The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. 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, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon. On 11 September 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of René Schneider, who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria is a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022. She previously served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018 for the Socialist Party of Chile. She is the first woman to hold the Chilean presidency. After leaving the presidency in 2010 and before becoming eligible for re-election, she was appointed as the first executive director of the newly established United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. In December 2013, Bachelet was re-elected with over 62% of the vote, surpassing the 54% she received in 2006. She was the first President of Chile to be re-elected since 1932.
The Valech Report, officially known as The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report, documents instances of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. Published on November 29, 2004, the report presents the findings of a six-month investigation. A revised version was subsequently released on June 1, 2005. In February 2010, the commission was reopened for a period of eighteen months, during which additional cases were examined.
Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA's many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during the governance of Augusto Pinochet. It is located at Avenida José Arrieta 8200 in Peñalolén, on the outskirts of Santiago, and was in operation from mid-1974 to mid-1978. About 4,500 detainees were brought to Villa Grimaldi during this time, at least 240 of whom "disappeared" or were killed by DINA. It was also the location of the headquarters of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade (BIM). The head of Villa Grimaldi during the Pinochet dictatorship, Marcelo Moren Brito, was later convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to more than 300 years in prison.
Juan Salvador Guzmán Tapia was a Chilean judge. He was the first Chilean judge to lead investigations and prosecute Augusto Pinochet for violations of human rights during his dictatorship between 1973 and 1990. As a special prosecutor, he used novel legal strategies to hold Pinochet and members of his military regime accountable for the killings and human rights violations during this period.
The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organisation officially founded on 14 December 1983 as the paramilitary arm of the Communist Party of Chile in the context of this party policy denominated as the "Política de Rebelión Popular de Masas", created with the goal of a violent overthrow of the civic-military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
On 11 March 1990, Chile transitioned to a democracy, ending the military regime led by General Augusto Pinochet. This transition lasted 15 years. Unlike most democratic transitions led by either the elite or the people, this democratic transition process is known as an intermediate transition - a transition involving both the regime and the civil society. Throughout the transition, as the regime increased repressive violence, it simultaneously supported liberalization - progressively strengthening democratic institutions and gradually weakening that of the military.
Jaime Castillo Velasco was a Chilean politician who served as president and vice-president of the Christian Democrat Party on several occasions.
José "Pepe" Zalaquett Daher was a Chilean lawyer, renowned for his work in the defence of human rights during the de facto regime that governed Chile under General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990.
Hernán Larraín Fernández is a conservative Chilean lawyer, university lecturer, and politician; he served as the Chilean Minister of Justice and Human rights, appointed by president Sebastián Piñera, between 2018 and 2022. Larraín's former public service positions include a Senate seat representing the 11th district, the Maule Region (1994-2010), the Presidency of the Senate (2004-2005) and the presidency of the Independent Democratic Union from 2006 to 2008 and 2015–2017. The UDI is a conservative political party with strong links to the Opus Dei, that opposes abortion and has historically supported Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. His appointment as Minister of Justice and Human rights has been controversial despite his attempt to distance himself from the UDI's ideology regarding human rights to achieve a more conciliatory tone as a minister.
The Permanent Assembly for Human Rights is an Argentine non-governmental human rights organization; founded in 1975. According to its official website the organization is the product of a "call from people coming from distinct areas: the church, politics, Human Rights, sciences, culture, and labour Argentinians in response to the increasing violence and the collapse of the most elemental Human Rights in the country".
Viviana Elisa Díaz Caro is a Chilean human rights campaigner who became widely known in the struggle for human rights in Chile as the president of the Agrupación de Familiars de Detenidos Desaparecidos. She is the daughter of Víctor Días sub-secretary of the Communist Party of Chile who disappeared after he was arrested by security forces in 1976.
Human rights abuses in Chile under Augusto Pinochet 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 military dictatorship of Chile under General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990.
Patio 29 is a common grave site in Santiago General Cemetery in Chile, where political prisoners, especially those who "disappeared" during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, were buried anonymously. The mass grave, the largest of Augusto Pinochet's military government, was used for unannounced and unmarked burials in the 1970s until an anonymous tip alerted the public to its usage. With the return of democracy to Chile in 1990, an exhumation effort through 2006 recovered 126 bodies in 105 graves and identified three-quarters of the victims. A 2005 DNA test later reported widespread identification errors and a new identification database began in 2007. Exhumation authorities report that the site has been fully exhumed, a claim contested by which families of the victims.
Ángela Margarita Jeria Gómez was a Chilean archaeologist. Mother of the President of Chile Michelle Bachelet, she was the wife of the Chilean Air Force Brigadier General Alberto Bachelet, who died after being tortured during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Jeria served informally in the role of first lady during the first Bachelet government, accompanying her daughter to several official functions. Her official protocolary role was "Director of the Sociocultural Area of the Presidency".
Janet Toro is a performance artist based in Chile and Germany whose work has centered around an anti-establishment message and the illumination of the social injustices that resulted from the Pinochet dictatorship. She is most well known for her work, El cuerpo de la memoria, where she performed 90 actions over 44 days at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile. Shortly after this, she moved to Germany in 1999, where she continued her career as a performance artist before moving back to Chile in 2014.
The Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD), is a Chilean human rights group that formed in Santiago in 1974 in the wake of detentions and disappearances of thousands of people by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Fabiola Alicia Letelier del Solar was a Chilean lawyer, noted for her activism and defense of human rights in Chile and Latin America. She was the founder and president of CODEPU (1980–1998), and a plaintiff lawyer in the case surrounding her brother Orlando Letelier's assassination in 1976. On 23 July 2018, she was awarded the National Human Rights Prize, awarded by the National Institute of Human Rights.
María Eugenia Lorenzini Lorenzini, better known as Kena Lorenzini, is a Chilean psychologist, photographer, writer, curator, feminist, and activist.
Íngrid Felicitas Olderöck Benhard, better known as "Woman of The Dogs", was a Carabineros de Chile major who was converted into an agent of the DINA in 1973. She was responsible for human rights violations during the first years of the military dictatorship in Chile.
