Fatherland and Liberty Patria y Libertad | |
---|---|
Leader | Pablo Rodríguez Grez |
Founded | 1971 |
Dissolved | 12 September 1973 |
Succeeded by | National Advance (unofficial) [2] |
Ideology | Ultranationalism Corporatism Anti-communism Radical right [3] Neo-fascism [A] Anti-parliamentarism [4] Anti-liberalism [3] |
Political position | Far-right |
Colors | Black & white |
The Fatherland and Liberty Nationalist Front (Spanish : Frente Nacionalista Patria y Libertad or simply Patria y Libertad, PyL) was a Chilean fascist, [5] political and paramilitary group [6] that fought against the democratically elected Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, in Chile.
The group was formed by Pablo Rodríguez Grez in 1970 with Roberto Thieme as secretary general, and turned more and more clandestine throughout the presidency of Salvador Allende.
In June 1973, the group attempted to carry out a coup against the Allende government but failed, in an event known as the Tanquetazo. In July 1973, it received orders from the Chilean Navy, which opposed the Schneider Doctrine of military adherence to the constitution, to sabotage Chile's infrastructure. The collaboration between Fatherland and Liberty and the Chilean Armed Forces increased after the failed October 1972 strike which had sought to overthrow Allende socialist administration. In agreement with the sectors opposing Allende in the military, the group assassinated on 26 July 1973 Allende's naval aide, Arturo Araya Peeters. [7] The first sabotage was committed this same day. Others include creating a power outage while Allende was being broadcast. [8]
It was officially disbanded on 12 September 1973, following Pinochet's coup. Many members of PyL were then recruited by Chilean security services and participated in the persecution of those opposed to Pinochet's junta. Still others like Roberto Thieme became convinced opponents of the regime (Thieme in particular opposed the neo-liberal economic policies under Pinochet). Since the transition to democracy, some small groups have since claimed to be its successor, but are not officially linked to the original PyL.
Headed by Pablo Rodríguez Grez, the group was spawned in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. It formally organized itself in 1970, a short time after the election of Salvador Allende. Patria y Libertad gathered mainly upper and middle-class students, united by common anti-communist beliefs, engaged in street brawls against leftist militants and sympathizers, armed with nunchakus and molotov cocktails. [9] Patria y Libertad hoped to overthrow socialism in Chile. [10] Along with the youth movement of the Christian Democracy, the youth of the National Party and the "Comando Rolando Matus" (CRM), the paramilitary group formed and integrated by the youth of this last political party, they participated in demonstrations against the President Salvador Allende's socialist government. [11]
The group was funded by the CIA during the first year of Allende's presidency, including via the Agency's Track II program. [12] According to Prof. Michael Stohl, and Prof. George A. Lopez, "After the failure to prevent Allende from taking office, efforts shifted to obtaining his removal. At least $7 million was authorized by the United States for CIA use in the destabilizing of Chilean society. This included financing and assisting opposition groups and right-wing paramilitary groups such as Patria y Libertad ('Fatherland and Liberty')". [13] Although PyL was already dissolved, some of their former integrants continued collaborating with Pinochet's regime. Former head of DINA Manuel Contreras declared to Chilean justice in 2005 that the CNI, successor of DINA, handed out monthly payments between 1978 and 1990 to the persons who had worked with DINA agent Michael Townley in Chile, former members of PyL: Mariana Callejas (Townley's wife), Francisco Oyarzún, Gustavo Etchepare and Eugenio Berríos. [14] Assassinated in 1995, Berrios, who worked as a chemist for the DINA in Colonia Dignidad, also worked with drug traffickers and DEA agents. [15] Michael Townley has been convicted for the 1976 assassination of former Chilean minister Orlando Letelier, and was involved in the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires.
The Chilean Navy's June 1973 plan included sabotaging bridges, oil pipelines, energy towers and the fuel supply. The plan was revealed after the transition to democracy by Roberto Theime, leader of military operations for Fatherland and Liberty. Thieme exiled himself to Argentina after the failed Tanquetazo , but returned to Chile in mid-July 1973, two months before the military coup. [8] Thieme also revealed that in 1973, he was pressured by the military to assassinate Senator Carlos Altamirano, who had been the general secretary of the Socialist Party since 1971. [8]
The Swedish journalist Anders Leopold, in his 2008 book Det svenska trädet skall fällas, makes the case that PyL leader Roberto Thieme was the assassin in the still-unsolved 1986 murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. According to Leopold, the Swedish prime minister was killed because he had freely given asylum to so many leftist Chileans following the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende. [16]
Roberto Thieme, leader of the military operations of PyL, signed on 2 December 2004, along with other leaders José Agustín Vásquez and Arturo Hoffmann, a declaration which referred to the Valech Report and begged pardon for their responsibilities in the repression against civilians operated by Pinochet's junta. They indicated that many members of the group had been recruited by the Chilean security services and had thus collaborated to the repression, including acts of torture and of forced disappearances. Thieme also opposed the neoliberal economic policies of Pinochet's regime, and criticized Pinochet's lack of repentance following his 1998 arrest in London and subsequent judicial procedures in Chile. [17]
Juan Patricio Abarzúa Cáceres, a former member of PyL, was arrested in 2005, charged in the "disappearance" of Juan Heredia, a Popular Unity government sympathiser "disappeared" on 16 September 1973. [18]
Juan Manuel "Mamo" GuillermoContreras Sepúlveda was a Chilean Army officer and the former head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Chile's secret police during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In 1995, he was convicted of the murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC, and sentenced to seven years in prison, which he served until 2001. At the time of his death, Contreras was serving 59 unappealable sentences totaling 529 years in prison for kidnapping, forced disappearance, and assassination.
