In my recent article about Santiago, I noted that Chileans, though friendly and welcoming, seemed more subdued than their Latin American neighbors. Throughout my stay, I heard people talk about a persistent sadness in the country. They attributed it to the lingering effects of kidnappings, torture, disappearances, and deaths that characterized the military regime from 1973 to 1990. I was intrigued, so I began a search for remnants of Chile’s dictatorship in Santiago…
The End of Democracy in Chile
But it helps to know some history before exploring the many remnants of Chile’s dictatorship.
Chile was a stable democracy for more than 40 years when a socialist politician, Salvador Allende, assumed the presidency in 1970. Allende pursued new social programs, land reform, and the nationalization of key industries. And that agenda put him on a collision course with conservatives, the military, and the United States—which feared the spread of socialism in its backyard.
Allende’s policies sparked inflation, food shortages, strikes, and protests. The President’s opponents blamed leftist ideology for the crisis and demanded his ouster. So the military stepped in to restore order.
Chile’s Military Coup
On September 11, 1973, the Chilean armed forces attacked La Moneda Palace—the seat of the presidency and several cabinet offices. The United States endorsed the move. Government officials were forcibly ushered from the building and detained. Allende died in his office—by suicide, officially. But the circumstances of his death remain in dispute.
The Start of Military Rule in Chile
With Allende out of the way and his government toppled, the military firmly took charge. They turned their attention to ideological opponents and anyone deemed subversive. Tens of thousands of citizens were detained in Santiago alone. Many were tortured or killed.
Military death squads and the secret police roamed the country to detain the opposition. The regime banned public gatherings and imposed curfews. Politicians, journalists, professors, and even judges were targeted—anyone who showed signs of support for Allende or disagreement with the military’s actions. They targeted “subversive” books, too.
(Just three years later, a similar “Dirty War” unfolded across the border in Argentina.)
Chile’s 17-Year Dictatorship
Although several military leaders joined the coup, General Augusto Pinochet became the de facto head of government. He remained dictator of Chile for 17 years. During that time, approximately 30,000-100,000 people were tortured, and 200,000 more were exiled. Between 2,600 and 3,400 citizens were executed—or disappeared and are presumed dead.
The dictatorship finally ended in 1990, when the democratically elected Patricio Aylwin became President.
The Museum of Memory and Human Rights
Twenty years after the return of democracy, Chile opened the Museo de Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights). The modern, multi-level building uses interactive, multimedia exhibits to give an unflinching account of the dictatorship. Torture instruments, victim testimonies, and declassified government records are among the exhibits.
Film footage of the assault on La Moneda is interspersed with witness accounts of that day’s and subsequent events. A massive, 3-story wall of individual photos commemorates the victims. Visitors can also search a database of names to learn the fate of friends and loved ones. There’s no better, single place to grasp the origins, scope, and impact of the dictatorship. And you won’t find as many remnants of Chile’s dictatorship anyplace else.
Plan Your Visit
I spent a couple of hours at the museum and took it all in. But signage in English is limited, and some of the videos lack English subtitles. Get the audio guide for explanations in your preferred language at each numbered display. Or you can book guided visits through a tour operator. The museum is free and open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00-18:00. Visit the museum’s website here.
Guided Tours of Dictatorship Sites in Santiago
The museum is well organized and absolutely worth your time. But I wanted to see in person where key events unfolded throughout the city. And I wanted to ask questions. It wasn’t easy or cheap, but I finally found a company that offers a 7-hour guided “Pinochet Tour” about the dictatorship for $105 per person. (There’s a 2-person minimum, so I ended up paying $210 for the tour to run on my chosen day.)
Benefits of a Guided Tour
It was worth it. The driver and separate, English-speaking guide picked me up at my hotel. Throughout the day we visited far-flung remnants of Chile’s dictatorship in Santiago—efficiently and comfortably. Along the way, the driver and guide enthusiastically answered my questions and shared their families’ stories of the regime. It’s not an experience you could replicate on your own. The tour included the National Stadium, Londres 38, Villa Grimaldi Park, Santiago General Cemetery, and the Museum of Memory. (I made a separate, longer visit to the museum on my own.)
National Stadium
The National Stadium was used as a makeshift concentration camp at the outset of the dictatorship. Between 20,000 and 40,000 people were herded here for interrogation and torture. We weren’t able to enter the stadium on the day of my tour, but photographs displayed at the Museum of Memory gave me a good sense of what unfolded here.
The separate Chile Stadium also was used as an interrogation and torture center. There, Victor Jara—a popular singer who advocated for social justice—was singled out and shot 44 times. The stadium now bears his name.
