Like a snake biting its own tail, Chile reaches the fiftieth anniversary of the brutal coup, with levels of polarization that echo that historic September 11, 1973. The president spoke Sunday night: “How do we compromise? With justice, with truth, by searching for the lost. I unequivocally condemn what happened.” Gabriel Boric added, stressing that it is healthy to reflect on the past, but victims must not be confused with perpetrators because there was no war here—there was a massacre.
If the social crisis at the end of 2019 suggested a final break with the neoliberal agenda, the political right soon shaped the narrative. The tragedy deepened after the progressive Magna Carta was rejected at the ballot box in September 2022 and was reinforced by the conservative triumph in the founding elections last May, guiding many citizens’ view of the events.
A Mori poll in May showed that 36% of respondents believed the military overthrow of Salvador Allende was justified. At the start of the month, a recheck of the numbers found that 47.5% of Chileans viewed General Augusto Pinochet as a dictator. Ahead of the commemoration, a Pulso Ciudadano survey indicated that nearly 40% blamed the ousted president for the violence that followed.
“I sense a regression,” admitted Michelle Bachelet. She noted greater consensus three decades earlier. In this climate, President Boric, not immune to controversy, signed the decree that launched the National Plan for the Search for Truth and Justice regarding 1,162 disappeared persons. The left-led government’s efforts to unite the political spectrum around a “never again” pledge did not yield the hoped-for results.
“On the 50th anniversary of the collapse of democracy in Chile, many lost their lives, dignity, and freedom. As Chileans and as neighbors, we commit, despite legitimate differences, to defend democracy, uphold the Constitution, the law, and the rule of law.” This pledge came in a document signed by Boric and four Chilean predecessors in the Palacio de La Moneda: Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Bachelet, and Sebastián Piñera (attribution: official statements from these presidents).
The gesture from Piñera was not accompanied by the right-wing forces that had kept him in power between 2018 and 2022. The Chilean Vamos coalition—National Renewal, the Independent Democratic Union and Evópoli—issued its own document in 2018. The text avoided explicit mention of the word “explosion” and instead spoke of a profound social and political rupture that affected coexistence.
Lack of basic agreements
These commemorations intersect with deep divisions; memory expert María Fernanda García, head of Memory Museum, expressed sorrow. She argued that unless there is a universal agreement that execution, torture, murder, and disappearance must never recur, the country cannot grow economically or socially. The museum supported this view with data from the Children’s Ombudsman Observatory: 150 minors were victims of execution during the dictatorship, 40 people disappeared, 956 children and adolescents faced political imprisonment and torture, and 102 young people were in political prison with an accompanying adult.
Political positions outrun numbers. Scholar Sebastián Rumie notes three right-leaning approaches to 9/11 and its consequences: denialist, relativist, and revisionist. The denialist position rejects established facts to fit a preferred narrative; the relativist one questions the context to justify past events; the revisionist stance attempts new interpretations. The last view is not the majority, but it exists in some circles.
The move of a former chief of general staff
While the right and far right weigh every move to avoid becoming the Government’s electoral tail, former Army chief Ricardo Martínez Menanteau has emerged as a strong critic of past abuses. His book An Army of Everything details the disappearances and other human rights violations as a stark reminder of the era’s wounds.
Defense Minister Maya Fernández, Allende’s granddaughter, argues there is a break with past military structures. She asserts that today’s officers and petty officers belong to a generation returning to democracy and that no active officers participated in the coup.
Debate about economics
Yet 39 percent of Mori respondents view Pinochet as the man who built and modernized the Chilean economy. Ignacio Silva Neira of the Economic Policy Observatory reminds that this is a misconception echoed by some regime defenders. Neira cites World Bank data: in 1973 Chile’s GDP per capita was 24.2% of the U.S. level; in 1989, the last year under Pinochet, it stood at 9.9%. The dictator is not the sole driver of growth; several analysts argue the real force was the establishment of democratic rule in 1990 that allowed stable institutions to flourish.
Times of revenge
Among universities and political circles, clashes persist as segments of the right glorify the 1973 army. A social-media campaign supported a former captain sentenced to 12 years for the shooting that blinded senator Fabiola Campillai. The fundraising goal of 100,000 was quickly surpassed. The far right, seemingly oblivious to the 9/11 commemoration, defends private property rights over streets, squares, beaches, and the nearby sea. Even Pinochet’s Magna Carta is cited as the ultimate tribute to the dictator.