Augusto Pinochet

Biography

Augusto Pinochet was born in Valparaiso in 1915 and entered the Military School in Santiago in 1931. He rose through the army as a staff officer and instructor at the War Academy, spent several years helping organise Ecuador's war academy, and became army chief of staff in 1972. President Salvador Allende appointed him commander-in-chief of the army on 23 August 1973.

Less than three weeks later, on 11 September 1973, he led the military coup that overthrew Allende. He soon dominated the ruling junta, was named supreme head of the nation in 1974, and governed as president under a constitution approved in a 1980 plebiscite. His regime killed or disappeared thousands of opponents, interned tens of thousands and tortured many more, and helped create the Operation Condor network of South American security services.

Economically, free-market advisers known as the Chicago Boys liberalised trade, banned unions and privatised pensions and state companies, bringing growth alongside a severe crisis in 1982 and sharply higher inequality. He survived an assassination attempt in 1986. After losing the 1988 plebiscite he handed the presidency to an elected successor in 1990 but stayed army commander until 1998, then took a seat as senator for life.

Arrested in London in October 1998 on a Spanish warrant for human rights crimes, he was released on health grounds in 2000. Back in Chile he faced hundreds of charges for abuses, tax evasion and embezzlement, and died in December 2006 before any verdict.