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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a watershed moment in both the history of Chile and the Cold War. Following an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress of Chile and the socialist President Salvador Allende, as well as economic warfare ordered by US President Richard Nixon, Allende was overthrown by the armed forces and national police.
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From 11 March 1981 to March 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy. After the 1988 plebiscite, the 1980 Constitution, still in force today, was amended to ease provisions for future amendments to the constitution, create more seats in the senate, diminish the role of the National Security Council and equalize the number of civilian and military members.
The Revolutionary Left Movement is a Chilean far-left political organization and former guerrilla organization founded on October 12, 1965. At its height in 1973, the MIR numbered about 10,000 members and associates. The group emerged from various student organizations, mainly from University of Concepción, that had originally been active in the youth organization of the Socialist Party. They established a base of support among the trade unions and shantytowns of Concepción, Santiago, and other cities. Andrés Pascal Allende, a nephew of Salvador Allende, president of Chile from 1970 to 1973, was one of its early leaders. Miguel Enríquez Espinosa was the General Secretary of the party from 1967 until his assassination in 1974 by the DINA.
Key events during the armed resistance were the attempt to set up guerrilla camps in Neltume in 1970-73[3] and 1980-81, the February 1986 sabotaging of the Limache train tracks, the Carrizal Bajo arms smuggling operation in August 1986 and the attempted killing of Pinochet in September that same year. After the return to democracy was initiated in 1990 the bulk of the armed groups demobilized. However, splinter groups that reportedly switched targets after the dictatorship fell, continued to carry out assassinations, bombings, kidnappings and armed robberies until 2010.
Neltume is a Chilean town in Panguipulli commune, of Los Ríos Region. It lies along the 203-CH route to Huahum Pass into Argentina. The town's main economic activities are forestry and, more recently, tourism since the Huilo-Huilo Biological Reserve was created in 1999. During large periods of the 20th century Neltume was a site of social mobilizations and unrest, events which culminated in 1981 with the crack down of the "Toqui Lautaro" guerrilla set of by MIR to fight the military dictatorship in Chile.
Carrizal Bajo is a harbour and village in Atacama Region, Chile, located about 50 km north of the city of Huasco. Between May and August 1986 the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, the armed wing of the Communist Party of Chile, used the port to smuggle in weapons from Cuban ships anchored offshore. This was the largest weapon smuggle move during the whole military dictatorship period (1973–1990) in Chile and while most of the weapons were discovered by authorities some were moved to other parts of the country and came notably to be used in the 1986 assassination attempt on Augusto Pinochet. The weapons interned were US weapons obtained by Cuba from Vietnam.
Pre-dictatorship violence
The first major action by the MIR took place in September 1967 during violent clashes between MIR-led students from the University of Concepción and riot police. Carabineros were seeking to arrest those responsible for destroying a police vehicle, but students reorganized and kidnapped carabinier Héctor Gutiérrez Orellana. Chilean president Eduardo Nicanor Frei Montalva sought to defuse the situation through intermediaries and obtained the release of the policeman in exchange for dropping charges against students earlier arrested in the confrontations.[4] During 1968, the MIR presence continued to be felt in various universities with armed actions increasing in 1969 through multiple acts of vandalism, intimidation and physical assaults on conservative/right wing students and faculty members.[4] On 1 May 1969, fifteen MIR activists armed with knives took over the Bio Bio radio station in Concepción and transmitted a special broadcast calling for the locals to take up arms and overthrow the government of Frei. On 2 May 1969, MIR activists operating in Concepción attacked the branches of National City Bank, the building of the La Patria newspaper and the offices of the Weigner Stein business. In June, the MIR kidnapped journalist Hernán Osses Santa María, Director of the Noticias de la Tarde in nearby Talcahuano (15.6 kilometres), in an effort to silence the in depth reporting on the leftist violence in Concepción. Police Investigations and Carabineros soon surrounded the University of Concepción and forced the students to release the newspaper director unharmed. A specially appointed judge was soon named and a criminal suit was filed with the Courts of Appeals of Concepción against the MIR and over 20 of its identified leaders for breaking the Law of Interior Security of the State. Consequently, the MIR had no option but to go largely underground and into hiding. In the ensuing police and military operations against the MIR, a guerrilla training camp is discovered in San José de Maipo (Guayacán) and another at Corral (Chaihuín).[5] Nevertheless, MIR guerrillas continue to operate, and in Santiago alone carry out 12 armed robberies of banks and businesses between August 1969 and September 1970 to finance their operations.[6]
The Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) were absolved of criminal charges under an amnesty under the Popular Unity (Unidad Popular or UP) government of Allende and was allowed to operate again openly, encouraging and carrying out illegal expropriations of farms and businesses, and assaulting outspoken conservatives/rightist members of the public and security forces. According to police figures submitted to the Chilean senate, 1,458 farms were illegally occupied between November 1970 and December 1971.[7] Starting in the southern provinces of Cautin and Malleco the MIR organized a series of armed takeovers or tomas working slowly northwards up into the provinces of Nuble and Linares and eventually Santiago.[8] In November 1970, Antonia Maechel, owner of the La Tregua estate in the Panguipulli area, took her own life after being raped by leftist militants that had seized her property. On 6 February 1970, carabineer Luis Merino Ferreira was killed in a clash with guerrillas. On 11 August 1970, MIR guerrillas killed carabineer corporal Luis Fuentes Pineda. On 21 September 1970, guerrillas shot and killed a carabineer corporal, Armando Cofré López, during a bank robbery in the suburb of Irarrázabal in Santiago. On 3 November 1970, another carabinier (Corporal Luis Armando Cofré) is killed in a shoot-out with MIR guerrillas robbing a Banco Panamericano branch.
