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Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile)
Encyclopedia
Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) (Spanish
Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria) is a Chile
an political party
and former left-wing guerrilla organization founded on October 12, 1965. At its height in 1973, the MIR numbered some 10,000 members and associates.The group emerged from various student organizations and established a base of support among the trade union
s and shantytowns of Santiago
. Andrés Pascal Allende
, a nephew of Salvador Allende
, president of Chile from 1970 to 1973, was one of its early leaders. Miguel Enríquez Espinosa was the General Secretary of the party from 1967 until his assassination in 1974 by the DINA. Although it distinguished itself with spectacular direct-actions and military actions particularly during the Resistance to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, MIR manifestly rejected terrorism as a form of political or military struggle (see below on the assassination of Edmundo Perez Zujovic
by the VOP).
and the New Left
(by the time of the early opposition to the Vietnam War) , were main ideological issues that the traditional Chilean left - the Socialist Party
and the Communist Party - had to deal with amid their relative political stagnation in the beginning of the sixties. Their "reformist" doctrine of a non-revolutionary road to socialism began to be questioned in a country with political dominance of the right-wing and center-right wing parties strongly supporting USA policies. The questioning for changes, and/or the opposition against such changes, resulted in several breaking up small groups or fractions. From the Communist Party did exit a group identified with the positions of China, called "Maoists", and from the Socialist Party a group of students - mainly from Concepción - more prone to the Cuban Revolution
model but also, to a lesser extent, allocating left-liberal, left-libertarian and anarcho-socialist positions. A the same time, existed in Chile since the post World War II era some minor Trotskyist formations, and minor left libertarian formations, and which also had a discrete ideological influence in the student movement in Santiago and Concepción. The group led by Miguel Enríquez, and temporarely allocated in the cell "Espartaco" at the Socialist Party, Regional Concepcion, called themselves the "Revolutionary Socialists" fraction. It was formed by Miguel and Marco A. Enríquez, B. Van Schowen, Marcello Ferrada-Noli
(a left libertarian and then the leader of the socialist cell "Espartaco" in Concepción), and Jorge Gutiérrez. When this fraction was finally ousted from the Socialist Party (Senator Ampuero) in February 1964, they continued as independent fraction until they merged in the organization VRM. There the young socialists met with Trotskyites and Stalinists, most of them twice their age.
When MIR was founded a year after, the 12 of October 1965 at the locals of an anarchist union in Santiago, a number of less than one hundred persons participated, and all the above ideological tendencies were represented. Revolutionary socialists (by Miguel Enríquez and B. Van Schowen), former communists (represented by the Maoist Cares), Trotskyites (by Dr. Enrique Sepúlveda and Marco Antonio Enríquez, Miguel Enríquez's brother), left-libertarians or social anarchists (by Marcello Ferrada-Noli
), and anarcho-sindicalists (by Clotario Blest). It took some time before the MIR finally could achieve its ultimate identification as a solely Marxist-Leninist political organization. And this was the work of Miguel Enríquez for the two years to come.
The first document approved at MIR foundation congress was the "Tesi Insurreccional", the political-military theses of MIR. The document was written by Miguel Enríquez (Viriato), Marco Antonio Enríquez (Bravo), and Marcello Ferrada-Noli
(Atacama), the three of them from Concepción. Two reasons explain this document and its co-authorship. One is that the group of young students from Concepción led by Miguel Enríquez was the most numerous. The second being that the group from Concepción had internally some different ideological profiles, which were represented in the document by the co-authors. In the first MIR congress was elected Secretario General of MIR Enrique Sepúlveda, Trotskyite. One year later was elected Secretario General the much younger Miguel Enríquez, together with a new representation of tendencies in the Central Committee. After a time thou, the only line that prevailed was the Marxist-Leninist. Both Maoists (and Stalinists) and Trotskyites abandoned MIR or were ousted by the new Secretariat led by Miguel Enriquez. The few anarchist and left liberal cadres remaining in the organization were confined to academic tasks and trusted the ideological polemique with the emergent "Christian Humanism" and old stalinists.
