Real Dictators - Pinochet Part 2: The Caravan of Death

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

September 11th, 1973. The touchpaper is lit. President Allende realises he’s been double-crossed. Pinochet keeps his cards close to his chest. A loyal naval admiral finds his cars sabotaged and his phone lines cut. And as Allende and his bodyguards prepare to defend the palace, the first soldiers take to the streets of Santiago… A Noiser production, written by Sean Coleman. Many thanks to John Bartlett, Mark Ensalaco, Peter Kornbluh. This is Part 2 of 3. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Monday, September the 10th, 1973. In Chile's capital, Santiago, another battalion of soldiers pours out of heavy military trucks into the cool air. From a large window in the presidential palace, General Augusto Pinochet observes the movement on the streets below. These days, it's not unusual for troops to patrol the city. With President Allende's administration in turmoil, civil unrest has become common all over Chile. In the past year, Pinochet's army has been repeatedly brought in to restore some semblance of order.

But these troop movements are different. This time, they're preparing for battle. Pinochet is steadily moving his men into strategic positions around the capital. And this hasn't gone unnoticed. First thing that morning, President Allende calls pinochet to the palace he has a question for his commander-in-chief why the escalation in troop numbers what's going on general pinochet reassures him the upcoming independence day celebrations are sure to spark protests he explains are sure to spark protests, he explains. The soldiers are here for the president's protection. But this is a lie.

Pinochet is all smiles and platitudes today. But tomorrow, he'll be part of a full-scale assault on his leader. From the Noiser Network, this is part two of the Pinochet story. soldier rise through the ranks, from cadet all the way up to commander-in-chief of the Chilean army. In this position, he has had to work side by side with a socialist president. Two men with very different views on what's best for their country.

Now, Allende's leftism and Pinochet's conservatism are about to come head to head. conservatism are about to come head to head. Having garnered barely one third of the public vote, Allende's rule was troubled from the start. And now, partly because of a massive financial squeeze by the United States, the Chilean economy is at breaking point, and the president is less popular than ever. Rumblings about a coup d'etat have been building for a while. President Allende has already survived one attempt to overthrow him. The people are tired, hungry, frustrated.

Many in Chile believe democracy has failed the country and that its salvation lies in the hands of the military. Professor Mark Encelaco. the country and that its salvation lies in the hands of the military professor mark and salaco the chilean national motto is by reason or force they've decided reason has failed in chile reason gave us the valori and they signed for force and that's the army when the army comes out is to kill and pinochet may have feigned loyalty, but certainly in the last meeting they had before the coup, by that point he knows the operational plans. He knows they're going Tuesday morning. In the United States, the CIA are waiting anxiously for news. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has been doing his best to thwart Allende's government

economically ever since the socialist president came to power three years earlier. Now he receives word that the Chileans' time is almost up. The day of the coup has been set, Tuesday, September 11th, 1973. Chile is about to enter its darkest period yet. Before the day is out, the President will be gone, his ministers imprisoned, and the country will be in the grip of a callous dictatorship, one that will endure for almost two decades. Events kick off shortly after midnight. The first blow will be struck by the Chilean Navy, stationed in Valparaiso.

Ships are docked in the harbour, awaiting orders. Every officer knows something big is brewing. Admiral José Toribio Marina, the Navy's number two, paces the floor of his office. His boss, Admiral Montero, will not be joining him tonight. The Navy chief is at home, while he's being carefully guarded. His cars have been sabotaged, his phone lines cut. This is because Montero is loyal to the President. He needs to be kept out of the picture.

In Montero's absence, leadership of the Navy passes to Admiral Marino, just as he and his co-conspirators planned. This operation has seen unprecedented cooperation between the military top brass. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Police will all have their part to play. Now the signals start coming in, announcing that Montero's counterparts are ready. Police Chief Cesar Mendoza, Air Force General Gustavo Lee Guzman, Army C&C General Augusto Pinochet. And so, Admiral Marino issues the order. Take Valparaiso.

Isolate the port. At dawn, the Marines went and took Valparaiso and cut communications. Then the armed forces moved into Santiago. In his operations room on the outskirts of the capital, General Augusto Pinochet helps pull the strings. He's only been part of the plot for a few days, but as the highest ranking officer involved, he's going to be a key player. The call comes in from the navy. It's begun.

Now Pinochet issues his own orders. Secure the streets. Put down any resistance. Soldiers are mobilized from their garrisons. Tanks, trucks, helicopters and jets are fueled and ready. The first shots are yet to be fired, but the coup d'etat so long in the planning is finally underway. By 6 am Valparaiso is secured.

