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Dublin: 13 °C Monday 20 May, 2013

38 years on, Chile closes Allende case after confirming suicide

The Chilean leader was found dead while defending the presidential palace in the 1973 coup in Chile, in which General Augusto Pinochet seized power.

Chile's President Salvador Allende in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 26,1973
Chile's President Salvador Allende in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 26,1973
Image: AP Photo/Eduardo Di Baia

A JUDGE IN Chile has closed the case on the death of President Salvador Allende after an authoritative autopsy confirmed it was suicide.

An international panel of experts convened by Judge Mario Carroza determined that Allende took his own life with an AK-47 while defending the presidential palace in Chile’s 1973 coup.

Carroza ruled out the possibility that a soldier or bodyguard fired the fatal shots. He also disproved a range of other myths surrounding Allende’s death 38 years ago.

Allende was among 726 people who died or disappeared when Gen. Augusto Pinochet seized power, and whose cases were stuck in the courts since then. Carroza is studying these cases anew under orders from the Supreme Court.

Remains of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda to be exhumed >

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Comments (11 Comments)

  • RDX862 29/12/11 #

    Nixon: Nothing new of any importance or is there?
    Kissinger: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.
    Nixon: Isn’t that something. Isn’t that something.
    Kissinger: I mean instead of celebrating – in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.
    Nixon: Well we didn’t – as you know – our hand doesn’t show on this one though.
    Kissinger: We didn’t do it. I mean we helped them. [garbled] created the conditions as great as possible.
    Nixon: That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played. But Listen, as far as people are concerned let me say they aren’t going to buy this crap from the Liberals on this one.
    Kissinger: Absolutely not.
    Nixon: They know it is a pro-Communist government and that is the way it is.
    Kissinger: Exactly. And pro-Castro.
    Nixon: Well the main thing was. Let’s forget the pro-Communist. It was an anti-American government all the way.
    Kissinger: Oh, wildly.
    Nixon: And your expropriating. I notice the memorandum you sent up of the confidential conversation [retracted] set up a policy for reimbursement on expropriations and cooperation with the United States for breaking relations with Castro. Well what the hell that is a great treat if they thing that. No don’t let the columns and the bleeding on that
    Kissinger: Oh, oh it doesn’t bother me. I am just reporting it to you.
    Nixon: Yes, your are reporting it because it is just typical of the crap we are up against.
    Kissinger: And the unbelievable filthy hypocrisy.
    Nixon: We know that.
    Kissinger: Of these people. When it is South Africa, if we don’t overthrow them there they are raising hell.

    Reply
  • Chile’s 9/11/ Never forget! http://youtu.be/10RCHQ2ruko

    Reply
  • How do we go about getting rid of our current government? When is our next opp?Our maybe a coup will do.

    Reply
    • Jimmy 30/12/11 #

      Yeah because Pinochet imposed neo-liberal doctrine with the help of Milton Friedman. So the numbers look good on paper, but in reality people suffered an enormous amount, more than any bourgeois liberal thousands of miles away in Ireland could possibly fathom

      Reply
    • We are all beginning to fathom it now because the exact same policies are being used to beggar the people in favour of the wealthy capitalist class here in Ireland. And there are
      years more of it to come.

      So one day, like Chile, we might have some “good figures” to show the IMF, but the wrecked lives of two or three generations won’t show up there…

      Reply
    • Worth all the torture and murder, eh? You’re easily bought.

      Reply
    • That Che Guevara was a pussycat. Never fired a shot at an unarmed man. No wonder he’s such an icon for the Left.I reckon you’d have a hard job finding a Pinochet tee-shirt.

      Reply
    • Jimmy 30/12/11 #

      @Charles

      No, but I did see a Mussolini clock.

      Reply

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