MIR considered itself thereafter a revolutionary vanguard party
and advocated a Marxist-Leninist
model of revolution
in which it would lead the working class
to a "dictatorship of the proletariat
".
In 1969, following the "Osses case", a direct (non-fatal) operative acted by four militants of MIR in Concepción - without the sanction of the leadership of MIR - against the right wing tabloid Noticias de la Tarde, the government of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile used the incident to declared MIR out-law and started the persecution of its known leaders. The government publicized a nation-wide list of 13 young MIR-leaders warranting their capture. Among the thirteen wanted – all of them of age between 22 and 26 years and with links to the University of Concepción - were Doctors Miguel Enríquez and Bautista Van Schouwen
, Professor Marcello Ferrada-Noli
, Medical student Luciano Cruz, Sociologist Nelson Gutiérrez, Lawyer Juan Saavedra Gorriategy, Civil Engineer Aníbal Matamala, and Economist José Goñi
(the last became later Minister of Defence in a later government formed by the PDD and the referred Christian Democratic Party, and Ambassador of Chile in the USA). Some of them were captured after spectacular operatives coordinated by the central headquarters of the Chilean Political Police in Santiago, tortured and imprisoned in the Cárcel of Concepción and in Santiago.
On 1 May 1969, fifteen armed MIR guerrillas stormed the Bío-Bío radio station of Concepción and transmitted a discourse urging the people to take up arms and overthrow the current government.On 21May, a group of local MIR sympathizers took to the streets of Concepción and attacked the branches of 'The City Bank' in the city and the offices of the 'La Patria' newspaper.
The out-law of MIR decreed by the Christian Democratic Government in 1969 determined drastic changes in the organization of MIR which entered a clandestine political existence with semi autonomous operative-structures called Grupos Político-Militares (GPM) and which survived even during the first years of the military resistance of MIR against the 1973 Chilean Coup d’Etat. The threat from the MIR in the eyes of the government was underlined by the discovery at the end of May of a guerrilla training camp in the southern province of
Valdivia.
In June 1971, a small group known as the “Vanguardia Organizada del Pueblo (VOP)”, founded among other by two former MIR militants expulsed from the Organization in 1969 conducted the abduction and cold-blood execution of the former Minister of Interior Affairs during the Christian Democratic government, Mr. Edmundo Pérez Zujovic
. The Minister had been signalled by sectors of the oppositional left and worker-unions as the top government politician supposedly ordering the repression actions ended in the “Masacre de Puerto Montt” (or "Pampa Irigoin") of March 9, 1969. where nine working-class men and woman fell under the fire of the Police in Southern Chile. Following the assassination of Perez Zijovic MIR Political Bureau (Comisión Política) condemned this action in "categorical" terms in a special issued communiqué. MIR explicitly condemned terrorism perpetrated against individuals ("atentado personal") as struggle form . Ideological issues which would help to explain this anti-terrorist posture of MIR have been referred in historical notes by MIR-leaders survivors of the epoch.
Although MIR built up an arsenals of light arms, assault automatic weapons, and also mobile mortar-launchers from its own handcrafted manufacturing (the Talleres), MIR supported rather than opposed the presidency of Salvador Allende and his People's Unity coalition. Nationwide unrest and political polarization escalated, as did left-wing and right-wing violence. Before 1973, the organization may have staged few attacks compared to its urban guerrilla peers, but it did try to infiltrate the Chilean Armed Forces in anticipation of a coup d'état
against Allende and discussed plans to replace the existing police and military with a militia
recruited from the Popular Front's supporters. The MIR commanders, Oscar Garretón and Miguel Enríquez were tasked with infiltrating Chilean Navy personnel.In August 1973, it finally formed the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta
(JCR) with other South America
n revolutionary parties (the Argentine ERP
, the Uruguayan Tupamaros
and the Bolivian National Liberation Army
. However, the JCR never achieved real effectiveness.
bombers, Puma helicopter-gunshipsand the cordoning of Santiago, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from taking part in the action.
