Tuesday, September 30, 2008




52.
   We wandered into the necropolis and strolled past stone and marble testaments to past glory. We stopped in front of a mad architectural folly of riotous excess crowned with alabaster Corinthian columns and dripping with ferns. Claudia gazed at the monument in wonder and read the letters engraved on a plaque. “Los Magallanes,”, she sighed. “The mysterious islands around Cape Horn and the last words out of the mouth of our founding father, Bernardo O’Higgens.” Then the wistful look on her face vanished. “The CIA was impressed with the resilience of the people. They realized that the only way to get rid of Allende was with a military coup. With general Schneider out of the way, the generals fell in line and the oligarchy was right behind them. The CIA found the snake it needed in one Augusto Pinochet, the general Allende himself had appointed as commander in chief of the army only a month before. This time everything went as planned. On September eleventh, 1973, with infantry, tanks and warplanes, the generals attacked the Palacio de la Moneda and the forty-two men and women defending Allende. Allende gave his last speech from the palace over Radio Magallanes. Referring to himself in the past tense, he urged his countrymen and women to fight on. ‘Surely Radio Magallanes will be silenced and my calm voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country.’ It took five hours to capture the palace, kill Allende and stage a gruesome suicide. Within days, anyone suspected of supporting or even sympathizing with Allende was rounded up. Fifteen thousand were murdered.”

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