Photo caption. Carabineros arrest a woman during a march in Santiago in memory of the victims of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Photo: AFP
Chile’s far-right President, José Antonio Kast, ignored the 53rd anniversary of the September 11, 1973, coup d’état, when General Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) overthrew the government of Salvador Allende (1970–1973); yesterday, for the first time since the return to democracy, there was no official commemoration for the tens of thousands of victims of the dictatorship. In contrast, organizations representing the families of detainees, the disappeared, and political prisoners, as well as universities, memorial sites, and the center-left, did hold several ceremonies.
Kast, a self-confessed admirer of Pinochet and defender of the regime, went on a tour of the southern part of the country, claiming that the decision not to hold the ceremony was intended to prevent political differences from leading “to the extremes of the past.”
The decision was questioned by the center-left opposition; Raúl Soto, president of the Party for Democracy (PPD), noted that “remaining silent in and of itself is already an act of denial.”
“We’re not asking the government to think like us, but there are children, sisters, and grandchildren who are still searching for their missing loved ones,” said Gael Yeomans, president of the Broad Front.
The National Network of Memory Sites noted that “this commemoration is deeply marked by the struggle of organizations against denialist rhetoric that downplays crimes against humanity and justifies state terrorism and human rights violations in our country.”
Turning a blind eye to this date is a move that follows the dismantling of the Ministry of Justice’s Human Rights Program, created in 1997 to provide social, legal, and judicial assistance to the families of victims of forced disappearance and political execution—a move that amounts to a de facto abandonment of these cases.
foto: AP
Congresswoman Lorena Fries called on Kast to “process with the utmost urgency the National Search Plan, which is seeking to become law in the Senate.”
Chilean civil society, on the other hand, held a pilgrimage to the General Cemetery, where Allende’s grave is located; this was followed by a ceremony and the laying of offerings at the foot of the socialist leader’s statue in the Plaza de la Constitución, a few steps from the La Moneda Palace and near the entrance at 80 Morandé Street, through which he was carried out on that day in 1973, the president’s body was carried out on a canvas stretcher and covered with a chamanto, after he had honored his promise that “I will pay for the people’s loyalty with my life.”
The Museum of Memory and Human Rights, where testimonies are collected about what those 17 years meant to many, was also the scene of a moment of reflection.
In the late evening in Santiago and other cities, the annual pilgrimages took place to sites of torture and extermination, including the National Stadium, Villa Grimaldi, the Víctor Jara Stadium, and the barracks of the sinister political persecution agencies designed for extermination.
Repression against those Commemorating Allende
Chile’s militarized police intervened in a march in the capital’s downtown area, using water cannons and tear gas to clear the streets.
Protesters carried signs reading: “No to pardons,” in reference to requests from far-right groups for the government to reduce the sentences of former agents of the dictatorship.
The officially recognized number of victims of political imprisonment, torture, executions, and forced disappearance during the dictatorship stands at 40,175, of whom 3,216 were political executions and disappeared detainees.
Regarding enforced disappearances, the official figure is 1,469 victims: 1,092 disappeared detainees and 377 political executions whose bodies were not returned.
According to the National Search Plan, 307 bodies have been found, identified, and returned to their families. Another 1,162 remain missing.
Source: Cuba en Resumen