Posts filed under NACLA

Australia’s Intelligence Organizations Helped Overthrow the Allende Government in 1973

By Rodrigo Acuña

North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)

6 October 2021

On June 2, the Australian government conceded for the first time that the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) supported CIA covert operations in Chile in the early 1970s. These operations created the climate for a coup against the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity government. The National Security Archive (NSA) recently published some of the ASIS’ station reports in Santiago, and the story has drawn attention in the Australian media.

Pinochet-era Intelligence Agent Faces Extradition from Australia

By Rodrigo Acuña

North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)

10 July 2020

Adriana Rivas arrived in Australia in 1978 from her native Chile and worked as a nanny. She lived a good life in affluent Bondi Beach, Sydney, in public housing provided by the Australian government. Rivas, now 67, was active in soccer and church activities in the Chilean community, one of Australia’s largest Latin American diasporas.

Her comfortable life took a turn in 2013, when Rivas decided to talk to journalist Florencia Melgar of the Australian broadcasters SBS. Melgar was researching the collaboration of two Australian intelligence (ASIO) officers with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The ASIO officers were posted to Chile in 1973, when General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende, with the support of the CIA.