Uptown Mourners Pay Respects At Hospital While Thousands Celebrate Downtown
By 8 p.m. Sunday evening the air in much of downtown Santiago was tainted with traces of tear gas. Red-eyed pedestrians, many of them holding handkerchiefs or napkins over their mouths, walked through the city streets accompanied by an ongoing cacophony of horn-honking.
The atmosphere was confused. From the windows of a dirty yellow bus riders waved red flags and chanted at passersby. Other people, though, looked exhausted. Clearly it had been a long day for thousands and thousands of Santiago residents who, since learning early that afternoon of the death of former military dictator Augusto Pinochet (1915 – 2006), had spent hours in marches, manifestations, celebrations and, in some cases, mourning.
Hospital Militar
Chile’s controversial caudillo passed away at approximately 2:15 p.m., one week after suffering a major heart attack that had landed him in Providencia’s Hosptial Militar ever since. News of Pinochet’s death traveled fast and, just as they had exactly one week prior, supporters of the ex dictator rushed to the gates of the hospital. “Be strong, my general,” had been their message last Sunday. This time, however, they came to say goodbye.
Waving flags and photographs, the small crowd joined together in prayer, and a shrine was improvised with a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and a Chilean flag.
Many of the supporters were overcome with grief at Pinochet’s death. “We’re very sad that he’s gone,” one woman told the Santiago Times. “But it was his time. He was a little old man, and he died a natural death.”
For some who were present outside the hospital, the occasion was one of celebration of the life of a man revered among the country’s right. One woman, jubilantly waving a Chilean flag, expressed her pride at Pinochet’s achievements. “His mission was complete. He had done everything – and I mean everything – that needed to be done for this country. He restored freedom not just in Chile, but the world over. When he took over, the country was in ruins – he saved us from becoming another Cuba. And they’ve tried to bring him to trial more than 70 times, but couldn’t find him guilty of anything. Not one thing!”
By late afternoon, hundreds of Pinochetistas had come together to pay their respects outside the hospital, and the atmosphere became tense in the blistering afternoon sun. While some joined together to sing the national anthem, others were more aggressive in their protests. “We’ll go down fighting, and we’ll keep the fucking Communists out!” chanted the crowd at intervals.
Protests were also directed at Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet, with many Pinochetistas calling for the dictator’s son Marco Antonio Pinochet to take control of the government. “Where is she? She’s not to be seen! Where is Bachelet?” chanted the crowd.
Many of Pinochet’s supporters called for a national day of mourning, and for flags to be lowered to half mast as a sign of respect for the former general. At around 5 p.m., one woman was arrested when supporters broke through police barriers in a bid to reach the flagpole in the grounds outside the hospital, but were forced back by armed police. “You bastards – can’t you see we’re in mourning!” yelled one man as he was led from the scene by two police officers.
The flag outside the hospital and many others at military buildings around the capital were eventually lowered to half mast at just after 5.30 p.m., to the delight of the Pinochetistas, who took up a chant of “Honor to the great!”
Plaza Italia
The scene in Plaza Italia, Santiago’s historical meeting ground, was markedly different, as thousands turned out to celebrate the dictator’s death. The plaza, known by all city residents as the boundary between richer communities to the north and east and middle and lower class communities to the south and west, trembled with the stomping of hundreds of champagne-soaked youth. Thousands cheered on carrying signs, blasting music from megaphones and cars, dancing in raucous groups, and throwing confetti.
“We don’t need to celebrate his death, we need to remember our own people, the detained, the murdered,” said Axel Gottsshalg, a middle-aged Chilean who lived through the dictatorship, though it was clear from his chanting – and the feverish energy of the crowd – that Pinochet’s death will be more than an occasion to mourn the past.
“It’s terrible when someone dies, but tonight is going to be an enormous celebration,” said Ana Maria Kejeur, whose grandfather was killed during the Pinochet regime. “He doesn’t even deserve this, what the people are experiencing now,” she added.
One young man climbed up onto the bus stop with a sign that read, “Viva! Murió Perrochet!” (Perrochet died!), while another youth was perched alongside with a banner clearly painted before the news of Pinochet’s death: “Not one step backward! Justice and Punishment!”
An organization of family members of executed politicians hung up an enormous banner with dozens of photographs of the deceased, calling it “the mural of truth.” Nearby stood Enrique Geronimo Huenchundo, a Mapuche and an anti-Pinochet activist.
“He doesn’t deserve anything,” he said of the debate over a state funeral for Pinochet. “How are you going to put a wreath of flowers and a flag on the grave of a dictator?”
Huenchundo’s next destination was the Santa Lucia hill overlooking downtown Santiago, a popular meeting place for Mapuche activists, and on this night, a place to celebrate the end of a long and difficult era for Pinochet opponents.
The struggle is far from over, however. “It’s not going to calm the waters or the emotions of either side,” said a teachers’ union leader. On the contrary, “now there will be more confrontations. People will not calm down until more time passes and more is discovered about the past.”
La Moneda
After several hours, the massive Plaza Italia group began making their way down the Alameda, toward La Moneda presidential palace, where scores of Carabineros awaited their arrival.
Streets surrounding La Moneda were cordoned off and lined with police, forcing demonstrators onto the Alameda Road in front of the presidential building. Those at the front of the procession carried a large banner bearing the faces of people who were “disappeared” during Pinochet’s rule. Others carried individual placards pronouncing “the end, finally” of Chile’s dictatorship.
“Carnival, carnival, the criminal is dead!” people shouted as they danced.
At 7.30 p.m., once protestors had amassed outside of the palace, police opened water cannons on a crowd. The apparently unprovoked attack fired water into the center of the crowd, dispersing demonstrators in all directions. Celebrations quickly turned confrontational forcing those who came with family and children to abandon jovialities and seek safety away from potentially violent clashes.
Some demonstrators began throwing bottles and stones at police and armored vehicles. At 8.30 p.m. police reported six officers injured and four demonstrators arrested.
“I hope this helps to bring us together as Chileans,” said one man who identified himself only as Sergio. “But I also see that that isn’t possible.”
Original article posted here.
Ah, but not so fast:
Excerpts from “CIA Activities in Chile,” released by the CIA, September 19, 2000 After twenty-seven years of withholding details about covert activities following the 1973 military coup in Chile, the CIA released a report yesterday acknowledging its close relations with General Augusto Pinochet’s violent regime. The report, “CIA Activities in Chile,” revealed for the first time that the head of the Chile’s feared secret police, DINA, was a paid CIA asset in 1975, and that CIA contacts continued with him long after he dispatched his agents to Washington D.C. to assassinate former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 25-year old American associate, Ronni Karpen Moffitt.
“CIA actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende,” the report states. “Many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses....Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or US military.”
Among the report’s other major revelations:
Within a year of the coup, the CIA was aware of bilateral arrangements between the Pinochet regime and other Southern Cone intelligence services to track and kill opponents—arrangements that developed into Operation Condor.
The CIA made Gen. Manuel Contreras, head of DINA, a paid asset only several months after concluding that he “was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta.” After the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C., the CIA continued to work with Contreras even as “his possible role in the Letelier assassination became an issue.”
The CIA made a payment of $35,000 to a group of coup plotters in Chile after that group had murdered the Chilean commander-in-chief, Gen. Rene Schneider in October 1970—a fact that was apparently withheld in 1975 from the special Senate Committee investigating CIA involvement in assassinations. The report says the payment was made “in an effort to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the group, and for humanitarian reasons.”
The CIA has an October 25, 1973 intelligence report on Gen. Arellano Stark, Pinochet’s right-hand man after the coup, showing that Stark ordered the murders of 21 political prisoners during the now infamous “Caravan of Death.” This document is likely to be relevant to the ongoing prosecution of General Pinochet, who is facing trial for the disappearances of 14 prisoners at the hands of Gen. Stark’s military death squad.
The CIA’s Directorate of Operations is currently blocking the release of hundreds of secret records covering the history of U.S. covert intervention in Chile between 1962 and 1975. The CIA issued “CIA Activities in Chile” pursuant to the Hinchey amendment in the 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act--a clause inserted in last year’s legislation by New York Representative Maurice Hinchey calling on the CIA to provide Congress with a full report on its covert action in Chile at the time of the coup, and its relations to General Pinochet’s regime.
The National Security Archive applauded Hinchey’s effort to press for the disclosure of this history and commended the CIA for a substantive response to the law. “This is a sordid and shameful story,” Kornbluh said, “but a story that must be told.”
Document 1 “CIA Activities in Chile,” released by the CIA, September 19, 2000. Document 2 Text of Hinchey amendment to the 2000 Intelligence Authorization Act Document 3 Heavily excised CIA intelligence report dated October 6, 1976 dealing with the Assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni MoffittMore information here in National Security Archives.
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