These factors may explain both the vigorous and brutal purges of armed forces personnel who were suspected of being sympathetic to Allende after Augusto Pinochet
's 1973 coup d'état and the Operation Condor
campaign of state terrorism
staged throughout the Southern Cone
.
During Pinchet's dictatorship, the group was responsible for several attacks on government personnel and buildings. In 1976 there had been plans to infiltrate 1,200 Marxist guerrillas from Argentina into Chile in an operation christened Plan Boomerang Rojo (Red Boomerang Plan), but the infiltration failed to materialize due to the cooperation with Argentine authorities.
On 15 July 1980, MIR guerrillas killed 43-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Vergara Campos, head of the Chilean Army Intelligence School, also shooting his driver, 42-year-old Sergeant Mario Espinoza Navarro. On 30 August 1983, MIR guerrillas assassinated 57-year-old Major-General Carol Urzúa Ibáñez, military governor of Santiago and his armed escorts, 30-year-old corporal Carlos Rivero Bequiarelli and 34-year-old Corporal José Domingo Aguayo-Franco. During October and November 1983, the MIR bombed four offices of U.S. affiliated corporations. In June 1988, the MIR bombed four banks in Santiago, causing serious structural damage.
According to the Rettig Report
, MIR leader Jecar Neghme was assassinated in 1989 by Chilean state agents.
According to MIR commander Andrés Pascal Allende, in all some 1,500-2,000 MIR members were killed or forcefully disappeared under the Chilean miitary regime.After Chile's return to democracy
in 1990, the party was resurrected. It currently participates in the Juntos Podemos Más
coalition.
against Pinochet. The criminal complaint states that the MIR had been formed in 1965 and that due to ideological and tactical differences did not become part of the Popular Unity government headed by Salvador Allende
. But that – nevertheless - the organisation had served as a base of support for Allende and had shown willingness to confront violent sedition
directed against the Popular Unity government organized by its U.S. backed right-wing opponents.
Subsequently, with the September 11, 1973 Chilean coup and the overthrow and death of Allende Chile entered a period of severe military repression in which members of the former democratically elected socialist Allende government and its supporters were deemed enemies of the state. From the onset on September 11, 1973 the MIR became a major focus of death squads and its members began to be subjected to extrajudicial executions and forced disappearance
s.
As a consequence, the MIR initiated a resistance
against the military junta’s violent repression which accompanied the clandestine publication of the document Qué es el MIR? (What is the MIR?) which proposed a series of resolutions to confront the repression, including political pressure, denunciations and propaganda. On one single page (page 37 of the political document) the MIR presented the political question of arms in this resistance.
The lawsuit noted that the armed struggle was not central to the ideology of the MIR and that it had historically been a political organisation whose strategy had principally involved the mobilization of working class
people and the poor in an attempt to exert political pressure to effectuate political and social change
to advance their political cause.
The lawsuit noted that under the pretext
of war serious violations of human rights
had been committed in violations of both international
and constitutional law
. The document noted that the cruellest example was the extermination
of the MIR political organization - in which according to the document its members fell victims to the following crimes:
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria) is a Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
and former left-wing guerrilla organization founded on October 12, 1965. At its height in 1973, the MIR numbered some 10,000 members and associates.The group emerged from various student organizations and established a base of support among the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s and shantytowns of Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
. Andrés Pascal Allende
Andrés Pascal Allende
Andrés Pascal Allende is a Chilean Marxist revolutionary and nephew of former President Salvador Allende. He is of Basque and Belgian descent.He was born in Santiago, the son of Gastón Pascal Lyon and of Laura Allende Gossens...
