What I tell you now is the recent history of dictatorship that has struck at the heart of Chile, Latin American country sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific, and a bad history of impunity.
1970, Chile
After an intense campaign, the Socialist candidate Salvador Allende, head of the Unidad Popular Front wins elections by going to lead the country. It 's the first time in history that a socialist government into power in a democratic way, without the services of a revolution.
(photo: Salvador Allende)
Once in power makes some important reforms: nationalization of copper mines (great resource of the country), nationalized private banks and foreign trade, provides impetus for agrarian reform promotes collective forms of production (in a country where the estate was still popular). The Allende government did not however an easy life. Chile enters a serious economic crisis, sharpened by the cutting off of funds by private banks and the U.S. strikes in the transport sector. Today we know that the U.S. government because of Nixon did everything the Allende government fell by financing strikes and paving the way for what will be one of the most brutal dictatorships of the twentieth century. The rest was not acceptable to the U.S. state of South America to become "communist"!
South America, the word of Nixon, had to be the "backyard" of the United States. A land-use and then, from which the resources without any problems.
's September 11, 1973 , 
military aircraft bombed La Moneda, the presidential palace. Columns of tanks occupied the streets of the capital, Santiago, Chile began a military coup. President Allende, barricaded himself inside the presidential palace defends himself in arms along with a posse of deputies and supporters, and he falls in battle.
But before he died, talking to radio Magellanes, whose microphones are located just inside the palace. His voice is heard by thousands of Chileans, all over the country. That speech, disturbed by the noise of the bombs, it concluded: "Other men will overcome this gray and bitter moment when treason seeks to impose itself. Know that, sooner rather than later, will open the great avenues for which free men will walk to build a society migliore.Viva Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers! These are my last words and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, are certain that, at least, a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice and betrayal. "
Then it all goes off, the radio will not transmit more and Chile plunged in darkness.
the first day of the coup sweeps are made in every city in the country, the police arrest anyone in the eyes of the scheme is "dangerous" dissident.
Thousands of people are crammed into barracks, gymnasiums and sports stadiums. In the soccer stadium in Santiago, Chile for example, are deported only about seven people in the early days of the dictatorship. Many of these will be tortured and shot in the locker room in the basement. E ' here dying Victor Jara, Chilean singer songwriter wonderful as "Te recuerdo Amanda", "A desalambrar", "Duerme negrito" rebel song, singing of exploited miners, who claimed the need to "ground for all" impoverished peasants, who sang the revolutions taking place in other Latin American countries. Poems of revolt accompanied by simple guitar sound. Things that the regime could not accept. And then crushed.
Even Pablo Neruda, the great poet, he also Chilean, died just a few days of that terrible September 11, at his residence in Isla Negra. He died of cancer, but the soldiers have time to search his home several times, and is famous the phrase that he said would open to them: "Look around: there is only one form of danger here, for you poetry." (Very nice about the film "The Postman" by Massimo Troisi, the novel by Skármeta).
The military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet, will last for seventeen years. Unfortunately
had substantial support from that part of society who had opposed Allende, from those who really believe that it was better the firm hand of the military rather than a socialist government, a government "red".
There were, however, also anti-Communists who were busy clandestinamen-te to save from torture and killing many people. That was a vicious dictatorship, where he disappeared from circulation for ideas, for his political activity, for songs or books, or only a suspicion. Where the armed forces were entering homes at night by snatching sleep boys and girls, men and women, taking them away forever from their families, friends, the love. A dictatorship in which books were burned, killed all forms of art, free thought, freedom of the press.
Freedom in Chile was killed over a low heat for 17 years.
But to maintain the consent of the dictatorship had to hide much of what he did, not would last so long if he had made it visible that he was carrying out the massacres.
Yeah, massacres.
Why in the years 1973 to 1990 in Chile are thousands of people died. More than three thousand ... Many of these deaths were not "formalized". English for "missing" is "disappeared" thousands of desaparecidos populated Chile, as well as Argentina, for almost twenty years. People a day were taken away by police, arrested and disappeared forever. How many family members and friends have asked about over the years, until the madness, always getting the same answer: 
disappeared, disappeared.
We now know with certainty that they were killed, thrown in mass graves at night, away from the eyes of those who did not want to see, or who had no idea the true face of military dictatorship.
There is a wonderful book, a novel, which tells of this. Of dictatorship, as some part of the Chilean people ignore (or do not want to see) what was happening, the disappeared, and a love that was born when all this happened. It is called "Of Love and Shadows" and is written by Isabel Allende, niece of Salvador Allende that killed the first day of the coup.
were many Chileans who fled their country with false documents, but many of them were captured by police neighboring states such as Argentina and Bolivia, where there were ruthless military dictatorships very similar to that of Chile. Some managed to save themselves jumping into the walls of the
European embassies, including the Italian. The embassies organized, with great difficulty, their escape. And it is in Italy that many Chileans have remained in exile for many years, and has received a solidarity that does not forget. Proof of this is the tribute that the famous Chilean musical group Inti Illimani, who happened to be in Italy for a tour on the day of the coup, has done to our country with his album "Long live Italy!".
The DINA
The Pinochet regime merited a notorious secret police, whose job was to assassinate politicians uncomfortable for the dictatorship, also abroad: the case of the Chilean Christian Democrat who was preparing Leighton, exile, a Democratic plan to rescue his country .
is killed in Rome in 1974, in Via Aurelia, from Italian men hired by the DINA. It was probably the group of fascist National Vanguard, whose head was Stephen Chiaia man, however, also linked to some of the Italian secret services. See if this same group is the author of the strategy of tension that would also lead Italy to an authoritarian turn, and making havoc in the streets trains.
