmilitarytakeover.Stories began to run, falsely and deliberately impli-cating international communism in domes-tic student protest movements. Declassifed documents released by the CIA in 1999 and analysed by Peter Kornbluh in The Pinochet File: A Declassifed Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability,clearlydemonstratethat theorganisationhadpouredmoneyinto ElMercuriothroughoutthe1960stopre-ventaleft-wingvictory,payingjournalists towriteopinioncolumnsandarticlesfor placement.InSeptember1970,thesamemonth thatSalvadorAllendeachievedthenarrow electoralvictorythatwouldenablehim tobecometheworldsfrstdemocratically electedMarxistpresident, AgustnEdwards metleadingmembersoftheCIAandthe White House to discuss how best to get rid of Allende. According to Kornbluh, throughout Allendes aborted tenure, the paper continued anunyieldingcampaign,runningcountless virulent,infammatoryarticlesandeditori-alsexhortingoppositionagainstandat times even calling for the overthrow of the Popular Unity government.Although the campaign had failed to pre-vent Allende winning power, it succeeded in rallyingasupposedlyimpartialmilitaryto takeoverpowerto restoreorder.How-ever, the most blatant use of lies and propa-ganda occurred in the aftermath of military intervention.Thecoup,symbolisedbythe startlingattackonthepresidentialpalace, La Moneda, whose burning faade after the airstrikeis,forsome,amongthelastcen-turysmosticonicimages,rapidlybecame synonymouswithreportsofmassarrests anddisappearances.Inordertojustifythis audaciousactintheeyesoftheworld,as wellastoensurecomplianceamongstits own population, an entirely fabricated left-ist plot, known as Plan Z, was announced by El Mercurio and one of its subsidiaries, Las Ultimas Noticias, less than a week after the coup.Theallegedplaninvolvedamilitary operationby Allendesupporterstomurder members of the armed forces and their fami-lies,importillegalarmsandreduceChile tochaos. Aseriesofheadlinesfollowed,in ordertoemphasisethemagnitudeofthe alleged operation: 600 families to be assas-sinated in Concepcion; Marxists planned thedestructionofLimache(atownnear Valpaiso); Another guerrilla training school discovered. The existence of Plan Z has now beenshownconclusivelytobeafabrica-tion.Myowninvestigationsofthecoupin the southern provinces of Chile have shown that guerrillatrainingschoolswerelittle morethanpeasantco-operatives,which,at A paper that claimed to campaign for freedom and to prevent what it saw as the seeds of totalitarianism ended up destroying democracy and actively collaborating in crimes against human rights by guest on June 29, 2015 ioc.sagepub.com Downloaded from 43INDEXONCENSORSHIP.ORGmost, possessed a few rudimentary shotguns as a means of self-defence against hostile ex-landowners.Duringthelongdictatorshipthatfol-lowed,alloppositionnewspaperswere banned, giving the Mercurio group an unri-valledmarketposition,whichithadnot enjoyedbefore.Butinsteadofusingthis privilege to soften the impact of military rule over an often terrifed population, by report-ingoncrimessuchastorture,murderor kidnap carried out by Pinochet sympathisers, El Mercurio chose to cover up those crimes by actively collaborating in a disinformation campaign. El Diario de Agustn depicts sev-eral examples of this.PerhapsthemostdramaticistheCase of the 119, a reference to an extraordinary cover-upoperationtohidethepracticeof forceddisappearanceofpoliticalactivists carriedoutbytheregimessemi-clandestine police unit, the National Intelligence Directo-rate (DINA). On 12 June 1975, La Segunda, apaperintheMercuriogroup,published afront-pageheadlineclaimingthat2,000 Marxists were training in Argentina to organ-ise guerrilla activities against Chile, including thosewhowerebelievedtobemissing. Various papers subsequently ran stories about arrests of dangerous terrorists and of guerrilla movementsin Argentinaasapreludetothe grand fnale: that 60 of them had died in frat-ricidal in-fghting, and, separately, that 59 had been exterminated like rats by the Argentine secretservices.Researchbyhumanrights groups and subsequently by the Chilean jus-tice system, demonstrated that the information hadoriginatedinSantiago,andthatbogus editions of non-existent magazines had been setupinBraziland Argentinatoreportthe stories. The Argentine secret services even col-laborated by supplying dead bodies, which it was happy to identify as belonging to Chilean subversives. Thelengthstowhichthesecret services