Ships and marine infantry have been moved into strategic positions along the central coastline and six navy trucks are already on their way towards Santiago, where President Allende is just hearing the first rumors of a rebellion. As far as he knows, a Navy rebellion. Allende begins calling around his military leaders. With his phone lines cut, Admiral Montero is incommunicado. General Lee of the Air Force ignores the call. So too does General

Pinochet. Unable to reach him, Allende begins to worry. Could his army commander have been captured by the rebels? Poor Pinochet, Allende says. I wonder what they've done with him. Allende gathers his personal bodyguards, a small group of fighters intensely loyal to the president.

They've been trained by Allende's good friend, Cuba's Fidel Castro. Together, Allende and his security detail hurry towards the presidential palace. But as they drive to La Moneda, their sense of disquiet grows. Normally at this time in the morning the streets are alive with people heading to work, the pavements are full, the traffic heavy. This morning Santiago looks like a ghost town. At 7.15 am the president arrives at the palace where he is joined by his ministers, family and doctors.

Beginning to suspect that something bigger is in the offing, the President makes a radio broadcast to the people of Santiago. He calls for unity and calm. For his part, he says he will protect Chile with his life. But soon after this address, normal radio broadcasts are brought to an abrupt end, and a rather different voice rings out over the airwaves. That of General Pinochet.

He announces that his men have seized the broadcast network. Because of the economic and moral crisis destroying the country, the armed forces demand an immediate transfer of power. President Allende must step down now. There's no need for anyone to get hurt. In truth, Pinochet has no intention of letting Allende walk away peacefully. Analyst Peter Kornbluh There's audio of Pinochet on the day of the coup,

talking about how if Allende wants to go into exile, they'll put him on the plane and then they'll blow up the plane, and as he says, kill the bitch, you kill the litter. Hearing Pinohe's broadcast the reality of what's happening finally becomes clear to allende the president won't entertain the phony offer of exile if he's going down he'll go down fighting outside the palace the first of the army trucks arrives. Soldiers file quickly out of the back, guns in their hands.

As the military presence outside the palace grows, Allende insists that his daughters, Beatrice and Isabel, must leave while they still can. Reluctantly, the two women agree. Soldiers continue to gather at the palace entrances. the two women agree. Soldiers continue to gather at the palace entrances, but the daughters manage to sneak out of a side door accompanied by a handful of loyalists. It's the last time they'll see their father alive.

Allende takes to the airwaves again. By now, there's only one loyalist radio station left. The president urges the people of Santiago to go to their places of work, defend the factories, protect the university, stop these fascists from overthrowing democracy. But Pinochet's army already has Santiago in its grip. Soon the whole city will be locked down. Allende's message of defiance is being drowned out.

Journalist John Bartlett. It was incredibly traumatic, I think, and that's something that Chile's never fully reckoned with what actually happened that day. But people remember how the radio broadcasts went from usual programming to eventually military anthems were being played how the radio broadcast went from usual programming to eventually military anthems were being played over the radio and nobody really knew what was going on.

By 11am, La Moneda is completely surrounded by tanks, trucks and foot soldiers. From his operations room, the general tells his commanders, now is the time. Pinochet's men give the president an ultimatum, surrender or in two minutes we start shooting. Two minutes pass. The first shots shatter the windows. Inside, the president's bodyguards fire back at the soldiers below. Allende himself stands shoulder to shoulder with his men, trading shots with his own mutinous army. But he's hopelessly outnumbered, and the assault is coming from all angles. Just after 11 a.m., a pair of Air Force jets streak through the grey sky above Santiago.

La Moneda itself was bombed by Walker Hunter jets, which sort of swooped down the valley towards the presidential palace, which ultimately meant that it was uninhabitable afterwards. it was uninhabitable afterwards. President Allende knows the game is up. All that awaits him and his staff is a bloodbath. He orders his bodyguards to surrender, to get out as soon as they can, and to take government workers with them.

Some go down to the palace courtyard, waving a doctor's lab coat tied to a stick, a makeshift flag of surrender. The soldiers herd them out and into the street and force them face down onto the ground. But others stay inside the palace and continue to fight, firing at the soldiers below, their random sporadic bursts which have little effect.

Impatient to end the standoff, one of the tank commanders begins moving his vehicle towards the government workers lying prone in the street. He drives the tank right up to them. No one dares move. The heavy tracks grumble to a halt just inches from the first man's head. The tank commander calls down to his general, asking loudly if he should crush the filthy Marxists. There's a moment of silence as his threat hangs in the air. Before a rapid burst of rifle fire comes down from the fifth floor window of the palace, peppering the tank with bullets.

