Miguel Enríquez

Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile) Revolutionary socialism 1944.3.27.–1974.10.5. ✕ Killed in a DINA raid

Leader of the MIR, which rejected the electoral road; he led the underground resistance after the coup until the DINA killed him

When his safe house was surrounded on 5 October 1974 he was wounded early in the assault while covering the escape of his pregnant partner Carmen Castillo and two comrades.

A physician from an upper-middle-class family in Talcahuano, Enríquez helped found the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) in 1965 on a programme of taking power through insurrection, and was its general secretary from 1967 until his death. The MIR stayed out of Popular Unity and held that socialism could not be reached through elections, but under Allende it organised peasant land seizures, urban squatter settlements and factory occupations in the name of "people's power". After the coup he refused asylum, which he regarded as betrayal, and stayed underground to lead armed resistance. On 5 October 1974 the DINA, backed by an armoured car and a helicopter, surrounded his safe house in San Miguel, Santiago; covering the escape of his pregnant partner Carmen Castillo, he was hit ten times and killed.

Also known as: Miguel Humberto Enríquez Espinosa