Revolutions Entangled
EUGENIA PALIERAKI
In December 1972, the Chilean President Salvador Allende delivered a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and then, on his way to Moscow, made a stopover in Algiers.1 Alberto Gamboa, the director of the main Chilean left-wing newspaper, Clarín, also present, wrote, “Here the contrast to New York is striking. The enthusiasm, the affection and understanding that the Algerian people and the Government have expressed … are extraordinary … [and] overwhelmingly friendly!”2 This friendship and affection expressed a strong affinity and shared values. But how did Chile and Algeria—two very distant countries from a geographical, cultural, and historical standpoint—connect to each other?
Based on French and Spanish-language sources,3 this chapter aims to clarify the relevant historical links between Chile and Algeria, and more precisely, between their left-wing and progressive movements and governments from the 1950s to the 1970s. Until now, the foreign relations of the Chilean left-wing parties have been explored mainly on a continental level or in relation to Western and Eastern European countries. This also applies to Allende’s Popular Unity from 1970 to 1973, a period of unprecedented internationalization of the national political scene.4 As for Algeria, its Third-Worldist policy in the 1960s and 1970s is a rapidly growing field of inquiry.5 Here, the Third World itself provides a critical framework. The concept of “Third World,” developed by the French geographer Alfred Sauvy in 1952, clearly implied that during the postwar era, Third World countries would drive world revolution in the same way that the Third Estate ignited the French Revolution. Even though it has a rather negative meaning today, “Third World” had a very positive connotation until the early 1980s.6 Although its most common definition is geographical—the Third World usually designates the decolonized African and Asian territories and, in some cases, Latin America—it is actually a political construction, embracing the revolutionary community that the postwar “wretched of the earth” supposedly formed.7
Until this community emerged in the 1950s, there were hardly any links between Chile and Algeria. Thereafter, the left wing in both Chile and the Algeria felt they belonged to it. It can be thus argued that the political bonds between these two countries in the postwar era should mainly be explained via the Third World framework—the Third World not as an abstract entity, but as a performative concept. Through the example of the relations between Chile and Algeria during the Cold War period, this chapter examines the mechanisms, the material means, and the agency that formed the Third World as a coherent and meaningful political space, or, in the words of the French political scientist Lilian Mathieu, as a new “universe of practice and autonomous meaning.”8
While this case study covers a hitherto unexplored field of inquiry, it also engages with two existing and interrelated historiographical debates. The first concerns the “relational approaches” of global history and histoire croisée (connected or entangled history), and the second concerns New Cold War history with its emphasis on the role played by “Third World” countries during the Cold War. Indeed, this research is fully aligned with the main epistemological contributions made by global and entangled history.9 That includes on the one hand the questioning of Western-centered and nation-centered visions, the critique of a cultural transfer approach, and the emphasis on the links tying different geographical and cultural areas together.10 On the other hand, the “relational approaches” to twentieth-century history have focused mainly on social or cultural history, paying little attention to the political field. In this sense, the history of international relations, political sociology, and political science offer solid theoretical bases for approaching political objects from a transnational perspective.11 Yet the majority of transnational approaches to politics have taken a limited interest in regions other than Western Europe and the United States. Moreover, they have focused almost exclusively on international institutions and abandoned historical actors such as nation-states or noninstitutionalized agency.12 Thus, this chapter—with its focus on both informal transnational activism and on “peripheral” regions and nation-states—will address some key issues that have been neglected by “relational approaches.”
Despite a certain criticism expressed here, it must be noted that “relational approaches” have brought new perspectives on numerous historical objects and periods, among which are Cold War Latin American political history. Whereas starting with the 1970s, the postwar political history of Latin America has been viewed mainly as a reflection of the Cold War,13 recent studies have heralded a more balanced view and have questioned the premise that Latin American political history during the Cold War was exclusively a local reproduction of the global struggle between the two superpowers.14 This new vision of the Latin American 1960s and 1970s owes a great deal not only to “relational approaches,” but also to New Cold War history, which shares a few basic premises: the emphasis on agency rather than structures; the relevance of state ideology, which cannot be summed up as a mere defense of economic interests; and the recognition of the vital role played by regions other than the “First” and the “Second” worlds.15 Logically, the last premise has produced a renewed interest in the Third World and in Latin America, even if a bipolar Cold War lens remains salient for many scholars.16 Some have sought to counterbalance this view, not always sufficiently supported by archives and fieldwork,17 while other specific attempts to present the history of Third World have paid little attention to the circulations and connections between geographical and cultural areas.18 Through an examination of the connections between two constituent parts of the Third World, Chile and Algeria, this chapter aims to rethink the Cold War period through a Third World lens, giving priority to intra–Third World relations.
“Geography is a social and ideological construction, susceptible to alteration during primordial periods,” claims Jeffrey Byrne in his book on Algeria and the Third World.19 Indeed, the 1960s and the 1970s, a period of unprecedented transnationalization of the political scene, was a “primordial” one for the Third World. Geographic distances seemed to matter less and less for its countries and peoples. Within the Third World, an increasing number of activists traveled from one country to another and from one continent to another to assist revolutionary movements, to attend military or intelligence training, or to seek refuge from dictatorial right-wing regimes. The idea of a common emancipatory struggle for the defense of their nations against colonial and neocolonial powers grew stronger among these activists. The emancipation of the Third World had a double meaning for its protagonists: the strengthening of its nation-states and, at the same time, the creation of a new political space through the convergence of Third World countries into a single transnational community.
As anthropologists have recently argued, the nation-state and transnationalism are in no way incompatible, and in several cases, nation-states have been fortified through transnational networks.20 Additionally, Third World nation-states emerged as major players in the postwar international stage due to the construction of a transnational community rather than the formation of separate nation-states. To a large extent, this community was based upon global militant networks. During the postwar period, not only were Third World nation-states and revolutionary transnationalism intertwined, but they also helped reduce the impact of the Cold War on global political dynamics.
But why focus on the Algerian and the Chilean cases? The radical characteristics of its Liberation War and its aftermath established Algeria as an emblematic case of anticolonial struggle. In addition, after its independence in 1962, Algiers became a global revolutionary city: on the one hand, it was a hub for activists from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, and thus a place of meetings and circulation of ideas; on the other hand, it was a provider of financial and military support for revolutionary movements. Finally, Algeria was one of the first Arab countries to establish solid long-term ties with the Latin American Left. The Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN, National Liberation Front) regime had strong similarities with Allende’s Unidad Popular (UP, Popular Unity, 1970–73). The Algerian FLN was a local version of socialism based on the combination of nonalignment and economic nationalism, while, at the same time, it was claiming a global outreach. As for Allende’s peaceful and democratic “Chilean road to socialism,” it aspired to become a model for Latin American and eventually other Third World countries. Moreover, Chile had one of the largest and most dynamic Arab communities in Latin America, a community that played a prominent role in connecting Chile with the Arab World.21
The ties between Algeria and Chile, and specifically between the Algerian FLN and the Sociality Party of Chile, developed gradually in the late 1950s and 1960s. After the 1973 coup in Chile and the establishment of a military regime, these links persisted thanks to Algeria’s solidarity with Chilean political exiles from 1973 to 1990, when, in Chile, democracy was restored and the diplomatic relations between the two countries reestablished. The interstate relations were established in 1962, the year of Algeria’s independence. In 1963, Alessandri’s right-wing government opened a Chilean embassy in Algiers. At that time, it was the first and only Chilean embassy in Africa. Until the late 1960s, it and the Cuban embassy were the only two Latin American embassies in Algiers. Although the role of the Chilean embassy diminished during the Christian Democrat presidency (1964–70), it became important again under the Allende government.