Slowly the tank's gun turret turns, points directly at the window, and fires. The devastating explosion marks the end of the resistance. Pinochet's troops have won the day. Inside President Allende sits alone on a red sofa, still clutching the gun given to him by Fidel Castro. In the corridor outside there are footsteps, but it's not the army here to arrest him. One of Allende's doctors has remained behind and is coming to check on him. The doctor walks the long corridor approaching the president's room, but before he reaches the door two shots ring out.

Before he reaches the door, two shots ring out. He runs the rest of the way, but it's too late. He finds the President slumped forward on the sofa. His blood mingles with the crimson fabric. Instinctively the medic feels for a pulse, but he knows it's futile. Salvador Allende has taken his own life. Soon after, his body is collected by victorious soldiers. There was a shootout in the courtyard of La Moneda among the colonnades, this last stand where the aides themselves had a few weapons. The soldiers entered La Moneda and ended the shootout fairly abruptly.

President Allende's body was removed on a stretcher covered in a Bolivian poncho that he'd been given. And that was the end of democracy in Chile for 17 years. Outside the palace, silence falls. The president's supporters wait to learn their fate. Silence falls. The president's supporters wait to learn their fate. Allende's torment may be over, but theirs is just beginning. As the tanks move off to new targets elsewhere in the city,

the prisoners are shoved into a fleet of army trucks. They're driven straight to the barracks in Santiago, Pinochet's stronghold. Here they're stripped naked and forced to crawl across the courtyard at gunpoint in the pouring rain. And that's just for starters. As Chile begins to adjust to the new normal, the degradation and torture of Allende loyalists will only get worse. It's early afternoon. So far the coup is proceeding according to plan,

but there's no time for complacency. Pinochet still needs to remove the rest of Allende's supporters. His commanders have been furnished with lists of names and locations. The most vocal Marxists will be the first to fall. The country must be cleansed of every last trace of socialist thought.

The message was really clear. First of all, the people we're going to eliminate. We're just going to kill them. We're just going to kill the most dangerous people. We've got their names. They're gone. But also it was sending a message to the soft liners. One soldier said, don't you realize we're at war? Well, we're not at war. We took over the country,

but they wanted that mentality. We've got to kill these people. Later in the afternoon, new announcements begin. Long lists of names are read out over loudspeakers and broadcast on the radio. Among them are journalists, office workers, artists, anyone with the slightest hint of leftism. Those named must report to the Ministry of Defence before 4.30pm. Failure to do so will mark them as enemies of the new military junta. Before long a nationwide curfew is imposed. Anyone who heeded Allende's instruction to go to work that morning should now stay there. Everyone else must remain at home. Those who fail to comply will be shot on sight. From here, any small pockets of resistance, such as those that break out at some factories,

are easily dealt with. There was a curfew imposed almost straight away. There were military anthems blaring on the radio. There was obviously very little information as to what was happening up and down the country. The resistance was stamped out relatively quickly because nobody really had the arms or the means to put up much of a fight. There was not a culture of personal weapons or anything in Chile, so ultimately the resistance was relatively futile. It was short-lived and the armed forces obviously were able to crush it relatively quickly.

rush it relatively quickly. As night falls on September 11th 1973, the streets are empty of civilians. Only the military remain. At about 10pm, Pinochet's generals gather their troops, return to base and report in. The job is done. Disciplined as ever, Pinochet shows little emotion. Congratulations, he says. Well done. Stand down. Hundreds have been killed on this one bloody day.

Thousands more have been arrested. Across the country, sports grounds, barracks and state buildings have already been turned into detention centers. The National Football Stadium in Santiago is now crammed with thousands of terrified prisoners, as is the smaller Estadio Chile. But even now, far worse is still to come. But even now, far worse is still to come. Five thousand miles away in Washington, D.C., the mood is very different. In the context of the Cold War and the global chessboard, the success of the coup is cause

for celebration. The CIA have supported this plot for months. It's the culmination of a three-year effort to systematically undermine Allende. Pinochet's army has done them proud, but the success is bittersweet. When the Chilean military finally did overthrow Salvador Allende, Kissinger got on the phone with Richard Nixon. We have the

declassified transcript of their conversation and basically said to him, we helped them. We created the conditions as best as possible for this to happen. And then the two of them complained that they would not get credit for the overthrow of a government that was going communist. for the overthrow of a government that was going communist. And Kissinger told Nixon, you know, in the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes. And that seemed to really, really bother the two of them, that they would not be able to seize this Cold War triumph and let everybody else know that they were behind it. Back in Chile, as midnight approaches, Pinochet and the three other leaders of the Junta swear

themselves in as the country's new rulers. As commander-in-chief of the army, Pinochet holds the highest rank among them. He will take top spot as Chile's supreme head of the nation, thanks in no small part to encouragement from his wife, Lucia. It was Lucia herself who convinced her husband, Augusto Pinochet, that he should be the first head of the military junta, and ultimately it was a position that he never gave up. He remained head of the military junta for the 17 years of the dictatorship, even though the original idea was that they were going to rotate the position of head of the junta between the heads of the armed forces, the army, the navy, the air force, and the police force.

