Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile for seventeen years after overthrowing an elected president and became the test case for prosecuting a former head of state abroad. Born in 1915 in Valparaíso, he was a career officer of no particular political profile, which is why Salvador Allende appointed him commander-in-chief of the army in August 1973 — on the recommendation of the general he replaced, who had resigned rather than join a coup. Pinochet joined the coup three weeks later. On 11 September 1973 the armed forces bombed the presidential palace; Allende broadcast a final address and shot himself. The repression was immediate and organised. The National Stadium held thousands of prisoners; the Caravan of Death flew from garrison to garrison executing detainees; and the DINA secret police ran a system of disappearance that killed or vanished some 3,200 people and tortured tens of thousands. Operation Condor extended it across the southern cone, including a car bombing in Washington in 1976. The economy was handed to the Chicago Boys, who privatised, deregulated, cut tariffs and inflation, and produced both a severe crash in 1982 and the growth that his defenders cite. He wrote a constitution in 1980 providing for a plebiscite on his continuing in office, and lost it in 1988 with 44 per cent, and left power in 1990. He was arrested in London in 1998 on a Spanish warrant and held for sixteen months before being released on health grounds. He died in 2006 under multiple indictments, never convicted. Chile's courts have since convicted several hundred officers, and the constitution he wrote was finally being replaced when two referendums rejected the drafts.
- Lived: 1915 CE – 2006 CE
- Nationality: Chilean
- Roles: military_leader, head_of_state, dictator
