50 years of resistance and democratic recovery

September 11, 1973 represents one of those events for which the French historian Henry Rousso has coined the notion of ultimate catastrophe: a radical break in the trajectory of a human community, caused by a widespread and organized display of extreme violence. Some of these events go on for weeks, months, or even years, such as international or civil wars; but there are also cases such as the Chilean coup, which, in just 48 hours, imposed a metamorphosis that reversed the sense of the country’s history and called into question the very identity in which it had believed until then to recognize itself.

Between the beginning of the military actions to assault power at dawn on Tuesday the 11th and noon on Thursday the 13th, when the rigorous curfew that had lasted for two days was lifted, republican and democratic Chile in which its citizens had reflected for decades, seemed to have inexorably disappeared.

The Palacio de la Moneda had been destroyed by bombing by the Air Force and taken by the Army after an unequal combat that lasted for several hours and at the end of which President Salvador Allende had committed suicide; The ministers and other senior government officials, as well as the parliamentarians and leaders of the left-wing parties were prisoners, in hiding or sheltered in embassies; Thousands of militants and sympathizers of those parties packed stadiums and other venues converted into prison camps, where they would be systematically subjected to torture and humiliation; Hundreds had already died under the bullets that underscored the threat that the Junta had launched from the first moments of the coup that those who resisted it would be ruthlessly repressed. The declaration of the entire national territory in a State of Siege and the application of the Code of Military Justice in times of war provided coverage for the execution of these acts.

Under the ruins of La Moneda, the peaceful, democratic and pluralist Chilean road to socialism had been buried, which only six months earlier had achieved the support of 43.5% of the Chilean citizenry and which had aroused the enthusiasm of the most diverse left-wing of the planet. The democratic institutions and the rule of law also lay lifeless, which were dismantled extremely quickly by the new power that assumed control of the country.

The installation of the military regime involved the expulsion of citizen representatives from State institutions, including the closure of the National Congress and the burning of electoral records, the prohibition of the activity of all political parties, the control of the media of communication and the suppression of the autonomy of civil society organizations. The rectors of state, Catholic and private universities were even replaced by generals or admirals. At the same time, severe restrictions were established on people’s freedoms and rights. A formidable concentration of power in the Military Junta, which attributed to itself the powers and attributions of the Executive, Legislative and constituent powers, while subjecting the Judicial Branch within the framework of an imaginary state of war, was followed by the concentration of the power of the Junta itself in the hands of General Pinochet.

From that absolute power and through State terror, what the American historian Steve Stern has called a policide was deployed: a systematic project, aimed at destroying an entire democratic political and social way of life deeply rooted in the history of past decades. , to install, in the following years, on fear and fragmentation, an authoritarian and exclusive order.

The radicality of the coup and the depth of the metamorphosis imposed on the country since September 11, 1973, have installed, throughout these fifty years, the idea that this event constitutes the founding milestone of current Chilean society, which implies affirming that the success of the coup plotters was complete and has continued until today, despite the fact that the dictatorship ended 33 years ago, the dictator ceased to be a strong man 25 years ago and the constitutional order inherited from the military regime was substantially modified 18 years ago; but, above all, it implies underestimating 50 years of successive efforts to resist the dictatorship, recover democracy and repair its consequences.

This trajectory of efforts began during those same tragic days of September 1973, with words and acts of citizen dignity and indelible human solidarity:

The serenity of President Allende in his final hour, calling on the morning of that Tuesday the 11th to resist without allowing himself to be massacred, and instilling courage – with his words and his example – for a long-term struggle. The lucidity of the 13 Christian Democrat leaders – tough opponents until Monday the 10th of the overthrown government – who, as soon as the curfew was lifted, met on Thursday the 13th to draft a statement categorically condemning the coup and bowing respectfully to the sacrifice that the president “He made his life in defense of constitutional authority.” The courage of thousands of members of the banned left-wing parties, determined to continue exercising their political rights in secret, despite the certain threat of prison, torture or death. The immediate commitment to the defense of human rights of the Catholic Church and other religious communities, announced that same September 13 by the Permanent Committee of the Episcopate, which called for “respect for the fallen, moderation in the face of the defeated (and) that Hatred is over, let the hour of reconciliation come.”

All these efforts, along with many others deployed since then and for many years, turned the few thousand active opponents of 1973 into the millions of citizens who 10 years later would rise up in successive protests against the dictatorship, who would later defeat the dictator in a plebiscite and would ensure respect for each of their votes, and that from 1990 to the present have made democratic progress possible, despite all the obstacles imposed by enclaves and authoritarian legacies that have been difficult and slow to remove. And they have allowed, until now, to put a stop to the emerging authoritarian temptations in the face of new crises and conflicts that have plagued Chilean democracy.

This history of resistance and democratic recovery that represents the best of Chile and has motivated the appreciation of the world, deserves to be even more highlighted in this fiftieth anniversary, because it is as constitutive of the current Chilean society as the catastrophe and the policide over which it should prevail. .

Alfredo Riquelme Segovia is a historian and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

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