THE CHILEAN DESAPARECIDOS
Setting the Context:
On September 11, 1973, a CIA based coup created by the US State Department had Popular Unity Chilean President Salvador Allende overthrown and assassinated. He was replaced by the US supported coup leader, General Augusto Pinochet who became the Chilean Dictator from 1973 to 1990. He replaced the previous Marxist format of government which had flourished in Chile since the 1930s. This system had caused price inflation, and wage increases for the Chilean poor. Thus, it made the high and middle class Chileans seek CIA support. This coup take-over turned out to be the bloodiest take over in the history of Latin America (Chasteen, 297-300).
Who are the Chilean Desaparecidos?
The disappearances of thousands of individuals during the bureaucratic authoritarian regime of General Augusto Pinochet, would later be known as the Desaparecidos (The Missing). These Desaparecidos were the supporters of Allende's Popular Unity movement. The group of supporters consisted from folksingers to peasant organizers to university professors. They were rounded up and taken into the Santiago soccer stadium. Many were never heard of again and their bodies were placed into secret mass graves (El Equipo Nizkor, 2006).
"I regret and suffer those losses, but it's God's will. He will pardon me if I committed excesses, but I don't think I did."
--Augusto Pinochet
Outcome of the Chilean Desaparecidos and Pinochet's Involvement:
Two decades after Augusto Pinochet overthrew and assassinated Salvador Allende, the Communist Party files the first criminal suit against him for human rights violations during his regime. Many more suits would soon follow. Eventually, Pinochet steps down as army commander, and enters the senate by becoming a senator-for-life. However, in 1998 while recovering from his back surgery in England, Pinochet is arrested on a warrant issued by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon for murder charges. After returning back to Chile in 2000, the Chilean courts strip General Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution several times, but the attempts to make him stand trial for alleged human rights offences fail, with judges usually citing concerns over the general's health.
In July 2004 A U.S. Senate investigation revealed that Pinochet had a fortune in foreign bank accounts, estimated by a Chilean judge to be at $28 million. Pinochet is indicted for tax evasion. However, on December 10, 2006 Pinochet dies at age 91 with about 300 criminal charges still pending against him in Chile. These charges are for numerous human rights violations (includes the forced disappearances of the Chilean Desaparecidos), tax evasion and embezzlement during his 17-year rule and afterwards. He was accused of having corruptly amassed a wealth of US$28 million or more. Even though Pinochet has died and the Desaparecidos are no longer alive, the events that transpired after their mass murder and disappearances continue to have an impact on the political human rights of Latin American Countries during the 21st Century (Amnesty International, 2013).