Pinochet Dictatorship

Content Warning: The following article contains extensive discussion on torture, rape and murder

The Pinochet Dictatorship or Military Dictatorship of Chile refers to the rule of authoritarian, militaristic government led by Augusto Pinochet in Chile from 1973 to 1990. The dictatorship acted as a client state to US interests, and began the first experiments in neoliberal economic policy, which was disastrous for the working class but succeeded in restoring the rate of profit to high levels.

Origins

In response to Salvador Allende's efforts to nationalise US-owned copper mines (to fund a larger welfare state) and grassroots efforts to create workers' self-management. The US supported the military and a mass campaign of disinformation in order to topple the government, killing Allende and imposing a new regime that dissolved parliament, banned trade unions, censored the media and unleashed a wave of brutal authoritarianism.

Crimes Against Humanity

The dictatorship committed numerous crimes against humanity and instituted a reign of terror to purge Chile of leftists, killing between 2,000 and 30,000 people, 27,000 people being tortured (and survived) and 200,000 people were forced into exile (mainly to Argentina). In other words, 2.2% of Chile's population (of 10.1 million) had their lives ended or ruined by the dictatorship.

The National Stadium in Santiago was converted into a detention centre (one of 80 in Santiago), over 40,000 people were held there over 17 years, with the locker rooms and changing rooms were where prisoners were first to sleep and torture and executions were performed in the velodrome (including killing two American journalists, Frank Teruggi Jr. and Charles Horman). Other buildings were converted into secret detention centres, and horrors occurred in all of them. Some of these horrors include:

• Electrocution of open wounds and the genitals on a person tied up on a metal bed.
• Arresting entire families if a single member had leftist sympathies, and forcing family members to watch soldiers rape other members of their family, in other situations, families or close friends would have to listen to their beloved being tortured.
• Forcing prisoners to crawl on the ground and lick the dirt off the floors. If the prisoners complained or even collapsed from exhaustion, they were promptly executed.
• Forcing prisoners to swim in vats of 'excrement (shit) and eat and drink it.
• Forcing prisoners to stay awake for five days while lying down, threatening to kill their children if they didn't.
• Forcing prisoners to lie down and driving trucks and cars over their arms and legs, crushing their bones.
• Beating prisoners to the point that they'd either be deaf from being hit on the ears or have broken arms and legs, occasionally, amputation would be used as a torture technique.
• Pouring water over a cloth that covered prisons' faces and breathing passages, causing individuals to experience a drowning sensation, and a near-death experience and killing many through asphyxiation.
• Prisoners were hung upside-down with ropes, and they were dropped into a tank of water, headfirst. The water was contaminated (with poisonous chemicals, shit and piss) and filled with debris.
• Anal rape of prisoners by soldiers while soldiers insulted them to break their spirit.
• Using dogs to rape prisoners and inserting rats into prisoners anuses and vaginas.
• Forcing female prisoners to engage in sex with their brothers and fathers at gunpoint.
• Throwing dissidents from helicopters into the ocean, rivers, lakes or mountains where they would be instantly killed (and spend the last seconds of their live in absolute terror) and their bodies never found. This method of torture is continuously joked about in online right-wing spaces as their 'joking' plan for leftists.
• Many victims reported suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, isolation, worthlessness, shame, anxiety and hopelessness.

Resistance

Various organisations were set up to resist the dictatorship, notably three main guerilla groups, the Lautaro Youth Movement (MJL), Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) and Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). All three of these were strongly inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideals. To give a short (and incomplete) timeline of their actions:

• 1973: Leftists fight the army in the streets to return to the regime of Allende and defeat the coup, over 1,500 people die in the street fighting in the days after the coup (including using the airforce to bomb streets and buildings holding leftist guerillas). The stronghold at the University of Chile is sieged and eventually taken by the army.
• 1973: Leftist snipers kill 13 soldiers in the Chilean countryside near Alquihue in Valdivia.
• 1986: FPMR kidnap a police chief for 48 hours and send footage of his imprisonment to TV stations, leading to condemnation and the release of the police chief.
• 1986: FPMR attack Pinochet's car in an assassination attempt. Five of Pinochet's bodyguards were killed and eleven wounded. Pinochet, however, only suffered minor injuries.
• 1986: FPMR are caught smuggling numerous weapons into Chile, including plastic explosives, rocket launchers and over three thousand assault rifles.
• 1987: FPMR simultaneously assaulted the offices of Associated Press (AP) and eight radio stations in Santiago, killing an off-duty security guard.
• 1987: Leftists blow up a police car in Santiago, killing the two officers inside it.
• 1988: MIR bomb several banks across Santiago.
• 1988: FPMR kill a 41-year old Lieutenant-Colonel in a parking lot in San Joaquín, Santiago.
• 1988: Leftist militants bomb a church in Valparaíso, injuring three churchgoers.
• 1988: FPMR takes control of four towns in the country, (Aguas Grandes, La Mora, Los Queñes and Pichipellahuén) and resists police and military efforts to take them back, but retreats after significant fighting.
• 1989: A 26-year old soldier is shot and killed at point blank range while guarding a building in Viña del Mar.
• 1989: MIR plans to kidnap 30 business executives in Chile of Brazilian and Canadian descent, but fails after it is detected by Canadian intelligence agencies.