BRITAIN must apologise for its role in the Chilean coup of 1973, Labour MP Jon Trickett said in the Commons today.

The military coup violently removed the democratically elected socialist leader Salvador Allende from office.

About 3,600 people were killed and some 40,000 were imprisoned and tortured in the coup.

Mr Trickett led a debate into Britain-Chile relations of the time, saying that the two nations had a “bizarre relationship.”

In his speech, he said that while commercial relations are important, he noted that international relationships are about “democracy, progress, human rights, and resisting torture and arbitrary murder.”

“There’s unfinished business for the British government,” the Hemsworth MP said.

Mr Trickett said that the coup turned Chile into a testing ground for neoliberal economics, such as attacks on public services, that was later rolled out in Britain by Margaret Thatcher.

“Politicians were watching what was happening in Chile to see if the economic experiment can be implemented in Britain,” he said.

Mr Trickett called the deaths and torture a “scale which is hard to come to terms with,” but added: “Diplomatic cables indicate that the British government was fully aware of the violence used by the Pinochet regime.”

The recently released documents show that the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department had initiated a propaganda campaign against Mr Allende ahead of the 1964 and 1970 elections.

Mr Trickett highlighted how official guidance sent weeks after the coup effectively outlined support for the military junta in the interest of British investments.

“It simply isn’t good to make judgements of what’s happening in a foreign country based on our commercial interests,” he said.

Then foreign secretary Alec Douglas Home had written: “There is no doubt that Chile under the junta is a better prospect than Allende’s chaotic road to socialism, our investments should do better…”

Mr Trickett said: “I don’t believe we know the truth about the involvement of the British government, and I think we should.

“If we are to build a better future, we need to understand what happened in the past.”

He asked government minister David Rutley to come clean about Britain’s role in the coup, declassify all documents relating to the role played by the British government during the coup and subsequent dictatorship, and apologise for Britain’s actions.

Mr Rutley was not expected to reply to Mr Trickett’s calls until after the Morning Star went to press.