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean democratic socialist politician and physician, President of Chile from 1970 until 1973, and head of the Popular Unity political coalition government; he was the first ever Marxist to be elected president in a country with liberal democracy.
The Chilean land reform was a process of land ownership restructuring that occurred from 1962 to 1973 in different phases. For much of the 20th century agriculture was one of the most backward sectors of Chilean economy. The land reform was initially supported by Chilean right, centre and left political parties plus the Catholic Church and the United States. After the 1973 Chilean coup d'état the ruling right-wing dictatorship initiated a counter-reform that reverted part of it and directed Chilean agriculture into a "neoliberal" model.
Panguipulli is a city and commune in Valdivia Province, southern Chile, administered by the Municipality of Panguipulli. The town is known for its natural environment, and is called "City of roses". Panguipulli is located on the western edge of Panguipulli Lake, and is on a moraine in the Chilean Central Valley. Most of the commune lies on Andean mountains and valleys.
In April 1971, Juan Millalonco, a member of Christian Democratic Youth, was shot dead in Aysén by socialist militants, and VOP guerrillas in Santiago killed 33-year-old Raúl Méndez Espinosa at his sweet shop for not paying protection money to the guerrillas targeting small businesses.[9] That same month in the expropriation of land on the part of leftist militants and guerrillas, Rolando Matus is shot dead resisting the takeover of the Carén farm in Pucón, and Jorge Baraona and Domitila Palma died resisting the takeover of their farms in southern Chile. On 24 May 1971, VOP guerrillas in an armed robbery of a bank money transfer van shoot and mortally wound a carabinier (Corporal José Arnaldo Gutiérrez Urrutia) and wound two other accompanying Miramar supermarket employees.[10][9] In June 1971, VOP guerrillas killed Edmundo Perez Zujovic, a Christian Democrat and former interior minister. That same month, another marxist guerrilla (46-year-old Heriberto Salazar) of the VOP walked into police headquarters in Santiago with a sub-machinegun and kills three detectives (Gerardo Romero Infante, Heriberto Mario Marín and Carlos Pérz Bretti) before blowing himself up with dynamite,[11][12] and a carabineer corporal (Jorge Cartes) is killed by MIR guerrillas in the MIR stronghold of Concepción. On 1 December 1971, 50,000-200,000[13] women took to the streets of Santiago to protest against Salvador Allende’s UP government.[14] Their peaceful march turned ugly when UP radicals attacked the women with rocks.[15] However, their March of the Empty Pots and Pans signaled the beginning of a massive coordinated anti-Allende movement. To keep the memory afresh of the march, women in the middle-class and affluent suburbs of Santiago banged on pots every night for two hours for several months.[16]
The Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region, often shortened to Aysén Region or Aisén, is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. Although the third largest in area, the region is Chile's most sparsely populated region with a population of 102,317 as of 2017. The capital of the region is Coihaique, the region's former namesake.
Pucón is a Chilean city and commune administered by the municipality of Pucón. It is located in the Province of Cautín, Araucanía Region, 100 km to the southeast of Temuco and 780 km to the south of Santiago. It is on the eastern shore of Lake Villarrica, and Villarrica volcano is located roughly 17 km to the south.
On 30 August 1972, carabineer corporal Exequiel Aroca Cuevas was killed in the city of Concepción, when socialist militants open fire on the bus he was travelling. On 27 February 1973, MIR guerrillas attacked the Llanquihue police station, shooting and wounding 10 carabineers.[17] In March 1973, 16-year-old Germán Enrique González and 17-year-old Sergio Oscar Vergara, both members of the Christian Democrat Party were killed while resisting the takeover of the La Reina estate.[18] On 2 April 1973, MIR guerrillas operating in Santiago shoot and kill a police detective, Gabriel Rodríguez Alcaíno.[19] In May 1973, Mario Aguilar, a member of the Movimiento Patria y Libertad is gunned down by leftists in downtown Santiago. On 27 July 1973, a farmer and member of the Christian Democrat Party, Jorge Mena, is surrounded by leftists and clubbed to death in Osorno.[20] The next day, another farmer, Juan Luis Urrutia, dies resisting the takeover of his land in Bulnes. On 30 July, MIR guerrillas kill Manuel Garrido, an employee of Paños Continental in a confrontation that also involved Brazilian militants.[20] On 27 August 1973, Sergio Aliaga, while driving through a confrontation between anti-Allende striking truckers and leftist militants, was killed after being caught in the crossfire and shot in the throat.[21] On 29 August 1973, a Mexican militant (Jorge Albino Sosa Gil) working in Chile, shoots and kills Second Lieutenant Héctor Lacrampette Calderón as the young army officer was waiting for a bus in the suburb of Providencia in Santiago.[22] The next day, two farm workers (José Toribio Núñez and Celsa Fuentes) died of horrific burns after being caught in the bomb blast targeting the pipeline between Santiago and Concepción.[23]
Concepción is a Chilean city and commune belonging to the metropolitan area of Greater Concepción, it is one of the largest urban conurbations of Chile. It has a significant impact on domestic trade being part of the most heavily industrialized region in the country. Its location is in the called Zona Centro Sur, in the geographic center of the country, and it is the capital of the Concepción Province and Bío Bío Region. It sits about 500 km south of Santiago, the country's capital.