The original plan for the military regime was to have rotating heads of the junta. I think every year, every two years, the head of the junta would change pinochet was like the hell with that i'm going to be the guy and there's going to be no rotation and i'm head of the most powerful part of the chilean military and so none of you guys are going to be able to challenge me he was very focused on being a dictator from very early on and he outmaneuvered others who might step up and be the leader of the military regime or share in that responsibility. Irregardless of who was involved in planning the coup from the beginning,

it very quickly became the Pinochet regime. September the 12th. It's the day after the coup, and there's an air of celebration across much of Chile. In Santiago, the upper classes stand on their balconies and terraces and toast their new leader, Augusto Pinochet, with champagne. They refer to him fondly as My General. For many, the removal of Allende is akin to a rescue mission. People cheered.

People went out in the street and applauded. Most Chileans were convinced that there was chaos. The military needed to step in. They would restore order. That was the idea, that the Chilean military will save us. It was messianic. But Pinochet isn't ready to join in with the celebrations just yet. The risk of counterinsurgency remains.

He must weed out his enemies fast, starting with those currently sheltering inside the Technical University of Santiago. A lot of professors and students and leftist sympathizers went to the Technical University of Santiago to basically hold themselves up and wait for instructions if they were to come, obviously knowing what had happened to Salvador Allende. So they all went there, downtown Santiago. Among them was Victor Jara, the famous, or the revered, folklorist, who was an incredibly important part of the sort of leftist movement in Chile.

Folksinger Victor Jara is well known throughout the country and is beloved by the left. His voice and lyrics were the soundtrack to Allende's election campaign. He's one of the most prominent names on Pinochet's list of enemies. Jara, his colleagues, friends and students are gathered inside the university's main hall. On the junta's orders, they've stayed put all night, tormented by the sounds outside. Fighter jets zooming overhead, explosions, shelling and machine gunfire all over the city,

and Pinochet's broadcasts, proclaiming his men have taken control. Now the sound of guns is getting closer. But it's only when shots start to hit the walls that they realize the soldiers are actually attacking the university. Panic erupts in the main hall. No one here is armed. Their only hope is to surrender. Soldiers burst in, firing shots into the crowd. Then the lecturers, students and workers are all led out, hands on heads at gunpoint. Out in the street they're forced onto waiting buses and driven the short journey down the road to an

indoor sports stadium, Estadio Chile. Here they join the thousands of men and women who've already been detained. Around 5,000 people are crammed inside the arena. Hundreds of them will never make it out. The conditions were squalid. There was sewage leaking. I wasn't prepared for so many people to be held there all at once.

The detainees are beaten, tortured, abused. Pinochet's soldiers are indiscriminate in their punishment. Cigarettes are extinguished on exposed skin. Rifle butts are driven into already broken ribs. Bodies are piled in the passageways. Somewhere in the chaos, flanked by two soldiers, is a man in a black hood. He makes his way slowly through the crowd. He was once a supporter of Allende's government, but he is no prisoner.

He's a town coat. The black hood hides his identity, but he appears to know who the former government ministers are. He also knows the outspoken university lecturers, the union leaders, the loudest socialist voices. It's his job to point them out.

The man with the Black Hood who walked among the prisoners in the stadium, he'd walk around around prisoners and he'd see you in a point. And immediately they'd take you out in the hallway and shoot you. It was just that simple. At that point, they started separating the prisoners out. They recognized a few of them.

And Victor Jara and another man who was head of the prison service under Allende's government, the two men were taken aside into the changing rooms to be interrogated. And while they were there, the two men were beaten and tortured. When Hara was released from the changing rooms after this interrogation, his fellow prisoners tried to cut his hair with nails. He had this sort of famed sort of mop of bushy hair. They tried to cut his hair to make sure he was unrecognizable.

