Augusto Pinochet: El Dictador
On September 13, Pinochet was named President of Chile. After gaining the Presidency, he dismantled Congress and outlawed many Chilean leftist political parties. Shortly after gaining power in Chile, the Pinochet regime began to target trade union members and labor activists, as well as others who worked within or supported the old guard, who Pinochet’s officers began to see as responsible for what he considered decades of weak and corrupt rule. In June 1975, Pinochet announced that there would be no future democratic elections in the country. During the nearly quarter-century that Chilean people lived under strict military rule, thousands of workers and their families were harassed, arrested, tortured, murdered or disappeared by the state.