Augusto Pinochet

Chile state institutions Counter-revolution 1915.11.25.–2006.12.10. ○ Died awaiting trial

Military dictator who overthrew the Allende government in 1973 and ruled Chile for seventeen years

Appointed Army commander-in-chief on 23 August 1973, he was the general Allende trusted to the end. On the morning of 11 September Allende assumed the plotters must have arrested Pinochet.

Born in Valparaíso, Pinochet entered the Military School in 1931 and made his career in the army. He became Army Chief of Staff early in 1972, and on 23 August 1973, after Carlos Prats resigned, Allende made him commander-in-chief of the Army. Three weeks later, on 11 September, he led the coup with the heads of the Navy, Air Force and Carabineros, became president of the military junta, was proclaimed President in December 1974 and ruled until 1990. His regime executed or disappeared thousands and tortured tens of thousands, and its secret police, the DINA, murdered exiles abroad. He brought in the neoliberal policies of the "Chicago Boys"; after losing the 1988 plebiscite he stayed on as Army commander-in-chief until 1998. Arrested in London that year on a Spanish warrant, he died in 2006 with hundreds of criminal cases still pending.

Also known as: Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte