“Miserable attitude”: opposition in Chile unleashes scandal by reading letter that justified the coup against Allende

The denialist climate that precedes the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the military coup is consolidated.

The opposition benches in Chile caused a scandal by taking advantage of their majority to get a letter that the Chamber of Deputies approved in 1973 to be read, and which later served to justify the coup d’etat suffered by the late former president Salvador Allende.

The controversial text, which was approved on August 22, 1973, assured that Allende had broken the constitutional order; 20 days later, on September 11, the Armed Forces attacked the presidential Mint and overthrew Allende, which gave way to the bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochetwhich lasted until 1990.

The new controversy surrounding the coup was led by opposition deputies who on Tuesday, at the beginning of the session, requested that the document that their predecessors endorsed 50 years ago be read.

The request was approved with 50 votes in favor, 42 against and one abstention, so the letter against Allende was read publicly in the parliamentary compound while pro-government deputies shouted protests and displayed banners with portraits of victims of the dictatorship. . “Justice, truth, no to impunity!”were some of the loud claims.

Lorena Pizarro, deputy of the Communist Party, warned about the risks involved in claiming the dictatorship.

“If we allow denialism to become a reality in the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, let’s start fearing for our lives. In the sector on the right there are several relatives of torturers and genocides, it seems that they are defending their families (…) fuck off your denier indecency that claims responsibility for the coup”, he accused.

Far-right congresswoman Camila Flores described Pizarro as “a neighborhood bully” and stated that she should not even occupy a seat.

“The communists have never liked things to be known, they have never liked to tell the story prior to September 11, 1973, they always want to start telling the story of Chile from then on,” he said.

Repudiation

“Let’s take care of democracy”was the brief message that President Gabriel Boric posted when he retweeted a post by Senator Jose Miguel Insulza, who was more forceful.

“I can’t let go miserable and provocative attitude with which some deputies read this morning an agreement 50 years after the coup,” accused the former Secretary General of the Organization of American States (2005-2015).

During his intervention in the Senate, Insulza considered that, 50 years ago, perhaps some of the deputies who voted in favor “did not imagine that with this draft agreement legitimacy was being given to a criminal coup d’etat.”

However, he stressed, those who voted this Tuesday did know. “And yet, they did the same. The truth is that I think that It is serious that, a few days before the anniversary of the coup, there are those who still celebrate it that way. This shows us a deeply divided country and I want to ensure that we are not going to fall for these provocations, but we are not going to stop denouncing them either,” he explained.

What does it say?

The reading of this letter is part of the denial activism that runs through Chile on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup, since different political sectors of Right and extreme right vindicate Pinochet despite the crimes against humanity and corruption that characterized the 17 years of his dictatorship.

The document issued in 1973 alleged the alleged “breaking of the constitutional and legal order” by Allende and his ministers.

Due to their functions, the oath of fidelity to the Constitution and the laws they have taken and, in the case of said Ministers, the nature of the institutions to which they are high members and whose name has been invoked to incorporate them. to the Ministry, it corresponds put an immediate end to all situations in fact referred to, that violate the Constitution and the laws,” the letter states.

In this way, the document added, government action would be channeled through legal channels to “ensure constitutional order” and the “essential bases of democratic coexistence among Chileans.”

The controversial letter also warned that, in the event that the ministers failed to comply with their duties, “they would seriously compromise the national and professional character of the Armed Forces and the Police Corps, in open violation of the provisions of article 22 of the Political Constitution and with serious deterioration of its institutional prestige”.

Throughout these five decades, this text has been interpreted as the “green light” given by Congress for the Armed Forces to overthrow Allende.