This chapter focuses on the years 1956–73, from the creation of the Chilean Committee for the Self-Determination of Algeria in 1956 to the military coup and the overthrow of Allende in 1973 and its aftermath. The first section analyzes the links between the two countries, through the Chilean-Arab diaspora and different transnational militant networks during the pre-independence period. The second section shifts to the post-1962 period and focuses more precisely on the role of the recently decolonized Algeria, as well as of Cuba in the making of Chilean-Algerian relations. The third and fourth sections focus on the 1963–73 period and on the institutionalized means of building these relations. The third section addresses the opening of a Chilean embassy in Algiers, which inaugurated interstate relations initially determined by Cold War politics. The fourth section focuses on Allende’s assumption of office in November 1970, which resulted in the partial abandonment of the Cold War mindset as far as Chile’s foreign policy was concerned and in the development of diplomatic relations between Chile and Algeria based on links between the FLN and the UP. These relations were maintained and transformed in the aftermath of the 1973 Chilean coup and the Chilean resistance to Pinochet’s dictatorship.
The first Chilean connections with pre-independence Algeria were created through the Arab diaspora, as well as through militant networks, which often overlapped. The Arab community in Chile was one of the largest in Latin America. Exceeding 14,000 people in the early 1940s, its members came mainly from Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.22 They created a vast network of social clubs and associations across Chile. They had newspapers in Arabic and in Spanish, the most important one being the weekly magazine Mundo Árabe, which began publication in the 1930s and was distributed across Latin America.
It was originally within the Chilean Arab community—though also supported by left-wing and center political parties—that the Comité Chileno Pro-Autodeterminación de Argelia (Chilean Committee for the Self-Determination of Algeria) was created in 1956. This was the first and main association in Chile supporting Algeria’s independence from France.23
However, it was not the first Chilean committee in support of an Arab nation’s independence: there had been one to support Syrians, as well as a very active Palestinian committee. The Comité Pro-Autodeterminación de Argelia was presided over by some of the leading figures of the Arab community, who, until the 1950s, were active mostly in the Chilean center political parties. Algeria’s fight for independence represented an ideological change toward a more progressive political stance within the Chilean Arab community. This change was partly a result of political events in the Arab world, including the 23 July revolution in Egypt, the Suez crisis, and the rise of Pan-Arabism, in addition to the beginning of the Algerian war for independence in 1954. Mundo Árabe became fiercely pro-Nasserite in the mid-1950s and expressed increasingly anti-imperialist and anticolonial views, some of them overtly revolutionary.
Radicalization was also a generational issue. The older generation participating in Comité chileno pro-autodeterminación de Argelia was rather conservative and almost exclusively of Arab descent. This included the committee’s president, Marco Antonio Salum, who was a deputy for the populist Partido Agrario Laborista (Agrarian Labor Party) led by General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and Omar Rumié Vera, a successful real estate agent. By contrast, the younger generation participating in the committee—most of them students—were not necessarily bound by an Arab identity; rather, they were overwhelmingly affiliated with either the Socialist Party of Chile or Trotskyite groups, and, to a lesser extent, with the Communist Party. The Chilean Socialist Party was, in fact, sympathetic to both Socialist and Non-Aligned regimes around the globe.24 For instance, one of the main leaders of the Socialist Party, Raúl Ampuero, participated in the 1961 Non-Aligned Conference in Belgrade, where the Algerian FLN was present. Ampuero was also one of the first Chilean party leaders to visit Algeria, in 1963, after receiving an official invitation from Ahmed Ben Bella, the first Algerian President.25
The significant presence of Trotskyites in the Socialist Party also contributed to the party’s interest in the Algerian war and the socialist regime established in 1962. Most of these Trotskyites were followers or sympathizers of Michel Pablo, the Fourth International’s secretary general, who encouraged participation in broad alliances and left-wing parties, a policy also known as “entryism.” More broadly, in the aftermath of World War II, the Fourth International played a key role in crafting global solidarity with African and Asian national liberation movements, but also in the foundation of “New Left” revolutionary movements in Latin America. Moreover, the Fourth International contributed greatly to the establishment of contacts between the three continents and to the creation of the Third World.
In the late 1950s, Pablo and his closest collaborators within the Trotskyite Fourth International became strongly involved in the Algerian cause. In addition to political and public expressions of support for the independence struggle, they secretly organized a weapons factory for the FLN in Morocco, where among the skilled workers were several Argentinian Trotskyites.26 They also attempted to counterfeit French currency, a clandestine operation that led to Pablo’s arrest.27 After the 1962 independence, Algerian president Ben Bella had a close relationship with Pablo, who had settled in Algeria in 1962 and stayed there to promote workers’ and peasants’ self-management economy (autogestión).28 During the UP years, Pablo moved for a short time period to Chile, where he also promoted autogestión in the country’s factories.
But links between the Chilean Trotskyites and Algeria did not wait for Pablo’s visit to Chile; they traced back to the Comité Chileno Pro-Autodeterminación de Argelia. Its main solidarity activities were a combination of conventional and more radical actions, reflecting the generation gap between its members. These activities included fundraising for the FLN29 and open letters to the president of the Chilean Republic urging him, albeit in vain, to back United Nations resolutions on Algeria’s right to self-determination, but also interrupting Congress sessions using firecrackers and loudly chanting slogans in favor of the Algerian independence.30 They also included hosting FLN leaders and delegations in Chile. Such was the case of Alfred Berenguer, a Catholic priest of Spanish descent and an icon of the Algerian struggle for independence. After being expelled from Algeria, Berenguer found refuge in Santiago in 1959, when he spent six months in the residence of a wealthy woman connected to the committee.31
In 1960, the Gouvernement Provisionel de la République Algérienne (GPRA; Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic)—the government-in-exile of the FLN—was cornered by the French after a bloody six-year war and having trouble obtaining the support of Algeria’s neighbors. In search of new allies, the GPRA turned to sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.32 From 9 to 15 October, a GPRA delegation campaigning in Latin American made a stopover in Chile. There, Benyoussef Benkhedda, the GPRA’s and the delegation’s head, met with the Chilean Committee for Algeria’s Self-Determination, which also arranged meetings with several members of Parliament and senators.33
A year before that, in February 1959, only a month after the Cuban revolution, the Union Générale des Étudiants Musulmans Algériens (UGEMA; General Union of Muslim Students of Algeria), which was attached to the FLN, attended the pro-Western International Students Conference meeting in Lima. Immediately after that, the UGEMA delegation went on a Latin American tour and visited Chile. Invited there by the Federación de Estudiantes de Chile (Student Federation of Chile), which was then dominated by the Christian Democrats, UGEMA members also met with the youth section of the Chilean Committee for the Self-Determination of Algeria and with a significant number of young Socialists and Communists.34 The FLN’s ideological ambiguity and its constant search for balance between East and West were apparent during the UGEMA’s Latin American tour.35 Either way, the message that the UGEMA conveyed in the Chilean press immediately after the pro-West Lima meeting was all but moderate: “In this land of Simon Bolivar and San Martin, these legendary figures who held the continent’s liberation on the edge of their sword freeing it from the powerful Spanish rule, the struggle for freedom takes on singular importance.”36
Nor were some of the solidarity actions carried out by the younger left-wing members of the committee moderate. When the French novelist and De Gaulle’s minister of cultural affairs, André Malraux, visited Latin America and Chile in September 1959 in order to campaign against Algerian independence, a group of young pro-Algeria students energetically opposed Malraux’s talk,37 as witnessed by Eduardo Salum, future ambassador to Algeria under Allende’s UP and head of the youth front of the Chilean Committee for Algerian Self-Determination:
