The CHRONOLOGY provides a general overview of the period beginning September 11, 1973 to the present. The Derechos Chile team will add more information about events prior to the coup in the near future. This chronology is not intended to be an exhaustive list of human rights-related events, but, rather, aims to provide a framework to better understand the material contained in other parts of this site, as well as the backdrop to the LANDMARK EVENTS.

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1973-1977

MARCH 11, 1974 The military Junta defines the objectives of the regime through its "Declaration of Principles," which serves as the foundation by which to justify its permanence. The main points of the declaration are: that the regime is inspired by Christian principles and identifies exclusively with "Christian western civilization;" that Chile needs a permanent change towards a more authoritarian political style and that the regime’s duration will be determined by the achievement of objectives and not by formal procedures. The declaration also recognizes the rights inherent in every individual and states that respect for the individual is the basis of democracy.

APRIL 14, 1974 The regime’s fourth cabinet introduces Sergio De Castro as Economic Minister. De Castro, a former professor at the Chicago School of Economics, is key to the regime’s increasing emphasis on free market economics. He is accompanied by Jorge Cauas as Finance Minister, a monetarist, who focuses on reduction of the public debt.

APRIL 24,1974 The Catholic Church sets out the conditions necessary for true national reconciliation in a document entitled "Reconciliation of Chile," released during the year designated by the Pope as the International Year of Reconciliation. The Chilean church’s conditions include a return to a constitutional state and unconditional respect for basic rights and freedoms. It also deplores poverty and unemployment, which it attributes to the economic measures taken by the regime.

JUNE 14, 1974 The National Intelligence Agency (DINA), the military regime’s secret police, is created. The DINA functioned with broad powers until mid-1977 under the direction of General Manuel Contreras. The DINA operated several secret detention and torture centers throughout Chile and is also later implicated in crimes committed abroad such as the assassinations of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. and Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires, and the attempt on Bernardo Leighton’s life in Rome.

JUNE 17, 1974 The regime declares all executive powers to lie in the president of the Junta, General Augusto Pinochet. Through Decree Law No. 527, the Junta legalizes the separation of state powers, giving the president special attributions.

JUNE 1974 All electoral registers are destroyed as stipulated by Decree Law No. 130. The Junta states that "research carried out by public and university organizations has proven the existence of grave and extensive electoral fraud," necessitating the development of a new electoral system.

AUGUST 23, 1974 The Permanent Episcopate Committee petitions General Augusto Pinochet to end the state of siege and to formally pardon individuals unduly imprisoned since the coup.

FEBRUARY 19, 1975. Four MIR leaders, who had been arrested by the DINA, appear on national television to declare the political and military defeat of the MIR and to call on their party to renounce armed struggle.

MARCH 25, 1975 Milton Friedman, founder of the Chicago School of Economics, visits Chile. His stay roughly coincides with changes to the Junta’s economic policy, influenced by a group of monetarists dubbed "the Chicago boys" after Friedman’s thought.

JULY 23, 1975 A list of 119 disappeared Chileans are reported dead in the foreign media. The Chilean media reproduce two lists of disappeared people, originally published in Argentina and Brazil. The first list of 60 people, appears in an obscure Argentine magazine "LEA" on July 15. A second list of 59 Chileans, also disappeared, is taken from Brazil’s "O Dia" on July 17, the only issue of that magazine ever published. The deceased Chileans are reported to be MIR members, victims of infighting among factions. The Chilean media conclude that these press reports confirm the Junta’s argument that the disappeared are extremists who have gone underground or moved abroad, is in fact true. However, subsequent investigations and eyewitness accounts prove the entire incident to be a fabrication called "Operation Colombo" carried out by the Chilean military regime in collaboration with intelligence forces from other countries. The 119 remain disappeared.

JULY 31, 1975 Ninety-five political prisoners go on a hunger strike to denounce the falsehood of the list of 119 disappeared. The striking prisoners, from the Melinka concentration camp in Puchuncavi, claim to know of at least 33 individuals from the list of 119 that were confined and tortured alongside them in different detention centers run by the DINA secret police.

AUGUST 1, 1975 The state-run television station, Television Nacional, suspends the Mafalda cartoon series, based on Argentine artist Quino’s comic strip, for its critical and "destructive" tendencies. The station’s director Jaime del Valle says the decision was made after receiving numerous complaints from viewers.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1975 The Comando Conjunto anti-Communist squad is formed, joining officers from the Air Force intelligence service SIFA, the Navy and Carabineros as well as former members of the civilian paramilitary group Patria y Libertad. The commando is led by SIFA chief Colonel Edgardo Ceballos Jones and has as its principal objective the elimination of the Communist Party (PC). From the Comando Conjunto’s creation until the end of 1976, two successive central committees of the PC and numerous members of the Communist Youth, are arrested and made to disappear. The Rettig report holds the Comando Conjunto responsible for at least 30 of these disappearances while other sources cite figures as high as 70.

OCTOBER 6, 1975 Bernardo Leighton and his wife Ana Fresno escape an assassination attempt in Rome where they live in voluntary exile. Leighton, former vice-president under president Eduardo Frei Montalva, was one of the few Christian Democrats to oppose the 1973 military coup from the outset and was an advocate of dialogue between his party and the Chilean left.

