Augusto Pinochet led the coup that led to the suicide of Salvador Allende in 1973

On September 11, Chile performs several tributes to commemorate the coup and the suicide of the president Salvador Allende in 1973.

Last Sunday several men with hoods They destroyed the exterior of the presidential palace of La Moneda and mausoleums in Santiago’s main cemetery.

Police fired tear gas and water jets at the hooded men carrying out the riots. At least three people were arrested and three uniformed officers were injured, according to the government report. Half a century after the military coup, Chile is still divided between those who defend and reject the dictatorship.

This Monday, the ousted president’s daughter Isabel Allende said this Monday that “memory is democracy and the future” and called for “justice” at a central event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the coup.

Four reasons that explain why the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile is so emblematic (and had such an international impact)

“Remembrance is a first step to achieving the truth, but we need much more to achieve justice and ensure that the events of that day are not repeated. For this reason, I subscribe to the motto that memory is democracy and the future,” the 81-year-old senator said through tears.

Allende’s daughter described her father as a “social warrior” and an “exponent of the desire for social justice” and revised some of his policies at the head of the Popular Unity Government, such as the fight against child malnutrition and the deepening of agricultural reforms . .

“I had to be the last person from my father’s entourage to enter the palace that day. We had a mandate to tell what happened next. What Popular Unity meant and also the barbarity that was imposed,” said Allende, who acknowledged that he will not forget “the last hug” from his father.

The Independent Democratic Union (UDI), one of the parties of Chile Vamos and of Pinochet origin, published this Monday a harsh statement in which it assured that the coup was “inevitable” because during the Popular Unity government “a social collapse took place, political and institutional.”

Isabel Allende accused the right of trying to “distort the facts and blame Allende and Popular Unity” for the coup and thanked Mexico and Cuba for granting asylum to her family after her father’s death.

“The coup was a crime and there is no context (…) that legitimizes the expropriation of the will of the people. I understand that there are many interpretations possible, but a coup must never again be the consensus of all political forces,” the senator added.

After three candidacies for the presidency, Salvador Allende won the largest votes in the 1970 elections. During his government, he had implemented programs that caused rejection in sectors of society.

He was appointed on August 23, 1973 Augusto Pinochet as commander-in-chief of the Chilean army after the resignation of Carlos Prats. But in the midst of an economic crisis, on September 11, he, along with the heads of other departments, led a coup that succeeded in overthrowing Allende.

While La Moneda burned after an Air Force bombing on September 11, 1973, Allende went to Independence Hall, located on the second floor, and closed the door. “Once inside, he sits down on a bench, places the gun he was carrying between his legs and rests it on his chin, activates it, and dies instantly as a result of the shot he received,” he said. a Supreme Court ruling. (JO)