International
How did the events of the coup d’état take place in Chile?
September 11 |
On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet led a coup d’état against the president of Chile, Salvador Allende, which ended the Popular Unity Government and began a military dictatorship that would leave nearly 40,000 victims during 17 years.
Pinochet, who three weeks earlier had been appointed by Allende as commander in chief of the Army, interrupted Allende’s democratic government, which had been elected in 1970, and established one of the cruelest and most terrible periods in the history of the South American nation.
In the same way, the military put an end to the experience of a socialist government that had emerged through the electoral process and sought to redefine the role of the State through agrarian reform, nationalizations, expropriation of the banks and greater promotion of education.
It was Allende himself who announced the military mobilization. Informed of the Navy’s uprising, Allende arrived at 07:30 local time on September 11 at La Moneda Palace.
Hours earlier, Navy ships had entered the port of Valparaíso, some 115 kilometers west of Santiago, and its troops occupied streets and government buildings.
President Allende, in a broadcast on Radio Corporación, asked citizens to remain calm and to stay in their workplaces, while affirming that he would remain at his post.
At 08:30 hours, the Armed Forces and Carabineros, who bombed and raided the installations of the media supporting the Popular Unity, demanded Allende’s resignation.
The president, in another radio communication, told the military that he would not resign and that he would not abandon La Moneda palace. “I point out my will to resist with whatever it takes, at the cost of my life,” he asserted.
In his last message to Chileans, broadcast on Radio Magallanes, Allende -aware of the imminent aerial bombardment of the Moneda Palace- said: “I will not resign. I will pay with my life for the loyalty of the people (…) they have the strength, they can subjugate, but social processes are not stopped neither with crime nor with force. History is ours and it is made by the people”.
An aide offered him an Air Force plane to leave Chile. Allende rejected the proposal and proposed a dialogue with the commanders-in-chief under certain conditions. However, Pinochet did not accept and demanded the unconditional resignation of the president.
Prior to the bombing of La Moneda, the president demanded a truce so that 11 women, including his daughter Beatriz, who were in the Executive headquarters, could leave.
At 11:50 a.m., the Hawker Hunter planes of Group 7 of the Chilean Air Force began the bombing that lasted 15 minutes. As a consequence, the government building was partially burned.
After 1:00 p.m., Allende, carrying a rifle and wearing a helmet, ordered the surrender and departure of those who were still accompanying him.
After that – based on a 2012 judicial investigation – Allende entered the Independence Hall, where “he sat down on a sofa, placed the rifle he was carrying between his legs and resting it on his chin, he fired it, dying instantly”.
The Military Junta, headed by Pinochet, took over the Executive and Judicial powers on September 11, and ordered the recess of Congress, establishing a 17-year military dictatorship that left at least 40,000 victims, among them 3,000 murdered or disappeared.
International
Six killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador
Six people, including a baby girl about two years old, were killed on Sunday in an armed attack near a tourist beach in southwestern Ecuador, police said. The shooting, carried out with rifles, also left three people wounded.
The incident took place in the coastal town of Puerto López, in the province of Manabí, a popular tourist destination known for whale watching. The attack occurred amid a surge of violence over the weekend that left at least nine people dead nationwide, according to local media reports.
“There are six fatalities and three injured,” Colonel William Acurio, the local police commander, told reporters on Sunday. He confirmed that one of the victims was a baby “approximately two years old.”
Authorities have not released further details about the motive behind the attack or whether arrests have been made.
International
Man accused of killing nine in Paramaribo dies by suicide in police custody
The man who killed nine people, including five children, on Saturday night in Paramaribo died by suicide while in custody, Suriname police confirmed in a statement on Monday.
The suspect, identified by the initials D.A., 43, “hanged himself inside a holding cell at the Keizerstraat police station” in the capital, Paramaribo, according to the official report.
Police said the man sustained leg injuries during his arrest and was taken to a hospital before being transferred to the detention facility on Sunday night. Authorities did not provide further details on the circumstances surrounding his death.
International
Winter storm disrupts holiday travel, forcing 1,500 flight cancellations in the U.S.
Airlines canceled around 1,500 flights across the United States during the peak Christmas travel season after warnings of a severe winter storm and forecasts of heavy snowfall in the Midwest and Northeast. An additional 5,900 flights were delayed due to adverse weather conditions.
More than 40 million Americans were under snowstorm warnings or weather advisories one day after Christmas. Meanwhile, another 30 million people faced flood or storm alerts in California, where an atmospheric river triggered intense rainfall.
New York City was bracing for up to 25 centimeters (10 inches) of snow overnight, which would mark its heaviest snowfall in four years. Cold weather was expected to persist through the weekend in the nation’s largest city. According to flight-tracking website FlightAware, airports in the New York area recorded about 850 flight cancellations.
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