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| | [[File:Augusto Pinochet foto oficial coloreada.jpg|300px|thumbnail|Oficial Pinochet photo 1974 (colored).]] | | [[File:Augusto Pinochet foto oficial coloreada.jpg|300px|thumbnail|Oficial Pinochet photo 1974 (colored).]] |
| | [[Image:342px-Pinochet de Civil.jpg|right|thumb|Augusto Pinochet in civilian outfit.]] | | [[Image:342px-Pinochet de Civil.jpg|right|thumb|Augusto Pinochet in civilian outfit.]] |
| − | General '''Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte''' (b. [[Valparaíso]], on November 25, 1915–d. [[Santiago]], on December 10, 2006) was a [[Chile]]an [[general]] who became Chile's head of state (or leader) from 1973 to 1990. He came to power as a member of a council of military leaders after the overthrow of the [[communism|communist]] government of President [[Salvador Allende]]. Pinochet is credited with restoring the [[free market]] and prosperity to Chile after hardship under communism. [[Leftist]]s hated Pinochet for his [[conservative]] policies, to the point of wrongly imprisoning him in [[England]] on political charges long after Pinochet had relinquished power. He was ultimately released. | + | General '''Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte''' (b. [[Valparaíso]], on November 25, 1915–d. [[Santiago]], on December 10, 2006) was a murder, Capitalist puppet, and imperialist installed by US imperialism. |
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| − | [[United States]] intelligence reports implicated the communist Allende in the assassination of several opponents,<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref> while [[KGB]] files smuggled out of Russia by Vasily Mitrokhin indicate that Allende received funds from the Soviet Union.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history-nro-symposium</ref> Allende was formally condemned by Chile's parliament for systematically destroying democracy in Chile.<ref>“Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy,” Resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, Chile, August 22, 1973.</ref> The Chilean Chamber of Deputies Resolution of August 22, 1973, accused Allende of support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country. In the infamous "Cuban Packages Scandal" that precipitated the coup, large quantities of weapons were sent from Castro's Cuba to arm pro-Allende terrorists in Chile.<ref>https://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history-nro-symposium</ref> Kissinger privately told Nixon that Allende might declare martial law.<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref>
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| − | By 1973, as a result of covert U.S. aid to Chilean dissidents and financing of pro-democracy protesters, US intelligence indicated Allende would likely lose the next Chilean election if it was held.<ref>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=15648</ref> According to ''The Wall Street Journal,'' faced with illegal seizures of farms and factories, of defiance of judicial orders, unchecked street violence and death threats against the judges themselves, the Supreme Court warned on May 26, 1973, in a unanimous and unprecedented message, that Chile faced "a peremptory or imminent breakdown of legality."<ref>https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20040108221609/http://lyd.org/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref> Volodia Teitelboim, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party in Chile, declared that if civil war came, "it probably would signify immense loss of human lives, between half a million and one million."<ref>https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20040108221609/http://lyd.org/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref> On September 11, 1973, Allende committed suicide during a military coup launched by Pinochet, who became President.
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| − | General Pinochet headed a [[Augusto Pinochet regime (Chile, 1973–90)|military government for 17 years (1973-1990)]] which suppressed [[communist]] revolutionaries in Chile. In the Pinochet's military government, [[Jaime Guzmán]] drafted a new Constitution (1980), which was approved in a referendum, that established a gradual and legal path for the return to full democracy and introduced a new binomial electoral system that was also made by Guzmán. The constitution introduced an amnesty law for all military officials, and Pinochet granted himself the title of senator for life (''Senador vitalicio'') that would be enacted once he left the post of Commander in Chief of the Chilean Armed Forces.
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| − | General Pinochet instituted [[Free market|free-market]] reforms in Chile in the 1970s that resulted in lower [[inflation]] and an economic boom. During this period, he held a [[plebiscite]] on his rule and 75% of the people affirmed their support for his emergency government.
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| − | During his time in power, including the 1973 coup, at least 1,200 people were killed or vanished in the military crackdown on [[Left Wing Terrorism in Chile]]. The most common estimate is that 3,000 were killed,<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.u999999k/2/hi/americas/6167237.stm BBC profile]</ref> while other estimates go as high as 10,000. Of the confirmed 2,774 Marxist guerrillas and left-wing radicals killed or missing in the 17 years of the Chilean military government, 1,522 died or disappeared between 11 September and 31 December 1973.<ref>[http://www.lahistoriaparalela.com.ar/2008/01/16/la-verdad-olvidada-del-terrorismo-en-chile/ La verdad olvidada del terrorismo en Chile]</ref> In addition, over a quarter million Chileans were arrested. Universities were purged of terrorist sympathizers, Marxist books were burned, and rival political parties banned. Thousands of members of the Socialist Party of Chile and the Communist Party of Chile fled the country out of fear of the [[secret police]], which allegedly tortured citizens.<ref>Augusto Pinochet Biography http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pinochet.html</ref>
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| − | A new Constitution was adopted in Chile in 1980, which authorized General Pinochet to serve as president for another eight-year term, to be followed by a plebiscite on his presidency.
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| − | Pinochet allowed the [[Chicago Boys]] to move Chile into a market economy, privatizing many inefficient government businesses, and opening the country to foreign investment. The stability that his government gave encouraged foreign investors to come to Chile. His minister, [[José Piñera]], started one of the first [[private pension accounts|Individual capitalization]] pension systems in the world, which has been highly successful. [[Hernán Büchi]] was responsible for reintroducing economic liberal policies at the end of the government.
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| − | Using its leverage over Pinochet to curtail Chilean human rights abuses, the US simultaneously pressured Chile to introduce a series of economic reforms, a process that escalated sharply in the eighties. This led to a period of rapid economic expansion and development without precedent in Latin America, in which growth averaged 7% annually, that came to be known as the "''miracle of Chile''" (it also included the region's greatest reductions in infant mortality<ref>Nick Eberstadt, The Poverty of Communism (Transaction Publishers, 1990), pp188, 196-206, 240-6, in which he discusses living standards in [[Communist]] [[Cuba]] versus Pinochet's Chile.</ref>). In turn, this allowed Chile to make a long-term transition to sustainable democratic rule that would likely have been otherwise inconceivable.<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref>
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| − | As promised, President Pinochet held another plebiscite in October 1988 on the issue of whether he should continue as president. He was defeated by a vote of 55-43%, and subsequent free elections were won by the [[Christian Democrat]] Patricio Aylwin, who was installed as president on March 11, 1990.
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| − | General Pinochet was a graduate of the [[School of the Americas]] at Fort Benning, [[Georgia]].
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| − | In 1998, the [[leftists]] who had long hated Pinochet arranged for his arrest while he was in [[London]] receiving medical treatment. An unprecedented arrest warrant was issued in [[Spain]] for alleged [[human rights]] violations that occurred in Chile while he was president. The stunt failed, and Pinochet was subsequently returned to Chile due to his ill health. He was later indicted and charged with [[kidnapping]] 19 supporters of Salvador Allende during the 1973 coup in which Pinochet took power. The Chilean [[Supreme Court]] suspended the prosecution in July 2002, again due to Pinochet's continuing poor health.
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| − | Pinochet died of a heart attack on December 10, 2006.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/world/americas/10cnd-pinochet-timeline.html NYTimes</ref>
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| | == See also == | | == See also == |
