Pinochet Dictatorship, 1973-1990
On September 11, 1973, a military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet seized power from Salvador Allende, Chile’s democratically elected Marxist president, in a violent coup d’état. Allende committed suicide within Chile’s presidential palace after refusing to resign as Pinochet’s troops attacked the building. The coup d’état was covertly backed by the U.S. government as part of Operation Condor, which aimed to suppress left-wing sentiment in South America during the Cold War. (Sources: New York Times, BBC News, History)
Following the coup d’état, Chile underwent a 17-year period of state oppression directed at suspected political opponents during the ensuing right-wing military dictatorship. According to an official report published in 2011, more than 3,000 individuals were killed or went missing at the hands of Pinochet’s regime. An additional 30,000 individuals suffered human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention and torture, and at least 20,000 more were forced into exile. Pinochet finally stepped down from power and allowed Chile to transition back to democracy in 1990 after a national referendum rejected the continuation of his rule. (Sources: History, El País, El País, El Mundo)
In 1978, Pinochet’s regime passed an amnesty law that granted protection from prosecution to those who committed human rights violations during the dictatorship. Although Chilean courts have since found ways to circumvent the legislation and prosecute individuals, and although the Chilean government pledged in 2014 to overturn the law, it nonetheless remains in place as of 2018. (Sources: Amnesty International, Reuters, Biblioteca de Chile)
Guerrilla Movements
A number of guerrilla movements, both radical right- and left-wing, emerged in Chile before and during the Pinochet dictatorship. The Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR) was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movement that emerged in Chile in 1965. The group sought a leftist revolution in Chile like the one that had taken place in Cuba six years earlier. The MIR reduced its activities significantly after the Marxist president Salvador Allende took power in 1970, as it tacitly supported his government. However, after Pinochet seized power in 1973, the group was heavily persecuted, and many of its members were tortured, exiled, or killed. The MIR managed to maintain a small underground resistance network for some years under the leadership of Allende’s nephew and with assistance from militants who had been trained in Nicaragua and Cuba. However, the group’s principal leader, Miguel Enríquez, was killed in 1983, and its activities were ultimately suppressed by the government later in the decade. (Sources: Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, Federation of American Scientists)
Fatherland and Liberty (Patria y Libertad) was a right-wing, pro-fascist paramilitary group that emerged in 1970 in opposition to the Salvador Allende’s socialist government that had just come into power. The group, which supported a coup d’état against Allende’s government, launched a “sabotage” campaign to destroy infrastructure and machinery and generate an atmosphere of chaos so that Chileans would support military intervention. According to the book Chile Under Pinochet, the economic and psychological impact of the campaign was “considerable.” Following Pinochet’s successful coup d’état in 1973, Fatherland and Liberty disbanded, though many of its members were recruited into Pinochet’s regime and took part in the oppression that ensued. (Sources: CNN Chile, Chile Under Pinochet, Federation of American Scientists)
During the dictatorship, other leftist insurgent groups emerged in opposition to the regime in addition to the MIR. The left-wing United Popular Action Movement–Latauro (Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario–Latauro, MAPU-L) emerged in the early 1980s. The MAPU-L established two affiliated groups, the Lautaro Popular Rebel Forces (Fuerzas Rebeldes Populares Latauro-FRPL), aimed at overthrowing the government, and the Lautaro Youth Movement (Movimiento Juvenil Lautaro, MJL), a special youth wing whose membership mostly consisted of youths and delinquents from impoverished urban areas. The MJL’s violent activities, which included several assassinations of police officers and bombings of Mormon chapels, continued after Chile’s transition to democracy in 1990, and did not subside until the arrest of its leader, Guillermo Ossandón, in 1994. (Sources: Federation of American Scientists, Federation of American Scientists, La Tercera)
The Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodriguez, FPMR) was a Marxist guerrilla movement founded in 1983 as the armed wing of the Chilean Communist Party, which resisted Pinochet’s regime. In 1986, the FPMR launched a firearm assault on Pinochet’s motorcade in a failed assassination attempt. With links to Cuba, the FPMR became the dominant and best-organized terrorist group in Chile in the late 1980s. In 1987, the group split into two factions, one of which became a political party and the other of which remained armed. The armed faction of FPMR, known as FPMR-Autonomous (FPMR-A), embraced a Maoist ideology and continued to carry out attacks in Chile throughout the 1990s, which targeted civilian and international targets including U.S. businesses, Mormon churches, and fast food restaurants. The group ceased to carry out operations in the late 1990s after government operations diminished its capabilities. (Sources: Federation of American Scientists, Federation of American Scientists, BBC News, El País, U.S. Department of State)
Nazism
According to declassified files released in 2017, several Nazi supporters operated in Chile during the Second World War. Some Chilean individuals of German descent reportedly underwent paramilitary training. Nazi supporters and spies in the country reportedly supplied Germany with information on Allied ship routes and worked on plans to bomb northern Chilean mines and the Panama Canal. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, several former members of the Third Reich escaped to South American countries, including Chile. Former SS Colonel Walter Rauff was one of the most prominent Nazi figures to settle in Chile, where he lived freely under his own name until his death in 1984. (Sources: Telegraph, Reuters, History)
Neo-Nazi sentiment has resurfaced and even led to violence in Chile in recent years. In January 2017, three men displaying neo-Nazi symbols attacked a gay Jewish activist with a razor in a park in Santiago, injuring him. (Sources: Emol, Jerusalem Post)
Hezbollah and Shiite Extremism
Prominent Hezbollah fundraisers have conducted money laundering and smuggling activities for the group in Chile, especially in the free-trade zones of Iquique and Arica in the north of the country. According to Chilean authorities, Hezbollah operatives began traveling to the country in 1994. In 2004, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Assad Ahmad Barakat as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his role as a “key terrorist financier” for Hezbollah. According to the designation, Barakat held two residential addresses in Iquique, Chile, at the time. One of Barakat’s Iquique-based companies, Barakat Import Export Ltd, was also designated for its involvement in generating support for Hezbollah, though the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio reported that Barakat had closed it down in 2002. In 2006, the U.S. Treasury also designated Barakat’s brother, Hatem Barakat, for his role as a Hezbollah fundraiser. According to the designation, he was a significant shareholder of at least two businesses in Iquique used to generate funds for Hezbollah as of 2003. He made frequent trips to the city, where he collected funds to transfer to Hezbollah in Lebanon and “possibly” managed a group of suspected Hezbollah members there. Prior to 2005, Chilean authorities identified several additional companies “suspected of serving as either front organizations or shell companies for Hezbollah,” according to the Washington Institute. A leaked 2006 cable from the then-U.S. ambassador to Chile stated that Hezbollah-linked individuals were “increasing their presence and activity in Chile” at the time. (Sources: Washington Institute, U.S. Department of the Treasury, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Infobae, El Mercurio, Fox News, Small Wars Journal)
According to Chilean authorities, Hezbollah operatives began traveling to the country in 1994.