September–December 1973
After the coup, left-wing guerrilla organizations tried to recruit resistance fighters against the Pinochet regime. Some of them had commando-training, having belonged to the GAP (Grupo de Amigos Personales), they had previously served as bodyguards of President Allende. Many activists created resistance groups from refugees abroad. The Movimiento Juvenil Lautaro or Lautaro Youth Movement (MJL) was formed in December 1982 and the Communist Party of Chile set up an armed wing, which became in 1983 the FPMR (Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez). The main guerrilla group, known as the MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria), suffered heavy casualties in the coup's immediate aftermath, and most of its members fled the country.[24] Andreas Pascal Allende, a nephew of President Allende led the MIR from 1974–1976, then made his way to Cuba. Nevertheless, in the first three months of military rule, the Chilean forces recorded 162 military deaths.[25] It is claimed that a total of 756 servicemen and police are reported to have been killed or wounded in clashes with guerrillas in the 1970s.[26][unreliable source?] Among the killed and disappeared during the military regime were at least 663 Marxist MIR guerrillas.[27] The MIR commander, Andrés Pascal Allende, has admitted that the Marxist guerrillas lost 1,500-2,000 fighters killed or disappeared.[28] Many guerrillas confessed under torture and several hundred other young men and women, sympathetic to the guerrillas, were detained and tortured and often killed. Nearly 700 civilians disappeared in the 1974-1977 period, after being detained by the Chilean military and police.[29] Remnants of the MIR also joined Marxist guerrillas from the People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina) (Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo or ERP) in Argentina in the protracted fight to control Tucumán Province. Some 30,000 former Chilean conscripts that served between 1973 and 1990, claiming to be suffering from post-traumatic stress after taking part in the cordon and search operations and night curfews, are currently seeking compensation from the Chilean government.[30]
Fewer than 60 individuals died as a direct result of fighting on 11 September although the MIR and GAP continued to fight the following day. In all, 46 of Allende's elite guard (the GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales) were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the Moneda.[31] Allende's Cuban-trained guard would have had about 300 elite commando-trained GAP fighters at the time of the coup,[32] but the use of brute military force, especially the use of Hawker Hunters fighter-bombers, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from further action. On the military side, there were 34 deaths: two army sergeants, three army corporals, four army privates, 2 navy lieutenants, 1 navy corporal, 4 naval cadets, 3 navy conscripts and 15 carabineros. Most of the carabineros were killed after two busloads of policemen were heavily engaged by armed leftists in the Pro-Allende shantytown of La Ligua.[33] In Mid-September, the Chilean military junta claimed its troops suffered another 16 dead and 100 injured by gunfire in mop-up operations against Allende supporters, and Pinochet warned, "sadly there are still some armed groups who insist on attacking, which means that the military rules of wartime apply to them."[34] 22-year-old Corporal Hugo Yáñez Durán would be among the army fallen, killed on 15 September 1973 in a shootout with leftists students holding out in the grounds of the University of Chile.[35]
On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old Army Corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper.[36] The Chilean Army suffered 12 killed in various clashes with MIR guerrillas and GAP fighters in October 1973.[37] On 18 November 1974, guerrillas open fire on an army vehicle, killing Corporal Francisco Cifuentes Espinoza.[38] On 17 November, MIR guerrillas shoot and kill army sergeant Waldo Morales Neal and private Clemente Santibáñez Vargas. On 7 November 1973, guerrillas open fire on an army truck in the suburb of La Florida in Santiago, killing private Agustín Correa Contreras. On 13 November, MIR guerrillas killed army corporal Juan Castro Vega. On 27 November, MIR guerrillas kill army corporal Ramón Madariaga Valdebenito. On 3 December 1973, MIR guerrillas kill two army corporals, Rodolfo Peña Tapia and Luis Collao Salas and a private, Julio Barahona Aranda. On 13 December 1973, guerrillas open fire and kill two army sergeants, Sergio Cañón Lermanda and Pedro Osorio Guerrero. On 15 December 1973, guerrillas shoot and kill army corporal Roberto Barra Martínez in the suburb of La Reina in Santiago. On 26 December 1973, guerrillas open fire on an army jeep, killing private José Luis Huerta Abarca. By the end of the year, the Chilean police would claim to have uncovered a huge arms cache, that included 5,000 HK-33 sub-machineguns and corresponding ammunition numbering in the millions and large quantities of 20-mm anti-tank gun shells.[39]
