Chile on Monday marked 50 years since a violent coup by Augusto Pinochet against socialist President Salvador Allende ushered in two decades of military rule that saw thousands killed and seeded the country's market-led economic model.
The coup on September 11, 1973, in which tanks roamed the streets of Santiago and Hawker Hunter planes bombed a burning La Moneda presidential palace, reverberated around the world. It marked the start of a series of U.S.-friendly, right-wing dictatorships that governed much of South America well into the 1980s and were characterized by mass arrests, torture, and disappearances.
According to various Chilean human rights commissions, there are 40,175 victims of the dictatorship — classified as politically executed, disappeared, imprisoned, or tortured. Thousands also fled into exile and over 1,000 are still missing.
A minute of silence at the official commemoration ceremony at La Moneda marked the exact moment the attack started.
But with half a century gone by, Chile is sharply polarized. Victims of military rule and their families have ramped up a push for justice and accountability, but politically the far-right has gained ground amid growing fears over rising crime.
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