Sunday we solemnly observe the fourth anniversary of the catastrophe that unexpectedly turned the World Trade Center and the Pentagon into the mouth of hell in all its fury. It was a sunny Tuesday morning when calamity struck us with no warning. Not just a national or international calamity but a civilizational calamity. 9-11 has now become more or less a watershed: every event is either pre-9-11 or post-9-11.
Mostly forgotten is the fact that 9-11 also happens to be the anniversary of another tragic event that shook the world 32 years ago. The scene of the tragedy was Palacio de La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, in the Pacific Coast of South America.
Again it was a bloody Tuesday. Shortly after 2 p.m., Capt. Roberto Garrido of the Chilean army leading an infantry patrol burst into the presidential palace La Moneda facing a group of civilians braced to defend themselves with semiautomatic guns. The patrol captain opened fire wounding President Salvadore Allende Gossens. More machine-gun fire from the patrol. Allende was riddled with bullets and he slumped back dead. General Palacios Ruhman, the commander of the attack rushed to the telephone and reported to army chief Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte: Mission accomplished. Moneda taken. President dead.
