Shortly after nine on the morning of 11 September 1973, Salvador Allende addressed Chile for the last time. La Moneda was surrounded; pro-government radio transmitters had been bombed; British-made Hawker Hunter jets would soon strike the presidential palace.

“Foreign capital, imperialism, together with reaction,” Allende said, had created the conditions for the armed forces to break with Chilean democracy.

Two years earlier, Chile's Congress had voted unanimously to nationalise the country's great copper mines. Allende's government calculated that the US mining giants Anaconda and Kennecott had extracted $774 million in excess profits since 1955, and ordered the sum deducted from their compensation.

Washington understood the stakes. Henry Kissinger called Allende's election “one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere”. Richard Nixon instructed the CIA to “make the economy scream.”

Fifty-three years later, Washington’s language is hardly less explicit. This week, the Trump administration told Congress it would direct additional military funding to regional allies Panama, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, all led by right-wing governments. The State Department said the money would prevent adversaries establishing “strategic footholds in our hemisphere.”

The traditional tools of imperial coercion — tariffs, sanctions and military hard power — are combined with new tools, including bot farms, paid influencers and data operations. The research consortium on the Reactionary International has investigated one such network around Fernando Cerimedo, the Argentine political operative whose work has stretched across the continent.

Back in February, standing on a stage at Mar-a-Lago, Cerimedo thanked Donald Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale for “giving me your technology.” Cerimedo himself claimed in 2023 to operate more than 50,000 bot accounts.

Cerimedo has tested those methods across the continent. In Chile, he helped create a front group that spread false claims against the proposed 2022 constitution. In Argentina, he joined Javier Milei’s 2023 campaign, supplying digital strategy, his La Derecha Diario media network and, according to the investigation, a bot operation. He later worked in Bolivia for Rodrigo Paz and, alongside Parscale, in Honduras for Nasry Asfura, where the campaign deployed mass text messages and secured an endorsement from Trump. The investigation also reports Cerimedo’s apparent involvement in Keiko Fujimori’s successful 2026 presidential campaign in Peru.

Between the two rounds of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro's son Eduardo travelled to Argentina to meet Cerimedo. Five days after Bolsonaro lost, Cerimedo broadcast claims that Brazil's voting machines had systematically favoured Lula. On the same day, #BrazilWasStolen went viral on Twitter boosted by a cluster of newly created bot accounts. Brazil's electoral court rejected Cerimedo's claims, but members of the subsequent coup plot to prevent Lula taking office — for which Bolsonaro was later convicted — cited them as evidence that the election had been stolen.

Next month, Brazil votes again. Lula's principal challenger is another Bolsonaro, Jair's son Flávio. The latest polls put the two within the margin of error. The Progressive International Observatory will be in Brazil for both rounds, joining partners from across the world to observe the vote and document threats to the integrity of the process.

The Bolsonaros have an ally in the White House. Earlier this year, Flávio raised allegations about Brazil's electoral system with foreign diplomats. Eduardo appeared alongside Cerimedo in a livestream repeating attacks on the voting system. In May, Flávio travelled to Washington, where he met Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and JD Vance.

In July, Washington imposed 25 per cent tariffs on a range of Brazilian products. Among the practices targeted by the US trade investigation was Brazil's support for Pix, the public payments system that has rapidly taken market share from more expensive US payment companies. At this month's BRICS summit, member states backed greater use of local currencies and moves to connect their national payment systems — infrastructure that could allow more trade to bypass the dollar.

Allende knew that the battle around him was lost. “They have strength and will be able to dominate us,” he told Chileans, “but social processes can be arrested neither by crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.”

He refused to resign. As his final broadcast drew to its conclusion, he spoke of the future. “Sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again where free men will walk to build a better society.”

In solidarity,

The Progressive International Secretariat

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A new investigation by Progressive International members Palestinian Youth Movement and Democratic Socialists of America has traced 2,761 military shipments to Israel aboard 160 United Airlines passenger flights between July 2025 and February 2026. In a sample of 546 shipments, researchers identified parts for tanks, F-35 fighter jets and other military aircraft. The investigation landed as United resumed the practice: Flight UA90 from Newark to Tel Aviv was scheduled on 9 September to carry five military consignments destined for Elbit Systems facilities.

Rockstar workers put union-busting on trial

Thirty-one workers fired while developing Grand Theft Auto VI took Rockstar Games to Glasgow Employment Tribunal on 10 September in a case brought by Progressive International member IWGB. The union alleges Rockstar blacklisted and dismissed the workers because of their union activity, without disciplinary hearings or a right of appeal. Supporters rallied outside the tribunal under banners declaring “Game over for union busting.” The case runs into October, while IWGB is separately seeking formal union recognition at Rockstar — which would create the largest recognised unionised games studio in Britain.

Brazil turns Independence Day into a day of struggle

Progressive International member CUT joined movements across Brazil on 7 September for the 32nd Grito dos Excluídos e Excluídas, turning the country’s official Independence Day into mobilisations for land, housing, peace and sovereignty. Under the slogan “Women Alive and Sovereignty”, demonstrations also put violence against women at the centre of this year’s mobilisation. Around 2,000 people marched from São Paulo’s Praça da Sé, while thousands more mobilised in Porto Alegre and actions took place in dozens of cities across the country.

