POLITICAL HISTORY

Chilean politics began on September 18th, 1810 after the capture of the King of Spain, the Patriots were forced to form a governing body to stabilize and control the country. After these events, a movement for total independence, under the command of José Miguel Carrera, with the influence of the independence of United States achieved independence on February 12, 1818.

As an independent nation we needed a president, and for that charge was Bernardo O’Higgins, self-proclaimed Supreme Director.

Chile have had 8 constitutions: Constitution Order 1812 "If the rulers take a step against the wishes declared in the Constitution, will hand over power to the people”. Constitution of 1818: No one can be punished or exiled without being hear any legally recognized crime against society. Constitution of 1822 "The Chilean nation is the union of all Chileans and in it resides the sovereignty“. The state religion is Roman Catholic, Apostolic and Roman, with the exclusion of any other. Constitution of 1823: They are entitled to vote men over 21 years if they were married and over 25 if they weresingle;

Constitution of 1828: The Constitution requires the concept of nation, territory and dividing the country into eight provinces confirms the abolition of slavery. Constitution of 1833: The president of the republic is elected by indirect vote for five years and re-elected for the next period, given the state and is the supreme head of the Nation. Constitution of 1925 separation of powers of Church and the State, political and administrative system of relations between the executive and legislative branches. Constitution of Government, headed by General Augusto Pinochet.

1980’s Constitution.

COMMUNISM IN CHILE

Upon assuming power, Allende began to carry out his platform of implementing a socialist programme called La vía chilena al socialismo ("the Chilean Path to Socialism"). This included nationalization of large-scale industries and government administration of the health care system, educational system, a programme of free milk for children in the schools and shanty towns of Chile. The Allende government's intention was to seize all holdings of more than eighty irrigated hectares. Allende also intended to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile's poorest citizens; a key element was to provide employment, either in the new nationalised enterprises or on public work projects.

October 1972 saw the first of what were to be a wave of strikes. The strikes were led first by truckers, and later by small businessmen, some (mostly professional) unions and some student groups. Other than the inevitable damage to the economy, the chief effect of the 24-day strike was to induce Allende to bring the head of the army, general Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister. Export income fell due to a hard hit copper industry: the price of copper on international markets fell by almost a third, and post- nationalization copper production fell as well. Copper is Chile's single most important export. Chile was already dependent on food imports, and this decline in export earnings coincided with declines in domestic food production following Allende's agrarian reforms. The Christian Democrats (who had campaigned on a socialist platform in the 1970 elections, but drifted away from those positions during Allende's presidency, eventually forming a coalition with the National Party), continued to accuse Allende of leading Chile toward a Cuban-style dictatorship, and sought to overturn many of his more radical policies.

MILITARY GOVERNMENT OF CHILE Chile was ruled by a military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 when Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'etat until 1990 when the transition to democracy began. Pinochet's 17-year regime was characterized by systematic suppression of political parties and the persecution of dissidents to an extent that was unprecedented in the history of Chile. The military government of Chile is considered an example of a police state by scholars.

After a highly controversial referendum in 1980, Pinochet who had been proclaimed president in 1974 was elected president and a new constitution approved. In the 1980s the military government, took a neoliberal stance on economics which has been followed up by the democratic governments that succeeded the dictatorship. Many of the civilian allies of the military government continued to be influential in Chilean politics. Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) is Chile's largest party, and also the one that grouped most of the regime's supporters although the party has since distanced from it. On August 22, 1973 the Chamber of Deputies of Chile passed, by a vote of 81 to 47, a resolution calling for President Allende to respect the constitution. The measure failed to obtain the two-thirds vote in the Senate constitutionally required to convict the president of abuse of power, but represented a challenge to Allende's legitimacy.

The military seized on such widespread discontent and on the Chamber of Deputies' resolution to then launch the September 11, 1973 coup d'état and install themselves in power as a Military Government Junta, composed of the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Carabineros (police). Once the Junta was in power, General Augusto Pinochet soon consolidated his control over the government. Since he was the commander-in-chief of the oldest branch of the military forces (the Army), he was made the titular head of the junta, and soon after President of Chile.

CONSTITUTION OF 1980 Chile's new constitution was approved in a national plebiscite held on September 11, The constitution was approved by 66% of voters under a process which has been described as "highly irregular and undemocratic." The constitution came into force on March 11, 1981.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS He shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions, and made Chile his sultanate. His government disappeared 3,200 opponents, arrested 30,000 (torturing thousands of them)... Pinochet’s name will forever be linked to the Desaparecidos, the Caravan of Death, and the institutionalized torture that took place in the Villa Grimaldi complex." — Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation.

The worst violence occurred in the first three months of the coup's aftermath, with the number of suspected leftists killed or "disappeared" (desaparecidos) soon reaching into the thousands. Between the day of the military coup and November 1973, as much as 40,000 political prisoners were detained in the Stadium. 1,850 of them were killed, another 1,300 are missing since then. Some of the most famous cases of "desaparecidos" are Charles Horman, a U.S. citizen who was killed during the coup itself, Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara, and the October 1973 Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte) where at least 70 persons were killed.

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Following Pinochet's defeat in the 1988 plebiscite, the 1991 Rettig Commission, a multipartisan effort from the Aylwin administration to discover the truth about the human-rights violations, listed a number of torture and detention centers and found that at least 3,200 people were killed or disappeared by the regime. some 28,000 arrests in which the majority of those detained were incarcerated and in a great many cases tortured. Some 30,000 Chileans were exiled and received abroad, as political refugees; however, they were followed in their exile by the secret police. Some 20,000–40,000 Chilean exiles were holders of passports stamped with the letter "L" (which stood for lista nacional), According to a study in Latin American Perspectives, at least 200,000 Chileans (about 2% of Chile's 1973 population) were forced to go into exile.

According to the Latin American Institute on Mental Health and Human Rights (ILAS), situations of "extreme trauma" affected about 200,000 persons; this figure includes individuals executed, tortured, forcibly exiled, or having their immediate relatives put under detention. While more radical groups such as the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) were staunch advocates of a Marxist revolution

VALLE GRIMALDI

"Corvi Houses" were small wooden rooms within each one of them stood a two- story cabin.Apparently it was the place where they were detainees were being subjected to intense interrogation regime and torture.