Word: pinochets
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte...
...balmy Sunday evening, and General Augusto Pinochet was making the 23-mile trip back to the capital, Santiago, from his weekend retreat at El Melocoton, accompanied by his ten-year-old grandson. The President's armor- plated Mercedes was the fourth in a five-car caravan. Suddenly, an oncoming car pulling a small camping trailer swerved across the road, blocking the presidential motorcade. "Intense firing began," Pinochet later recalled, "with machine guns, rifles and bazookas or possibly rocket launchers and some hand grenades." The barrage, which came both from the trailer and the surrounding hillsides, cut down the two motorcycle...
Although his vehicle was under heavy machine-gun fire and was rocked by at least one grenade explosion, Pinochet's driver managed to slam the car into reverse, whip around in a U-turn, and speed out of the circle of fire and back to El Melocoton. All but one carload of bodyguards stayed behind to shoot it out with the guerrillas. When the battle was over, five security men were dead and eleven wounded. Despite a widespread manhunt by army units and the paramilitary carabineros, all the attackers, whose number was estimated at between twelve and 40, slipped away...
...Senator's tirade was prompted by Barnes' presence at a funeral procession for Rodrigo Rojas de Negri, 19, a Chilean-born resident of Rockville, Md., who had been killed during a general strike against the Pinochet regime on July 2. While visiting a shantytown near Santiago, witnesses said, de Negri and a Chilean student were doused with gasoline and set on fire by uniformed men with grease-blackened faces. Riot police later tear- gassed the funeral march. The U.S. had urged Chile to investigate the murder, and last week the army announced that it had arrested 25 soldiers...
This time, however, the Reagan Administration decided that Helms had gone too far. Undercutting U.S. policy while visiting a foreign country is "indefensible," said Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs. After Pinochet announced his intention to remain as President of Chile until 1997, Abrams argued that Helms might be "playing into the hands of the Communists" by supporting "an indefinite extension of military rule rather than a transition to democracy." Abrams said that he had approved Barnes' attendance at the funeral. State Department Spokesman Bernard Kalb pointedly described Barnes as "one of the most experienced...