Pinera wins in Chile, the first conservative since Pinochet

[Political Junky]

BBC News - Tycoon Pinera promises rapid growth for Chile
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Augusto Pinochet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On 11 September 1973, with active support from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),[3][4] Pinochet led a coup d'état which put an end to Allende's democratically-elected government. In December 1974, the military junta appointed Pinochet as President by a joint decree, with which Air Force General Gustavo Leigh disagreed.[5] From the beginning, the government implemented harsh measures against its political opponents.[6] According to the 1993 Rettig Report, over 3,200 people were killed,[7] while (according to the controversial 2004 Valech Report) at least 80,000 were interned and 30,000 subjected to torture under Pinochet.[8] Another 200,000 people went into exile, particularly to Argentina and Peru, and applied for political asylum; however, some key individuals were followed in their exile by the DINA secret police, in the framework of Operation Condor, which linked right-wing South American governments together against political opponents

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[Baruch Menachem]

Why is Pinochet relevant to this discussion? It is more interesting to know about this Panera guy.

He is making some extravagant promises. And if the price of copper dies, he is toast.

 

[Political Junky]

Because, Chile wouldn't elect a conservative until now, after the hell they went through under Pinochet.

 

[Mr. H.]

But after two decades with the same politicians in power, many leftists have become disenchanted with the government, enabling the right wing to win at the voting booth for the first time since Jorge Allesandri Rodriguez won the presidency in 1958.

Pinera vows to remake Chile as president - Yahoo! News

 

[Political Junky]

The only way the CIA, under Nixon, could get a conservative in was through a coup d'etat.

 

[Modbert]

This is very interesting.

If Mr Pinera's party emerges as the dominant force, Chile's government will be pretty moderate, but if the UDI dominates, it will be much more conservative.
Many members of the UDI openly supported the Pinochet regime and are guided by their deeply held Roman Catholic beliefs on issues like abortion and gay rights.

"It's going to be interesting to see which of these two elements holds sway," said Marta Lagos, director of polling unit MORI Chile.

"Will it be the president, who is a liberal at heart, or will it be these more conservative forces that accompany him in his coalition?"

 

[waltky]

Is Chile coming out from the shadow of Pinochet?

Is Pinochet's shadow over Chile beginning to recede?
12 Sept.`18 - It's been 45 years since Pinochet took power. While some view the leader positively, others search for the disappeared.

The Memory and Human Rights Museum in Santiago, Chile's capital, was an initiative of former president and newly-appointed UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet - who herself was a victim of torture under Augusto Pinochet's rule. It opened in 2010 and became part of an ongoing debate over the legacy of Chile's former leader. Mauricio Rojas, the newly appointed culture minister, was forced to resign after four days in office over comments he had made about the museum in a 2015 book. He had accused the institution of manipulating history and attempting to shock visitors to "prevent them from reasoning".

Santiago's Memory and Human Rights Museum receives some 160,000 visitors each year, many of whom come from Chile, according to the museum's director​

The museum features instruments of torture and victim's testimonies alongside historical documents and drawings by children whose parents were arrested under Pinochet's rule. "It's a shameless and inaccurate use of a national tragedy that touched so many [Chileans] directly," he said. Rojas - who fled Chile following the US-backed coup d'etat that brought Pinochet to power - later said the comments did not reflect his current view and that he had not intended to diminish or justify the "systematic and grave" human rights violations that took place.

Portraits of some of the thousands who were murdered, tortured and disappeared​

On September 11, 1973, Pinochet seized power by overthrowing the democratically-elected Marxist President Salvador Allende, and went on to rule for the next 17 years. He stepped down in 1990, following a referendum on extending his term. Under his rule, the Latin American country flourished economically, but the opposition was repressed and thousands of people were executed, disappeared and tortured by state forces. While Pinochet is vilified as a ruthless dictator on the international stage, the view in his homeland has always been more nuanced, with some still viewing his rule as a positive force.

Supporters of Sebastian Pinera hold a bust of Pinochet aloft following the news of Pinera's election victory in December 2017​

As the country marks the 45th anniversary of the coup on Tuesday, is Pinochet's shadow, which has loomed large for decades, beginning to recede? "There's a general awareness in Chile that during the dictatorship years, fundamental human rights were violated in a systematic and cruel manner," said Francisco Javier Estevez, the director of the Museum. "[Rojas' comments] generated a very large reaction. The political and cultural worlds said, 'No, we're going to defend this museum because it tells the truth and, if we want to contribute to a more just society, we are going to have to get together behind the principles of truth and justice so that [human rights abuses] never happen again'," he told Al Jazeera.

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[Political Junky]

Another war criminal brought to power and supported by the US.

Augusto Pinochet - Wikipedia