They put a jacket on him as well to try and change his appearance a little bit to make sure he couldn't be recognized by the soldiers. to try and change his appearance a little bit to make sure he can be recognized by the soldiers. The attempt to disguise Victor Jara is unsuccessful. He endures days of interrogation and torture before he's finally put out of his misery. Jara's body was mutilated by the conscripts who were told to fire rounds into his body.

An autopsy carried out later on found that his body had 44 bullet wounds in it. There was a sort of gory, gaping hole where his stomach was, and 56 broken bones as well. Hara's widow, Joan, will spend the rest of her life seeking justice for his murder. At least she is allowed to see her husband's body, to claim him from the mortuary and lay him to rest in a marked grave. Most are never given this small mercy. The majority of families who lost loved ones to Pinochet's regime are still searching for their bodies today.

There are so many awful examples of torture and extrajudicial killings and political executions which happened in Chile under the dictatorship, but the fact that this happened so soon after to somebody who was a singer, a leftist sympathizer, I think really kind of goes some way towards illustrating the the retribution for this sort of perceived crime of supporting the Allende government and the project that he represented. In Santiago, the interrogations and summary executions continue as more prisoners are rounded up. But Pinochet knows threats to his new regime are not limited to the capital. To extinguish Marxism in every corner of Chile, he will need his strongest and most steadfast officer.

Pinochet appoints a brigadier general by the name of Sergio Arellano Stark. He was really the army representative supporting the coup, really led it. He was really the guy. General Stark has no time to rest. On September 12th, Pinochet hands him a list of names. Socialists who've studied abroad, or worse, those who were trained by Fidel Castro's forces. Stark's orders are to eliminate them. He gets to work immediately, assembling a helicopter-borne killing squad.

It will become known as the Caravan of Death. And Stark doesn't just stick to Pinochet's list. Anyone he personally deems a threat will be destroyed. A Puma helicopter flew between prisons and these sort of makeshift ascension centres around Chile. It went south first and then it went north slightly later, basically taking machetes and hacking apart, torturing and then murdering prisoners. The idea was to strike fear into anyone who was kind of dissenting, dissenting voice effectively. And these rumors spread very quickly and, you know, like any campaign of terror, it was incredibly effective.

You know, these bodies were kind of strewn around the country, either buried in shallow graves, sometimes dumped in the sea as well, flown out to sea and dumped there. For weeks, the caravan of death cuts a bloody sway through the country. On October the 19th, just over a month after the coup, it arrives in the northern port city of Antofagasta. In the heart of Chile's mining region, Antofagasta is a hub for the export of copper. The city is well known for its support of Allende.

As the helicopter lands in the newly established prison camp, Stark is met by the camp commander. The general checks the prisoner role against his own list. Quickly, he identifies fourteen inmates for his squad to deal with. The victims are literally shot to pieces, starting at the legs and working upwards until the corpses are unrecognizable as human beings. They never could be identified, even if they were given back to their families. And then, in a matter of minutes, the caravan moves on to the next town. One of its stops was in Kalama, this dusty mining town up in the Atacama Desert. At the time, Andrade Allende had been a hotbed of leftist sentiment. These were workers working at the state copper company, and they took aside an arbitrary

collection of 26 young men. The youngest of them was 18 years old. They were led up to a hill just outside Calama where they were shot. All of them were murdered there. Their names will be added to the growing list of the disappeared. Across Chile, public venues, abandoned mines, even former high-end restaurants

are all converted into detention and torture camps. In the three months following the coup, some 45,000 citizens are detained. So there was a torture and detention centre which was almost exclusively for female prisoners in an area of Santiago. It was also called La Disco Dec, the disco, because they'd blare music out all day and all night

from this house in a relatively residential area to make sure that the sounds of the torture couldn't be heard. And there are some of the most horrific testimonies that have come out of that place. Just the most horrific things, systematic rape and sexual abuse. Pinochet might not be dealing the blows personally, but the general is happy to take responsibility.

He proudly declares, not a single leaf moves in this country if I am not the one moving it. By the end of 1973, the initial wave of killing is over. The caravan of death has eliminated those deemed to be the most dangerous socialists. Pinochet decides now is the time to embrace a slightly more subtle approach. His focus switches to policing his new Chile. The plan is to establish a new covert security service, one that can ensure the left cannot take hold in the country ever again.

Creating a secret police force behind closed doors is no easy task. But Kenesha has some powerful friends, and they will be more than happy to help him. In the next episode Pinochet consolidates control of Chile shoring up power for 17 long years The dictator's fight against communism extends abroad as Chile joins Operation Condor. But as Pinochet's reach extends, how long can his global allies allow him to go unchecked? And will the families of those murdered and disappeared ever find justice? That's next time, in the final part of the Pinochet story.