An account of the polarization of Chilean society under Augusto Pinochet and of Chile's return to democratic government.

"When the army comes out, it is to kill."—Augusto Pinochet Following his bloody September 1973 coup d'état that overthrew President Salvador Allende, Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Armed Forces and National Police, became head of a military junta that would rule Chile for the next seventeen years. The violent repression used by the Pinochet regime to maintain power and transform the country's political profile and economic system has received less attention than the Argentine military dictatorship, even though the Pinochet regime endured twice as long. In this primary study of Chile Under Pinochet, Mark Ensalaco maintains that Pinochet was complicit in the "enforced disappearance" of thousands of Chileans and an unknown number of foreign nationals. Ensalaco spent five years in Chile investigating the impact of Pinochet's rule and interviewing members of the truth commission created to investigate the human rights violations under Pinochet. The political objective of human rights organizations, Ensalaco contends, is to bring sufficient pressure to bear on violent regimes to induce them to end policies of repression. However, these efforts are severely limited by the disparities of power between human rights organizations and regimes intent on ruthlessly eliminating dissent.

A former Chilean columnist offers a dramatic first-person chronicle of life under dictatorship as she records her own personal experiences and those of others whose lives were dramatically affected by Chile's Pinochet government. Reprint.

Revised and updated: the definitive primary-source history of US involvement in General Pinochet’s Chilean coup—“the evidence is overwhelming” (The New Yorker). Published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet’s infamous September 11, 1973, military coup in Chile, this updated edition of The Pinochet File reveals the shocking, formerly secret record of the US government’s complicity with atrocity in a foreign country. The book now completes the file on Pinochet’s story, detailing his multiple indictments between 2004 and his death on December 10, 2006, including the Riggs Bank scandal that revealed how the dictator had illegally squirreled away over $26 million in ill-begotten wealth in secret American bank accounts. When it was first released in hardcover, The Pinochet File contributed to the international campaign to hold Pinochet accountable for murder, torture, and terrorism. A new afterword tells the extraordinary story of Henry Kissinger’s attempt to undercut the book’s reception—efforts that generated a major scandal that led to a high-level resignation at the Council on Foreign Relations, illustrating the continued ability of the book to speak truth to power. “The Pinochet File should be considered the long awaited book of record on U.S. intervention in Chile . . . A crisp compelling narrative, almost a political thriller.” —Los Angeles Times

Jose Donoso has created a hauntingly beautiful novel of contemporary Chile and the human condition. Curfew takes place during a twenty-four-hour period in January 1985. Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel Prize-winning poet, has just passed away and Chile's various factions rally to turn the event to their advantage. For Pinochet's junta it represents a chance to assert political authority; for the intellectuals who had basked in Neruda's light, it is an opportunity to grab the spoils of the estate.

A “compelling and shocking account” of a brutal campaign of repression in Latin America, based on interviews and previously secret documents (The Miami Herald). Throughout the 1970s, six Latin American governments, led by Chile, formed a military alliance called Operation Condor to carry out kidnappings, torture, and political assassinations across three continents. It was an early “war on terror” initially encouraged by the CIA—which later backfired on the United States. Hailed by Foreign Affairs as “remarkable” and “a major contribution to the historical record,” The Condor Years uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret US relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization. Written by award-winning journalist John Dinges and updated to include later developments in the prosecution of Pinochet, the book is a chilling yet dispassionately told history of one of Latin America’s darkest eras. Dinges, himself interrogated in a Chilean torture camp, interviewed participants on both sides and examined thousands of previously secret documents to take the reader inside this underground world of military operatives and diplomats, right-wing spies and left-wing revolutionaries. “Scrupulous, well-documented.” —The Washington Post “Nobody knows what went wrong inside Chile like John Dinges.” —Seymour Hersh

Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of Chile’s army, rose to power in 1973 when he participated in a military coup to overthrow the president, Salvador Allende. Allende was a Socialist, and the upper classes and the military feared that Socialism would lead to a takeover of the country by the Communist Soviet Union. On September 11 of that year, the military attacked the presidential palace, and Allende committed suicide. Pinochet took charge of the junta formed to rule, naming himself president. Military personnel controlled all phases of the government and industry, and the junta shut down the Congress. National police were stationed on almost every block to enforce curfews and keep order, arresting thousands of Socialists and other “enemies of the state.” Many were tortured, many were exiled or fled into exile, and many just disappeared. The secret police even assassinated opponents outside the country. Pinochet ruled the country with an iron fist for seventeen years even as he brought reforms that stabilized the economy. Increasing unrest and economic problems eventually forced him from office. He was arrested when in Great Britain a few years later and charged with murder and other crimes against humanity. Released for medical reasons, he returned to Chile. He died there in 2006, under indictment for murder and other crimes. Read this book to learn how a trusted military leader became a ruthless dictator, all in the name of protecting his country.