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LONDON (CNN) - September 11 has been somewhat eclipsed for a decade for a more notorious anniversary, but it is still a date engraved in the minds of Chileans. The year 1973 was the date on which General Augusto Pinochet seized power from the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Forty-six years after that sudden coup and 29 years after the return of democracy, Chile is still recovering from the effects of the brutal Pinochet government.
- MIRA: How did Chile heal the Pinochet era?
The dictator Augusto Pinochet (in the center), leader of the Chilean military junta, greets in a caravan on September 11, 1973 in Santiago, shortly after the coup against President Salvador Allende. A year later, in 1974, Pinochet signed a decree in which he was appointed president. (Credit: / AFP / Getty Images)
Its current relevance may not be obvious.
However, among all this you can feel the influence of Chile. Javier Zúñiga is a Mexican human rights activist and special advisor to Amnesty International; he affirms that "what happened in Chile transcends its borders because it forced the international community to understand that human rights violations were everyone's business, inside and outside Chile." Zúñiga visited the country several times during the Pinochet government, documented the abuses and disappearances and has since campaigned tirelessly in favor of the families of the disappeared.
Carlos Reyes Manzo is one of many thousands of people who were arrested and tortured under the Pinochet regime. He now lives in London, but before the coup he worked for the Allende government, specifically for Chile Films, and also worked for the Socialist Party. Remember that when they deposed the government, everything happened suddenly.
“In a way, we were waiting for something to happen. [But] we never expected it to happen so fast, that way. ” By pure luck, Reyes Manzo was reunited when the militia searched his apartment and initially evaded the capture. Seeing what was happening, he decided to go to the headquarters of the Socialist Party in downtown Santiago.
“I was very close to the presidential palace, along the way I saw bodies in the street. The armed forces immediately opened fire and killed the people ... Very soon they set fire to the headquarters of the Communist Party. ” Carlos pauses. "That was the day, there were shots everywhere and murders everywhere."
By the end of that bloody day, President Allende was dead: he had committed suicide when troops stormed the presidential palace.
Within 24 hours, the socialist government had been deposed and replaced by a military junta. Some characters were pleased, especially the United States: the coup enjoyed the disguised support of the Nixon government. The generalized nationalizations that Allende implemented and such radical reforms had not been liked by many Chileans and international observers, particularly transnational corporations. After the coup, vigorous free market economic policies inspired by the theories of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and others were implemented.
As for the members of the Socialist Party, Reyes Manzo recalls what happened next: “The leaders of the party were arrested, killed some and some went into hiding. I went into hiding myself. So I spent six months in hiding, working there, just trying to get everything back to its place ... [Finally] someone I worked with gave my name and they arrested me. They came to my house and practically ransacked everything ... I was with my two children and they took me. ”
“Prepared to torture”
Reyes Manzo spent several months in detention, he was transferred from one place to another and tortured regularly. In a prison, he discovered that he knew the voice of the person in charge: it was that of a man named Romo, whom he knew before the coup ... but that didn't change anything. "They didn't have a look ... when they wanted you to know who they were."
Zúñiga says that "the torturers were mentally prepared to torture because they felt they were defending the country." Currently, Reyes Manzo is still baffled by this idea.
“It was impossible for them to believe that what they were doing was wrong. In this kind of ideology you have convinced people that it is right to torture, that it is right to kill, that it is right to rape women, that it is right ... that what they did was right. ” Reyes Manzo shakes his head. "That was amazing."
Finally, Reyes Manzo managed to carry out an extraordinary escape. He first went into exile in Panama and then the secret police in Chile kidnapped him again. They tried to take him back to Santiago, but first the plane had to stop at London's Heathrow airport. Reyes Manzo recalls: "When I arrived in London, I realized that it was my only chance to escape." He says that, fortunately, his guards had gotten drunk and had fallen asleep. "I ran out of the plane and asked for political asylum."
Reyes Manzo practically did not speak English and was almost deported to Chile. At that time, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a notoriously close relationship with Pinochet. However, Reyes Manzo managed to contact Amnesty International, who got Lord Avebury to present his case to Parliament. He was granted asylum. "That saved my life, that's why I'm here."
International responsibility
So, what are the lessons offered by the events that occurred in Chile over 40 years ago?
“Some lessons are very clear,” says Zúñiga. “What happens within the country does not only concern the national authorities. Human rights are something we are all responsible for. When someone disappears in Chile, in Argentina or in other countries [like] Sri Lanka, the Philippines, humanity is under aggression. They add me. I am also a victim of these violations even if it is not my country, because I am a human being ... The lesson of Chile is that these human rights are everyone's responsibility. ”
Of course, these moral statements do not facilitate the handling of the dilemmas that arise in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere ... Zúñiga recognizes that international treaties and humanitarian agreements do not prevent rape or violence by themselves.
"It also takes the political will of internal governments and those who are abroad to pressure to help victims," says Zúñiga. "You can see that it is not what is happening in Syria."
However, Zúñiga says that organizations like Amnesty are prepared. "Even in difficult circumstances, it is very important to document the violations ... Certainly the lessons offered by other countries such as Chile or Argentina [are that] when the conflict ends, that will be the time to define responsibilities."
Although Zúñiga has traveled the most tormented and violent regions of the world for decades, he is not pessimistic. He points to the trial that Siert Bruins, a 92-year-old former Nazi SS officer, is followed as an example that international law has a good memory. "It takes time," he says. "But justice will be done."
Editor's Note: This note was originally published in 2013. It was updated in September 2019.
September 11, Chile