When André Malraux arrived in Chile in order to ask for Chile’s vote in the United Nations [in favor of the French position], we—the youth section of the Chilean pro-Algerian Committee—organized a counter-demonstration during Malraux’s talk at the University of Chile.… In the upper part of the room, there was a sort of balcony.… When I shouted “Long live free Algeria!” … Patricio Figueroa [a Trotskyite activist] set off a firecracker. The old ladies who were downstairs, so snobby, so frenchified, started yelling, “This is a terrorist attack against Malraux!” … Of course, Malraux’s talk was suspended.… Our counter-demonstration was a complete success!38
More importantly, the pro-Algerian Chileans believed that in order for the peripheral and underdeveloped nation-states to defend their rights, they should integrate into supranational entities; this was reflected in the idea of pan-Arabism underlying the Algerian struggle.39 As for the Algerians, their Latin American circuit was a highly formative experience. Indeed, it was the GPRA’s Latin American expedition that gave rise to a new perception of the Third World, one that brought Latin America closer to the recently decolonized countries. This perception of a revolution of independence that needed to be both political and socioeconomic, already present in Nasser’s Philosophy of the Revolution and in the work of the nineteenth-century Cuban independentist José Martí, was later updated by Marxism and the Cuban Revolution.40 This is how Benyoussef Benkhedda, the aforementioned head of the GPRA and founder of the FLN’s newspaper, El Moudjahid, summarized what the FLN had learned in Latin America: “The lesson we can learn from Latin America … is extremely useful. A century and a half ago, these countries gained their ‘independence’ … However, that decolonization was nothing more than an illusion … British and later American colonialism fostered division … in order to bring Latin America under their sway. Since 1940, the whole continent struggles for its ‘second independence,’ a true independence … that is, a revolution in two stages, first political liberation, then economic and social.”41
Understandably, the first connections between the Algerian FLN and the Chilean political scene, which dated from the late 1950s, developed through nonstate networks. The informal—mainly militant, and to a lesser extent diasporic—networks maintained their importance even after the creation of an Algerian state in 1962, and despite the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1963. During the period under examination, the main connections between Algeria and Chile were anchored within civil society and ideologically marked by a Third-Worldist revolutionary transnationalism.
However, two changes took place in the post-1962 period, following the independence of Algeria. Before 1961–62, support for the Algerian cause came generally from progressive militants and the Arab diaspora. But from 1962 onward, broader and much more direct bonds developed between Chilean and Algerian civil societies. In Chile, an increasing number of individuals (activists, intellectuals, and professionals) and collectives (political organizations, informal networks) developed an interest in Algeria, and several traveled there.
Mass media and air travel facilitated the coming closer of the two countries. Even though these technological and material advances may appear devoid of any political dimension, they were highly politicized. Recently decolonized and Non-Aligned countries were fully aware of the political significance of mass media. For instance, during UGEMA’s tour in Latin America in 1959, its leaders saw the lack of publicity for the FLN as one of the main obstacles to widespread support across the continent. As they noted, all relevant information published in nondiasporic Latin American press was sourced through the Agence France Presse and other pro-French press agencies.42 Non-Aligned countries thus felt the need to create independent press agencies or to count on amicably inclined ones. Thus, in December 1961, the GPRA created its own press agency, the Algérie Presse Service. Even though its press dispatches rarely reached Chile directly, the Yugoslavian press agency Tanjug and the Cuban Prensa Latina ensured that Algerian news appeared in the Chilean left-wing press.43
As for air travel, much to the distress of the United States, the independent Algerian state decided to purchase its aircraft from socialist countries.44 In exchange, the USSR turned Algiers’s airport into a mandatory refueling stop for Aeroflot’s long-distance flights, mainly the ones connecting with the American continent. Serving, in addition, as a bridge between Africa and the Mediterranean, the Algerian capital city became a “global city.”45 In the 1960s and 1970s, it also became a hub for radical political movements and regularly hosted political conferences, such as the Non-Aligned Summit in September 1973, a few days prior to the Chilean military coup.46
Algiers, moreover, became a meeting point for socially and politically sensitized professionals. Professional activity and political commitment were intertwined ever since the French colonized Algeria in the 1830s, when qualified jobs were generally reserved for non-Muslim populations. From independence onward, Algeria consistently suffered from a massive brain-drain. Thus, for the Algerian independent state, the replacement of white-collar professions was a highly political matter, inseparable from economic development and political self-determination.47 This is why from 1962 onward, Algeria invested considerable energy into the organization of international conferences and meetings of engineers, educators, journalists, legal practitioners, doctors, and other professionals. In addition to attracting professionals, these events served to develop cooperative ties with other Third World countries that had a lesser need for white-collar labor force.48
Those international meetings, both militant and professional, also offered the participants a unique opportunity to discover the host country, learn about political and social changes taking place there, and describe its achievements when they returned home. Educating public opinion further promoted a new closeness between two geographically distant countries. Indeed, every time a Chilean delegation attended an international meeting in Algeria, the Chilean press published interviews and detailed descriptions of the country, concerning not only Algeria’s modern history, culture, and customs but also its forms of political and social organization. And, vice versa, when Algerian politicians or professionals visited Chile or when Chilean dignitaries were present on the Algerian soil, extensive articles and radio and TV shows were dedicated to Chile, its history and political news.49
In the early 1960s, Cuba became increasingly influential in Chilean-Algerian relations. Cuba became a mediator between Chile and Algeria on several occasions. Along with Algeria, Cuba also hosted international conferences and was indeed a favorite meeting place for activists and political leaders from all over the world. At the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, for instance, the Socialist and the Communist Party represented Chile, while the then–minister of foreign affairs of Algeria, Abdel Aziz Bouteflika, represented his country.50 From 1962 onward, the progressive Chilean press relied on the Cuban press agency for information on Algeria and, more generally, on Africa.
More importantly, Cuba served as a reference point that allowed the Chilean public opinion (mostly left-wing, but not exclusively) to better grasp Algerian politics. Algeria was constantly compared to Cuba; and thus, Cuba translated Algerian politics that initially seemed extremely remote and exotic to a political project with which the Latin Americans were familiar. These comparisons were initiated in Cuba, and only later reproduced, through Prensa Latina articles, in other Latin American countries. Jorge “Papito” Serguera, Cuba’s ambassador in Algeria under the Ben Bella presidency, noted how in Cuba, “we considered the Algerian revolution as a process very similar to our own revolution … [as] a twin [revolution]: they took place at the same time and they lasted more or less the same [time].… The [Algerian] Army of National Liberation [fought] against the French Armed Forces; and [M26] Ejército Rebelde against the Armed Forces of the Cuban state.… In both cases, first-rank foreign powers supported the peoples’ enemies.”51
Such comparisons were also made in the Chilean press. For instance, after the appointment of Ben Bella as head of state, the Chilean newspapers published numerous articles comparing him to Fidel Castro.52 The socialist Victor Barberis wrote on that occasion: “Ben Bella demands nothing more than the effective exercise of the right for self-determination that Algeria has won, eliminating forever every remnant of imperialist domination.… [This can occur] thanks to the revolutionary Armed forces, which are—as in Cuba—the only true guarantor that the revolution will not become a palace coup and that the profound political and social reforms that the Algerian people have accomplished by the magnitude of their sacrifice will take place.”53 Barberis thus reiterated the idea that, for recently decolonized countries, revolution should be at the same time political and socioeconomic, a double revolution. But he also noted that the revolutionary forces of Cuba and Algeria were guerrilla fighters—that is, civilians, a people in arms.