, a nephew of Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
, president of Chile from 1970 to 1973, was one of its early leaders. Miguel Enríquez Espinosa was the General Secretary of the party from 1967 until his assassination in 1974 by the DINA. Although it distinguished itself with spectacular direct-actions and military actions particularly during the Resistance to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, MIR manifestly rejected terrorism as a form of political or military struggle (see below on the assassination of Edmundo Perez Zujovic
Edmundo Pérez Zujovic
Edmundo Pérez Zujovic was a Chilean politician of the Christian Democrat Party. He was minister of the Interior, Public Works and Finance under the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva ....
by the VOP).
History
The Sino-Soviet ideological dispute, the Soviet Union's repressive interventions in Czechoslovakia and other Warsaw Pact countries, the presence of the Cuban Revolution in Latin America, and the emergent global student movement inspired in the humanist socialism of the Frankfurt SchoolFrankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
and the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
(by the time of the early opposition to the Vietnam War) , were main ideological issues that the traditional Chilean left - the Socialist Party
Socialist Party of Chile
The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party, that is part of the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, who was deposed by General Pinochet in 1973...
and the Communist Party - had to deal with amid their relative political stagnation in the beginning of the sixties. Their "reformist" doctrine of a non-revolutionary road to socialism began to be questioned in a country with political dominance of the right-wing and center-right wing parties strongly supporting USA policies. The questioning for changes, and/or the opposition against such changes, resulted in several breaking up small groups or fractions. From the Communist Party did exit a group identified with the positions of China, called "Maoists", and from the Socialist Party a group of students - mainly from Concepción - more prone to the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
model but also, to a lesser extent, allocating left-liberal, left-libertarian and anarcho-socialist positions. A the same time, existed in Chile since the post World War II era some minor Trotskyist formations, and minor left libertarian formations, and which also had a discrete ideological influence in the student movement in Santiago and Concepción. The group led by Miguel Enríquez, and temporarely allocated in the cell "Espartaco" at the Socialist Party, Regional Concepcion, called themselves the "Revolutionary Socialists" fraction. It was formed by Miguel and Marco A. Enríquez, B. Van Schowen, Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor andProfessor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences / Epidemiology. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the at the Karolinska Institutet.He earned his PhD in Psychiatry...
(a left libertarian and then the leader of the socialist cell "Espartaco" in Concepción), and Jorge Gutiérrez. When this fraction was finally ousted from the Socialist Party (Senator Ampuero) in February 1964, they continued as independent fraction until they merged in the organization VRM. There the young socialists met with Trotskyites and Stalinists, most of them twice their age.
When MIR was founded a year after, the 12 of October 1965 at the locals of an anarchist union in Santiago, a number of less than one hundred persons participated, and all the above ideological tendencies were represented. Revolutionary socialists (by Miguel Enríquez and B. Van Schowen), former communists (represented by the Maoist Cares), Trotskyites (by Dr. Enrique Sepúlveda and Marco Antonio Enríquez, Miguel Enríquez's brother), left-libertarians or social anarchists (by Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor andProfessor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences / Epidemiology. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the at the Karolinska Institutet.He earned his PhD in Psychiatry...
), and anarcho-sindicalists (by Clotario Blest). It took some time before the MIR finally could achieve its ultimate identification as a solely Marxist-Leninist political organization. And this was the work of Miguel Enríquez for the two years to come.
The first document approved at MIR foundation congress was the "Tesi Insurreccional", the political-military theses of MIR. The document was written by Miguel Enríquez (Viriato), Marco Antonio Enríquez (Bravo), and Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor andProfessor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences / Epidemiology. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the at the Karolinska Institutet.He earned his PhD in Psychiatry...
(Atacama), the three of them from Concepción. Two reasons explain this document and its co-authorship. One is that the group of young students from Concepción led by Miguel Enríquez was the most numerous. The second being that the group from Concepción had internally some different ideological profiles, which were represented in the document by the co-authors. In the first MIR congress was elected Secretario General of MIR Enrique Sepúlveda, Trotskyite. One year later was elected Secretario General the much younger Miguel Enríquez, together with a new representation of tendencies in the Central Committee. After a time thou, the only line that prevailed was the Marxist-Leninist. Both Maoists (and Stalinists) and Trotskyites abandoned MIR or were ousted by the new Secretariat led by Miguel Enriquez. The few anarchist and left liberal cadres remaining in the organization were confined to academic tasks and trusted the ideological polemique with the emergent "Christian Humanism" and old stalinists.
