Responding ‘with life’: A divided Chile marks 50 years since coup

Hands still muddy, Jorge Córdova looks over the young lumilla tree he has just planted here in memory of Gabriel Martínez, a teenager murdered in September 1973 at the outset of Chile’s nearly two-decade-long dictatorship. 

Mr. Córdova joined an international collective that plans to plant more than 3,000 native trees across 15 acres of protected land in southern Chile over the coming year. Each tree will commemorate the life of a victim killed or disappeared under the rule of Augusto Pinochet. 

“We cannot forget or go through life as if nothing happened,” says Mr. Córdova.

On Sept. 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed coup ousted the democratically elected, socialist President Salvador Allende, ushering in 17 years of brutal violence and the suppression of political dissent. 

Half a century later, the South American nation is still reckoning with its complicated past – and how, or even whether, it should be remembered. The government only last month announced a formal role in the search for those who disappeared during the dictatorship, and there are elected officials who still stand up for the coup. 

Chileans are increasingly divided by misinformation about the dictatorship and by what locals call desmemoria, or “forgetting.” Some 36% of the population in a recent poll said that “the military was right to commit the coup,” up from 16% a decade ago.

“It’s a topic that creates deep segregations in Chile,” says one man in the capital, Santiago, who requested anonymity due to divisions in his own family. “Most people prefer not to talk about it. We don’t want to talk about uncomfortable things.”

Naomi Larsson Piñeda

Jorge Córdova plants a tree in memory of a boy killed in 1973 by Mr. Córdova's uncle, who was then a police officer under the Pinochet dictatorship. It is one of 3,000 trees to be planted to commemorate victims of the regime.

But today, on the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup, there are individuals and groups, like Ecomemoria, for which Mr. Córdova has volunteered, working to ensure that the legacy of the dictatorship is remembered in its entirety. It’s a heavier lift than most expected, given that the atrocities from that period are well documented. But growing political divisions – and the ways in which Chileans envision their nation’s future – shape the way today’s anniversary is remembered.

“There is not a single piece of land in Chile that doesn’t bear the scars of the dictatorship. Yet society lives as if nothing happened,” says Jimmy Bell, the son of a political prisoner who was imprisoned and tortured.

Barriers to truth?

When Mr. Allende’s Popular Unity party came to power in 1970, it aimed to forge Chile’s democratic path toward socialism. Mr. Allende had won just 36% of the vote and faced a hostile Congress, while the rapid nationalization of industries led to widespread mismanagement and hyperinflation. The United States, in the throes of the Cold War, tried to thwart Mr. Allende’s campaign and presidential program and supported the coup three years into his administration. 

Over the subsequent 17 years, Mr. Pinochet worked to remove what he saw as the stains of Mr. Allende’s socialism, ruling with authoritarianism and terror. He enshrined his power in the 1980 constitution, guaranteeing that he could stay in office until at least 1989.  

Those affected by disappearances and murders during Mr. Pinochet’s rule are still struggling for justice. A culture of impunity has dominated for decades, and efforts to convict the perpetrators are even more desperate now as many of them reach old age.

The Chilean government last month announced a national search plan to find the remains of those who were forcibly disappeared. Until now, the work has been down to families, friends, and civil society.

Viviane Drouilly is one of those still searching for her sister, Jacqueline Paulette Drouilly Yurich. She was 24 years old and nearly four months pregnant when she was abducted in 1974 by the secret police. “My sister never reappeared,” Ms. Drouilly recalls. “The atmosphere was one of fear, uncertainty, and absolute despair.”  

Naomi Larsson Piñeda

Viviane Drouilly’s sister was forcibly disappeared during the Pinochet regime. "The atmosphere was one of fear, uncertainty, and absolute despair,” Ms. Drouilly recalls.

Her sister is one of nearly 1,500 people who were forcibly disappeared. To date, just over 300 have been found and identified. 

“The social, moral, and economic harm to thousands of Chilean families was enormous,” she says. “It continues today.”