Both Cuba and Algeria had experienced revolutionary and/or decolonization processes. Afterward, they also continued to conduct international relations mostly through informal militant networks. Both Algeria and Cuba hosted clandestine or exiled revolutionary organizations that they recognized as the sole legal and legitimate representatives of their nations and took solidarity and brotherhood with these as the basis for Third World relations. As a 1962 FLN article put it, “History … gave us a special place in the Arab world, of which we are and desire to be an integrated part. However, this primary solidarity forms part of a much broader solidarity, the solidarity built between us and the peoples of Africa and Latin America, who are engaged in the same struggle for total emancipation. This is the historic significance of our Revolution.”54
This Third-Worldist conception was thus based not so much on “classical” interstate relations as on relations among states created through revolution or between such states and revolutionary organizations elsewhere. It might, however, be useful to remember that for the Latin American Left in the 1960s and 1970s, revolution was not necessarily an armed and violent opposition to the state. Rather, they thought that the road to socialism could be traveled nonviolently, or as a combination of legal and violent means. In the case of the relations between Algeria and Chile, this distinctive feature of the Algerian state’s foreign policy—that is, privileging relations with revolutionary organizations or revolutionary governments—explains why Algeria’s favored links with Chile involved Chilean left-wing parties from the 1960s to the 1980s.
In parallel with the militant links between Algeria and Chile, formal diplomatic relations also developed between the two countries from 1963 to the 1973 Chilean military coup. However, there is a considerable difference between the 1963–70 and the 1970–73 interstate relations. Before 1970 and Allende’s elections, diplomatic relations between Algeria and Chile were marked by the Cold War; after Allende’s election, they became relations between two states that defined themselves as Third-Worldist and revolutionary. Indeed, in the interstate relations between Algeria and Chile after 1970, it was not career diplomats but the informal activist networks that had supported the Algerian fight for independence in the late 1950s that started playing a major role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Further, as these relations developed, both countries also sought independence from Cold War superpowers and dominant socioeconomic and political models.
The pre-1970 diplomatic relations between Chile and Algeria can thus help us grasp the Third-Worldist facet of Allende’s foreign policy through the contrast they present with the latter. In May 1963, Chile opened an embassy in Algiers. It was a year after Algeria’s independence and only two months after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. This embassy in Algiers was also assigned the diplomatic mission for Morocco and Tunisia, Algeria’s neighboring countries and ex-protectorates of France, with which Chile had established relations in 1961. In the 1960s, the opening of an embassy, especially in a very distant country, entailed considerable costs that a country such as Chile often found difficult to cover. This, combined with the fact that the socialist orientation of Ben Bella’s government was exactly opposite the conservative politics of Jorge Alessandri, president of Chile from 1958 to 1964, suggests that the Chilean state saw the new embassy as serving important priorities and geostrategic goals. According to confidential reports of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chile not only acknowledged the increasing international importance of the independent African states but also wanted their support in the United Nations, mainly regarding the dispute with Bolivia concerning the binational River Lauca.55 Indeed, the embassy in Algiers was to act as Chile’s liaison with sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, Alessandri’s government saw in Chile’s presence in Africa an opportunity to closely follow its immediate competitors’ economic activity, since Chile was, like most African countries, mainly an exporter of raw materials.56 Diplomacy was thus instrumental to a rather classic form of rivalry between countries producing primary commodities.57
At the same time, however, Alessandri’s ministry of foreign affairs reminded the first ambassador in Algeria that one of his main missions was to defend the principles of self-determination, peace, and democracy that Chile and the Western world stood for. That being said, this rhetoric also masked the connection between the opening of the Chilean embassy in Algiers and Cold War dynamics. Even though it was never explicitly stated in the Chilean foreign ministry’s confidential reports, the Chilean embassy was implicitly presented as a proxy for the United States, tasked with informing on all “suspicious activities” and with serving as a counterweight to Non-Aligned and socialist countries.58 In a confidential report, the first Chilean Ambassador, Eugenio Velasco Letelier formulated in these terms his visit to the United States, and his meeting with representatives of the State Department: “The Assistant Secretary General insisted on the State Department being extremely satisfied with Chile’s initiative to establish relations with the newest states of Northern Africa, especially with Algeria, because … until then in Algiers there was only one Latin American Embassy, the Cuban.”59 In addition, the first confidential report transmitted to the ambassador in Algeria specified that one of his main goals should be the scrutiny of Algeria’s relations with the USSR and with the United Arab Republic—the latter because a pan-Arabic union would be a threat to stability in Northern Africa and the Middle East, the former out of concern with economic but mostly military “help” that Algeria was receiving from the USSR.60
The choice of Eugenio Velasco Letelier as the first Chilean ambassador to Algeria may have been related to a desire to balance the anti-Communist orientation of Alessandri’s foreign policy, given that Velasco was a member of the Radical Party, which dominated the 1930s and 1940s Popular Front governments. However, despite his ideological differences with Alessandri’s government, Velasco was very close to the Alessandri family. Arturo, the president’s elder brother, was Velasco’s professor and mentor in law school.61 Thus, Velasco was faithful to the Alessandri government’s Western-oriented international policy, even as his progressive political beliefs were expected to facilitate his connections with the Algerian government.
