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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
December 6, 2005
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| April 14, 2005 |
Another 9.11 – Bruno Serrano |
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| Mr. Bruno Serrano (photo by Jeff Kennel) |
In the three days between Callao, Peru and Valparaiso, Chile, participants onboard Peace Boat’s 48th voyage were treated to a short series of lectures from Bruno Serrano. Mr. Serrano served as bodyguard to Salvador Allende while Mr. Allende was President of Chile (1970-1973), and was present during the September 11, 1973 coup d'état in which Augusto Pinochet seized power of the nation. The following is a combined, edited transcript of two lectures he presented on his perspective of the events surrounding the coup.
“Today, I want to relate to you my experiences and the political purpose of Salvador Allende. The Allende government has a very special connotation in the history of the 20th century: they proposed to get into socialism via a democratic way. All the socialist revolutions in other countries were achieved by military or armed means, but in Chile they wanted to do it through democratic means. This governmental program was fundamentally related to the nationalization of the country’s riches, with copper being the primary resource. It was working toward agrarian reform and redistribution, and also things related to justice and equality for all Chileans.
Allende was voted into office by popular vote in a democratic way and his triumph was against a candidate who represented the right. He was recognized in Congress, where the majority was in opposition. He had great popular support and his government was directed toward the farmers, the middle class and the students. They sought to dignify the position of the worker in Chile.
From the beginning, the Allende government was closed to the elements of the right, as well as the American government under Nixon. Due to the nationalization of copper industries, there was a plot set up by the United States against Allende. His government lasted for three years and was interrupted by a coup that was started by the US government and supported by the armed forces of Chile, as well as the political right. It was also supported by the wealthy element, those who had great resources in Chilean society.
When he was elected, there was the possibility of there being attempts on his life, because his program touched on interests related to the United States government. It created the possibility of a “second Cuba” in Latin America and the US didn’t want to run the risk of having the whole area become socialist. They wanted to topple Allende and started to develop a way to get rid of him. He didn’t want bodyguards because he considered himself a democratic president. He once said to me ‘I don’t need bodyguards; the people will take care of me.’ But in the end, there was an attempt on his life and he accepted having a small group of bodyguards, including me. Because of the party he was in, Allende chose people from that party to act as his bodyguards. We weren’t bodyguards, though; we were just young guys who wanted to change the world.
That’s how we became the bodyguards, and it was this amazing experience. On the one hand, we were working with the farmers and on the other we were working with the President of the nation. It really changed the way we thought of the world. Chile during this time was safe – there had been no prior attacks or assassination attempts at that time. That’s why when he showed up with all these bodyguards, the opposition right parties criticized him for going in public with bodyguards who had nothing to do with the army. The newspapers said that he was accompanied by a group of guerillas, but we were no guerillas.
The Allende government had very good relations with the Cuban government, as well as great sympathy with all of the other people’s movements in Latin America. There were very well known people that participated in the government, including Victor Jara, a songwriter, and Pablo Neruda, who won the Nobel Prize for literature. Many people involved in Chilean culture were aiding the socialist movement in Chile. |
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| An historic building in Valparaiso, where Pinochet’s coup d'état began in 1973. |
Moderator: I’d like to ask about Pinochet, the leader of the military at the time. When did he become leader of the military?
In the last year of the Allende government, in 1973, Allende installed some of the generals of the army as cabinet ministers. He did this as a way of preventing a military coup. Pinochet was named Commander in Chief of the armed forces and he was supposed to have supported the Allende government. On the day the coup happened, Allende thought Pinochet was fighting for his government. It turned out that Pinochet himself was responsible for the coup and the bombing of the moneda. (the Chilean presidential residence in Santiago is called the moneda because it was once a mint).
Moderator: And then on September 11, 1973, because of the coup, everything changed.
Mr. Serrano: Yes, the coup in 1973 radically modified Chilean society. It reinstalled a military dictatorship in a country that for many decades had had governments in which they democratically voted. There was a set of severe restrictions preventing the free movement of people of the streets: there were curfews, they controlled the radio broadcasts and many newspapers were closed, they disappeared. There was very intense control of the lives of the people in Chile. The coup immediately generated a great quantity of people that were murdered, also an immense number of prisoners. Various embassies in Santiago filled up with people looking for asylum. |
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The coup started in Valparaiso and started with the Chilean navy mobilizing its ships. As best as we can tell, a marine or someone loyal to Allende told him that the coup had begun in Valparaiso. Up until that moment, Pinochet seemed completely loyal to Allende; he completely trusted Pinochet. Meanwhile, Pinochet was preparing the coup. It was an absolute betrayal.
At six in the morning on September 11th, Allende received a call that let him know the coup was coming. He went with his bodyguards right to the moneda. At 7:30 am, he was there with twenty bodyguards, some ministers, and other people from his party. At 8:00 his daughter arrived, along with his secretary and people who worked in the ministry. At that point, they started to get the defense ready for the moneda and knew that the coup was not just in Valparaiso, but was coming to Santiago. Tanks came in from the north and south and started shooting at the moneda.
There were people all around watching; no one could believe what was happening. No one thought the moneda would be bombed ... I didn’t think it would happen. There was an exchange of fire, then the tanks pulled around and left. It was a disconcerting feeling because we wanted to know why they pulled back. This is when the planes came. They came from the north, did one pass, then came again and fired the rockets. The first bomb hit right next to the president’s office. Then more bombs were dropped and the moneda started to burn.
When the moneda started burning, Allende told us to give ourselves up so there wouldn’t be any more deaths. He always had a lot of dignity; he was a man of honor who was willing to die for democracy. Before the bombing, the troops offered him a chance to leave the county. They offered to put him on a plane with his family and take him away. He said ‘no, I was elected by the people and I will continue my term here.’ There were soldiers everywhere, so he thought they would respect the Geneva Convention and treat the prisoners well. He thought they had honor, but he was wrong.
The soldiers came in and it was a hell – there was smoke and fire all around. When they pulled the people out, the first thing they did was start to beat them and torture them. They took them to various headquarters and started to torture them. Then, they killed everybody. President Allende died on the second floor of the moneda. Pinochet then declared himself leader of the military junta. Those of us that were in high buildings hid our rifles and left. Those of us who were shooting at the tanks escaped down the street; it was just luck.
In my case, I headed out to the industrial area where there are factories and such because we thought that there would be an organized resistance of the workers. All the workers were there at the factories, but there were no arms; there were never any arms. In the following days, the military surrounded the factories and liquidated them. They took us out in big buses and set us against the windows as human shields in case there were sharpshooters shooting at the bus. This was actually a benefit because we could see what was happening: people lying on the ground dead, people lying on the ground with guns pointed at them.
Y: What was it like, the fight to get democracy back?
A verse from one of Neruda’s poems, some of it talked about the future. He wrote about his premonitions about the future. He talked about a future in which there was a kind of spring, one in which we could live in a democracy. During the dark days of the dictatorship, the winter, many people died or lost hope. There were seventeen years of social, political, and armed struggle. However in the end, what eventually brought things back to democracy was not armed struggle, but the popular will of the people.
This triumph and recoup of democracy was the result of the wishes and efforts of the people who were following Allende’s example. The spring came. They were very difficult years; they taught us what pain is, but they also taught us solidarity and what it is to believe. We learned that people can make the kind of government that they need. Despite Pinochet’s immense power, he finally had to leave the government and give democracy a chance. Democracy began to become slowly stronger. Little by little, we have been moving toward justice, but there is still much we have to do to close this dark chapter in Chile’s history, which began with the coup in 1973.”
>>read more about Bruno Serrano. |
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