1974–1979
On February 19, 1975, four captured MIR commanders went on national television to urge their guerrillas to lay down their arms. According to them, the MIR leadership was in ruins: of the 52 commanders of the MIR, nine had been killed, 24 were prisoners, ten were in exile, one had been expelled from the group, and eight were still at large.[40] On 18 November 1975, MIR guerrillas killed a 19-year-old army conscript (Private Hernán Patricio Salinas Calderón).[41] On 24 February 1976, MIR guerrillas in a gunbattle with Chilean secret police, shot and killed a 41-year-old carabinero sergeant (Tulio Pereira Pereira).[42] The Chilean secret police on this occasion were met with a hail of automatic weapons fire, killing a carabinero and a girl.[43] On 28 April 1976, MIR guerrillas shot and killed a 29-year-old carabineros corporal (Bernardo Arturo Alcayaga Cerda) while he was walking home in the Santiago suburb of Pudahuel.[42] On 16 October 1977, MIR guerrillas exploded 10 bombs in Santiago. In 1978 the MIR sought to reestablish a guerrilla front in southern Chile and launched Operation Return which involved clandestine entry, recruitment, bombings and bank robberies in Santiago that briefly shook the military regime.[44] In February 1979 MIR guerrillas bombed the US-Chile Cultural Institute in Santiago, causing considerable damage. In 1979, about 40 bombings were blamed on MIR guerrillas. Several police, military and civilians caught in the crossfire and bomb blasts were killed in the renewed MIR attacks in the Chilean capital and at least 70 soldiers and policemen were wounded battling the marxist guerrillas.[45]
Neltume Guerrilla Front
In order to reinforce urban guerrilla warfare waged in the main cities, the MIR commanders in 1978 had set in motion Operación Retorno (Operation Return), ordering exiled militants back into Chile.
In 1980, a platoon of thirty well-equipped MIR combatants of the Toqui Lautaro Battalion infiltrated into the mountains of Neltume in southern Chile and reestablished a guerrilla front. The MIR spearhead was commanded by 30-year-old Miguel Cabrera Fernández (nome de guerre Paine), who along with 120-150 Chileans had completed their training for this operation in Czechoslovakia, Cuba and North Korea.[46]
The Chilean Army moved against the guerrillas in Neltume in June 1981, in a massive operation spearheaded by the Chilean Para-Commandos (elite Black Berets) all under the command of Colonel Orlando Basauri, with support from 10 Puma and Lama helicopters. Flora Jaramillo had fed and attended three MIR guerrillas that had sought refuge in her house, and not wanting to be later accused of collaborating with the enemy had sent her 15-year-old son Juan Carlos Henríquez Jaramillo to warn the local police station. Carabineros soon surrounded her house and opened fire, killing all the guerrillas and destroying the house, but not before warning Mrs Jaramillo to get out. The Special Forces involved discovered the first guerrilla arms cache on 25 June killing Raúl Rodrigo Obregón Torres (nome de guerre Pablo) in the process, and four more store dumps were uncovered by the end of the first week in July. Another gun-battle took place on 28 June, but it took some time before Basauri's men could corner the guerrilla force.[47] Nevertheless, seven MIR guerrillas were reported killed in an ambush in the third week of September, just after the 8th-anniversary of the 1973 military coup, but the survivors were able to escape and blend in with the local population. On 19 September 1981, Army Private Victor Manuel Nahuelpan Silva is killed during operations in Neltume. On 16 October 1981, Juan Angel Ojeda Aguayo (nom de guerre Pequeco) who had escaped the mountain fighting was caught and executed while resting at his parent's home. Miguel Cabrera Fernández was himself killed on 15 October 1981, in a clash with policemen at Choshuenco.
The Pinochet regime launched another counterinsurgency operation in August 1984 to wipe out the remaining guerrillas, concentrating in the areas around Concepción, Valdivia and Los Angeles, killing seven more MIR fighters and forcing the remainder to go into permanent hiding.
Some forty MIR fighters lost their lives between 1978 (when Operation Return was set in motion) and 1984 when the MIR insurgency was finally defeated in southern Chile. Another 41 supporting Mapuche Indians that had earlier on taken part in the land and business takeovers under Salvador Allende were killed with 80 only spared after having been rounded up in and around Neltume and held for long periods in secret detention camps.[48] Guillermina Reinante, had three brothers rounded up and forcibly disappeared up by soldiers from the 8th Tucapel Infantry Regiment in late 1973. When she enquired about their whereabouts a female military official informed her that they had been executed. In the 2012 Chilean TV documentary Neltume 81 Reinante claimed that the military had executed her brothers in revenge for taking part in the land expropriations.