But, while the United States looked favorably on the opening of the Chilean embassy in Algiers, Velasco’s priorities changed from following Soviet activity in Algeria to focusing on Cuba. One reason for this is that Velasco quickly noted that Algeria had much closer relations with China and Cuba than with the USSR. Not only did the Cuban ambassador, Jorge Serguera, enjoy personal and ideological affinity with Ben Bella, but Prensa Latina significantly influenced the view of the Algerians—both government and people—of Latin America.62 In the case of Chile, it systematically attacked the Chilean government on the government’s pro-US political stance. That this view was negative was especially worrisome to Velasco, who was concerned about the impact it could have on Algeria’s diplomatic relations with other Latin American states. More generally, Velasco was alarmed by the influence Cuba had gained across the African continent, mostly thanks to Algerian mediation.63
At the same time, recognition of this influence led the Chilean ambassador to perceive Cold War dynamics as much more polycentric than he did when he was still in Chile. Velasco’s reports give a clear view of how he gradually came to doubt the effectiveness of a binary view of global politics and the division of the world into two camps. Even though he remained hostile to Cuba, his effort to understand what was initially incomprehensible to him—the sympathy the Algerians had for Cubans—led him to question his binary vision of the Cold War period. “The friendship and the sympathy for Cuba and its revolution are very pronounced both within the Algerian government and the people. To this contributes … in a very special way the belief that Cuba symbolizes a small but courageous country that heroically stood up against the United States in order to free itself from imperialism and to build its own economic future in complete freedom. This attitude allowed Cuba to put up with all kinds of sacrifices.”64
In late 1964, the Christian Democrat candidate Eduardo Frei won the presidential elections in Chile. Velasco was replaced by a Christian Democrat intellectual and diplomat, Humberto Díaz Casanueva, a few months before the violent overthrow of Ben Bella and the July 1965 military coup led by Houari Boumediene. Toward the end of his mission in Algeria, Velasco’s political stance had become Third-Worldist and overtly anticolonial and anti-imperialist. Velasco’s reports became more and more friendly with regard to the Algerian government and its president, and more and more convinced of the capital role that Algeria was destined to play:
Nowadays, Africa is the most interesting place in the world. And in Africa, Algeria holds a uniquely important place. It is … the bridge between the Old World and the nascent states. The fact that it controls a big part of the Southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; its potential wealth and power and especially, its large repository of oil; its resolute policy, neutralist at the international level, and socialist within Algeria; Ben Bella’s extraordinary leadership and its growing influence on many neighboring countries have converted Algeria into a nervous center for world politics.65
While it is difficult to measure the effect of Velasco’s analyses on the Chilean Foreign Ministry, they do reflect a considerable shift in the way certain public servants and ministry officials and diplomats conceived world political geography in the 1960s, as well as the increasing relevance they attached to Algeria, and more generally recently decolonized countries. They also reflect a process of radicalization quite similar to the abovementioned process experienced by the Arab diaspora in the late 1950s—namely, the gradual adoption of a Third-Worldist stance by a wide spectrum of political organizations, ranging from guerrilla movements to center parties. In a way, Velasco’s reports on Ben Bella are a preview of the Allende-Boumediene relations. In one of their private conversations, Ben Bella reported to Velasco that one of Algeria’s main global goals was to obtain the broadest possible consensus among Third World countries, a consensus based on promoting economic development and cooperation.66 Although Ben Bella was overthrown by Boumediene in 1965, the view he had expressed in 1964 was very similar to Boumediene’s outlook once he became head of state. It is that same attitude that Boumediene and Allende would maintain in their collaboration from Allende’s rise to power in 1970 to the 1973 coup.
After coming to power in 1965, Boumediene expressed interest in developing Algeria’s relations with Chile and its Christian Democrat government, even though the seat of the Algerian embassy in South America remained in Buenos Aires and Algeria did not open up a new embassy in Chile. However, the Christian Democrats did not consider Algeria a priority. The reasons are not specified in the Foreign Ministry reports, but after Díaz Casanueva’s departure from Algeria in 1968, the embassy was managed by several chargés d’affaires in fast succession.
This situation changed dramatically with Allende’s coming to power. From 1970 to 1973, the Algerian and Chilean governments developed a strong relationship. In May 1972, Chérif Belkacem, the second most powerful man in the Boumediene government, visited Chile and extended an official invitation to Allende.67 Allende visited Algeria some months later, in December 1972.68
Those governmental and official relations were based upon the crystallization of a Third-Worldist ideology, which existed since the late 1950s in a fragmented form and stemmed from previous militant links between the Algerian FLN and the Chilean Socialist Party. The person appointed UP Ambassador in Algiers, Eduardo Salum, perfectly embodied these links. Salum was not a career diplomat, but a socialist intellectual of Arab origin, whose elder brother was a leading figure of the 1950s Chilean solidarity movement with the FLN. Eduardo Salum was appointed ambassador by the Socialist Party’s Political Commission.69 The main political parties of the UP, the Communist and the Socialist Parties, appointed ambassadors to embassies according to their respective political affinities. For instance, the Communist Party named the Chilean ambassador to Moscow, whereas the Socialists appointed the Chilean ambassador to Rome. Hence, the choice of Eduardo Salum demonstrated the Chilean socialist government’s desire not only to deepen interstate relations, but also to develop a more profound ideological bond with Algeria. Allende’s government, mainly the Socialist Party, attached high political importance to the country. For them, Algeria was a bridge allowing Chile to connect with Africa and Asia in spite of its geographical confinement.70 The importance that the Socialist Party attached to Algeria was a direct reflection of its conviction that the political center of the world was gradually shifting from Europe to African countries, such as Algeria, or to Asian countries, such as Vietnam.
As for Algeria’s motivations, according to the main FLN publication, El Moudjahid, Algeria’s interest in Allende’s Chile stemmed partly from older political links.71 However, the Algerian government was also attracted by certain features of the UP, which, according to the FLN, were the embodiment of Third World politics. More precisely, Allende’s Chile embodied supranational unity and solidarity through its commitment to regional integration, the same project Algeria was promoting through the Organization of African Unity and pan-Arabism. Moreover, after Allende’s election and U.S. reactions to it, Chile had become a new center for anti-imperialist struggle. For Algeria, anti-imperialism was but the other side of anticolonialism: “Working relentlessly to ‘demolish the French colonial order,’ Algeria claimed a leading role in ‘the process of demolition of imperialism’ in general. All the ideology that El Moudjahid disseminated since June 1956, was profoundly influenced by Frantz Fanon and advocated the confluence of the struggles of all the colonized, in order to promote new solidarities which could moderate the imperialist powers.”72
Furthermore, Allende and Boumediene shared a common conception of what Third-World revolution and revolutionary governance should be like: both focused their discourse on the necessity of obtaining “true independence,” perceived as being the result of an efficient economic policy and state control over natural and human resources. As the Chilean ambassador said when presenting his credentials: “The destinies and trajectories of our two governments touch one another. We both prepare the ground for the construction of socialism, by adopting measures to regain our national wealth. This is the only way to secure absolute sovereignty, impossible to obtain if there is still economic dependency. National political autonomy is not enough for securing peoples’ development.”73
Both Boumediene’s and Allende’s governments advocated for national control over raw materials (copper in Chile, oil in Algeria), for land reform, and for workers’ and peasants’ self-management. In this respect, the need for qualified personnel (technicians, doctors and nurses, teachers, agronomists, engineers) in the main economic sectors and activities was apparent, especially in Algeria.74 Thus, cooperation agreements that included the transfer of qualified personnel from Chile to Algeria were signed between the two countries.75
Additionally, both countries were actively engaged in international forums that promoted similar economic policy. In the 1960s, Algeria had been one of the most committed sponsors of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), a forum where countries producing raw material could defend their commodities by pressuring industrialized countries to maintain the price level of primary commodities. In April 1972, Chile hosted the UNCTAD III. Its candidacy was supported by Algeria,76 whose delegates were also present in Santiago and tried to obtain consensus among the participants both on a common Third World economic policy—that was to be approved a year later in Algiers’ UNCTAD—and on solidarity with Vietnam.77
As Nicole Grimaud points out, the Algerian Third-Worldist and nationalist economic policy aimed to create a Third World consensus.78 According to the Boumediene government, an economic consensus would be much easier to extrapolate later on to the political field: “[Algeria’s] aim was to bypass political barriers by putting forward demands related to [economic] development. However, the long-term goal was to gradually bring Third World countries together around a radical political agenda.”79 This explains why an important part of the cooperation and coordination between the FLN and the UP concerned Latin American exiles, mostly Brazilian, who had abandoned their homeland after the 1964 military coup, and their free circulation between the two countries.80 As the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives and FLN publications demonstrate, both Boumediene’s Algeria and Allende’s Chile focused their discourse on their common belonging to a broader community, the Third World. Thus, solidarity with other national liberation movements (a category that also included movements resisting to right-wing dictatorships) was a moral and political obligation.81
Hence, as soon as the news of the Chilean coup broke, the Algerian government, like other governments in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, interrupted its diplomatic relations with Chile, now represented by a military junta. But the Algerian case was rather unique, in the sense that Allende’s ambassador was maintained at his position and was recognized by Boumediene’s government as the sole legitimate and legal representative of the Chilean nation.82 It was he who represented Chile in Algerian official ceremonies and who remained the respondent on matters related to Chilean politics until his departure from Algiers to Milan in December 1976.