MIR considered itself thereafter a revolutionary vanguard party
Vanguard party
A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
and advocated a Marxist-Leninist
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology, officially based upon the theories of Marxism and Vladimir Lenin, that promotes the development and creation of a international communist society through the leadership of a vanguard party over a revolutionary socialist state that represents a dictatorship...
model of revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
in which it would lead the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
to a "dictatorship of the proletariat
Dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...
".
In 1969, following the "Osses case", a direct (non-fatal) operative acted by four militants of MIR in Concepción - without the sanction of the leadership of MIR - against the right wing tabloid Noticias de la Tarde, the government of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile used the incident to declared MIR out-law and started the persecution of its known leaders. The government publicized a nation-wide list of 13 young MIR-leaders warranting their capture. Among the thirteen wanted – all of them of age between 22 and 26 years and with links to the University of Concepción - were Doctors Miguel Enríquez and Bautista Van Schouwen
Bautista van Schouwen
Bautista van Schouwen Vasey was a medical doctor and one of the founders of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left , the Chilean guerrilla organization which earliest resisted the Military Coup of Augusto Pinochet in 1973...
, Professor Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Ferrada-Noli
Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli is a Swedish medicine doktor andProfessor Emeritus of Public Health Sciences / Epidemiology. He was formerly Professor in Epidemiology and in International Health at the University of Gävle, and Head of the at the Karolinska Institutet.He earned his PhD in Psychiatry...
, Medical student Luciano Cruz, Sociologist Nelson Gutiérrez, Lawyer Juan Saavedra Gorriategy, Civil Engineer Aníbal Matamala, and Economist José Goñi
José Goñi
José Mario Goñi Carrasco is a Chilean diplomat and politician, currently appointed ambassador to the United States. Before this appointment he had served as Minister of National Defense from 2007 to 2009. His previous diplomatic roles include Ambassador to Mexico, Italy and Sweden...
(the last became later Minister of Defence in a later government formed by the PDD and the referred Christian Democratic Party, and Ambassador of Chile in the USA). Some of them were captured after spectacular operatives coordinated by the central headquarters of the Chilean Political Police in Santiago, tortured and imprisoned in the Cárcel of Concepción and in Santiago.
On 1 May 1969, fifteen armed MIR guerrillas stormed the Bío-Bío radio station of Concepción and transmitted a discourse urging the people to take up arms and overthrow the current government.On 21May, a group of local MIR sympathizers took to the streets of Concepción and attacked the branches of 'The City Bank' in the city and the offices of the 'La Patria' newspaper.
The out-law of MIR decreed by the Christian Democratic Government in 1969 determined drastic changes in the organization of MIR which entered a clandestine political existence with semi autonomous operative-structures called Grupos Político-Militares (GPM) and which survived even during the first years of the military resistance of MIR against the 1973 Chilean Coup d’Etat. The threat from the MIR in the eyes of the government was underlined by the discovery at the end of May of a guerrilla training camp in the southern province of
Valdivia.
In June 1971, a small group known as the “Vanguardia Organizada del Pueblo (VOP)”, founded among other by two former MIR militants expulsed from the Organization in 1969 conducted the abduction and cold-blood execution of the former Minister of Interior Affairs during the Christian Democratic government, Mr. Edmundo Pérez Zujovic
Edmundo Pérez Zujovic
Edmundo Pérez Zujovic was a Chilean politician of the Christian Democrat Party. He was minister of the Interior, Public Works and Finance under the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva ....