Londres 38
The former residence at Londres 38 in downtown Santiago is another sinister remnant of Chile’s dictatorship. It was the first regular detention and torture center used by the secret police in the capital. More than 1,000 prisoners, including children, passed through its long, narrow corridors. At least 94 people were executed/disappeared here, including two who were pregnant. Plaques in the sidewalk outside the building memorialize them and reminded me of the brass cobblestones placed throughout Europe in memory of Holocaust victims. The beauty of this neighborhood masks—but cannot erase—the dark history of the place.
Villa Grimaldi Park
Villa Grimaldi was a cultural center and gathering spot until the regime seized it in 1974. For the next four years it served as yet another secret center of interrogation, torture, and disappearance. The site was later sold by the government and razed for development. But local residents intervened to preserve Villa Grimaldi as a memorial site. Notably, Chilean President Bachelet—who opened the Museum of Memory in 2010—was tortured here with her mother during the dictatorship. (I’m sparing you the details of the torture methods used in Chile—they were particularly vile.)
Today, open-air displays recount—in the words of survivors—what happened at Villa Grimaldi. There are recreations of some of the cells, too. But what most impressed me was an indoor exhibit that housed disintegrated railroad ties. They were fished from the ocean, where they once served as anchors for dead or drugged bodies tossed from military aircraft during the regime. I was startled to see a button fused to one piece of metal by corrosion—a surreal remnant of Chile’s dictatorship and the only recoverable trace of the person who once wore it.
Murals
To illustrate the lingering psychological toll of the dictatorship, the guide led me to residential neighborhoods normally not included in the tour. There we saw murals depicting the horrors of authoritarianism. And a pervasive sense of fear and distrust—they, too, are remnants of Chile’s dictatorship.
When a rare, nationwide electrical outage struck Chile toward the end of my tour, military vehicles deployed at key intersections to maintain order as night fell. I wasn’t the only one who kept a wary eye on the troops that night. But the lights came back on, and the night was peaceful.
Santiago General Cemetery
Santiago’s general cemetery is roughly 200 years old and one of the largest in Latin America. So it’s no surprise that many victims of the dictatorship are buried—or at least honored—here. Among them are President Allende and the singer Victor Jara. Interestingly, former East German dictator Erich Honecker is buried here, too. (The Honecker family lived in exile in Chile after the fall of the Berlin Wall.)
Patio 29 at Santiago General Cemetery
Within the sprawling cemetery is a once-secret mass grave, known as Patio 29. The dictatorship used it as a dumping ground for the disappeared until someone leaked what was happening. To date, 126 bodies have been exhumed at the site. Roughly one-quarter of them still have not been identified. One victim was just 13 years old. Now, metal crosses at Patio 29 preserve the memory of the dead. Victor Jara’s tomb is just a short walk away.
Elsewhere in the cemetery is a wall dedicated specifically to persons executed during the dictatorship. A separate memorial wall lists the disappeared—more than a thousand of them.
La Moneda Palace
La Moneda Palace was not part of the guided Pinochet Tour. But my separate walking tour of Santiago made a stop here. A statue of Allende now stands just yards from the doorway where his body exited the palace on the day of the coup. Across the plaza, look for the statue of Diego Portales and note the bullet hole beneath his left eye. It’s one of the few remaining signs of the coup here—a restoration of La Moneda during the regime erased most other traces.
Return to Democracy
Ever since President Aylwin succeeded Pinochet in 1990, there’s been a tug-of-war between those who want to forget the dictatorship and those who insist on remembering its crimes against the people. But an amnesty law passed in 1978 makes it difficult to prosecute persons responsible for atrocities committed until that year. Even Pinochet, who died in 2006, escaped trial.
Limited Justice
But in 2003, the government established a commission to learn the fate of the disappeared. And in 2009 several military officials were indicted. In 2016, a U.S. jury found a former Chilean military officer—Pedro Barrientos Nuñez—liable for $28 million in damages payable to the estate of Victor Jara. Barrientos is accused of participating in the singer’s kidnap, torture, and murder. In 2023—fifty years after Jara’s murder—Barrientos was finally deported to Chile to stand trial.
Meanwhile, Chilean families still search mass graves, mine shafts, and other hiding spots for their missing loved ones.
Final Thoughts
I suspect most tourists don’t set out to find remnants of Chile’s dictatorship. But if you don’t know a country’s history, you can’t understand its people and their collective psyche. That’s true in Spain and Northern Ireland, too, where the impact of prior conflicts also remains evident today.
As uncomfortable as it is to contemplate the horrors of a government that attacks its own citizens, there are valuable lessons to be learned from them. And in Chile, the long shadow of the dictatorship helps to explain the melancholy that still haunts Chilean society 35 years later.
