Title: CHILE, Il rumore delle sciabole
Photographer(s): Ivo Saglietti
Writer(s): G.Lapasini,I.Moretti, M.Matteuzzi, G.P.Castano
Designer(s): Cooperativa editoriale "Nuova Brianza, Milano, Italy
Publisher(s): LM Editoriale,FIOM-Cgil Lombardia, Milano, Italy
Year: 1989
Print run:
Language(s): Italian
Pages: 144
Size: 24,5 x 33,5 cm
Binding: Softcover
Edition:
Print: Cooperativa editoriale "Nuova Brianza, Milano, Italy
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Cile, 1989
ISBN:
11 September 1973: a coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte supported by the Armada (navy) and the air force wiped out the political, economic and social project of Salvator Alliende Gossens and Unidad Popular, which had also been elected by the people.
The discontent on the part of the military has deep roots in the history of Chile, one has to go back many years to understand that the nation's Armed Forces were first decimated by mercenaries hired by the British and Prussians in order to manage the mineral resources (1890) and continued in 1925 when the government blocked various progressive reforms (including a pay rise for the military). It was at this time that the Army Colonels symbolically occupied the Senate by beating their sables on the benches. That day went down in Chilean history as El ruido de los sables , the rattling of sables. Further humiliations followed and the distance between politics and the military deepened to the point where Republican Militias were created that reduced the Army's numbers to only 2.000 men.
What remained of the Chilean Army's history locked itself away in the barracks, isolating itself from civil society and harbouring a deep resentment that Salvador Allende served with on 11 September 1973.
On 5 October 1988 with 56% NO the Chilean people regained democracy, the following year, on 14 December, general elections were held after 17 years of dictatorship.