. The Minister had been signalled by sectors of the oppositional left and worker-unions as the top government politician supposedly ordering the repression actions ended in the “Masacre de Puerto Montt” (or "Pampa Irigoin") of March 9, 1969. where nine working-class men and woman fell under the fire of the Police in Southern Chile. Following the assassination of Perez Zijovic MIR Political Bureau (Comisión Política) condemned this action in "categorical" terms in a special issued communiqué. MIR explicitly condemned terrorism perpetrated against individuals ("atentado personal") as struggle form . Ideological issues which would help to explain this anti-terrorist posture of MIR have been referred in historical notes by MIR-leaders survivors of the epoch.
Although MIR built up an arsenals of light arms, assault automatic weapons, and also mobile mortar-launchers from its own handcrafted manufacturing (the Talleres), MIR supported rather than opposed the presidency of Salvador Allende and his People's Unity coalition. Nationwide unrest and political polarization escalated, as did left-wing and right-wing violence. Before 1973, the organization may have staged few attacks compared to its urban guerrilla peers, but it did try to infiltrate the Chilean Armed Forces in anticipation of a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
against Allende and discussed plans to replace the existing police and military with a militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
recruited from the Popular Front's supporters. The MIR commanders, Oscar Garretón and Miguel Enríquez were tasked with infiltrating Chilean Navy personnel.In August 1973, it finally formed the Revolutionary Coordinating Junta
Revolutionary Coordinating Junta
The Revolutionary Coordinating Junta or JCR was an alliance of leftist South American guerrilla organizations in the mid 1970s...
(JCR) with other South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n revolutionary parties (the Argentine ERP
People's Revolutionary Army (Argentina)
The Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo was the military branch of the communist Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in Argentina...
, the Uruguayan Tupamaros
Tupamaros
Tupamaros, also known as the MLN-T , was an urban guerrilla organization in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. The MLN-T is inextricably linked to its most important leader, Raúl Sendic, and his brand of social politics...
and the Bolivian National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army (Bolivia)
The National Liberation Army was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organization that operated in Bolivia during the 1960s and 1970s. It was formed by Che Guevara and backed by Fidel Castro's government in Cuba and the Soviet-led alliance in the Cold War...
. However, the JCR never achieved real effectiveness.
The day of the military coup
Fewer than sixty individuals died as a direct result of fighting on the 11th of September 1973 although the MIR and GAP continued to fight the following day. In all, 46 of Allende's praetorian guard (the GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales, including ex-Chilean Army Special Forces Black Beret Mario Melo) were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the Moneda.Before the coup, Miguel Enríquez had convinced Allende to form a praetorian guard.Allende's praetorian guard under Cuban-trained commando Ariel Fontana should have had some 300 elite commando-trained GAP fighers defending the palace and nearby buildings in time for the military coup,but the use of brute military force, especially the use of Hawker HunterHawker Hunter
The Hawker Hunter is a subsonic British jet aircraft developed in the 1950s. The single-seat Hunter entered service as a manoeuvrable fighter aircraft, and later operated in fighter-bomber and reconnaissance roles in numerous conflicts. Two-seat variants remained in use for training and secondary...
bombers, Puma helicopter-gunshipsand the cordoning of Santiago, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from taking part in the action.
These factors may explain both the vigorous and brutal purges of armed forces personnel who were suspected of being sympathetic to Allende after Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
's 1973 coup d'état and the Operation Condor
Operation Condor
Operation Condor , was a campaign of political repression involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America...
campaign of state terrorism
State terrorism
State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...
staged throughout the Southern Cone
Southern Cone
Southern Cone is a geographic region composed of the southernmost areas of South America, south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Although geographically this includes part of Southern and Southeast of Brazil, in terms of political geography the Southern cone has traditionally comprised Argentina,...
.