Just 34% of the more than 3,000 registered cases of those executed or disappeared have led to criminal sentences, and 0.6% of the upwards of 38,000 cases of torture have resulted in convictions, according to Rodrigo Bustos, head of Amnesty International Chile. Mr. Pinochet never served a day behind bars, while in neighboring Argentina, the generals who headed a military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 were prosecuted in a 1985 trial. 

“During the dictatorship, the state put up a series of barriers to reaching truth and justice,” Mr. Bustos says, pointing to an amnesty law introduced in 1978, protecting military personnel who committed human rights violations. “There has been so much impunity.”

Chileans are choosing to forget about the past because “successive governments since [the] return to democracy” didn’t take action, says Mr. Bell, whose family has lived in exile in the United Kingdom since fleeing the regime in 1974. 

“There’s been no education, no attempt to show what happened, and no attempt to show who it was who really benefited from the dictatorship,” he says. 

“Didn’t just disappear”

Many Chileans do not agree that their history needs dissecting. For some, Mr. Pinochet saved the country from Marxism and implemented policies, such as mass privatization, that were credited for the country’s economic dynamism – despite creating widespread inequality.

“Thank God the junta came; otherwise we would be the same as Cuba,” says Maria Viera, who grew up on the outskirts of Santiago. She recalls bare supermarket shelves before the coup and lines stretching blocks to buy chicken.

These aren’t fringe opinions. Elected officials and Cabinet members, including a former interior minister, have expressed support for the dictatorship. Last month a congresswoman claimed that well-documented accounts of sexual violence used as torture during that period are “urban legend.”

“As a society, we seem to be going backwards,” Mr. Bustos says. Less than half the country’s citizens (42%) believe the coup destroyed democracy, the lowest number since 1995.

“The dictatorship didn’t just disappear after 1990,” says Felipe Gonzalez, senior lecturer of Economics at London’s Queen Mary University, referring to the year Chile returned to democracy. 

Mr. Pinochet remained a central public figure for years after his dictatorship ended, serving as the head of the army for another eight years. His presence is still felt, nearly two decades after his death. The social uprisings that erupted across Chile in 2019 were sparked by remnants of his policies and economic model, which put basic services like public transport, health care, and education out of reach for many Chileans. 

His 1980 constitution is still in force today. Last year, voters rejected an attempt to rewrite it. The draft replacement, which included a measure to recognize Indigenous sovereignty among other reforms, was characterized by some as too liberal and progressive for a largely conservative country. Today, the conservative majority is in charge of creating a new draft, which has thus far included proposals ranging from completely banning abortion to expelling immigrants in the country illegally.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

A woman dressed in black attends an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Chilean military coup, in Santiago, Chile, Sept. 10, 2023.

Responding with life

Back in the forest, members of Ecomemoria lament Chile’s lack of reckoning with its past – and how that sparks division today. 

The group, founded in 2002, is made up of former political prisoners and exiles who work to counter the idea that Chile is ready to forget, seeking to encourage memory and education. In their current forestation project, they say the visible presence and growth of the trees over time will be an effective way to encourage discussion among future generations. Each tree will have a plaque commemorating a victim.

“How do you respond to the brutality of the dictatorship?” asks Mr. Bell. “We have to reflect the dreams of the victims – that dream was for a better life,” he says. “So, we respond to the dictatorship with life.” 

Mr. Córdova takes time apart from the group to observe the hundreds of small trees neatly lined up around him. He looks back at the tree he just planted and is overcome with emotion.

Mr. Córdova came to Ecomemoria just a week ago after reading about the group online. He arrived without notice, wanting to ensure, in part, that the deaths and human rights abuses of the dictatorship are never repeated.

There was also the guilt.

Young Gabriel, in whose honor Mr. Córdova planted a tree, “was executed along with seven other people on the street, not too far from where I grew up in Santiago,” he says, his voice breaking. “He was executed by my uncle.” 

Mr. Córdova’s uncle worked for the national police at the time and is one of the relatively few perpetrators of dictatorship-era violence who has been tried and convicted for his crimes. 

“I want to pay for this guilt, though it is not my fault,” Mr. Córdova says. “We need to be able to say as a family that we are against what happened to this boy,” he says. “So that this can never happen again.”