Augusto Pinochet





General Augusto Josˇ Ram--n Pinochet Ugarte (born November 25, 1915) was a
military dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He came to power in a
bloody coup d'etat which overthrew the government of the elected president,
Salvador Allende. Chile returned to democracy in 1990 after Pinochet lost a
plebiscite in 1988. Together with the rightist dictatorships of Argentina,
Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia, Pinochet has been accused of
participating in the so-called Operation Condor.

Early Career

Pinochet was born in Valpara'so. He went to primary and secondary school at
the San Rafael Seminary of Valpara'so, the Quillota Institute (Marist
Brothers), the French Father's School of Valpara'so, and in the Military
School, which he entered in 1933. After four years of study, he graduated
from the latter with the rank of Infantry Alfˇrez.

In September 1937, he joined the "Chacabuco" Regiment, in Concepci--n. Two
years later, in 1939, then with the rank of Sub-Lieutenant, he moved to the
"Maipo" Regiment, of the Valpara'so garrison. He returned to the Infantry
School in 1940. In January, 1943 he married Luc'a Hiriart Rodr'guez, with
whom he had five children: three daughters and two sons.

At the end of 1945, he joined the "Carampangue" Regiment, in Iquique. In
1948, he entered the War Academy, but he had to postpone his studies,
because, being the youngest officer, he had to carry out a mission of
service in the coal zone of Lota. The following year, he returned to his
studies in the Academy.

After obtaining the Title of Officer Chief of Staff, in 1951, he returned to
teach at the Military School. At the same time, he worked as a teacher's
aide in the War Academy in the military geography and geopolitics clases. In
addition to this, he was active as Director of the Insitutional magazine
"Cien Aguilas" (One Hundred Eagles), an organ for the views of the Officers.

During the beginning of 1953, with the rank of Major, he was sent for two
years to the "Rancagua" Regiment in Arica. While there, he was appointed
professor of the War Academy, and he returned to Santiago, Chile to take up
his new position. He also obtained a baccalaureate, and with this degree, he
entered the School of Law of the University of Chile.

Begining in the year 1956 Pinochet was chosen together with a group of young
officers to form a military mission that would collaborate in the
organization of a War Academy of Ecuador in Quito, which obligated him to
suspend his law studies. He remained with the Quito mission for
three-and-a-half years, during which time dedicated himself to the study of
geopolitics, military geography and intelligence.

At the end of 1959, he returned to Chile and was sent to General Quarters of
the I Division of the Army, in Antofagasta. The following year, he was
assigned Commander of the "Esmeralda" Regiment, 7th of the Line. Owing to
his success in this position, he was appointed Subdirector of the War
Academy in 1963.

In 1968, he was named Chief of Staff of the II Division of the Army, in
Santiago, and at the end of the year he was appointed Brigade General and
Commander in Chief of the VI Division of the Iquique Garrison. In his new
function, he was also appointed Intendent Representant of the Tarapac‡
Province.

In January of 1971, he rose to Division General and named Commander General
of the Santiago Army Garrison. At the beginning of 1972, he was appointed
General Chief of Staff of the Army.

With rising domestic strife in Chile, Pinochet was appointed Commander in
Chief of the Army on 23 August 1973 by the president, the socialist Salvador
Allende.

Coup of 1973

General Pinochet came to power in a military coup d'etat on September 11,
1973. The coup leaders used fighter jets to bomb the Presidential Palace
which housed Allende.

The role of Pinochet in the planning of the coup is subject to discussion.
It is commonly accepted that Pinochet was the leading plotter of the coup
and used his position as commander of the the Army to co-ordinate a
far-reaching scheme that was coordinated with the other branches of the
military. This is the account of events that Pinochet himself affirms in his
memoirs. In recent years, however high military officials from the time have
said that Pinochet only reluctantly got involved in the coup a few days
before it was scheduled to occur. Whatever version is true, once the Junta
was in power, Pinochet soon consolidated his control, first retaining sole
chairmanship of the Junta(originally agreed to be rotated among all
members), and then proclaiming himself the President of the Republic.

In contrast to most other nations in Latin America, Chile had, prior to the
coup, a long tradition of civilian democratic rule; military intervention in
politics had been rare. Some political scientists have ascribed the
bloodiness of the coup to the stability of the existing democratic system,
which required extreme action to overturn.

Allende's economic policy involved state ownership of many key companies,
notably U.S.-owned copper mines. A large portion of the population welcomed
an intervention of the military to end the chaos caused by Allende's
economic policies and foreign-backed domestic political opposition to them,
culminating in a national transport owners' strike. Pinochet promised to
promote the development of a more open market, in his own words "to make
Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs".

