(Santiago de Chile) Chile closed the ceremonies of the 50th on Monday with a candlelight vigil in a former torture centere anniversary of Augusto Pinochet’s military coup and the fall of Salvador Allende’s government, against a backdrop of social and political divisions over the legacy of its own history.
From the Palace of La Moneda, bombed by the Chilean Air Force on September 11, 1973, Gabriel Boric presided over the commemorations, under the slogan “Democracy Always”, in the presence of current or former heads of state of Latin America.
“Whatever the color of the regime that violates human rights, whether it is red, blue or black, human rights must always be respected and their violation condemned without any nuance,” launched the president Boric.
PHOTO JAVIER TORRES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Chilean President Gabriel Boric
“The coup d’état” by General Pinochet “is inseparable from what followed, human rights were violated from the start,” added the 37-year-old left-wing leader, first president of Chile to have been born after the military coup.
With a sobbing voice, socialist senator Isabel Allende, daughter of the late president who committed suicide that day, moved the audience by recounting her day of September 11, 1973. Facing her, in the front row, Maya Fernandez, minister of Defense and granddaughter of Salvador Allende.
“Today, as democracy around the world faces new authoritarian threats, it is more necessary than ever to renew the commitment of each of us to democracy,” she said. .
A minute of silence was observed at 11:52 a.m., the time La Moneda was bombed, paving the way for 17 years of dictatorship during which 1,747 people were killed and 1,469 disappeared.
But half a century later, Chile is still divided on the meaning to give to this commemoration.
According to a recent survey carried out by the Activa Research institute, 40% of Chileans believe that Allende is responsible for leading Chile towards the coup d’état, while 50% abhor the regime imposed by the general.
Furthermore, in a country where 79% of the 20 million inhabitants were born after 1973 and where the main concern remains the economy and insecurity, these commemorations arouse little interest.
“History will judge”
The political heirs of President Allende govern today, but the Republican Party, a far-right party openly nostalgic for Pinochet, came out on top in May in the election of the Council responsible for drafting a new Constitution, supposed to amend the one written under the dictatorship (1973-1990).
The UDI, another far-right party, issued a statement earlier today saying that Allende’s overthrow had “become inevitable” due to the “extreme situation” in which the country found itself.
“Of course there was another alternative,” replied Mr. Boric during his speech, drawing applause from the relatives of the missing and the personalities present.
PHOTO ESTEBAN FELIX, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Half a century after this coup d’état, however, Chile remains divided between defenders and detractors of the dictatorship.
No representatives of the right-wing opposition attended the ceremony in La Moneda or joined the pledge to “defend democracy against authoritarian threats” promoted by the president.
” It is very painful. History will judge”, reacted Isabel Allende, deploring the “setbacks” observed according to her during these commemorations.
In Washington, pressed on whether the United States would issue a formal apology for supporting the 1973 coup, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said he did not want to “speak with that level of specificity of events that occurred under a previous administration 50 years ago.”
He stressed that the Biden administration “has strived to be transparent about the role of the United States in this chapter of Chilean history by recently declassifying documents dating back to 1973, as the Chilean government had requested of us.” “.
On Monday night, a candlelight vigil drew thousands of people to the Santiago stadium which had been converted into a detention and torture center during the dictatorship.
At the city gates, demonstrators also prevented the passage of vehicles. A cameraman from a local television channel was shot in the face during the unrest, and a police officer was injured. However, their vital prognosis is not serious, authorities said.
Without ever having set foot in a prison and even less in a court, Augusto Pinochet died of a heart attack in 2006 at the age of 91.