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.