The attempts to establish a guerrilla front
The years 1980-1981 saw the MIR return in strength to the Valdivia province were they sought to establish a guerrilla group in Neltume. The MIR had in September 1970 given basic military training to some 2,000 lumber workers in the Panguipulli Lake area and won over the trust of the general population, some 500 miles south of Santiago. After the Chilean military takeover on 11 September 1973, the Chilean Army deployed the entire 4th Division under Major-General Héctor Bravo in the area of Neltume area after 60-80 local left-wing militants attacked with molotov cocktails the local police station with the aim of capturing the armoury. Between 3 and 4 October 1973 Major-General Bravo ordered the execution of 11 MIR members and sympathizers: José Liendo, Fernando Krauss, René Barrientos, Pedro Barría, Luis Pezo, Santiago García, Víctor Saavedra, Sergio Bravo, Rudemir Saavedra, Enrique Guzmán, Víctor Rudolph, Luis Valenzuela Krauss-Barrientos.On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old Army Corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper. In the renewed military offensives in the area under the Pinochet regime between 1980 and 1981, the MIR guerrillas around Lake Panguipulli with the help of local militants and sympathizers halted the initial advance of the Chilean Army. Later, in order to disperse them and subdue the province, the Chilean Army ordered a full Brigade of elite troops in the form of Special Forces and Paratroopers and their accompanying U.S. military advisors.In the various military operations carried out in the cities of Talcahuano, Concepcion, Los Angeles and Valdivia between 23 and 24 August 1984, the military and police forces deployed executed six MIR militants and sympathizers.On 15 July 1980, MIR guerrillas killed 43-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Vergara Campos, head of the Chilean Army Intelligence School, also shooting his driver, 42-year-old Sergeant Mario Espinoza Navarro. On 30 August 1983, MIR guerrillas assassinated 57-year-old Major-General Carol Urzúa Ibáñez, military governor of Santiago and his armed escorts, 30-year-old corporal Carlos Rivero Bequiarelli and 34-year-old Corporal José Domingo Aguayo-Franco. During October and November 1983, the MIR bombed four offices of U.S. affiliated corporations. In June 1988, the MIR bombed four banks in Santiago, causing serious structural damage.
According to the Rettig Report
Rettig Report
The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report, is a 1991 report by a commission designated by then President Patricio Aylwin encompassing human rights abuses resulting in death or disappearance that occurred in Chile during the years of military rule...
, MIR leader Jecar Neghme was assassinated in 1989 by Chilean state agents.
According to MIR commander Andrés Pascal Allende, in all some 1,500-2,000 MIR members were killed or forcefully disappeared under the Chilean miitary regime.After Chile's return to democracy
Chilean transition to democracy
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
in 1990, the party was resurrected. It currently participates in the Juntos Podemos Más
Juntos Podemos Más
Juntos Podemos Más por Chile is a political coalition created in 2003, consisting of the Communist Party of Chile, the Humanist Party, the Christian Left Party of Chile, and several other smaller left-wing organizations.The...
coalition.
The MIR and the case against Pinochet
Relatives and friends of the MIR members assassinated by the Pinochet regime filed a civil lawsuit before judge Juan Guzmán TapiaJuan Guzmán Tapia
Juan Salvador Guzmán Tapia is a retired Chilean judge who gained international recognition for being the first judge to prosecute former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on human rights charges, after Pinochet's return to Chile following more than a year of house arrest in London, in...
against Pinochet. The criminal complaint states that the MIR had been formed in 1965 and that due to ideological and tactical differences did not become part of the Popular Unity government headed by Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
. But that – nevertheless - the organisation had served as a base of support for Allende and had shown willingness to confront violent sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
directed against the Popular Unity government organized by its U.S. backed right-wing opponents.
Subsequently, with the September 11, 1973 Chilean coup and the overthrow and death of Allende Chile entered a period of severe military repression in which members of the former democratically elected socialist Allende government and its supporters were deemed enemies of the state. From the onset on September 11, 1973 the MIR became a major focus of death squads and its members began to be subjected to extrajudicial executions and forced disappearance
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
s.
