Tag: Pinochet Ugarte, Augusto

Former Chilean President Sebastián Piñera Dies in Helicopter Crash

Sebastián Piñera, a former president of Chile who helped strengthen the nation’s young democracy after becoming its first conservative leader since a military dictatorship, died in a helicopter crash in Chile on Tuesday, the government said. He was 74. The helicopter, carrying four people, crashed into Lake Ranco in the Los Ríos region in southern […]

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Chile Rejects Conservative Constitution

Chileans on Sunday rejected a new constitution that would have pulled the country to the right, likely ending a turbulent four-year process to replace their national charter with little to show for it. More than 55 percent voted to reject the proposed text, with 77 percent of the votes counted. It is the second time […]

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Chile Votes on New Conservative Constitution in Referendum

In 2019, a police officer fired rubber bullets toward a psychology student named Gustavo Gatica, just one of the thousands of protesters demonstrating across Chile against the nation’s government and deep inequality. Mr. Gatica lost one eye and was blinded in the other. Mr. Gatica considered it a devastating sacrifice, but not one made in […]

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Kissinger’s Dirty Work Abroad Hurt America at Home, Too

Kissinger’s dirty work went far beyond Southeast Asia and South America. Along with Nixon, he backed the brutal effort of the military government of the former West Pakistan to suppress Bengali nationalists in the former East Pakistan, in what is now Bangladesh. A recent study estimated the death toll in that conflict at 269,000 people, […]

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Joan Jara, Who Found Justice for Husband Slain After Coup, Dies at 96

Joan Jara, a British-born dancer and instructor who dedicated herself to finding justice for her husband, Victor Jara, a popular Chilean folk singer and songwriter who was killed during the military coup d’état that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to dictatorial power in 1973, died on Nov. 12 in Santiago, Chile. She was 96. Her […]

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The 50th Anniversary of the Chile Coup in Photos

Fifty years ago on Monday, a violent coup ended one of Latin America’s most stable democracies, brought an abrupt halt to the Chilean military’s tradition of noninvolvement in politics and ushered in 17 years of ruthless dictatorship. Salvador Allende, Chile’s socialist president, had embarked on an ambitious agenda that included the nationalization of the copper […]

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I Watched a Democracy Die. I Don’t Want to Do It Again.

For 50 years, I have been mourning the death of President Salvador Allende of Chile, who was overthrown in a coup the morning of Sept. 11, 1973. For 50 years, I have mourned his death and the many deaths that followed: the execution and disappearance of my friends and so many more unknown women and […]

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