Left Wing Terrorism in Chile

The MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement, Chile) and Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front waged a revolutionary war in Chile from 1965 until 1989. The Chilean Left Wing guerrillas initially advocated revolution to overthrow the longest-standing democracy in Latin America in order to establish a Communist dictatorship.

On 4 September 1970, when Chileans elected as president Salvador Allende Gossens a Marxist, the MIR decided to carry out his socialist reforms by force. This resulted in the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on 11 September 1973 who defeated the MIR through detentions, disappearances and counterinsurgency warfare.

Guerrilla warfare

During the first three months of the Pinochet military regime, the Chilean armed forces and carabiniers suffered 162 deaths in several clashes with the guerrillas and civilian supporters of the MIR and Chilean Communist Party.

Between 1980 and 1990 the following losses through Left Wing Terrorism were recorded:

   * 53 civilians killed, direct victims of bombs or assassinations by terrorists or left-wing radicals.

   * Some 60 people died and 510 were injured after the collision and derailment of two trains when guerrillas or civilian supporters sabotaged one of the train lines in Limache.

   * 200 carabiniers, members of the Army, Air Force, Navy, private security guards were killed in the line of duty.

At the end of March 2013, it was announced that the Chilean government was considering the proposal by parliamentarians to compensate the nearly 30,000 Chilean Soldiers Conscripts mobilized after the Coup d'etat and that remained almost double the expected time in national service.

Experts believe that post-traumatic stress syndrome is behind 250 suicides of former Chilean conscripts during the last four decades.