South Africa’s shack dwellers stop another eviction

Progressive International member Abahlali baseMjondolo has won another court order protecting residents of Shaka’s Head, KwaZulu-Natal, from eviction. On 11 September, the Pietermaritzburg High Court ordered KwaDukuza Municipality to obey an earlier judgment before moving residents. That judgement insisted that the relocation site must have roads, water, sanitation, waste collection and electricity, with access to schools, healthcare and public transport. Until then, residents stay. “This is no doubt another victory,” Abahlali said, after members gathered outside the court.

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All four imprisoned organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla are now on hunger strike in Tunisia after a court extended their pre-trial detention by another four months on 11 September. Wael Naouar began refusing food on 16 August; Ghassan El Henchiri, Ghassan El Boughdiri and Nabil Channoufi have now joined him, demanding their release after six months behind bars in a financial investigation connected to organising the flotilla for Gaza

Halliburton workers prepare to strike

Progressive International member Federação Única dos Petroleiros and four affiliated oil workers’ unions in Brazil have called a national assembly of Halliburton workers to vote on a strike. Their collective agreement expired in April and workers rejected the US giant’s last offer more than two months ago. FUP says Halliburton has since failed to produce another proposal or respond to union requests to reopen negotiations. Workers will vote on 30 September on escalating the dispute.

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Our History

9 September 1936 - Non-Intervention

On 9 September 1936, representatives of 26 nations gathered in London for the first meeting of the International Supervisory Committee on Non-Intervention, pledging to abstain “from all interference, direct or indirect, in the internal affairs of Spain.” In practice, the pact gave cover to Britain’s refusal to aid Spain’s democratically elected Popular Front government against Franco’s coup.

Where the rebels were defeated, social revolution erupted: Barcelona became, George Orwell wrote, “a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist.” London took fright. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin insisted that “on no account must Britain be brought into the fight on the side of the Republic,” while Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy repeatedly broke the pact to supply Franco with troops, aircraft and weapons. Britain, meanwhile, enforced an arms embargo on the Republic and obstructed its attempts to buy weapons abroad.

While the ruling class accommodated Franco, around 4,000 British and Irish volunteers joined the International Brigades. In February 1939, Britain formally recognised Franco’s regime, which would soon become a bulwark of Cold War anti-communism.

Learn more about these events with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

10 September 1974 - Guinea-Bissau Liberation

On 10 September 1974, the people of Guinea-Bissau won their independence from Portuguese colonial rule after an 11-year guerrilla war led by the PAIGC, founded by Amílcar Cabral.

Portuguese rule had left the country impoverished, with forced labour, cash-crop agriculture, just 45 schools and two hospitals. The PAIGC built liberation as it fought for it: in the liberated zones it opened schools, provided healthcare and organised new political institutions. “The people do not fight for ideas,” Cabral wrote, but “in order to gain material advantages, to live in peace and to improve their lives.”

The struggle was internationalist, linking the PAIGC with FRELIMO in Mozambique, the MPLA in Angola and revolutionary Cuba, while remaining rooted in local realities: national liberation and social revolution, Cabral insisted, “are not for export.” By the mid-1960s the PAIGC controlled large parts of the country. Cabral was assassinated in 1973, but independence was proclaimed later that year; the colonial wars helped fuel Portugal’s Carnation Revolution in April 1974, and Lisbon formally recognised Guinea-Bissau’s independence that September.

Learn more about these events with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

12 September 1924 - Amilcar Cabral is born

Amílcar Cabral was born on 12 September 1924. An agronomist, socialist and pan-Africanist, he would lead the struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde and become one of the great theorists of national liberation. After studying in Lisbon alongside future revolutionaries including Agostinho Neto, Cabral returned to Guinea and travelled tens of thousands of kilometres conducting an agricultural survey that exposed the environmental and social destruction of colonial rule. In 1956, he helped found the PAIGC, which launched an armed liberation struggle in 1963 and within a decade controlled much of the countryside. In the liberated zones, the revolution built schools, healthcare and new institutions of popular power. Cabral was assassinated in January 1973, within touching distance of the independence for which he had struggled.

Learn more about Cabral with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

18 September 1982 - Sabra and Shatilla Massacre

Between 16 and 18 September 1982, Lebanese Phalangist militias massacred Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut, following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Weeks earlier, the PLO had evacuated the city after the United States guaranteed the security of Palestinian civilians left behind. Israeli forces nevertheless entered West Beirut and, under Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, sent the Phalangists into the camps while surrounding the area and illuminating it with flares. The killing continued for nearly two days. Israel’s subsequent Kahan Commission found Sharon personally responsible for ignoring the danger of “bloodshed and revenge” and recommended his removal as defence minister. In December 1982, the UN General Assembly condemned the massacre and resolved that it constituted “an act of genocide”.

Learn more about these events with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

Art of the Week

On the anniversary of 11 September 1973, we remember Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity project — a democratic movement towards socialism destroyed by imperialist intervention.

To mark this day of mourning and militant memory, the Progressive International has released a limited-edition commemorative poster and sticker collection.

All proceeds from will support our internationalist campaigns — including those resisting the reinvigorated Monroe Doctrine in Latin America. You can purchase the poster here.