1980–1989
Pacific protest against Pinochet
On 15 July 1980, three guerrillas in blue overalls and yellow hardhats ambushed the car of Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Vergara Campos, director of the Chilean Army Intelligence School, and killed him and wounded his driver in a barrage of bullets from AK-47 assault rifles.[49] On 30 December 1980, MIR guerrillas kill two carabineer corporals, 31-year-old Washington Godoy Palma and 27-year-old Daniel Alberto Leiva González.[50]
In a message sent to Santiago press agencies in February 1981 the MIR claimed to have carried out more than 100 attacks during 1980, among them the bombing of electricity pylons in Santiago and Valparaiso on November 11 which caused widespread blackouts, and bomb attacks on three banks in Santiago on December 30 in which one carabinero was killed and three people wounded.[51] On 19 September 1981, Army Private Victor Manuel Nahuelpan Silva is killed during counter-insurgency operations in the Neltume area.[52] In November 1981, MIR guerrillas killed three member of Police Investigations as they stood in front of the home of the chief minister of the presidential staff. In sweeps carried out from June to November 1981, security forces destroyed two MIR bases in the mountains of Neltume, seizing large caches of munitions and killing a number guerrillas.[53] MIR guerrillas retaliated and carried out twenty-six bomb attacks during March and April 1983.[24]
Leftist guerrillas, waiting in a yellow pick-up truck, ambushed on 30 August 1983 the governor of Santiago, retired Major-General Carol Urzua Ibáñez as he left his home, killing him and two of his bodyguards (army corporals Carlos Riveros Bequiarelli and José Domingo Aguayo Franco) in a hail of submachine-gun fire.[54] In October and November 1983, MIR guerrillas bombed four US-associated targets. Guerrillas killed two policemen (carabinieri Francisco Javier Pérez Brito and sergeant Manuel Jesús Valenzuela Loyola) on 28 December 1983.[55]
On 31 March 1984, a police bus in downtown Santiago was destroyed with a bomb, killing a carabinero and injuring at least 11.[56] On 29 April 1984, MIR guerrillas exploded 11 bombs, derailing a subway train in Santiago and injuring 22 passengers, including seven children.[57] On 5 September 1984, guerrillas shot and killed 27-year-old army lieutenant Julio Briones Rayo in Copiapó in northern Chile.[58] On 2 November 1984, a bus carrying carabineros was attacked with a grenade during Chile's national cycling championship; four carabineros were killed.[59] On 4 November 1984, five guerrillas riding in a van hurled bombs and fired automatic weapons at a suburban Santiago police station, killing two carabineros and wounded three more.[60] On 7 December 1984, urban guerrillas killed a policeman and bombed a subway station, wounding 6 people.[61] On 25 March 1985, MIR guerrillas planted a bomb in Hotel Araucano in Concepcion that killed marine sergeant René Osvaldo Lara Arriagada and army sergeant Alejandro del Carmen Avendaño Sánchez, who were attempting to defuse the bomb. On 6 December 1985, a carabinero (Patricio Rodriguez Núñez) was shot to death by four guerrillas who opened fire on him with submachine-guns as he walked home.[62] That same month, 15 city buses were destroyed with gasoline bombs and urban guerrillas hurled a bomb under an incoming train in Santiago, before making good their escape after a shootout with policemen.[63] The total number of documented terrorist actions during 1984 and 1985 was 866.[64]
On 5 February 1986, a car bomb destroyed a bus filled with riot police, mutilating 16 policemen. One carabinero (41-year-old Sergeant Luis Rival Valdés) later died of his wounds.[65] The MIR claimed responsibility for the bombing.[66] On 17 February 1986, two trains crashed in an area of Limache that had been reduced to one track after MIR guerrillas had destroyed a nearby bridge,[67] killing 100 and wounding 500 civilians.[68] On 26 February 1986, unidentified guerrillas or their sympathizers shoot and kill carabineer Lieutenant Alfonso Mauricio Rivera López.[69] In May 1986 MIR guerrillas threw sulphuric acid into a bus, seriously injuring six people, including two children.[70] On 25 July 1986, a bomb planted in a trash can exploded at a crowded bus stop a few yards from the presidential palace, wounding 36 people.[71][72] On 6 August 1986, security forces discovered 80 tons of weapons at the tiny fishing harbor of Carrizal Bajo, smuggled into the country by the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). The shipment of Carrizal Bajo included C-4 plastic explosives, 123 RPG-7 and 180 M72 LAW rocket launchers as well as 3,383 M-16 rifles.[73] On 7 September 1986, about 30 FPMR guerrillas attempted to kill Pinochet. Pinochet narrowly escaped the assassination attempt on his motorcade, but five army corporals were killed and eleven soldiers and carabineros were wounded in the ambush.[74] This failed operation led to an internal crisis of the group, many of its leading members being arrested by the security forces. On 28 October 1986, MIR guerrillas operating in Limache shot and wounded five policemen. One carabinero NCO (36-year-old Luis Serey Abarca) later died of his wounds.[75] On 5 November 1986, guerrillas threw an incendiary bomb into a bus in Viña del Mar, seriously injuring three women (Rosa Rivera Fierro, Sonia Ramírez Salinas and Marta Sepúlveda Contreras). 37-year-old Rosa Rivera Fierro, later died of her wounds.[76] On 28 November 1986, MIR guerrillas after having been stopped by a police vehicles, shot and killed 31-year-old carabinero Lieutenant Jaime Luis Sáenz Neira.[77]
