Word: pinochets
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...vote was a turning point on Chile's long road back to a nearly 150-year tradition of democracy, which was toppled in the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power. Since ousting the elected, but floundering, government of Marxist President Salvador Allende Gossens, Pinochet has led a military junta that routinely uses terror to enforce its will. Deep scars remain from a 1973-76 antileftist purge in which tens of thousands of Chileans were exiled, tortured or executed. Meanwhile, the politically explosive gulf between rich and poor has steadily grown wider. "We broke an authoritarian system," said Ricardo Lagos...
...years General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, 72, has held Chile in his proud and dictatorial grasp -- once even boasting that "there is not a single leaf in this country that I do not move." So why shouldn't he have believed that Chileans would vote si last week in an extraordinary plebiscite on whether to extend his presidential term to 1997? But shortly before 2 a.m. on Thursday, an ashen-faced official stepped from La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, and headed for a nearby government building. There he told TV viewers that the public had said...
...vote will not transform Chile overnight. If presidential elections are held as scheduled in December 1989, Pinochet, who has already headed the country longer than any other leader, would retain power at least until March 1990. He can also remain commander of the army until 1995. Whenever the voting does take place (opposition leaders have pressed for an earlier date), Chile's traditionally fractious parties will have to agree on a field that allows the winner to emerge with enough support to govern...
...part, Pinochet vowed not to go quietly. Wearing a crisp dress-white uniform, the general accepted "the verdict of the majority" but pledged "to complete my mandate with a patriotic sense." He buttressed the point by refusing to accept the resignation of his 16-member Cabinet, which then agreed to stay...
...constitution also calls for elections in 1990 for a congress, disbanded when Pinochet seized power in a September 1973 coup that ousted President Salvador Allende, a Marxist who won the last presidential election...