Furthermore, Algeria hosted an important number of Chilean political exiles, in particular, technicians, engineers, agronomists, doctors, nurses, and teachers. Those professionals were invited by Boumediene’s government to settle in Algeria and to contribute to the country’s efforts at economic and technological development. The settlement of the Chilean political exiles in Algeria was, in many ways, the perpetuation of the militant diplomacy of 1970–73 and the fulfillment of the cooperation agreements signed between the two heads of state before 1973.83
In the late 1950s, personal and organizational links were established between the Chilean Left and the Algerian FLN, thanks to the Arab diaspora in Chile and mostly to militant transnational networks that actively supported the Algerian national cause. After independence, the relations between the Algerian government and Chilean left-wing parties became tighter, as they were both seeking solidarity and Third World economic and political integration. In this process, several mediators, among them Cuba, played a key role. In addition, the opening by the right-wing government of Jorge Alessandri of a Chilean embassy in 1963 in Algiers led to the development of interstate relations, as well as to recognition of the importance for the Cold War era of Third World dynamics. In 1970, with Allende’s coming to power the militant and the institutional logics converged entirely. After the 1973 Chilean coup, despite the breaking off of diplomatic ties, the militant and institutional bonds consolidated throughout the Political Unity period were maintained thanks to the Algerian state’s support of Chilean political exiles in the framework of Third World solidarity.
Through the study of the postwar Chilean-Algerian relations, this chapter has demonstrated that the gradual forging of links between the two nations must be placed within the nascent Third World dynamics. As discussed, we cannot understand Cold War Chilean history exclusively through the country’s relations with the United States and/or the USSR. The Third World—and thus Chile’s relations with countries and political organizations that situated themselves in the Third World—are equally relevant. Moreover, by studying the interchange of revolutionary ideas, practices, and activists between Chile and Algeria from the 1950s to the 1970s, this chapter contributes to the ongoing debate on the meaning, content, and material reality of the “Third World” without limiting it to its relations with the United States and the Soviet Union.
1. Allende was president of Chile and head of the Popular Unity Government (1970–1973) until the 11 September military coup and the establishment of a dictatorship, led by Augusto Pinochet, that ended with the return to democracy in 1990.
2. Alberto Gamboa, “En el aeropuerto, un gran letrero: ‘El cobre de Chile seguirá siendo de Chile,’ ” Clarín, 6 December 1972, 24
3. More precisely, this chapter builds on the extensive examination of the 1950s–1970s Chilean and the 1960s–1970s Algerian press, the Archives of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the magazines and journals that the Chilean political exiles published in Algiers in the post-1973 period, and more than twenty extensive interviews with Chilean left-wing activists connected to Algeria.
4. See for instance Heraldo Muñoz and Joseph Tulchin, eds., Latin American Nations in World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984); Augusto Varas, ed., Soviet–Latin American Relations in the 1980s (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987); Joaquín Fermandois, Mundo y fin de mundo: Chile en la política mundial, 1900–2004 (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2015).
5. When it comes to Algeria’s links with Latin America, only Ben Bella’s relations with Cuba have been examined so far. See Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 30–52; and Jeffrey James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution. Algeria, Decolonization and the Third World Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
6. The term “Third World” is undoubtedly an ideological and political construction. But as noted by Samantha Christiansen and Zachary A. Scarlett, “although the term Third World may be outmoded today—replaced by the vague (and equally questionable) Global South—we stand by its value as a historical idea of vital importance during the Cold War. Discarding the term would be to erase a historical situation that did indeed play a central role in the global protest movement of the 1960s.” Christiansen and Scarlett, eds., The Third World in the Global 1960s (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013), 3. Indeed, the activists, governments, and institutions that I study use the term “Third World” broadly.
7. This is an allusion to the title of Frantz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin, 1963). Born in Martinique, the psychiatrist and Marxist Frantz Fanon became a leading figure of the Algerian revolution of independence. Prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Wretched of the Earth illustrates Fanon’s vision of revolutionary violence. It became an important ideological reference for the 1960s and 1970s Latin American New Left.
8. Lilian Mathieu, “L’espace des mouvements sociaux,” Politix 77, no. 1 (2007): 131–51.
9. For instance, Dominic Sachsenmaier, “Global History and Critiques of Western Perspectives,” Comparative Education 42, no. 3 (2006): 451–70. Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, “Penser l’histoire croisée: Entre empirie et réflexivité,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 1 (2003): 7–36.
10. Pierre-Yves Saunier, “Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux,” Genèses 4, no. 57 (2004): 110–26; Caroline Douki and Philippe Minard, “Histoire globale, histoires connectées: un changement d’échelle historiographique?,” Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine 54, no. 5 (2007): 20.
11. For instance, the concept of “interstitial space” is particularly suited for the analysis of historical processes situated in different geographical scales. Thibaud Boncourt, “Acteurs multipositionnés et fabrique du transnational. La création du European Consortium for Political Research,” Critique internationale 59, no. 2 (2013): 17–32; Thibaut Rioufreyt, “Les passeurs de la ‘troisième voie.’ Intermédiaires et médiateurs dans la circulation transnationale des idées,” Critique internationale 59, no. 2 (2013): 33–46.
12. Kevin Funk, “How Latin America Met the Arab World: Toward a Political Economy of Arab–Latin American Relations,” in Latin American Foreign Policies towards the Middle East. Actors, Contexts, and Trends, ed. Marta Tawil Kuri (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), 11–36.
13. For instance José Rodríguez Elizondo, Crisis y renovación de las izquierdas: de la Revolución Cubana a Chiapas, pasando por el “caso chileno” (Buenos Aires: Andrés Bello, 1995); Jorge Castañeda, La utopía desarmada. Intrigas, dilemas y promesa de la izquierda en América Latina (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Ariel, 1993); Enrique Ros, Castro y las guerrillas latinoamericanas (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 2001).
14. For a critical view of this historiographical approach, see Tanya Harmer and Alfredo Riquelme, eds., Chile y la Guerra Fría Global (Santiago: Ril, 2015).
15. The two reference publications are Odd Arne Westad, ed., Reviewing the Cold War: Approaches, Interpretations, Theory (London: Frank Cass, 2000); and Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
16. Matthew Connelly, “Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of North-South Conflict during the Algerian War for Independence,” American Historical Review, 105, no. 3 (2000): 739–69; Robert J. McMahon, ed., The Cold War in the Third World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Peter L. Hahn and Mary Ann Heiss. eds., Empire and Revolution: the United States and the Third World since 1945 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000).
17. Jason C. Parker, “Decolonization, the Cold War, and the post-Columbian era,” in The Cold War in the Third World, ed. Robert J. McMahon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 124–38; Thea Pitman and Andy Stafford, “Introduction: Transatlanticism and Tricontinentalism,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 7, no. 3 (2009): 197–207.