On 11 September 1987, a police vehicle was completely destroyed in a bomb attack in Santiago, killing two carabineros. On 20 January 1988, a bomb planted by MIR guerrillas in the Capredena Medical Center in Valparaiso killed a 64-year-old female pensioner (Berta Rosa Pardo Muñoz) and wounded 15 other women.[78] On January 26, MIR guerrillas planted a bomb in a house in La Cisterna that killed 42-year-old Major Julio Eladio Benimeli Ruz, commander of the carabineros special operations group. In June 1988, MIR guerrillas conducted a series of bombings in Santiago, at various banks. FPMR guerrillas that month killed 43-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Miguel Eduardo Rojas Lobos of the Chilean Army, after he had parked his car in the Santiago suburb of San Joaquín.[79] On 19 July 1988, leftists plant a bomb near a Church in Valparaíso, wounding three local churchgoers (Juan Salazar Olivares, Nelson Pérez and Luis Herrera)[80] In October 1988, several platoons of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez take over four important towns throughout the country, Aguas Grandes, La Mora, Los Queñes and Pichipellahuén.[81] Considerable fighting takes place, before the Chilean military and police are able to recover the towns.[82] Corporal Juvenal Sepúlveda Vargas is killed defending the Police Station in Los Queñes.[83] On 10 July 1989, 26-year-old carabineros corporal Patricio Rubén Canihuante Astudillo was shot in the head at point-blank range as he guarded a building in Viña del Mar. In December 1989, Canadian police reported that 30 Brazilian business executives had been targeted for abduction by MIR guerrillas that included two Canadians, Christine Lamont and David Spencer who had joined the movement after meeting two exiled Chileans, Sergeo Olivares and Martin Urtubia, who came to Canada in 1978.[84]
Post-dictatorship violence
The election of a civilian government in Chile did not end guerrilla activities. Within a few months after President Patricio Aylwin's accession to power, leftist militants showed that they remained committed to armed struggle and were responsible for a number of terrorist incidents.[64] On May 10, 1990, two guerrillas wearing school uniforms killed carabineros Colonel Luis Fontaine, a former head of the antiterrorist unit of the carabiniers, Chile's national police force. Two policemen were killed on August 10, 1990, in a working-class Santiago suburb and two more were injured in an attack on a bus.[85] In September 1990, leftist militants detonate 53 bombs that kill or wound 83 Chileans.[86] On November 14, 1990, gendarmes transferred Marco Ariel Antonioletti, a senior MJL leader from jail to a hospital for treatment. MJL guerrillas fought their way into the Sótero del Río Hospital but were forced to withdraw, after having killed four gendarmes and one carabinero. In retaliation, Chile's Investigations Police execute Antonioletti with a shot in the forehead. On January 24, 1991, MJL guerrillas ambushed and killed two carabineros. On February 28, 1991, a carabinero policeman died in a shoot-out in Santiago with leftist guerrillas of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front.[87] On April 1, FPMR guerrillas assassinated right-wing senator Jaime Guzman, killing him as he left a university campus in Santiago. On September 9 three guerrillas kidnapped Cristian Edwards, whose family run El Mercurio newspaper. After his family paid $1 million in ransom, the FPMR freed him. On 22 January 1992, two FPMR guerrillas (Fabián López Luque and Alex Muñoz Hoffman) were killed trying to rob a Prosegur cash delivery armoured van at the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago. On September 11, 1998, three police stations—La Pincoya, La Granja and La Victoria—were attacked with firearms, incendiary bombs and rocks and 36 were carabineros were wounded in violence related to the 25th anniversary commemorations of the military coup.[88] In 2006, on the 33rd anniversary of the September 11, 1973, military coup, 79 carabineros were wounded in clashes with rioters.[89] In September 2007, a carabinero policeman was killed after being shot in the face and around 40 were wounded during clashes with leftists marking the 34th anniversary of the military coup.[90] The following month, MJL guerrillas killed carabineer Luis Moyano Farías during the robbery of Banco Security in Santiago. In clashes with protesters commemorating the 35th anniversary of the military coup, 29 carabineros were wounded in September 2008.[91] In September 2009, 19 Carabineros were wounded in clashes with protestors marking the 36th anniversary of the coup.[92] The lootings and other forms of appropriation that took place in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Chile, were in part promoted and legitimated by the MIR movement.[93]
The Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional or DINA was the Chilean secret police in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and has been called Pinochet's Gestapo. The DINA was established in November 1973, as a Chilean Army intelligence unit headed by Colonel Manuel Contreras and vice-director Raúl Iturriaga. It was separated from the army and made an independent administrative unit in June 1974, under the auspices of Decree 521.
The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party within the centre-left Nueva Mayoría. Its historic leader was President of Chile Salvador Allende, who was deposed in a coup d'état by General Pinochet in 1973. Twenty-seven years later, Ricardo Lagos Escobar represented the Socialist Party in the 1999 presidential elections. He won 48.0% in the first round of voting and was elected with 51.3% in the second round. In the legislative elections on 16 December 2001, as part of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy, the party won 10 out of 117 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 5 out of 38 elected seats in the Senate. After the 2005 elections, the Party increased its seats to 15 and 8, respectively. In the 2009 elections, it retained 11 Congressional and 5 Senate seats.
Miguel Enríquez Espinosa was a physician and one founder of the Chilean political party and former left-wing organization Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), founded 1965. He was General Secretary of the MIR between 1967 and his death in 1974.
