[On the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup, let’s follow
Pinochet resisters’ example of solidarity in repressive times.]
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50 YEARS AFTER CHILEAN COUP, LET’S REMEMBER PINOCHET RESISTERS’
INSPIRING LEGACY  
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Margaret Power
September 11, 2023
Truthour
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_ On the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup, let’s follow
Pinochet resisters’ example of solidarity in repressive times. _

Thousands of women light candles in front of the La Moneda
presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, on September 10, 2023, during
the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the military coup led by
Gen. Augusto Pinochet against President Salvador Allende, Lucas Aguayo
Araos / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

 

I barely slept the first night I arrived in Chile in December 1976.
The military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which had seized
power 3 years before on September 11, 1973, following its violent,
United States-backed overthrow of President Salvador Allende’s
left-wing Popular Unity government, was at the height of its power.

Before traveling to Chile, I had been active in the United States
solidarity movement in the San Francisco Bay Area, organizing to
secure the release of the thousands of political prisoners in Chile.
Unable to sleep, I tiptoed to the window and looked out on the
deserted streets of the northern Chile town of Arica. Nothing and no
one moved outside, except for the military convoys that periodically
raced through the empty streets. I eventually fell asleep and woke up
to my first day in Chile.

My sister and I had traveled through Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and
Peru on our way to Santiago, Chile’s capital. Like so many people
around the world, we abhorred the overthrow of the Popular Unity
government, a coalition of left parties supporting economic and social
justice for workers and peasants, and were outraged at the
military’s imprisonment, torture and murder of thousands of Chileans
who had supported Allende. We thought that witnessing firsthand what
life was like in Chile under the dictatorship would strengthen our
ability to speak to people in the U.S. about why they, too, needed to
oppose the dictatorship and support human rights in Chile.

From Arica, we traveled south to Santiago, where the families of
political exiles I had worked with in San Francisco lived. Ramón
Soto, the cousin of one former Chilean political prisoner and refugee
I knew in the Bay Area, proposed to take us to _La Penitencería_, one
of many prisons housing thousands of political prisoners in Chile
during the military regime. Because of my U.S.-based organizing work,
I was eager to visit the jail, meet the prisoners, and learn about
their conditions. When we arrived at the jail, one of the guards told
us we couldn’t go inside. Melinda, responding with a good deal of
bravado, simply said, “Oh, but we always do.” The guard hesitated
and then allowed us to pass. We then waited as other guards inspected
our papers and those of the other family members and friends lined up
to visit imprisoned loved ones.

Sitting on concrete slabs in a large, open room, we met political
prisoners during specially designated visiting hours. Soto introduced
me to his former cellmate, Luis Torres, a former member of the Chilean
Air Force. He joined after his father died, to support his mother and
brother and to get an education, and like a number of other enlisted
men and officers, he supported Allende’s Popular Unity government.
As a result, Pinochet’s armed forces arrested, tortured, and
convicted him and 80 other Chilean Air Force members for treason.
Torres and I hit it off, and for the next six months, I visited Torres
at the prison two or three times a week.

[A black and white photo of two men, seated side by side]

Luis Torres and Jaime Salazar in their cell in the _penitenceria_ in
Santiago, Chile, in 1977.

Courtesy Margaret Power

Political prisoners in Chile were incarcerated in special blocks
together to isolate them from the other prisoners. The military’s
acknowledgement of their special status allowed political prisoners to
maintain their identities, engage in ideological discussions and
organize themselves behind bars. This arrangement had the unintended
consequences of boosting the prisoners’ spirits, strengthening their
sense of political commitment and encouraging resistance.

The range of organizations, parties and political tendencies that
existed in Chile during the Popular Unity government largely
reconstituted itself in the prison. The two main poles on the Chilean
left were the majority of the Socialist Party, the Movement of the
Revolutionary Left and several smaller Christian parties on one side,
and the Communist Party, smaller sectors of the Socialist Party, and
the Radical Party on the other. The former promoted workers and
peasants immediately taking control of factories and the land and
organizing within the military against a coup. The other pole urged a
gradual approach and sought to form an alliance with the Christian
Democrats, a large, centrist party that ultimately backed the coup.

Political prisoners maintained contact with their comrades on the
outside through conversations with visitors and written
communications, which were shared with prisoners inside the cellblock
and with party contacts on the outside. Many of the visitors entered
and left the prison with messages, written in tiny script and
carefully folded to be as small as possible, hidden in their clothes
or bags.

[A black and white photo of people posed for a large group
photograph.]

Chilean political prisoners in the _penitenceria_ in Santiago, Chile,
in 1978.

Courtesy Margaret Power

Security remained an ongoing concern. For instance, after it became
clear that Melinda and I would continue to visit prisoners and learn
more about how the parties functioned inside, one of the leaders of
the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, the organization Torres and
his cellmate were affiliated with, sent a message to the group’s
leadership in the Bay Area to inquire about us. The organization
originally advocated armed struggle to end capitalism in Chile, which
is why it supported the Popular Unity government but remained outside
the governing coalition.

Despite the political differences among the prisoners, they united to
celebrate key holidays like International Workers’ Day. They
organized another event for International Women’s Day, in which
several prisoners stood on the concrete slab that ran the length of
the room and, one at a time, spoke about the history of working-class
women’s struggle and how important women visitors were to keeping
their morale high. They thanked the women in the room and emphasized
how they provided them with clean clothes, nutritious food, and other
supplies they needed to get by. The prisoners then handed the women a
red carnation as a symbol of their struggle.

