Your History Lesson for the Day

So lately we've been learning about the recent history of Chile. This is really good because I had no idea about anything before I came down here. First of all, Chile has had a hard history especially from about 1970-1990 as they went through some serious changes in their government. In 1970 Salvador Allende, leader of the socialist party, won the candidacy for President. Things began to really change as this was during the time of the Cold War and the communist scare all around the world. Allende was the first Socialist leader to be elected in the entire world! Since he was socialist, all the land started to get divided up. 5,809 large estates or around 10 million acres of land were in the hands of the government. In addition, the economy went down the drain because of all the mines of coal and salitre (which I believe is part of salt) were shut down because they were such huge corporations. Because of all the controversy with the mines, the United States and President Nixon, shut off all trading with Chile. Allende was "President" until 1973 when things got really shaky, people were starting to "disappear", and the economy was horrible, so Allende committed suicide when he found out that a coup de tat was about to happen. In 1973 the Golpe Militar, or military government took over, with the leadership of Augusto Pinochet who ruled as dictator until 1990 or so. Pinochet was a really bad dictator and he did a whole lot of nothing except get rid of the socialist government and torture a lot of people. There were concentration camps for the people that were assumed "communist". With these concentration camps and other methods, 45,000 people disappeared during the dictatorship of Pinochet. Pinochet was VOTED, yes voted, to have his leadership taken away in 1990. Many people liked Pinochet because they were wealthier and didn't want their land taken away! But just imagine the number of people tortured and killed because they were assumed communist. Makes me sick to my stomach. (Some of this history might be wrong, but it's what I've gotten out of learning it in Spanish)

So this last Friday our program went to Santiago to see various places that had to do with Allende and Pinochet. It was a really heavy day, but amazing to see all these places and to be put back in the 70's when all this was going on. The first place we stopped at was called "Fundacion de Documentacion y Archivo de la Vacaria de la Solidaridad" or an organization created by the Catholic church where people could go to to get a lawyer or find documents to help their family fight the government about the disappearance of another family member. There are books and books of info about what one should do so that they can receive the best Habeas Corpus.

The second place we visited was called "Fundacion Solidaridad" which is a supportive foundation trying to help out the poorer families of Santiago. During the years of Pinochet this organization worked to help artisans stuck in either concentration camps or in poverty. They had no money to make their skilled crafts so the organization helped these people get pencils, bones to make carvings, or needle and thread and cloth all to make their specialized crafts. Today it's a fair trade organization that has families make their craft and then they receive the profit when it's sold. We looked at the quilts some of the women make and they are just beautiful!! I wanted to buy them all!

The third place we visited was Santiago's cemetery, which is basically its own city! We saw hundreds upon thousands of graves including the grave of Salvador Allende and his family, previous presidents of Chile, and the worst was the graves of all the people who passed away during Pinochet. Many of the graves are unmarked because no one claimed them, but were laid to rest the everyone else. Finally, we saw the grave or rather a memorial pertaining to all of those who disappeared during Pinochet. The left side are citizens that disappeared and the right are all political figures that disappeared. The list is amazing to look at! The most striking note I took of the cemetery was the difference between all the family graves of important political figures and all the ordinary citizens and families of Santiago. Look at the picture and you'll immediately tell the difference.












Our final visiting place was a concentration camp where many people were held and tortured for being "communists". It was really sad to walk around and know that people were tortured here only around 40 years ago! We saw where they slept, so tiny with 2-3 people to one area. Needless to say it was really hard to take it all in.

Our trip was really informative and I learned a lot about all these different places. It was kind of an emotional day, but well worth it all. It's crazy to learn about all this and then look at Chile today because it's a whole different Chile! Chile is one of the most stable governments in South America today! Considering only 30 years ago they were in a dictatorship! Well I hope you learned a little history through this! Thanks for reading! Chao!!