The Day Democracy Died in Chile - Pinochet, Allende and Nixon

Allende Pinochet Nixon

Salvador Allende was the world's first democratically-elected Marxist leader of any nation. Allende’s term was cut short less than three years later by General Augusto Pinochet. Both of them were very stubborn men who believed that each one of them was right and did not compromise to try to understand each others ideas and points of view.

From the middle of 1973 there had been rumblings of a coup brewing in Chile - the economy was suffering due to the withdrawal of foreign investment in the democratically-elected state. At 4am on 11 September, military units stationed throughout Chile reported for action to the leaders of the coup, which was led by Augusto Pinochet. By 7am, these troops started moving and their mission was to take the urban centres of Chile from local politicians. The most effective operation was carried out in Concepción, where the military had cut all the phone lines of governmental personnel, then took everyone and placed them on an island to keep them from communicating what had happened to the rest of the world. After this, the city was controlled by the military. n Valparaíso, Chile's major port, was taken in stages.

At 6.20am, President Allende was alerted to what was happening and he went to the presidential palace Santiago, the country's capital. He was given the opportunity to leave the country by plane in an offer made by a military aide-de-camp General von Schowen.

By 8.30am, Radio Agricultura, an anti-Allende broadcast station, relayed the news of the coup to the nation and demanded Allende's resignation.

By the time the broadcast had ended, the police, army and navy had mobilised against the Allende government. At 9.30am, Allende made his last address to the nation and the next hours were filled with reports of other towns and cities falling and also news came in that people were being taken into stadiums and onto islands. By mid-morning, the palace was surrounded by tanks and the Chilean President was under siege.

At this point the military started negotiations with the President from the base across the street in the Ministry of Defence, opposite La Moneda (the presidential residence). The next few hours had desperate calls and random sniper fire between the two buildings. Later, at 11.55am, two jets launched 18 rockets at the palace.

Finally, at 1.30pm, a group of people were seen waving the white flag of surrender at a side door of La Moneda. Among them was Patricio Guijón who gave the most controversial and debated testimony of the last moments of President Allende. He said that he had killed himself, but there is still a debate that he was murdered because Guijón said he saw him shotting himself but that he did not heard a shot being fired.