18. See, for instance, Christiansen and Scarlett, The Third World; and Kare Dubinsky, Catherine Krull, Susan Lord, Sean Mills, and Scott Rutherford, eds., New World Coming: The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2009).
19. Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 5.
20. See for instance Tricia M. Redeker Hepner, “Transnational Governance and the Centralization of State Power in Eritrea and Exile,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31, no. 3 (2008): 476–502. Hepner shows that “the Eritrean state utilizes its transnational capacities not to expand socio-political participation and rights or to enable foreign/global economic interventions, but rather to limit, control and repress them” (478).
21. Donald W. Bray, “The Political Emergence of Arab-Chileans, 1952–1958,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 4, no. 4 (1962): 557–62; Brenda Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), chapter 4.
22. Ahmad Hassan Mattar, Guía social de la Colonia Arabe en Chile: Siria, Palestina, Libanesa (Santiago: Club Palestino; Ahues Hermanos, 1941), 379.
23. Cecilia Baeza and Elodie Brun, “La diplomacia chilena hacia los países árabes: entre posicionamiento estratégico y oportunismo comercial,” Estudios Internacionales, 171 (2012): 61–85.
24. Marie-Noëlle Sarget, Système politique et Parti Socialiste au Chili. Un essai d’analyse systémique (Paris: Édition de L’Harmattan, 1994), 324–25; Óscar Waiss, Chile vivo. Memorias de un socialista (1928–1970) (Madrid: Ediciones Fuenlabrada, 1985).
25. “La potencia de Ben Bella,” Ercilla, 13 November 1963, 23; “Invité par le président de la République, Raul Ampuero, secrétaire général du Parti socialiste chilien, est arrivé à Alger,” Alger Républicain, 11 October 1963, 1.
26. Sylvain Pattieu, Les camarades des frères. Trotskistes et libertaires dans la guerre d’Algérie (Alger: Éditions Casbah, 2006); Sylvain Pattieu, “Le ‘camarade Pablo,’ la IVe Internationale et la guerre d’Algérie,” Revue Historique, 619, no. 3 (2001), 695–729; Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 30–52; Dimitris Livieratos, L’Usine invisible de la révolution algérienne. Mémoires d’un trotskiste grec (Athens: Asini, 2012); Roberto Muniz, interview by Eugenia Palieraki, Algiers, 19 October 2012.
27. Pattieu, “Le ‘camarade Pablo,’ ” 708–14.
28. Michel Raptis (“Michel Pablo”), Le dossier de l’autogestion en Algérie (Paris: Anthropos, 1967).
29. For instance, in December 1960, the Chilean Committee had raised $11,000 for the FLN. “Des Parlementaires Chiliens s’adressent au G.P.R.A.,” El Moudjahid 71, 29 January 1961, in El Moudjahid: Un Journal de Combat, 1956–1962 (Alger: Anep, 2011), 3:405. See also “Apoyo a la causa argelina,” Mundo Árabe, 15 October 1960, 1–2.
30. Apoyo a la causa argelina,” 1–2.
31. Eduardo Salum Yazigi, interview by Eugenia Palieraki, Milan, 18 July 2016. See also From: Embassy of Chile in Algeria/Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Political Division, “Informa sobre importante conversación con el Presidente Ben Bella,” 10 October 1964, 2, Confidential Report no. 16, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (hereafter MFA).
32. Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 71–72.
33. “Misión de la República argelina vino a explicar a Latinoamérica la realidad francesa en Argelia,” Mundo Árabe, 15 October 1960, 1–2.
34. El Moudjahid 41, April 1959, in El Moudjahid: Un Journal de Combat, 2:262.
35. On UGEMA’s ambiguous stance towards the United States and the USSR, see Karen Paget, Patriotic Betrayal: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Secret Campaign to Enroll American Students in the Crusade against Communism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 158–64.
36. El Moudjahid 41, 262.
37. C. de B., “Las contradicciones de M. André Malraux,”Mundo Árabe, 26 September 1959, 7.
38. Interview with Salum Yazigi. See also “Que el Sr. Malraux se defina como escritor o como ministro,” Mundo Árabe, 9 September 1959, 1–2.
39. C. de B., “Las contradicciones,” 7; Todd Shepard, “A l’heure des ‘grands ensembles’ et de la guerre d’Algérie. L’ ‘Etat-nation’ en question,” Monde(s). Histoire, Espaces, Relations 1 (May 2012): 113–34.
40. Nasser’s Philosophy of the Revolution was translated into Spanish by Mundo Árabe and published in Chile and Latin America in 1954. According to Nasser, the countries undergoing decolonization had to achieve a double revolution: a political one by separating themselves from the metropolis, and, at the same time, a social and economic one to break away from all economic dependency. In other words, the revolution had to be at once anticolonial and anti-imperialist or anti-neocolonial. Gamal Abdel Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (Buffalo, NY: Smith, Keynes & Marshall, 1959).
41. Benyoussef Benkhedda, “Impressions d’une tournée latino-américaine,” El Moudjahid 76, 5 January 1961, in El Moudjahid: Un Journal de Combat, 3:405. This is also reminiscent of Kwame Nkrumah’s conception of neocolonialism. Nkrumah was both an important ally of and an ideological reference for the FLN. On Ghana’s postcolonial foreign policy, see Willard Scott Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957–1966: Diplomacy Ideology, and the New State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969). On Nkrumah’s political thought see, for instance, Saïd Bouamama, “Kwame Nkrumah,” in Figures de la révolution africaine. De Kenyatta à Sankara, ed. Saïd Bouamama (Paris: La Découverte, 2014), 182–201.
42. El Moudjahid 41, 262.
43. Tanjug’s dispatches were used mainly by the socialist press (namely, by the journal Noticias de Última Hora), whereas both the socialist and the communist press were using the Cuban Prensa Latina’s dispatches.
44. Byrne, Mecca of Revolution, 235.
45. Sabine Dullin and Pierre Singaravélou, “Le débat public: Un objet transnational?,” Monde(s). Histoire, Espaces, Relations 1 (May 2012): 23.
46. “Carta del Presidente a Boumedienne: Debe ser estimulado aflojamiento de tensiones,” La Nación, 2 September 1973, 35.
47. On Algeria’s economic and social situation and the brain drain following the country’s independence, see Mohamed Harbi and Benjamin Stora, eds., La guerre d’Algérie. 1954–2004. La fin de l’amnésie (Paris: Laffont, 2004), and Jean-Louis Miège and Collette Dubois, eds., L’Europe retrouvée. Les migrations de la décolonisation (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994).
48. For instance, the Third International Meeting of journalists in 1963, as well as the International Conference on Education in April 1965 took place in Algiers. A Chilean delegation attended both events.
49. See, for instance, the reports published by the communist journalist Hernán Uribe and the educator Crisólogo Gatica: Hernán Uribe, “Líder africano habla para El Siglo. Ben Bella: llevaremos hasta su término la construcción del socialismo en Argelia,” El Siglo, 29 September 1963, 13; Crisólogo Gatica, “Argelia debe seguir el camino del socialismo. Entrevista a Crisólogo Gatica,” El Siglo, 6 June 1965, 4.