As a consequence, the MIR initiated a resistance
Chilean Resistance
Chilean Resistance is the collective term used to refer to a broad range of activities initiated by cultural, social and political organisations in opposition to the Pinochet regime between 1973 and 1990. Among the publications from this movement are the Chilean Resistance Courier and Human...
against the military junta’s violent repression which accompanied the clandestine publication of the document Qué es el MIR? (What is the MIR?) which proposed a series of resolutions to confront the repression, including political pressure, denunciations and propaganda. On one single page (page 37 of the political document) the MIR presented the political question of arms in this resistance.
The lawsuit noted that the armed struggle was not central to the ideology of the MIR and that it had historically been a political organisation whose strategy had principally involved the mobilization of working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
people and the poor in an attempt to exert political pressure to effectuate political and social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...
to advance their political cause.
The lawsuit noted that under the pretext
Pretext
A pretext is an excuse to do something or say something. Pretexts may be based on a half-truth or developed in the context of a misleading fabrication. Pretexts have been used to conceal the true purpose or rationale behind actions and words....
of war serious violations of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
had been committed in violations of both international
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
and constitutional law
Constitutional law
Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....
. The document noted that the cruellest example was the extermination
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
of the MIR political organization - in which according to the document its members fell victims to the following crimes:
- HomicideHomicideHomicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
(first degree murder) - Killings in mock confrontations – irrational use of force (e.g. mobilizing 300 security agents to arrest 4 people.)
- False application of the ‘law of flight’ (executing people for escaping after being informally freed.)
- Mass killings (state terrorism)
- AbductionKidnappingIn criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
and Forced disappearanceForced disappearanceIn international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
s (sanctioned by article 141 of the Criminal Code) - TortureTortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
(violation of the Geneva convention) - Illicit associations (in accordane with Article 292 of the Criminal Code – e.g. DINA, CNI, etc.)
- GenocideGenocideGenocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
(in accordance with Article 2 of CPPCG)
Notable members
- Miguel Enríquez, physician, MIR leader, executed.
- Andrés Pascal AllendeAndrés Pascal AllendeAndrés Pascal Allende is a Chilean Marxist revolutionary and nephew of former President Salvador Allende. He is of Basque and Belgian descent.He was born in Santiago, the son of Gastón Pascal Lyon and of Laura Allende Gossens...
, MIR cofounder and leader. - Luciano Cruz, medical student, cause of death in 1971 remains unresolved.
- Bautista van Schouwen, physician, MIR leader, executed.
- Jorge Müller Silva, cinematographer, forced disappearance.
- Luis Fuentes Labarca, founder of "El Rebelde"
- Jecar Antonio Nehme Cristi, political leader, assassinated.
- Diana Aron Svigilsky, journalist, forced disappearance.
- Cedomil Lausic GlasinovicCedomil Lausic GlasinovicCedomil Lausic Glasinovic was a Chilean agronomist and prominent member of the Marxist-Leninist MIR organisation in Chile.Lausic Glasinovic was born in the southern city of Punta Arenas in the Magallanes region of Chile in 1946...
, agronomist, executed. - José Appel De La Cruz, medical student, forced disappearance.
- William BeausireWilliam BeausireWilliam Robert Beausire was a British stockbroker with dual British and Chilean nationality, abducted while in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974, then taken to a torture centre in Chile and never seen since...
, stockbroker, forced disappearance. - José Gregorio LiendoJosé Gregorio LiendoJosé Gregorio Liendo Vera , also known as compañero Pepe, comandante Pepe or loco Pepe was a Chilean political activist and member of the Revolutionary Left Movement who participated in the land occupations of 1970s in Neltume and led the MIR-MCR attack on the police station of Neltume on...
, leader of MIR group in Neltume, executed by firing squad. - Gustavo MarínGustavo MarínGustavo Marín, a Chilean-French economist and sociologist, is noted in particular for his key role in the creation and development of the longstanding international network, the . Since 2007, he has been Director of the world-governance think tank, the ....
, leader of MIR group in the MapucheMapucheThe Mapuche are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. They constitute a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who shared a common social, religious and economic structure, as well as a common linguistic heritage. Their influence extended...
zone (southern Chile), imprisoned then forced into exile.