Dictator who ruled
Chile with an iron fist from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet headed the military junta that controlled the country after a coup that deposed the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. During his reign, Pinochet ordered the violent suppression of all political opposition to his
government. A commission determined that his military and
government were responsible for human rights violations, including more than 2,000 deaths and untold numbers of disappearances.
All opposition parties were banned, the press was censored and dissidents up and down the country were abducted and executed without trial. The notorious Caravan of
Death, an
Army death squad flew the length of the country by helicopter in October 1973, extinguishing 97 influential opposition figures. Even dissidents that had fled the country were not out of Pinochet’s reach. Operation Condor, tracked the numerous Chileans that had fled into exile. No-one was
safe from Pinochet’s paranoid
anti-communist drive. General Prats, Augusto Pinochet’s predecessor in the role of Commander in
Chief, was killed in Buenos Aires in 1974.
Pinochet is pronounced Pino – Chay. The t is silent.