“No leaf moves in this country if I’m not moving it, let’s be clear.”. That’s what he meant Augusto Pinochet in 1981 to the way he led Chile with an iron fist during the 17 years that his dictatorship lasted (1973-1990).
And although half a century has passed since the Military junta led by Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende and attributed absolute powers to govern the destiny of Chileans for almost two decades, his legacy continues to arouse passions and hatred.
(Enter the special: 50 years of the coup d’état in Chile)
Three out of ten Chileans still justify the military coup and nearly four out of ten believe that the former general promoted the modernization of the Chilean economy. This last is the main reason why there are many who claim that the times of Pinochet marked the development of the country.
Always wearing his military suit, dark glasses and a haughty body posture during the regime, Augusto Pinochet forged his reputation largely during the long military career he had in the ranks of the Chilean Army.
Born in Valparaíso on November 25, 1915 from the marriage between Augusto Pinochet Vera and Avelina Ugarte Martínez, at the age of 18 he entered the Libertador Bernando O’Higgins Military School after receiving a profound religious education during his childhood and adolescence at the San Rafael Seminary in Valparaíso, at the Rafael Ariztía Institute in Quillota and at the Colegio de Los Padres Franceses in Valparaíso.
According to his biographer, James Whelan, Pinochet had a normal childhood in which his mother played a very important role in the formation of his personality. She instilled in him a deep fervor for religion. In fact, he used to define himself as a “Catholic, Apostolic and Roman.”
No leaf moves in this country if I’m not moving it, let’s be clear.
According to a review made by the Library of the National Congress of Chile (BCN), during his time in the Army he specialized in military geography and geopolitics. He spent his first years as a professor in military schools, among other functions.
Then, in the mid-1950s, he was Undersecretary of War and was part of a military delegation to the United States as a military attaché at the embassy in Washington. Shortly afterward he was sent to Quito to organize the Ecuadorian War Academy, where he lived for three years.
By the end of the 1960s he was named brigadier general and chief commander of the VI Division of the Army in Iquique, which paved the way for him to be promoted to division general in 1970.
Already in the highest positions within the military hierarchy, between 1972 and 1973 he took over as deputy head of the Army, replacing Carlos Prats, who was called by Allende to be part of his ministerial cabinet.
His destiny changed shortly after, on August 23, 1973, when Prats resigned from his position as minister, but not before recommending to Allende that he appoint Pinochet himself as commander in chief of the Army.. Until then, and as the media of the time remember, the then general had never shown any type of acts of rebellion nor had he expressed political aspirations.
He was, however, famous for his strong personality. And just 18 days before September 11, 1973, Allende agreed and appointed Pinochet to the new position. Using the powers granted by the president himself, the then general aligned the four institutions of the Armed Forces and directed a bloody military operation 50 years ago that had as its epicenter the historic bombing of the Palacio de la Moneda – seat of Government.
A week after the coup, the Dutch photojournalist Chas Gerretsentook a photograph of Pinochet during the Te Deum liturgy in the Cathedral of Santiago that would later embody the symbol of what would be the former general’s 17 years in power.
The Military Junta celebrated a National Holidays mass, in an event that was surrounded by snipers, machine gun nests on the main avenues and a military checkpoint in the streets of Santiago. Gerretsen captured it with his lens while the then general was sitting and surrounded by his bodyguards and his closest collaborators. Pinochet had his hands crossed over his chest, black glasses, and a stern, defiant gaze directed directly toward the camera lens.
This is how the world saw the face of the dictator and his portrait of an implacable leader with which he projected himself towards the people. It is not in vain that his famous phrase that in Chile “no leaf moved without his knowledge” reflects his authoritarian power and the persecution of his opponents.
Then I went to Hollywood and photographed actors from ’75 to ’89. Pinochet was an actor. When I saw the photo in a magazine I understood what kind of photo it was.
“Pinochet looked at me, he was clever enough to think that the camera was a tool to talk to people. Then I went to Hollywood and photographed actors from ’75 to ’89. Pinochet was an actor. When I saw the photo in a magazine I understood the type of photo it was,” the photojournalist said about the iconic image recently in an interview with Efe regarding the 50th anniversary of the coup.
But in addition to the support he achieved among the military to lead the dictatorship, perhaps one of the most influential characters in Pinochet’s life was his wife Lucía Hiriart Rodríguez, with whom he had five children: Lucía, Jacqueline, Verónica, Augusto and Marco Antonio. According to an unauthorized biography written by Alejandra Matus, Hiriart was Pinochet’s right-hand man during the dictatorship and was one of the people who most influenced Pinochet to lead the coup d’état.
The truth is that during the Pinochet regime he designed an entire scaffolding so that power orbited around him. In addition to the abuses and persecution carried out by the Chilean intelligence services, civil and political rights were also restricted, a state of siege and curfew were established, and the media were censored. A new Constitution was also written with which he shielded the neoliberal economic model that he wanted to lead Chile to.
Inspired by the free market theory of the ‘Chicago Boys’, Pinochet applied the privatization model under which Chile experienced years of prosperity and economic stability. On the one hand, the creation of a private pension and health system was approved, and a large part of the companies that had been nationalized during the Allende era were returned to companies.
“But this model has some marked shadows. Despite economic growth, inequality in Chile persists, and access to pensions, health and education are strongly segregated,” recalls an article by the British BBC.
What ended up precipitating the end of the dictatorship was a plebiscite called in 1988 in which citizens were asked if they agreed that the former general would remain in charge of the country until 1997. After the victory of the “No” vote, votes were called to elect the president and parliament in 1989.
On March 11, 1990, Pinochet handed over power after losing a referendum, but remained at the head of the Army for another eight years. He was a “life” senator until 2002, when he resigned. He died at the age of 91 while under house arrest for three cases of human rights violations and one of embezzlement of public funds.
The soldier died in 2006 without ever entering prison or a courtroom. And although in 1998 he was arrested in the capital of England following an international arrest request from the National Court of Spain issued by Judge Baltasar Garzón, who was investigating the murder of several Spanish citizens during the dictatorship, in 2000 he returned to Chile.
“There was no time to condemn him,” the former president of the Chilean Supreme Court between 2010 and 2012, Milton Juica, recently said. During the military regime, that court was “completely sympathetic to the regime,” he said.
Today, the memory of Pinochet is bitter: for some he is a criminal who never paid for the torture, disappearances and executions that were carried out during his dictatorship: Many families still have no news of people who disappeared during those 17 years.
But others justify the blow by the growth that the country had at that time and 36 percent of citizens believe that Pinochet “liberated Chile from Marxism.” “He is the only Western dictator in contemporary history who, 50 years after carrying out a coup d’état, has more than a third of the population in favor of him,” says sociologist Marta Lagos, director of the Mori pollster.
INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL
TIME
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