Augusto Pinochet

AUGUSTO PINOCHET

Augusto Pinochet was born in November 25 of 1915, Valparaiso, Chile. He was leader of the military junta that overthrew the socialist government of President Salvador Allende of Chile on Sept. 11 of 1973, and head of Chile’s military government.

Pinochet, graduated in the military academy in Santiago, was a career military officer who was appointed army commander in chief by President Allende 18 days before the coup, which he planned and led. He was named head of the victorious junta’s governing council and in 1974 he assumed the exclusive power as president.

Pinochet was determined to exterminate leftism in Chile and to reassert free-market policies in the country’s economy. His junta was widely condemned for its harsh suppression of opposition, even though its reversal of the Allende government’s socialist policies resulted in a lower rate of inflation and an economic boom in the period from 1976 to 1979.

In 1980 he enacted a constitution giving himself an eight-year presidential term (1981–9). A plebiscite held in 1988 rejected his candidacy as president beyond 1990, but he retained his post as commander-in-chief of the army until 1998.

In October 1998 he became the center of international attention when he was arrested in London, following a request from Spain for his extradition to stand trial for ‘crimes of genocide and terrorism’, in which some of the victims had been Spanish nationals.

The arrest caused tension between UK and Chile, and civil unrest in Chile between Pinochet supporters and opponents. At the beginning of 2000, Pinochet remained under house arrest in the UK, but the UK government returned him to Chile on the grounds of ill health. Chile's Court of Appeal decided to strip Pinochet of immunity from prosecution, and he was later ordered to stand trial.

In 2001 a Santiago appeals court voted in favor of suspending proceedings against him on the grounds that he was mentally unfit to stand trial, and in 2002 the Chilean Supreme Court ruled that proceedings against him be suspended for good.

However, in 2004 the Court of Appeal stripped him of immunity from prosecution, thus paving the way for a trial on charges of human rights abuses during his rule.

Pinochet died December 10, 2006, never having stood trial for the crimes for which he was accused.

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