NOVEMBER 27, 1975 The Comite para la Paz is dissolved due to pressure from the regime. In a letter to Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez requesting the organization’s closure, General Augusto Pinochet says the regime considers the Comite to be a "medium used by Marxist-Leninists to create problems that disrupt the peace of the citizenry...."

JANUARY 5, 1976 The Vicaria de la Solidaridad (Vicaria) is formally created. The church-run organization is dedicated to defending human rights under the dictatorship. The Vicaria broadly defines its mission as giving legal, economic, technical and spiritual assistance to those in need but in fact, its most renown work is in documenting the human rights abuses that occurred under the dictatorship and providing legal assistance to the victims and their families. This aspect of the Vicaria’s work is gradually abandoned with Chile’s return to civilian rule and today it runs an archives and documentation center containing materials relevant to human rights in Chile.

JANUARY 9, 1976 The State Council is created through Constitutional Act No. 1. The new Council has the status of a consultative body without decision-making capacity and which makes pronouncements on the request of the president. The Council is comprised of former presidents and 16 others designated by the current president. Former president Eduardo Frei Montalva refuses to join the State Defense Council.

JANUARY 5, 1976 The Inter-American Human Rights Committee of the Organization of American States condemns human rights violations in Chile. El Mercurio newspaper publishes details of the OAS report, constituting the first public denouncement of this magnitude made in Chile since the military coup.

JULY 16, 1976 The Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, is found dead two days after his disappearance. The body of Soria, who worked at the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) in Santiago, is found alongside his car. The murder is later attributed to the DINA’s Mulchen Brigade and the amnesty law applied to the case.

JULY 30, 1976 The Apsi magazine begins circulation, marking the first step in what would be a gradual reappearance of opposition media.

JULY 1976 The United States government approves the "Kennedy Amendment", which bans military assistance to Chile. General Augusto Pinochet criticizes the US policy of conditional aid.

SEPTEMBER 13, 1976 Individual rights and freedoms are listed under the title "Of Constitutional Rights and Duties" through Act No. 3. While comprehensive in its definitions, these rights are often debilitated by other provisions in the same proclamation. The article on freedom of expression, for example, also declares illicit any diffusion of ideas that are "contrary to the regime" and the right to free association is limited by the ongoing prohibition on political parties.

SEPTEMBER 13, 1976 The varying degrees of states of emergency and the restrictions and state powers conferred by them are defined by the Junta’s Constitutional Act No. 4. External war justifies a state of assembly; internal war or commotion calls for a state of siege; latent subversion allows for a state of defense against subversion and in the case of public calamity a state of catastrophe can be called.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1976 Orlando Letelier, former ambassador to the United States, is murdered by a car bomb in Washington D.C. along with his assistant, U.S. citizen Ronnie Moffit. This occurs less than two weeks after the military Junta revoked Letelier’s Chilean citizenship. Letelier, who had been Defense Minister under President Salvador Allende, was taken prisoner by the military on the day of the coup and later exiled. He was a vocal opponent of Pinochet while residing in the U.S. where he worked at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.

NOVEMBER 17, 1976 The Junta decrees the release of 304 political prisoners who had been arrested in the days following the 1973 military coup, 115 men and 19 women from Tres Alamos and 168 from the Puchuncavi prison camp. Eighteen prisoners are expelled from the country and two, Luis Corvalan and Jorge Montes, remain in confinement. A simultaneous decree annuls the internal exile of 198 people.

NOVEMBER 29, 1976 Thirteen Communist Party (PC) leaders are arrested, marking the beginning of a second crackdown on the PC by the military. By late December, intelligence forces have successfully wiped out the entire PC central committee for the second time in one year.

JUNE 14, 1977 A hunger strike is held in the offices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in Santiago to draw attention to the problem of the disappeared.

JULY 9, 1977 General Augusto Pinochet outlines the stages of a gradual transition to a "new democracy," effectively prolonging the military regime until 1985. In a speech at Cerro Chacarillas, Pinochet states that this transition would begin January 1, 1981 with some constitutional reforms and would culminate with the restoration of a legislative chamber. The Junta would continue to exist and would designate two-thirds of the legislature until 1985. After that time, legislators would be elected by popular vote. The opposition criticizes Pinochet’s plan to prolong the military regime well into the future.

AUGUST 13, 1977 The DINA secret police is dissolved and replaced by the National Information Central (CNI). The broad powers exercised by the DINA and its implication in the Letelier assassination are deemed by the regime to be damaging its international image and precipitate the demise of the secret agency. Many of the key DINA leaders are given important posts in the CNI, which is dependent on the Defense Ministry rather than the Interior Ministry, as was its predecessor. Many opponents of the regime interpreted the dissolution of the DINA as a sign that repression against them would slacken, but over time the CNI proved to play virtually the same role as the DINA had.

NOVEMBER 10, 1977 The CNI intelligence agency issues its first public statement confirming that two "extremists" die in an explosion in San Miguel, Santiago.