The military dictatorship of Chile was an authoritarian military regime that ruled Chile between 1973 and 1990. The dictatorship was established after the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by a United States CIA-backed coup d'état on 11 September 1973. During this time, the country was ruled by a military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. The military used the alleged breakdown of democracy and the economic crisis that took place during Allende's presidency to justify its seizure of power. The dictatorship presented its mission as a "national reconstruction." In reality, the coup was the result of multiple forces, including the United States government and corporations like ITT and Anaconda, which stood to lose profits by Allende's plan to nationalize the copper industry.
The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was a far-right death squad founded in Argentina in 1973 and particularly active under Isabel Perón's rule (1974–1976). Initially associated with the Peronist right, the organisation opposed the Peronist left and other leftist organizations. The AAA acted against a wide range of government opponents, not just communists.
Air General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán was a Chilean general, who represented the Air Force in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and, for a time, in the ruling junta that followed. Leigh was forced out of the military government in 1978.
The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, was a Chilean revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organisation officially founded on December 14, 1983 as the paramilitary arm of the Communist Party of Chile (CPCh) in the context of this party policy denominated as the "Política de Rebelión Popular de Masas"
The Government Junta of Chile was the military junta established to rule Chile during the military dictatorship that followed the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état backed by the United States. It was the executive and legislative branch of government until December 17, 1974. After that date, it functioned strictly as a legislative body until the return to democracy in 1990.
On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, President of Chile, died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds during a coup d'état led by the Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet. After decades of suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces, a Chilean court in 2011 authorized the exhumation and autopsy of Allende's remains. A team of international experts examined the remains and concluded that Allende had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle. In December 2011, the judge in charge of the investigation affirmed the experts' findings and ruled Allende's death a suicide. On September 11, 2012, the 39th anniversary of Allende's death, a Chilean appeals court unanimously upheld the trial court's ruling, officially closing the case.
Galvarino Sergio Apablaza Guerra, nicknamed "Comandante Salvador", is a Chilean Marxist guerrilla and former member of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), which opposed the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He has participated in several highly publicized kidnappings and murders.
Carabiniers of Chile are the Chilean national police force, who have jurisdiction over the entire national territory of Chile.
The 1988 Chilean national plebiscite was a national referendum held on 5 October 1988 to determine whether Chile's de facto leader, Augusto Pinochet, should extend his rule for another eight years. The "No" side won with nearly 56% of the vote, thus ending the General's 161⁄2 years in power.
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean general, politician and US-backed dictator of Chile between 1973 and 1990 who remained the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army until 1998 and was also President of the Government Junta of Chile between 1973 and 1981.
Chile–Cuba relations refers to interstate relations between the Republic of Chile and the Republic of Cuba. Cuba has been since the 1960s a reference point to left wing politicians in Chile.
The Apoquindo massacre, also known as the Apoquindo shootings, was an incident in Santiago, Chile, on October 21, 1993, in which eight people died after members of the Chilean left-wing guerrilla movement Movimiento Juvenil Lautaro robbed a Banco O'Higgins branch on Avenida Apoquindo, Las Condes, Santiago de Chile, where the bank guard was shot dead.
Bautista van Schouwen Vasey was a medical doctor and one of the founders of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), the Chilean guerrilla organization which earliest resisted the Military Coup of Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Five among the "Ten most wanted" opposition figures wanted by the military government after the 11 September coup were militants of MIR. Bautista van Schouwen was at the time member of MIR's "Comisión Política" and the "Secretariado", the highest executive organ of the MIR. The military had set a reward of 500 000 Escudos to anyone who would lead them to the capture of Van Schouwen. He was abducted in Santiago December 13, 1973, in the church Parroquia Capuchinos, after having been caught when the priest who was sheltering them, unwittingly let slip to his military cousins, that they were at the church. Father Enrique White was also detained and tortured, later exiled to England. Van Schouwen and his lieutenant Patricio Munita had previously obtained clandestine refuge in the Capuchinos church-premises. They were soon after their capture killed under torture in the Army-managed detention and torture centre of Villa Grimaldi. The assassinations of Van Schouwen and Munita were however concealed by the Pinochet government and the Van Schouwen case during several years labelled as desaparecido by Human-rights organizations in Chile.
Human rights violations in Pinochet's Chile were the crimes against humanity, persecution of opponents, political repression and state terrorism committed by the Chilean Armed Forces, members of Carabineros de Chile and civil repressive agents members of a secret police, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile from September 11, 1973, until March 11, 1990.