1983: evidence of revolution
Chile lives in 83 days of high tension, which light up hope in many. They boldly proclaimed, once a month, demonstrations demanding the return to freedom.
The police always respond with guns, and many people die. The world was horrified attend the scene of demonstrations bloodily suppressed, the armored columns that shoot at the demonstrators with water cannons filthy water. The repression is increasing, and who had tried to raise the head is hopelessly crushed, again. He dies again the dream of freedom.
Meanwhile in the country are mind-born illegal guerrilla groups seeking to oppose the law enforcement: September 7, 1986 one of these, the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Frente, an attempt to try Pinochet. The operation is called "vente siglo" and is told in a beautiful book, "pale flags," written by Paco Ignacio Taibo I, which tells it so novel. Guerrillas armed with bazooka attack the presidential procession during a shift of the general, but something goes wrong el'agguato fails. Men die of Commons. Pinochet not only survives but has the excuse to strengthen even more its power, by brandishing the bogeyman of the "communist threat" and convinced many right-thinking that it is better the dictatorship of a free country. And in the night Chile continues.
Then, all this is over.
After a referendum held in 1988, to decide whether Pinochet should remain in power or not, and decided to NO, the evening of 11 March 1990 the ceremony of greeting the general.
dictatorship, after seventeen years, is over.
began the long and difficult period of transition to full democracy, which is certainly not easy to regain after nearly two decades of government was allowed to stand the terror, violence.
It also began the transition process, attempts to unmasking of the many massacres committed by the military in all these years. Is appointed a commission of inquiry into the crimes dictatorship, but it is not easy to find justice in a country where the military is still very powerful, where those who committed crimes can afford to fabricate false evidence and false leads to not being charged.
In 1991 comes out the "scandal" of the cemetery in Santiago: it turns out that many graves each containing the remains of two and even three victims of repression. Augusto Pinochet responds well to the discovery: "You have seen how conserved."
But not only in the cemetery of Santiago you will discover the remains of the disappeared; throughout Chile have many, many who were buried secretly, for years, and slowly being discovered.
Chilean Democracy lives a very important day in early 2000, when he won the election the Socialist Ricardo Lagos: after thirty years exactly, the Socialists returned to power. But in the meantime the world has changed, and the very idea of \u200b\u200bsocialism in power is very different from that practiced by Allende. The country's economy has been transformed in almost two decades of dictatorship, there is no room for ideals of social justice for 70 years, which had been promoting Allende. American capitalism reigns now all over the world, and the new socialism is only a faded memory of the old one.
capture
On 16 October 1998, while located in a hotel in London, Pinochet was visited by officers from Scotland Yard who will deliver an arrest warrant issued by English Judge Garzon. The reasons are many, the killing of Chilean democracy through the use of force liability in dozens of murders, and that he had organized the "Condor Plan".
Pinochet remained for almost a year and a half under house arrest in London, while opening a long dispute over what should be done to him: Spain in the first place, but also France, Switzerland and Belgium in their wish to be extradited countries, and there tried for the crimes he committed. But
2 March 2000 comes the twist: Pinochet, now 85 but is in good health is considered "unfit to stand trial" because "learning difficulties and can not remember recent events and the past."
A sick then, almost insane, and as such is not actionable
. Is released in this way.
A plane of the Chilean armed forces him back to his homeland on March 3, 2000, after several detours in the skies of the planet, to avoid calling in countries that require his arrest.
In Chile the airport waiting for the military, which welcomed him as a hero, and is consumed on the runway of the insult in front of cameras all over the world Pinochet gets up from the chair Accessibility on which he pretended to be sick, and goes back to being healthy.
Latest
For all these years, Chile has had to witness the ugly spectacle of a process that never gave a final verdict, the indictment never a formula. Only
13 December 2004, the Supreme Court of St. James has given the green light to the arrest of Pinochet. A historical moment for a country where the influence of the general was still strong. Recently, however, that stop was suspended for the worsening of his physical condition.
(photo: Pinochet in 1973)
The first woman in power
early January 2006, a new historical fact has been consumed in Chile, the Socialist candidate Michelle Bachelet won by a wide margin the presidential election, becoming the first president of Chile However this woman, who was imprisoned and tortured during the years of dictatorship Augusto Pinochet before going into exile, it also becomes a symbol of redemption, of a desire to exceed past the final re-blood of the fascist dictatorship.
there is still much more to say about Chile, the internal political problems, poverty, indigenous Mapuche claiming more rights, of social struggles. All this will take space in another article.
Before closing However, it is important to note: the military coup of Pinochet in Chile was part of a wider framework, which saw the birth 70 years of military dictatorships in many other countries of South America including Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. This plan, called "Plan Condor", intended to eliminate all political opponents in joint operations with the secret services. The operational support, politically and economically in this terrorist plot was given by the CIA, that U.S. intelligence.
is why it is so weird knowing these historical facts the intent of the current U.S. Bush administration to "export democracy" in the world with their war on terrorism. How can believe in a country that funded the bloody dictatorships for the sole purpose of continuing to have control of certain economic areas, when he tells us that the purpose of its war against terrorism is to fight for the good of humanity? The one implemented in Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, etc., was terrorism.
Lorenzo Pasqualini
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