Chile marks 50 years since Pinochet’s brutal coup
Al Jazeera :
London, UK and Santiago, Chile – Gloria Miqueles gazes at the window display at the Postal Museum in London.
Some of her most personal items are on exhibition here: letters from her son’s estranged father in Chile, CDs and government petitions demanding justice.
Miqueles, 72, was exiled during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and has lived in the United Kingdom for 37 years. Together with a community of Chilean exiles, she prepared the exhibition to commemorate 50 years since Pinochet overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.
During the 17-year dictatorship, Pinochet’s secret police brutally persecuted, tortured and killed Allende’s supporters, forcing Chileans like Miqueles to flee.
“Commemorating the anniversary of the coup has become part of our collective construction of memory and demand for truth, justice and reparation,” she told Al Jazeera, citing a lack of reckoning in Chile for the crimes that occurred.
“There is an unprecedented extent of denialism and revisionism.”
In Chile, President Gabriel Boric has vowed to commemorate the coup with a robust programme of cultural events, museum openings and tree plantings in memory of each person killed.
A left-wing, former student protest leader, Boric is viewed by many as the most progressive Chilean president since the country’s return to democracy.
“On September 11, we commemorate half a century of the coup d’etat that broke democracy in our country and that brought with it murder, death, torture, exile, banishment and so many other tragedies that we cannot forget,” Boric said during a public broadcast this past June.
The occasion is an opportune moment “for us to reaffirm that no differences between us will lead us to neglect and stop defending democracy and human rights”, he added.
Not all of Chile’s political sectors agree with Boric.
His proposal to establish a cross-party agreement denouncing the dictatorship has been vehemently opposed by right-wing opposition parties.
Jorge Alessandri, a member of the chamber of deputies with the Independent Democratic Union party, which is closely associated with the Pinochet regime, recently said the coup was “justified” because the Allende government was “not respecting the rules of the constitution”.
His views are not isolated.
A survey this year found that 36 percent of Chileans believe the coup was justifiable, while a separate public opinion poll found that four in 10 do not think Pinochet was a dictator.
Luisa Flores, 62, is among this group.
“We didn’t have food before.
Pinochet took control of the government, and things began to improve,” she told Al Jazeera during a recent anti-government demonstration outside the presidential palace.
She was joined by far-right protesters who waved flags decorated with the police emblem, calling for greater protections and power for Chilean police.
Accusing Boric’s government of fuelling violent crime in the country, protesters said his commitment to human rights has significantly weakened law enforcement.