1973: 'The wounds still hurt us'
This year is the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Chile which led to the death of President Salvador Allende. Hundreds - if not thousands - of civilians also died in the revolt instigated by leaders of the country's armed forces and backed by the CIA.
You sent us your memories of the day.
Alvaro Acevedo, Chile
I was eight-years-old at that time. I remember my father going downtown to work and returning a couple of hours later, scared. We were queuing with my mom at a bakery when Allende's cavalcade passed towards La Moneda - he never returned.
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It was very exciting with the soldiers and planes that assaulted Allende's house (a couple of blocks away from ours). Our neighbours and us celebrated after we knew what happened, but my grandfather was a socialist doctor, who spent all of his life working in poor rural areas. He told my mother, "There is nothing to cheer about, soon you'll regret this coup". He died from cancer a week later.
After all these years and having spent all my youth under Pinochet, I know he was right. My parent's generation was lost. No matter what their political creed was at that time, illusions, dreams and friends died in 1973. And the wounds still hurt us.
 Alavaro: "A picture with my son because he represents for me a new Chile" |
Juan Elevancini, Canada
I was 17-years-old in 1973. I watched the news about the coup on TV and listened to Allende's last speech on radio Magallanes. After that, I remember experiencing a state of great confusion, but then I felt deeply sad about the suicide of President Salvador Allende.
I remember that I quietly left the room where I was with my parents, who were not happy with Allende's government. I sat on the concrete blocks near the entrance of our modest wooden house, and there I pondered the magnitude of the event on a sunny day before the Chilean spring.
Around 1300, my parents noticed my discrete retreat and invited me, with a respectful and silent understanding, to join them for lunch with the rest of my younger brothers and sisters.
David Cartes, UK
I was 13 when this happened. I was living in Santiago and about 2,000 Chileans died in the US-backed Coup. Anybody with left-wing ideas was in danger. Pinochet was a brutal, blood-thirsty dictator who was paid quite handsomely by the US.
And now we see that on the same day two years ago, people were killed by terrorists in the USA. We condemn terrorism but at the same time the USA uses its "indirect" terrorism to overthrow democratically elected governments such as Allende's?
