Augusto Pinochet Quotes (1915-2006)

“The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Comptroller. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all.”

“The freedoms which had been so hard won from colonial domination were being crushed by Soviet-inspired and funded military and political forces. Their clear intention was to deprive the people of their democratic freedoms. As history shows, this is what had happened in the Soviet Union and in Cuba, and continues to be the case in other parts of the world.”

“The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Public Accounts Control. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all.”

“I think Pinochet has been proven to be an evil dictator in the eyes of most people in the world, and most people see Allende as a dreamer and even as a visionary.”

“The political future of Chile is a democracy, without a doubt. Pinochet is not eternal; immortality is going to fail him at any moment.”

“Although he was authoritarian and ruled dictatorially, Pinochet's support of neoliberal economic policies and his unwillingness to support national businesses distinguished him from classical fascists.”

“Friedman, by contrast, hates and fears a government that prohibits use of recreational drugs in your home almost as much as he hates and fears a government that won't let you undersell your politically-powerful competitors. For Friedman, Pinochet is a bad--an aggressive, powerful military dictator--whose evil the Chicago Boys can curb by persuading him to adopt laissez-faire policies.”

“I think the Pinochet trial has forced us look one another in the face … to speak to one another, to understand the past and understand that time is not going to solve the problem. In a way it has been a victory for the dead of Chile.”

“Augusto Pinochet saved Chile from Communism and set it on the path to economic success. He also ran a regime that killed thousands. Pinochet replaced a threatened Communist dictatorship with a real military one, bringing material prosperity while violently suppressing freedom. He reluctantly laid the foundation for democracy and surrendered power. Thereafter, he faced incessant legal problems.”

“I have certainly never contended that generally authoritarian governments are more likely to secure individual liberty than democratic ones, but rather the contrary. This does not mean, however, that in some historical circumstances personal liberty may not have been better protected under an authoritarian than democratic government. [...] More recently I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende. Nor have I heard any sensible person claim that in the principalities of Monaco or Lichtenstein, which I am told are not precisely democratic, personal liberty is smaller than anywhere else!”