[Image:pinochetjunta.jpg]
Pinochet as Chairman of the Junta following the Sept. 11 coup

The Allende government was friendly with Cuba. Declassified US archives
prove that the United States government approved funds for actions to
prevent Allende's election and, later, to destabilize his regime. The role
of the US in the coup itself has not been established, but a document
released by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000 titled "CIA
Activities in Chile" revealed that the CIA actively supported the military
Junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's
officers into paid contacts or agents of the CIA or US military, even though
the agency knew that they were involved in systematic and widespread human
rights abuses.

The violence and bloodshed of the coup itself was continued during
Pinochet's administration. Once in power, Pinochet ruled with an iron hand.
Dissidents were "disappeared" or murdered for speaking out against
Pinochet's policies. It is unknown exactly how many people were killed by
government and military forces during the 17 years that he was in power, but
the "Rettig Commission" listed 2,095 deaths and 1,102 "disappearances".
Torture was also commonly used against dissidents. Thousands of Chileans
fled the country to escape the regime.

Pinochet's presidency was also frequently made unstable by riots and
isolated violent attacks. Assassination attempts were common, which
increased government paranoia and in the eyes of some contributed the cycle
of oppression.

The situation in Chile came to international attention in September 1976
when Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the United States and
minister in Allende's cabinet, was murdered by a car bomb in Washington,
D.C. Gen. Carlos Prats, Pinochet's predecessor as army commander, who had
resigned rather than support the moves against Allende, had died in similar
circumstances in Buenos Aires two years earlier.

In October, 1999, the US State Department declassified a collecton of 1,100
documents produced by various US agencies which dealt with the years leading
up to the military coup. One of these documents gave an indication of the
scale of US collaboration with Pinochet. It establishes that US military aid
was raised dramatically between the coming to power of Allende in 1970, when
it amounted to US$800,000 annualy, to US$10.9 million in 1972, as the coup
plans were implemented.

On September 10 , 2001, a suit was filed by the family of Gen. Rene
Schneider, once head of the Chilean general staff, accusing former US
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of arranging his 1970 murder for opposing
a miltary coup.

Economic successes

Pinochet's brutal political repression existed in parallel with economic
reforms. To formulate his economic policy, Pinochet relied on the so-called
Chicago boys, who were economists trained at the University of Chicago and
heavily influenced by the monetarist policies of Milton Friedman.
Privatisation, cuts in public spending and anti-labour policies alienated
Chile's working classes, though more prosperous strata benefited from real growth.

Under the Pinochet government, Chile's economy staged a massive recovery.
Some global economists dubbed this recovery the Miracle of Chile while
others have disputed this claim.

From May 1983 the opposition and labour movements organised demonstrations
and strikes against the regime, provoking violent responses by the security
forces. In September 1986, an unsuccessful assassination attempt was made on
Pinochet's life by the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), thought to
be connected to the outlawed communist party. Pinochet suffered only minor injuries.

Return to democracy

According to the transitional provisions of the 1980 constitution, a
plebiscite was held in October 1988, to vote on a new eight-year
presidential term for Pinochet. In the plebiscite the advocates of a "No"
vote won, and, again according to the provisions of the constitution, open
elections were held the next year. Pinochet left the presidency on March 11, 1990.

Due to the transitional provisions of the constitution, Pinochet remained
the Commander-in-Chief of the Army until March 1998. Upon leaving that post,
he took a senatorial position for life, granted by the constitution Pinochet
had drafted to all former presidents with at least six years in office. His
senatorship made an eventual prosecution in Chile harder.

Arrest

While travelling abroad, Pinochet was arrested in October 1998 in London.
The arrest warrant was issued by judge Baltasar Garz--n of Spain, and he was
placed under house arrest in the clinic where he had just undergone back
surgery. The charges include 94 counts of torture and one count of
conspiracy to commit torture. Britain had only signed the international
convention against torture recently, so all of the counts were from the last
14 months of his regime.

There was some controversy over whether he should be brought to trial due to
his fragile health. He was 82 years old at the time of his arrest. There was
also some legal maneuvering in an attempt to prevent his extradition to
Spain. The government of Chile opposed his arrest, extradition, and trial.
The British Prime Minister decided in the end not to grant his extradition
on humanitarian grounds. On his return to Chile, however, a judge had been
named to investigate a large number of criminal suits against him. The
appropropiate courts stripped him of his parliamentary immunity, and he was
prosecuted. The cases were dismissed by the Supreme Court of Chile for
medical reasons (vascular dementia) in July 2002. Shortly after the verdict,
he resigned from congress, and lives as an ex-president.

Chilean people are divided among those that see him as a brutal dictator who
ended the democratic regime of Allende and led a regime characterized by
torture and the protection of the rich and those who believe that he saved
the country from communism and led the transformation of the Chilean economy
into a modern one. Even though there is increasing acknowledgement of the
brutality of his regime, his followers try to explain that in the context of
the increasing violence in Chilean society on the part of armed and
political revolutionary groups in the decade before the coup.