Twenty-five years on, Augusto Pinochet’s brutal legacy still haunts Chile
Twenty-five years on, Augusto Pinochet’s brutal legacy still haunts Chile
Agence France-Presse
11 Mar 2015 at 08:53 ET
Twenty-five years after Chile’s return to democracy, glorifying Augusto Pinochet has finally become taboo, but the country is still fighting to erase the social and political legacy of his dictatorship.
Pinochet, who seized power in a bloody 1973 coup and ruled Chile with steely ruthlessness for the next 17 years, stepped down on March 11, 1990, handing the presidential sash to democratically elected president Patricio Aylwin after a lengthy transition.
With his trademark dark glasses and military uniform, General Pinochet was an emblem of the dictatorships that gripped much of Latin America in the depths of the Cold War.
He presided over a period of great prosperity but great divisions in Chilean society, implementing free-market reforms that won the approval of the business sector but repressing his left-wing opponents with gruesome violence.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/twenty-five-years-on-augusto-pinochets-brutal-legacy-still-haunts-chile/