50 years after Chile's coup, many still yearn for right-wing strongmen

Analysis by Ishaan Tharoor
Columnist
September 11, 2023 at 8:58 p.m. EDT

Chileans marked a half century since the “other 9/11” on Monday, when the democratically elected socialist government of President Salvador Allende was toppled by an army putsch led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Allende died in the military’s assault on La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago. Tens of thousands of his supporters were detained and even marched off to prison camps; many were subjected to brutal torture and abuse. More than 3,000 Chileans were killed or “disappeared” by Pinochet’s regime, whose chilling methods, including the dumping of victims’ bodies into the sea or over the Andes, were aped by right-wing juntas across the Americas.

The coup was supported by the United States, which, in the depths of the Cold War, sought to check the spread of leftist governments in its hemisphere and had previously failed to foil Allende’s election. Washington helped usher in 17 years of dictatorship under Pinochet. It had all the classic traits of autocratic strongman rule: The banning of opposition parties, the censorship of media and vicious repression of labor unions, indigenous communities and suspected leftist activists. The coup-plotting general also famously pursued a dramatic free-market experiment in South America, embracing neoliberal policies that are, to this day, celebrated by the West’s conservatives and condemned by the left for stoking vast inequalities.

Pinochet’s reign ended with greater conciliation than some other 20th century dictatorships: A 1988 plebiscite foiled his bid to hold power as a civilian president and elections in 1989 paved the way for the return of constitutional democracy in 1990. Pinochet died of a heart attack in 2006 without ever facing full justice for his alleged crimes. But the deep traumas and divisions of that era persist, wounds that are arguably festering all the more in the current febrile moment in global politics.

That unease was on display Sunday, when Chile’s young, left-leaning president Gabriel Boric participated in a march honoring those slain and disappeared by the Pinochet regime. The commemoration was marred by scenes of violence, with some masked protesters of uncertain political affiliation vandalizing property.

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