went to cover up its crimes by creat-ingafalsenarrativeofwar,alongwithfake sources with the active participation of the Mercurionewspapergroupdemonstrates howconcernedtheyweretokeepsecretthe policy of forced disappearance.Adramaticstoryappearingayearlater concernedthesupposedcaseofayoung woman who had been murdered on a beach incentralChilesffthregioninacaseof crime passionnel. According to El Mercurio, thebody,discoveredinSeptember1976, belongedtoa23-year-oldwomanwhohad beenraped,beatenanddraggedontothe beach at Los Molles, well known as a refuge foryounglovers. Thestoryhidamoresin-isterreality,however.Thebodyinfact ABOVE: Soldiers in Valparaiso, 15 days after Augusto Pinochets coup, September 1973. Following the coup, the military junta burned material they deemed as being against the regimeCredit: Sipa Press/Rex Features by guest on June 29, 2015 ioc.sagepub.com Downloaded from 4 3 . 0 144INDEXONCENSORSHIP.ORGbelonged to Marta Ugarte, a 42-year-old memberoftheCommunistPartywho,like hundredsofherfellowactivists,hadbeen taken from the infamous Villa Grimaldi tor-ture centre and dumped at sea from army hel-icopters, in an operation known as the death fights. Human rights organisations estimate thatsome400prisonersoftheDINAmet this fate. Hers was the only body which ever returned to land. Testimonies by air force per-sonnel responsible for the crime indicate that shebecamedetachedfromtherailthatwas meant to ensure her body sank. Interviewed forElDiariode Agustn,JuanGuzman,the judgewhopresidedoverthecase,affrmed that El Mercurio was a key instrument in the dictatorships crimes. The view was confrmed bythereporterassignedtocoverthestory, whoclaimedthatpressreleasesemanated directly from personnel within the secret ser-vicesHoweverwhenArturoFontaine,sub director of El Mercurio 1965-1978, was inter-viewed for the flm and was asked if staff ever questionedtheirsourceshesaid: Wewere nothandedinformation.Wehadourown sources. I am relatively proud of that. Do not think I am not. Theauthorofthisarticleapproached ElMercuioforacomment,butthemedia group did not respond.ThereisevidencethatElMercurio remained as complicit at the end of the dic-tatorship as it had been at the beginning. A visittoChilebyPopeJohnPaulIIin1987 nearlyturnedintoapublicrelationsdisas-terfortheregime,whenteargashurledat demonstrators outside the stadium where he wasspeakingbegantoaffectthoseinside, including the Pope himself. El Mercurio ran anarticlethefollowingday,whichclaimed thattroublehadbeenstirredupdeliber-atelybymembersofthecommunistparty. Photos of the two instigators appeared on thefrontpage. Thepaperclaimedtohave identifedthemfromathoroughrevision ofphotographsandvideosshotduringthe disturbances. As a result of these allegations, thetwomenweretakenfromtheirhomes, arrestedandtortured.Evengovernment sources were unsure of the reliability of infor-mation emitted by the National Information Centre (CNI), a supposedly more respectable secret police unit that had replaced the infa-mous DINA in 1978. In spite of these offcial doubts, the paper went ahead with publica-tion of the photos, resulting in the arrest and torture of two young men who had not even been present at the demonstration.Bycontrasttotheabsolutefreedom enjoyedbytheregimespressoffcersand theirwillingaccomplicesinElMercurio, criticaljournalismwassilencedthrough closure,censorshipandmurder.Accord-ingtoPuroChile,awebpagethattakesits name from a newspaper whose offces were destroyed by the military on the day of the coup,thedictatorshipassassinatedor dis-appearedatotalof23journalists,nine journalism students, 20 photographers, and a number of others associated with the trade, totalling over 100. In 2006, a monument to these victims was erected in the headquarters oftheChileanGuildofJournalistsinthe capital, Santiago. Their voices had not only beenproscribed,butsilencedforever.Per-haps, in the case of Chile between 1967 and 1990, the truth was not so much a casualty of war as a victim of cold-blooded assassina-tion by the countrys oligarchs. x Daniel Carterwww.indexoncensorship.orgDaniel Carter teaches at Cambridge Univer-sityandcompletedaPhDattheCentreof LatinAmericanStudiesfocusingonsocial conflictintheprovinceofCautnfrom 1967-1973. He has contributed to the jour-nalStudiesinEthnicityandNationalism (Wiley) and is currently researching the role of social movements in Spains transition to democracy by guest on June 29, 2015 ioc.sagepub.com Downloaded from