Iranian presence in Chile has also increased through a growing number of Iranian-sponsored cultural centers and mosques, many of which reportedly have links to Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian operative and key planner of the 1994 Hezbollah bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Between 1992 and 1997, Rabbani reportedly made seven trips to Chile, where he established a close relationship with the country’s Shiite community at cultural centers such as the Centro de Cultura Islámica de Las Condes in Santiago and the Organización Chilena Islámica de Cultura in Temuco. These cultural centers as well as several mosques in the country have reportedly continued to be led by individuals with links to Rabbani and the Iranian regime, and have reportedly worked to propagate radical Shiite views as part of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini’s vision to attain a unified, global Islamic state governed by sharia law. (Sources: Nation, Small Wars Journal, El Mostrador, Alberto Nisman, Enlace Judío, National Interest, MEMRI)
ISIS
On February 23, 2015, the website of Chile’s Ministry of Defense was hacked by individuals claiming to be members of ISIS. (Source: Reuters)
In June 2014, ISIS’s al-Hayat media center released a propaganda video entitled “The End of Sykes-Picot” starring a Chilean individual known as Abu Saffiya. Abu Saffiya, whose real name was Bastián Alexis Vásquez, was born in Norway to Chilean parents and never actually resided within Chile. He joined ISIS after living in Spain for many years, and was reportedly killed in January 2016. (Sources: NPR, Los Angeles Daily News, El País)
Anarchist Groups
In recent years, anarchists have attempted to carry out hundreds of bombings in Santiago and other urban areas in Chile.
In recent years, anarchists have attempted to carry out hundreds of bombings in Santiago and other urban areas in Chile. Since 2005, anarchists have claimed responsibility for at least 200 explosive devices that have detonated or been discovered before detonation. The bombs have mainly targeted banks, police stations, army barracks, churches, and government buildings, and while some have inflicted injuries, they have generally not been lethal. In one of the most notorious attacks, a September 2014 bombing at the Escuela Militar metro station in Santiago injured 14 people. The only death linked to an anarchist bombing has been that of the anarchist operative Mauricio Morales, who was killed in 2009 when a bomb that he was planting exploded prematurely. Nonetheless, authorities have struggled to identify and prosecute the perpetrators, or even to discern much information about the anarchist groups responsible, which reportedly may be linked to broader international networks and former Chilean leftist insurgents. Approximately 80 different anarchist groups have claimed responsibility for the bombs, though authorities have been unable to determine if that many groups are indeed active, or if a smaller number of groups simply operate under multiple names. (Sources: BBC News, Clinic, Vice News)
Mapuche Conflict
In recent years, there have also been several attacks carried by indigenous Mapuche individuals seeking land restitution. The indigenous Mapuche people of Chile have been discriminated against and marginalized by the Chilean government since the late 1800s. Most of the land they once inhabited in southern Chile, mainly in the provinces of Araucanía and Bio Bio, has been sold by the government to farmers and forestry companies. Around 1997, some Mapuches began employing violent tactics in campaigns for land restitution, including arson attacks, bombings, and firearm assaults. Most of the attacks have targeted crops, farming equipment, and machinery belonging to white farmers and forestry countries in the region, although some have inflicted casualties, such as a January 2013 arson attack that killed an elderly couple. Mapuche attacks have also targeted churches. In the days preceding Pope Francis’s January 2018 visit to Chile, three Catholic churches in Santiago were firebombed. Authorities found notes at the scene threatening the pope and attributing the bombings to Mapuche individuals. From the beginning of 2014 to August 2017, Mapuches launched a total of 797 attacks in Chile. Some Mapuche attacks have been committed by Mapuche leaders or organized rebel groups, although it is unclear to what extent they are supported by the broader Mapuche population. (Sources: Al Jazeera, La Nación, BBC News, Fox News, Reuters, Human Rights Watch)
Since 2001, the Chilean government has frequently characterized the violence carried out by Mapuches as terrorism and applied the country’s controversial Antiterrorism Law to prosecute those responsible. The Antiterrorism Law, which was passed in 1984 during the Pinochet dictatorship, has been criticized for permitting the violation of due process. Furthermore, the United Nations and other human rights groups have criticized the application of the law to Mapuche crimes––many of which target private property and inflict no casualties––as an arbitrary invocation aimed at further discriminating against the Mapuche nation. The United Nations has also criticized Chile’s police for the use of excessive force against the Mapuches. At least three Mapuche protestors have been shot dead since 2003. (Sources: La Nación, CNN Chile, BBC News, El Mostrador, Globe and Mail, Human Rights Watch, BBC News)
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