Melinda and I also worked with various human rights groups in Chile.
Most of them worked under the auspices of the Catholic Church, since
it was the only institution that had some measure of protection from
the military. Specifically, we met with women who were members of
different human rights committees, such as The Association of Families
of the Detained-Disappeared, which met in Santiago’s main cathedral.
Two other church-sponsored organizations we worked with were the
_Ollas Comunes_ (Soup Kitchens) that people organized in poor
neighborhoods across Santiago and the _Bolsas de Cesantes_ (Unemployed
Workers’ Groups).

What struck me most forcibly about these various organizations was
people’s ability to organize and work together under the most
difficult of situations. People knew that the military could arrest,
torture and imprison them at any time, as so many of their family
members, comrades and friends had been. Nevertheless, they joined with
others to form the _ollas communes_ to alleviate the hunger they and
others like them faced. In so doing, they not only provided food for
others and themselves, they also affirmed their sense of personal
dignity and their commitment to work collectively to get what they
needed.

[Children eat at a a long table, set for many]

An _olla_ commune food kitchen in March 1977, in Santiago, Chile.

Courtesy Margaret Power

Two other closely tied qualities characterized these activists: They
had a high degree of class consciousness, and they were very
political. They knew that the military served the interests of the
wealthy, and that the wealthy benefitted from their oppression. As a
result, they looked to each other for support and solidarity. For
example, one woman in the soup kitchen explained to us that to get
food for the “common pot,” they went around asking people for it.
At first, they went to the rich neighborhoods, but those people
didn’t give them anything. So they concentrated their efforts in the
poor neighborhoods and open air markets, where vendors would generally
give them something.

One day a woman, Olga Sazo, approached us at one of the meetings of
the _Bolsa de Cesantes _and told us she wanted to introduce us to
members of the resistance. In Chile in 1977, “resistance” meant
the armed, clandestine underground that was working against the
Pinochet dictatorship. As I later found out, Sazo had been born on a
landed estate in southern Chile, where her father was a landless
tenant who worked for the landowner. She fled what would have been a
forced marriage and a dead-end life on the estate to Santiago, where
she supported herself as a seamstress and joined the Socialist Party.

After surprisingly little discussion, Melinda and I agreed. Sazo then
took us to meet several members of a clandestine cell of the Socialist
Party, which operated in what is now Cerro Navia, a poor neighborhood
in the western part of Santiago. Over the next few months, we met with
them and transported documents to different members of the Socialist
Party, since, supposedly, it was less likely that the Chilean secret
police would arrest us than they would a Chilean. For International
Workers’ Day on May 1, the group decided to put out a leaflet
condemning the dictatorship and calling on Chilean workers to organize
to collectively oppose it.

One or two days before May 1, we went to Sazo’s house. She was
waiting for us with the curtains drawn. She asked us to type up the
leaflet they planned to distribute, since she knew we had worked as
secretaries and typed better than she did. After a moment of
consideration, we agreed. I did the typing since I had worked as a
secretary longer. Nervous, I did my best to type the leaflet as
quickly as possible. Sazo then asked us to help hand out the leaflets
on May 1 after curfew, when only the military was allowed on the
streets, which Melinda and I declined. We were taller and blonder than
most Chileans, and would stick out like a sore thumb in a
working-class neighborhood after curfew. I never saw the leaflet, but
Sazo later told us that they did distribute them, and fortunately no
one was arrested.

When I have spoken about these experiences, people often ask me if I
was scared. The answer is that I was — especially after the Chilean
secret police came to the house Melinda and I were staying at, looking
for us. Luckily, we were away at the time and for whatever reason,
they didn’t come back.

Two factors helped allay my fears somewhat: First, the Chileans I met
who resisted Pinochet’s dictatorship were a nonstop source of
inspiration for me. If they can do it while facing even greater risks,
then so could I. Second, Jimmy Carter became president in January
1977, and I benefitted directly from his emphasis on integrating a bit
more respect for human rights into U.S. foreign policy. While the
Carter administration backed United Nations resolutions condemning
Pinochet and greatly reduced military aid to Chile, his administration
failed to cut all aid or denounce or withdraw support from Operation
Condor, through which South American militaries worked together to
repress and murder leftists throughout the region and internationally,
thus complicating his human rights record.

Still, as part of Carter’s new policy, a new group of officials
began to work in the U.S. embassy in Santiago. Melinda and I became
friends with a newly appointed young consul in the embassy. Although
he didn’t know the extent of our activities in Chile, he knew enough
to be concerned about our safety. When we flew out of Chile, carrying
taped conversations with what he thought were members of the Catholic
church but in reality were members of the resistance, he met us at the
airport and made sure we got on our flight.

Once Melinda and I were back in the U.S. we did all we could to share
what we had learned with people here and to urge them to act in
support of human rights in Chile. We spoke with members of the
solidarity movement about our experiences and at political events in
the Bay Area. We talked to everyone we could about the situation and
what they could do to convince the U.S. government to pressure the
Chilean military dictatorship to respect human rights. Melinda and I
even drove to Washington, D.C. and met with elected officials and
staffers from our home district in southwestern Pennsylvania, asking
them to end all aid to the Pinochet dictatorship and demand the
release of political prisoners.

My six months in Chile have had a lasting impact on me. I learned
directly what it was like to live under a military dictatorship. I
witnessed both the fury and the hatred that the wealthy feel for those
who not only oppose their rule but attempt to build a more just and
equal society, as well as the brutal measures they are willing to
employ to suppress those efforts. But I also experienced the profound
commitment of many Chileans, both inside and outside of prison, to
work together to build a society in which exploitation and oppression
do not exist.

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* Chile; Pinochet; Political Prisoners; La Penitencería;
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