The Christian Democratic Party is a Christian democratic political party in Chile. There have been three Christian Democrat presidents in the past, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Patricio Aylwin, and Eduardo Frei Montalva.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the democratic socialist president of Chile Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity coalition government. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile. On 11 September 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule.
Inti-Illimani are an instrumental and vocal Latin American folk music ensemble from Chile. The band was formed in 1967 by a group of university students and it acquired widespread popularity in Chile for their song Venceremos, which became the anthem of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende. When the 1973 Chilean coup d'état took place, they were on tour in Europe and were unable to return to their country where their music was proscribed by the ruling military junta of Augusto Pinochet. In Europe their music took on a multifarious character, incorporating elements of European baroque and other traditional music forms to their Latin American rhythms, creating a fusion of modern world music. Their name means 'Sun of the Golden Eagle' in Aymara.
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Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 until his suicide in 1973, and head of the Popular Unity government; he was a Socialist and Marxist elected to the national presidency of a liberal democracy in Latin America. In August 1973 the Chilean Senate declared the Allende administration to be "unlawful," Allende's presidency was ended by a military coup before the end of his term. During Allende's three years, Chile gradually transitioned into a socialist state.
The Revolutionary Left Movement is a Chilean far-left Marxist-Leninist communist party and former urban guerrilla organization founded on 12 October 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 was the General Secretary of the party from 1967 until his assassination in 1974 by the DINA.
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Michael Vernon Townley is an American-born former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the secret police of Chile during the regime of Augusto Pinochet. In 1978, Townley pleaded guilty to the 1976 murders of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States, and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, Letelier's co-worker at the Institute for Policy Studies. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, serving 62 months. As part of his plea bargain, Townley received immunity from further prosecution; he was not extradited to Argentina to stand trial for the 1974 assassination of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires.
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Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte was a Chilean military officer who was the dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader of the military junta, which in 1974 declared him President of the Republic and thus the dictator of Chile; in 1980, a referendum approved a new constitution confirming him in the office, after which he served as de jure president from 1981 to 1990. His time in office remains the longest of any Chilean ruler.
Following the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, an armed leftist resistance movement against Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship developed until 1990 when democracy was restored. This conflict was part of the South American theater in the Cold War, with the United States backing the Chilean military and the Soviet Union backing the guerrillas. The main armed resistance groups of the period were the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR), the armed wing of the Communist Party of Chile. These groups had a long-standing rivalry, including over Marxist orthodoxy and its implementation.
Events in the year 1973 in Chile.
Pablo Rodríguez Grez is a Chilean politician and lawyer. He supported and was a former lawyer for Pinochet. He became known for his fascist ideals and for founding the Fatherland and Liberty movement, in which he had been accused of terrorist acts, in addition to collaborating with Pinochet's coup in 1973. He was also a candidate for the National Advance party for the presidency of Chile in 1989. He has been a teacher of Civil Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile since 1978 and is a partner at the law firm Rodríguez Vergara y Compañía.
Walter Robert Thieme Schiersand was a Chilean furniture maker, painter, and politician. He gained notoriety by becoming one of the highest leaders of the Fatherland and Liberty Nationalist Front, an organization strongly opposed to the government of Salvador Allende through violent means, often resorting to worker riots. After the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and instalment of the subsequent military junta, he went through a major ideological change, after which he became a political activist, often organizing events against the regime led by Augusto Pinochet, which he accused of abandoning nationalism in favour of global neoliberalism. Later on, he defined himself as a nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and Indigenista.
Chilean nationalism is the nationalism of Chilean people and Chilean culture. It began as a strain of political thought that originated between 1904 and 1914 with the rise of the centenary essayists, the birth of the Nationalist Party and the reactivation of the authoritarian political discourse of the statesman Diego Portales.
Nationalist Liberation Offensive was a fascist Chilean political movement led by the terrorist Enrique Arancibia Clavel. It operated between 1969 and October 1970 through means of political violence and sabotage against the government of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva and Socialist Salvador Allende Gossens.