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General '''Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte''' (1915–2006) was a [[Chile]]an [[soldier]] and [[politiciangeneral]] who became Chile's head of state (or dictator) from 1973 to 1990. He came to power as a member of a council of military leaders after the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President [[Salvador Allende]]. US intelligence reports implicated Allende in Pinochet closed down the assassination of several opponents,<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref> while KGB files smuggled out of Russia by Vasily Mitrokhin indicate that Allende received funds from the Soviet Union.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium</ref> Allende was formally condemned by Chile's parliament for systematically destroying democracy in Chile.<ref>“Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy,” Resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, Chile, August 22, 1973.</ref> The Chilean Chamber of Deputies Resolution of August 22National Congress, 1973banned political parties and established a secret police (DINA, accused Allende of support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, confiscating private property, and not allowing people later CNI) to leave the countryliquidate his political opponents. In the infamous "Cuban Packages Scandal" that precipitated early period of his dictatorship Pinochet sought the coup, large quantities advise and expertise of weapons were sent from Castro's Cuba to arm pro-Allende terrorists [[Nazis]] residing in Chile.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium</ref> Kissinger privately told Nixon that Allende might declare martial law.<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref> By 1973, such as a result of covert US aid to Chilean dissidents Walter Rauff and financing Paul Schaefer (founder and leader of pro-democracy protestors, US intelligence indicated Allende would likely lose the next Chilean election if it was held.<ref>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=15648</ref> According Nazi Colonia Dignidad) to ''The Wall Street Journal,'' faced with illegal seizures of farms design and factories, establish a system of defiance of judicial orders, unchecked street violence [[concentration camp]]s and death threats against the judges themselves, the Supreme Court warned on May 26, 1973, in to employ a unanimous and unprecedented message, that Chile faced "a peremptory or imminent breakdown policy of legality."<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_reallyforce disappearance.html</ref> Volodia Teitelboim, Pinochet banned the chief ideologue of the Communist Party sole human rights organisation that remained in Chile, declared that if civil war came, "it probably would signify immense loss The Committee For Peace"; as a response in 1976 the [[Roman Catholic Church]] established the "Vicariat of Solidarity" - an underground human lives, between half a million rights organisations that assisted victims of the regime and one million."<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref> On September 11, 1973, Allende committed suicide during a military coup launched by Pinochet, who became Presidentdocumented human rights abuses.

==Assassination of General Carlos Prats==General Carlos Prats and his wife were killed by a car bomb on 30 September 1974, in Buenos Aires, where they lived in exile. The Chilean DINA has been held responsible. In Chile, Judge Alejandro Solís terminated the prosecution of Pinochet in January 2005 after the Chilean Supreme court rejected his demand to revoke Pinochet's immunity from prosecution (as chief of state). The leaders of DINA, including chief Manuel Contreras, ex-chief of operations and retired general Raúl Itturiaga Neuman, his brother Roger Itturiaga, and ex-brigadiers Pedro Espinoza Bravo and José Zara, were charged in Chile with this assassination. DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel has been convicted in Argentina for the murder. ==Attempted Assassination of Bernardo Leighton==Bernardo Leighton and his wife were severely injured by gunshots on 5 October 1976, while in exile in Rome. According to declassified documents in the National Security Archive and Italian attorney general Giovanni Salvi, who led the prosecution of former DINA head Manuel Contreras, Stefano Delle Chiaie met with Michael Townley and Virgilio Paz Romero in Madrid in 1975 to plan the murder of Bernardo Leighton with the help of Franco's secret police.[55] ==Assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington DC==Another target was [[Orlando Letelier]], a former minister of the Chilean Allende government. Letelier was appointed the ambassador from Chile to the [[United States]] while [[Salvador Allende]] was in power. He was one of the first members of Allende's former government to be arrested by the Pinochet regime. However, he was released twelve months later due to pressure from Venezuela and the United States. He was ordered to leave Chile, upon which he moved to Washington D.C. He then spend his time lobbying to Congress and other European governments against Pinochet's regime. For this reason he became the voice of Chile's resistance movement. He then got a job as the Director of Planning and Development at the Institute for Policy Studies. Ronni Moffitt was Letelier's assistant at the Institute. She was 26 and recently married when she died. On September 21, 1976 as Letelier and Moffitt traveled to work with Moffitt's husband Michael, the car they were driving suddenly exploded. Letelier and Moffitt both later died at the hospital, while Ronni's husband Michael survived the blast. Although it was not initially clear who had been responsible for the bombing, Letelier had showed up on DINA's radar since his move to the United States. It is also known that the Chilean government had revoked Letelier's citizenship in only several days before the explosion that killed him. The United States government suspected Colonel Contreras as having a part in the assassination of Letelier and Moffitt, however, he divulged nothing to Harry Kissinger and the CIA.[56] Michael Townley, General Manuel Contreras (former head of the DINA), and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo (also formerly of DINA), were convicted of the murders. In 1978, Chile agreed to transfer Townley to the U.S. in order to reduce the tension about Letelier's murder. Townley was freed and taken into the US witness protection program. The U.S. is still waiting for Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza to be extradited, on charges of murder. In December 2004 Francisco Letelier, the son of Orlando Letelier, wrote in an OpEd column in the [[Los Angeles]] Times that his father's assassination was part of Operation Condor, which he described as "an intelligence-sharing network used by six South American dictators of that era to eliminate dissidents."[57] ==Allegations from Supporters of the Pinochet Regime==US intelligence reports implicated Allende in the assassination of several opponents,<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref> while KGB files smuggled out of Russia by Vasily Mitrokhin indicate that Allende received funds from the Soviet Union.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium</ref> Allende was formally condemned by Chile's parliament for systematically destroying democracy in Chile.<ref>“Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy,” Resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, Chile, August 22, 1973.</ref> The Chilean Chamber of Deputies Resolution of August 22, 1973, accused Allende of support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country. In the infamous "Cuban Packages Scandal" that precipitated the coup, large quantities of weapons were sent from Castro's Cuba to arm pro-Allende terrorists in Chile.<ref>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium</ref> Kissinger privately told Nixon that Allende might declare martial law.<ref>http://nixontapeaudio.org/chile/517-004.pdf</ref>  By 1973, as a result of covert US aid to Chilean dissidents and financing of pro-democracy protestors, US intelligence indicated Allende would likely lose the next Chilean election if it was held.<ref>http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=15648</ref> According to ''The Wall Street Journal,'' faced with illegal seizures of farms and factories, of defiance of judicial orders, unchecked street violence and death threats against the judges themselves, the Supreme Court warned on May 26, 1973, in a unanimous and unprecedented message, that Chile faced "a peremptory or imminent breakdown of legality."<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref> Volodia Teitelboim, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party in Chile, declared that if civil war came, "it probably would signify immense loss of human lives, between half a million and one million."<ref>http://www.lyd.com/noticias/violencia/what_really.html</ref> On September 11, 1973, Allende committed suicide during a military coup launched by Pinochet, who became President.  General Pinochet headed a military government for 17 years (1973-1990), which suppressed [[communist]] revolutionaries in Chile, . Pinochet's military government drafted and got imposed a new Constitution approved in (1980 ) that established a gradual and legal path for the return to full democracyand introduced a new binomial electoral system. The constitution introduced an amnesty law for all military officials, and Pinochet granted himself the title of senator for life (''Senador vitalicio'') that would be enacted once he left the post of Commander in Chief of the Chilean Armed Forces.