Verdugo is a journalist whose father was tortured to death by the Pinochet regime. This is her account of the executions without trial of 75 political prisoners in five Chilean cities, carried out by a military team later called the "Caravan of Death" that was sent out following Pinochet's 1973 coup. Originally published in 1989 as Caso Arellano: los zarpazos del puma, the book is considered one of the key documents that led to Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998. This first English-language edition includes an epilogue describing Chile's high-profile judicial hearings on the killings, through Pinochet's January 2001 indictment for planning and covering them up. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of Chile’s army, rose to power in 1973 when he participated in a military coup to overthrow the president, Salvador Allende. Allende was a Socialist, and the upper classes and the military feared that Socialism would lead to a takeover of the country by the Communist Soviet Union. On September 11 of that year, the military attacked the presidential palace, and Allende committed suicide. Pinochet took charge of the junta formed to rule, naming himself president. Military personnel controlled all phases of the government and industry, and the junta shut down the Congress. National police were stationed on almost every block to enforce curfews and keep order, arresting thousands of Socialists and other “enemies of the state.” Many were tortured, many were exiled or fled into exile, and many just disappeared. The secret police even assassinated opponents outside the country. Pinochet ruled the country with an iron fist for seventeen years even as he brought reforms that stabilized the economy. Increasing unrest and economic problems eventually forced him from office. He was arrested when in Great Britain a few years later and charged with murder and other crimes against humanity. Released for medical reasons, he returned to Chile. He died there in 2006, under indictment for murder and other crimes. Read this book to learn how a trusted military leader became a ruthless dictator, all in the name of protecting his country.

Reckoning with Pinochet is the first comprehensive account of how Chile came to terms with General Augusto Pinochet’s legacy of human rights atrocities. An icon among Latin America’s “dirty war” dictators, Pinochet had ruled with extreme violence while building a loyal social base. Hero to some and criminal to others, the general cast a long shadow over Chile’s future. Steve J. Stern recounts the full history of Chile’s democratic reckoning, from the negotiations in 1989 to chart a post-dictatorship transition; through Pinochet’s arrest in London in 1998; the thirtieth anniversary, in 2003, of the coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende; and Pinochet’s death in 2006. He shows how transnational events and networks shaped Chile’s battles over memory, and how the Chilean case contributed to shifts in the world culture of human rights. Stern’s analysis integrates policymaking by elites, grassroots efforts by human rights victims and activists, and inside accounts of the truth commissions and courts where top-down and bottom-up initiatives met. Interpreting solemn presidential speeches, raucous street protests, interviews, journalism, humor, cinema, and other sources, he describes the slow, imperfect, but surprisingly forceful advance of efforts to revive democratic values through public memory struggles, despite the power still wielded by the military and a conservative social base including the investor class. Over time, resourceful civil-society activists and select state actors won hard-fought, if limited, gains. As a result, Chileans were able to face the unwelcome past more honestly, launch the world’s first truth commission to examine torture, ensnare high-level perpetrators in the web of criminal justice, and build a public culture of human rights. Stern provides an important conceptualization of collective memory in the wake of national trauma in this magisterial work of history.

Presents an account of the short rise and fall of President Salvador Allende, who died of gunshot wounds on September 11, 1973, following the military coup that deposed him.

Based on a conference held in Washington, DC, 13-14 Mar 1995.

Through a collection of essays by leading scholars in the field, State Crime offers a set of cases exemplifying state criminality along with various methods for controlling governmental transgressions.

In 1973, Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Chilean government, unleashing two decades of military dictatorship. Zita Cabello-Barrueto's brother, Winston, was an early victim of Pinochet's brutal regime. While being held as a political prisoner, Winston was murdered by the Caravan of Death, a band of military officers ordered by Pinochet to travel throughout Chile, and tasked with disposing of dissenting voices. Heartbroken over the loss of her brother and facing the lies, threats, and denials of the Chilean government, Cabello-Barrueto embarked on a thirty-year mission to bring Winston's killers to justice. From her adopted home in California, Cabello-Barrueto traveled between the United States and Chile, searching out witnesses to the crime and slowly uncovering the truth. While the government claimed that Winston had been killed during a failed escape attempt, reality was harsher: he was executed in the desert and buried in a mass grave with other political prisoners. With the assistance of Chilean collaborators and a team of pro-bono US lawyers, the Cabello family won a landmark civil lawsuit against the officer responsible for Winston's death. In Search of Spring is the true story of a sister's search for answers, and an inspiration to others who speak out against human rights violations and demand accountability for the perpetrators.

Verdugo is a journalist whose father was tortured to death by the Pinochet regime. This is her account of the executions without trial of 75 political prisoners in five Chilean cities, carried out by a military team later called the "Caravan of Death" that was sent out following Pinochet's 1973 coup. Originally published in 1989 as Caso Arellano: los zarpazos del puma, the book is considered one of the key documents that led to Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998. This first English-language edition includes an epilogue describing Chile's high-profile judicial hearings on the killings, through Pinochet's January 2001 indictment for planning and covering them up. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

In Giving Life to the Faith, Joseph Florez offers an account of Pentecostal activism and the search for a new interpretation of Christian social responsibility during the extraordinary circumstances of everyday life during the Chilean dictatorship.

Revised and updated: the definitive primary-source history of US involvement in General Pinochet’s Chilean coup—“the evidence is overwhelming” (The New Yorker). Published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet’s infamous September 11, 1973, military coup in Chile, this updated edition of The Pinochet File reveals the shocking, formerly secret record of the US government’s complicity with atrocity in a foreign country. The book now completes the file on Pinochet’s story, detailing his multiple indictments between 2004 and his death on December 10, 2006, including the Riggs Bank scandal that revealed how the dictator had illegally squirreled away over $26 million in ill-begotten wealth in secret American bank accounts. When it was first released in hardcover, The Pinochet File contributed to the international campaign to hold Pinochet accountable for murder, torture, and terrorism. A new afterword tells the extraordinary story of Henry Kissinger’s attempt to undercut the book’s reception—efforts that generated a major scandal that led to a high-level resignation at the Council on Foreign Relations, illustrating the continued ability of the book to speak truth to power. “The Pinochet File should be considered the long awaited book of record on U.S. intervention in Chile . . . A crisp compelling narrative, almost a political thriller.” —Los Angeles Times