50. Roger Faligot, Tricontinentale. Quand Che Guevara, Ben Barka, Cabral, Castro et Hô Chi Minh préparaient la révolution mondiale (1964–1968) (Paris: La Découverte, 2013).
51. Jorge Serguera Riverí (“Papito”), Caminos del Che: datos inéditos de su vida (México, DF: Plaza y Valdés, 1997), 94.
52. For instance, “¿Ben Bella es un nuevo Castro?,” Ercilla, 25 July 1962, 11; and “Ben Bella es el Fidel Castro argelino; triunfal marcha hacia Reforma Agraria,” Clarín, 26 July 1962, 2.
53. Víctor Barberis, “Por una Argelia socialista,” Noticias de Última Hora, 11 July 1962, 2.
54. “Nation arabe et Révolution algérienne,” El Moudjahid 89, 16 January 1962, cited by Nicole Grimaud, La politique extérieure de l’Algérie (Paris: Karthala, 1984), 190–91.
55. From: Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Political Division, To: Embassy of Chile in Algeria/ ugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), “Instrucciones al Sr. Embajador Extraordinario y Plenipotenciario de Chile en Argelia, Marruecos y Túnez, Don Eugenio Velasco Letelier. Estrictamente confidencial,” 31 May 1963, 3–6, 1963—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. The River Lauca is a binational river that originates in Chile but empties into a Bolivian lake. In the 1930s, Chile used part of the flow to better irrigate the Chilean valley of Azapa, thus considerably reducing the quantity of water that reached the Bolivian Altiplano and endangering this region’s agriculture.
56. Mostly copper which was also produced by Zambia (Northern Rhodesia until 1964) and Zaire.
57. From: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Instrucciones al Sr. Embajador Extraordinario y Plenipotenciario de Chile,” 9–11.
58. From: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Instrucciones al Sr. Embajador Extraordinario y Plenipotenciario de Chile,” 3 and 6–8.
59. From: Embassy of Chile in Algeria/Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Political Division, “Informa sobre misiones cumplidas,” 7 July 1963, 2, 1963—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
60. From: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Instrucciones al Sr. Embajador Extraordinario y Plenipotenciario de Chile,” 7–8.
61. “Homenaje a Eugenio Velazco Letelier,” Anales de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales 14 (January, 1972), www
62. “The misconception on what happens in Latin America and in Chile is serious. The view that [the Algerians] have on the New World is exclusively the one the Cubans want them to have”; From: Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Informe sobre situación en Argelia,” 10 August 1964, 10, Informe no. 7, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. From: MFA/Political Division, To: Eugenio Velasco, “Acusa recibo oficios confidenciales nos. 9, 10 y 11,” 10 October 1964, 1, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA, where the ministry tries to reassure Velasco, who is extremely preoccupied with the Algerian government’s retaliation on the Chilean Embassy after the interruption of Chile’s diplomatic relations with Cuba.
63. From: Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Informa sobre actividades cubanas en Argelia,” 13 June 1964, Confidential Report no. 62/4, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
64. From: Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: MFA/- Political Division, “Informa sobre reacción producida en Argelia con la ruptura de relaciones con Cuba,” 31 August 1964, 1, Confidential Report no. 8, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
65. From: Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Formula algunas observaciones generales sobre política internacional en relación con Argelia y África,” 2 September 1964, 1, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
66. From: Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Informa sobre importante conversación con el Presidente Ben Bella,” 10 October 1964, 4, Confidential Report no. 16, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA;. From: Eugenio Velasco Letelier (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Informa sobre entrevista con el Presidente Ben Bella,” 6 April 1964, 1–2, 1964—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
67. “Dijo Ministro Belkacem: Pueblo de Argelia espera visita del Presidente Allende,” La Nación, 31 May 1972, 1; “Ministro del Consejo de la revolución de Argelia en Santiago,” La Nación, 30 May 1972, 8; “Ministro argelino se entrevistó con Allende,” Noticias de Última Hora, 31 May 1972, 24.
68. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Escala del Presidente Salvador Allende en Argelia,” 7 December 1972, Confidential Report no. 152/26, 1972—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. See also “Estamos como camiseta y espalda con Argelia,” Clarín, December 7, 1972, 10.
69. Salum’s candidacy was supported by Clodomiro Almeyda, Allende’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Interview with Salum Yazigi.
70. See, for instance, From: MFA/Political Division, To: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), “Acusan recibo de ofi n°66/54 y 67/55 sobre visitas a Argelia del Vice-Presidente del Consejo de Estado de la República Popular del Congo y el Presidente de Camerún,” 6 October 1971, Report no. 21826, 1972—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
71. For instance, in 1972, the members of the ex-Comité Chileno Pro-Autodeterminación de Argelia, Luis Karque, Tawfik Rumie, and Marco Antonio Salum, were invited to Algeria on the tenth anniversary of the country’s independence. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Delegación chilena a las festividades de la Independencia,” 19 July 1972, Confidential Report no. 93/16, 1972—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
72. Grimaud, La politique extérieure, 263.
73. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Presentación de Cartas Credenciales,” 27 July 1971, 2, Confidential Report no. 42:8, 1972—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
74. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Entrevista con Ministros de la Información, Agricultura y Telecomunicaciones,” n.d. [July 1971], Confidential Report no. 53/9, 1971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Economic Division, “Visita técnica chilenos de ENAP en Argel,” 22 June 1971, Report no. 31/26, 22 June 1971, 1971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
75. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Entrevista con Ministros de la Información, Agricultura y Telecomunicaciones,” July 1971, 1–2, Confidential Report no. 53/9, 1971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/ Political Division, “Ref. Visita del Sr. Alberto Martínez 8ª Feria Internacional de Argel,” 10 September 1971, Confidential Report no. 65/11, 11971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. From: MFA/- Political Division, To: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), 3 March 1972. Confidential Report no. 701, 1972—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA. From: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), To: MFA/Political Division, “Delegación ENAP,” 11 April 1972, Confidential Report no. 40/6, 1972—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
76. One of the most important missions the new Chilean ambassador had to carry out in 1971 was to lobby the Algerian government in order to obtain Algeria’s vote for Chile hosting the UNCTAD Conference in 1972. From: MFA/Economic Division, To: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), “Despacho inmediato,” 4 March 1971, 1971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
77. “Argelia apoya causa del pueblo vietnamita,” La Nación, 12 May 1972, 12.
78. Grimaud, La politique extérieure, 266.
79. Grimaud, La politique extérieure, 266.
80. See numerous articles of El Moudjahid, January 1970; From: MFA/South American Department, To: Carlos Souper (Chargé d’Affaires), 9 January 1971, Cable n° 1, 1971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA; From: MFA/ Political Division, To: Eduardo Salum Yazigi (Amb.), “Solicita instrucciones sobre solicitud de inmigración,” 9 November 1971, Confidential Report no. 91/15. 1971—Argelia, Fondo Histórico del MFA.
81. Salum Yazigi, “Presentación de Cartas Credenciales,” 2–3.
82. Interview with Salum Yazigi.
83. On the Chilean exile in Algeria, see Eugenia Palieraki, “Broadening the Field of Perception and Struggle: Chilean Political Exiles in Algeria and Third-World Cosmopolitanism,” African Identities, 16, no. 2 (2018): 205–18, in Revolutionary Cosmopolitanism: Africa’s Positionality and International Solidarities (1950s–1970s), ed. Eugenia Palieraki and Sarah Fila-Bakabadio.