References
↑ Qaddafi, Terrorism, and the Origins of the U.S. Attack on Libya, Brian Lee Davis, p.17, ABC-CLIO, 1990
↑ "Corea del Norte abrió en Santiago una Misión Comercial en mayo de 1971; y en consecuencia, una misión de entrenamiento de guerrilleros de Corea del Norte, que estaba instalada en Cuba desde 1970, fue transferida a Chile." Presencia Soviética en América Latina, James Daniel Theberge, p. 62, Editora Nacional Gabriela Mistral, 1974
↑ "In September 1973 and again in September 1981, the forest complex of Panguipulli (especially Neltume), only 115 kilometres east of Valdivia, became the focal point of alleged subversive attacks and shoot-outs and a site of massive military operations leading to executions. Panguipulli indeed served as a zone of political organizing, land invasion, and agrarian reform during 1970-73, and as a camping zone for MIRistas reentering Chile under Operacion Retorno in 1980-81." Battling for Hearts and Minds, Steve J. Stern, p. 288, Duke University Press
1 2 Determinants of Gross Human Rights Violations by State and State Sponsored Actors in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina: 1960 - 1990, Wolfgang S. Heinz, Hugo Frühling, p. 423, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1999
↑ "En 1969 se descubre una escuela de guerrilleros en San José de Maipo (Guayacán) y en 1970 otra en Corral (Chaihuín)." Régimen de Gobierno y Partidos Políticos en Chile 1924-1973, Bernardino Bravo Lira, p. 301, Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1986
↑ "Entre agosto de ese año y septiembre siguiente realiza en Santiago no menos de 12 asaltos a mano armada contra Bancos y locales comerciales." Régimen de Gobierno y Partidos Políticos en Chile 1924-1973, Bernardino Bravo Lira, p. 301, Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1986
↑ The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964–1976, Paul E. Sigmund, p. 139, University of Pittsburgh, 1977
↑ "Starting in the southern provinces of Cautin and Malleco the MIR organised a series of violent tomas working slowly northwards up into the provinces of Nuble and Linares and the province of Santiago itself." The Santiago Model-2: Polarisation of Politics, Volume 2, Robert Moss, p. 4, Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1973
1 2 La Violencia Política Popular en las "Grandes Alamedas": La Violencia en Chile, 1947-1987, Gabriel Salazar Vergara, p, 259, Lom Ediciones, 2006
↑ La Verdad Olvidada Del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968–1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, p. 67, Editorial Maye Ltda., 2007
↑ La Violencia Política Popular en las "Grandes Alamedas": La Violencia en Chile, 1947-1987, Gabriel Salazar Vergara, p, 260, Lom Ediciones, 2006
↑ "Opposition newspapers in Chile reported anywhere from 50,000 and 200, 000 demonstrators. Well-dressed upper-class women arrived in cars, while working-class women and members of the pobladora and peasant organizations came in buses." Why Women Protest: Women's Movements in Chile, Lisa Baldez, p. 78, Cambridge University Press, 2002
↑ "The peaceful march turned violent when young UP supporters pelted the demonstrators with rocks." International Journal of Group Tensions, Volume 24, Sage Publications, 1994
↑ "To keep the memory of the debacle fresh, women banged on pots every night between 8 and 10 PM for several months after the march." Women and Revolution in Africa, Asia and the New World, Mary Ann Tétreault, p. 404, University of South Carolina Press, 1994
↑ Breve Historia de la Unidad Popular, Teresa Donoso Loero, p. 300, El Mercurio, 1973
↑ La Verdad Olvidada del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968-1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, p.77, Editorial Maye Ltda, 2007
↑ Los Hechos de Violencia en Chile, María de los Angeles Aylwin Ramírez, Soledad Reyes del Villar, p.421, Fundación Libertad y Desarrollo, 2003
1 2 La Verdad Olvidada del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968-1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, p.80, Editorial Maye Ltda, 2007
↑ La Verdad Olvidada del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968-1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, p.82, Editorial Maye Ltda, 2007
↑ La Verdad Olvidada Del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968–1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, p. 82, Editorial Maye Ltda., 2007
↑ La Verdad Olvidada del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968-1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, p. 81, Editorial Maye Ltda, 2007
↑ "La última víctima fue un sargento de Carabineros. Y más o menos 70 quedaron heridos en combate" Los Comunistas y la Democracia, Luis Corvalán, p. 49, Lom Ediciones, 2008
↑ Chile Under Pinochet, Mark Ensalaco, p. 146, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010
↑ "En los informes sobre derechos humanos se establece que en este período hubo 41 ejecutados políticos y más de 80 detenidos desaparecidos de origen mapuche." Los Comunistas y la Democracia, Luis Corvalán, p. 74, Lom Ediciones, 2008
↑ El 19 de julio de 1988, explotó en Valparaíso, en la cercanía de una iglesia, una bomba de tiempo. Resultando gravemente heridos algunos feligreses que se disponían a entrar para participar en una ceremonia religiosa: Juan Salazar Olivares, Nelson Pérez y Luis Herrera. La Verdad Olvidada del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968-1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, Pagen 150, Editorial Maye Ltda., 2007
↑ A comienzos de noviembre se logra desarticular al grupo terrorista perteneciente al FMR que ha atacado en octubre el retén de la localidad fronteriza de Los Queñes, hecho enmarcado en la llamada Guerra Popular Prolongada. Chile Ecoge La Libertad, Gonzalo Rojas Sánchez, Page 784, Zig Zag, 1998
↑ El 21 de octubre de 1988, Cabo 2o de Carabineros Juvenal VARGAS SEPULVEDA, de 34 años, perteneciente a la dotación del Retén Los Queñes, provincia de Curicó, fue asesinado en un ataque a su unidad. La Verdad Olvidada del Terrorismo en Chile, 1968-1996, Arturo Castillo Vicencio, Pagen 150, Editorial Maye Ltda., 2007
↑ "Así llega a cuadruplicarse a fines del mismo año, cuando en el mes de septiembre detonaron 53 bombas, resultando de ello 83 víctimas entre muertos y heridos." Estudios Públicos, (Issues 41-42), p. 477, El Centro, 1991
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