On the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of the Coup d’État against the socialist Salvador Allende and the anniversary of his death, former president Gabriel Boric has defended his memory. “In times when memory is attempted to be silenced, when in the end there are those who have always believed and who today once again reaffirm that the best thing is to turn the page and forget, there is a people who will always say no to that,” said the Frente Amplio member at the former president’s tomb in the General Cemetery. “It is a memory that is engraved in the very essence of the heart of the Chilean people and is passed down from generation to generation,” he added before the Allende family, including former Defense Minister Maya Fernández and former Senator Isabel Allende. Meanwhile, the government of José Antonio Kast decided, for the first time since the return to democracy in 1990, not to hold any official act to remember.
More than a hundred people, including several opposition authorities, arrived this morning to pay tribute to Allende, who died on September 11, 1973, at La Moneda, when the military bombarded the presidential palace to seize power. Boric stated this cold morning, in a clear allusion to the lack of an event organized by the Executive, that “we do not need official ceremonies to remember history.” Furthermore, he assured that they will continue spreading it, “and not with sorrow, not with shame, we will do it with pride, and above all, with the conviction that those dreams that inspired so many generations in the past, today, adapted to our time, also inspire us. And we vindicate them, we salute them, we honor them, and we transform them into political action with hope and joy.”
Along the same lines, former Senator Allende criticized those who accuse them of dwelling in the past. Memory, she said, is about the present and the future. “A country without memory has no future. Memory not only means accompanying us, it also means dignifying the victims, knowing what happened, deeply understanding, and projecting ourselves toward a society that never again sees violence used to resolve any political division,” she said. “We want to recognize those family members who still fight to know what happened to their loved ones, where they are, where they can pay tribute to them. We want to tell them that we will never forget them,” she added before those present, where flags of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party could be seen, as well as many schoolchildren with their backpacks, celebrated by the former senator.
The date of the military assault on La Moneda, which ended with the death of Allende and his main advisors, has received special treatment from all heads of state in the 36 years of democratic governments. Among them Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014, 2018-2022), from the traditional right, who condemned human rights violations. But Kast has decided to continue with his usual agenda with a trip to the Los Ríos region. The president’s distance from the date is part of his strategy in the last presidential campaign. Previously, however, messages supporting the coup d’état were common on his social networks. A couple of weeks ago, he told Radio Cooperativa that his position on the issue “is known” and that he values “that the dates are not forgotten” because they are part of “our history.”
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