On the eve of September 11, the day when General Augusto Pinochet carried out a coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973, the member of the Chilean Constituent Assembly, Roberto Celedón, yesterday rendered the leader of 'Unidad popular' an emotional homage, arguing that "he preferred to lose power without calling for resistance which would have provoked a civil war".
Numerous initiatives have been announced today to commemorate the military coup that put an end to the Allende experience.
The main one will be a procession that at 10 am (3 pm Italian time) will start from Plaza Los Héroes in Santiago to head towards the Memorial of the desaparecidos detainees of the General Cemetery in the Recoleta district.
The government, based on the restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, authorized a maximum of 5 thousand participants for that march, while other commemorations will have to take place with a maximum of 50-100 people.
Many of the latter will take place, for a limited time of 30 minutes, in front of the monument to Salvador Allende which is located between Morandé and Moneda streets, next to the presidential palace.
Daniela Serrano, one of the members of the Constituent Assembly who is working on the text of the new Chilean Constitution, recalled that in her latest speech Allende sent a message of hope by claiming that "very soon the great avenues on which the free man, to build a better society ''.
For Serrano, that new historical phase "began on October 19, 2019 with the start of social protests in Chile and is materializing with the drafting of the new Constitution that will archive that of Pinochet".
From 10 to 12 September, for the first time in almost half a century, the Chilean public television is presenting the trilogy 'La batalla de Chile' by Chilean director Patricio Guzmán.