Santiago de Chile, Sept 11 (Prensa Latina) Groups of students, unions, academics and other social organizations pay homage today to the victims of the coup that 39 years ago overthrew President Salvador Allende, and established Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
The remembrance activities include events at the monument to President Allende, located in front of the Palacio de La Moneda, which on September 11, 1973 was attacked by soldiers and bombed by the Air Force to overthrow the Popular Unity government.
In addition, the University of
Santiago called the university community to commemorate the events to recall the 62 dead of this high institution during the events, including the singer Victor Jara.
The main celebration was held last Sunday, in a march attended by thousands of people and ended in front of the General Cemetery, near the memorial to the disappeared and executed political prisoners.
The government of President Sebastian Pinera said official memorial activities were not considered.
According to the second report from Valech Commission, delivered in August 2011 to President Piñera, victims of the Pinochet dictatorship toll over 40,000, from them more than 3, 000 dead.
On the morning of September 11, 1973 events moved so lightning. Once Allende received the first report of the revolt of the military, he went to La Moneda, when the palace was still in Police custody.
After knowing of the first statement from the military junta, that force began to withdraw, until it left La Moneda unprotected,
only defended by the President, his personal guard, members of his administration and other executive house staff. The president arrived at around 7.30 am local time at the palace, and about 45 minutes later the armed aggression by land began.
Allende addressed the nation for the last time on Radio Magallanes at about noon, in which he expressed his determination to fight to the end in defense to constitutionality.
Soon after, Hawker Hunter aircraft of the Chilean Air Force began firing rockets at the presidential mansion, whose defenders in unequal combat, could not withstand the charge of the armed forces, under General Pinochet.
Allende was found dead inside La
Moneda, with his rifle, a gift from the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.
‘The coup against the Popular government headed by Salvador Allende was only possible through the intervention of a foreign power: the United States,” Chilean communist leader, Gladys Marin wrote shortly before her death.
It was learned years after the coup that when the National Security Advisor of U.S. President Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger knew in 1970 Allende’s victory, he said: ‘I do not understand why we need to stand and watch a country become communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.’