“¡Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!”- Emiliano Zapata

Revolutions start when one person or a group can ignite a change with a whisper or action.  Many individuals around the world do not see the sacrifices and little actions that create a big change and carve itself in history. Our country is burning, bombs ricocheting off of homes and building the public needs to be aware of what is going on in Chile the world needs to know what is going on in Chile.

September 4, 1970

Hope was spread in the souls of the Chilean people. Our first democratically elected Marxist president was declared his name is Salvador Allende. This president is different he speaks of this change that we have never heard of or imagined, but it sounds like cielo, heaven. He was apart of Partido Socialista de Chile, The party of socialism. He believes in building Chile to be equal in all aspects some people think he is crazy, the government in the United states do not agree with his methods on how Chile should be ran. His goals are to improve the living conditions of low income and middle class citizens. His way of doing that is to shut down all private owned property and corporations mainly on foreign companies. He plans on nationalizing all businesses such as coal, steel and vital copper. He recently froze all prices and increased wages; he also made medical care and schooling available to all children, his plan doesn’t seem so crazy after all.

September 11, 1973 12:01pm

There are rockets being thrown into the palace they are trying to kill our only hope for a new life. Why are they doing this to us? Who authorized this behavior?  The public has so many questions. They are saying that General Augusto Pinochet lead this disaster because the United States and his army does not believe in the change, I do not understand why they had to take his life to get their point across. My sources tell me that there was a violent military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet the purpose was to overthrow Allende. They offered him a safe exile but he refused; now I know why we supported him as our leader to enter a new way of living.  He had intangible beliefs and principles that shocked the world with new perspective and a chance to experience equality at a greater standpoint. Allende was found with bullet wounds and our future, all we ask is why wasn’t there any say of the people?

September 11, 1973 10:00pm

Ten hours have passed Chile is still in shock, all you can see is gray flakes resembling snow. The air is thick, it’s hard to breath in it, and the public does not know if the lack of ability to breathe is coming from the smoke or the rockets that went off in their chest when our leader was destroyed. We wonder what tomorrow will bring; no one has given us answers yet. Rumors say General Augusto Pinochet will take control, we fear of that he believes in everything Allende was against, if he takes control he would destroy Chile. Our generation, our children, and their children will not have a place to call home and be proud of.

September 7, 1986

When General Augusto Pinochet first got into power the people said we were about to experience a holocaust worse than what Hitler did to the Jewish people. It has happened. His plans were to create concentration camps of anyone opposing against him. That basically means all of the Chilean people because we wanted the change of socialism, the idea sounded promising.  It’s been almost a decade since Pinochet has gotten into power, on national protest day we as citizens had decided to bang on pots and pans and march into Santiago, which is the capital. It’s been a few months since we have had peaceful protests but now extremist are beginning to turn violent, which means the government now has another right to attack us using violence. From the outside looking in some people may think the Chilean people are not fighting against this, one brave person attempted to assassinate Pinochet. Since it was a failure he believes he is an immortal creature, his behavior has gotten worse since the failed attempt of his death. He has created a place called the Chacabuco desert camp, at first we thought it was rumors but now we see our population decreasing everyday he is really taking our people and killing them off as if we are old toys he doesn’t want anymore. I don’t want people to forget that Pinochet took away our rights and won power because he painted a pretty picture of his dictatorship. He told the public that if he came into power he would support the free market and he was anti communist that is why he won so many votes. He did not tell the people that anyone who ruled against him or did not agree with his political standpoint would be killed. Over 3000 of Allendes supporters were killed or went missing. He also shut down three of the country’s newspapers, placed many Universities under the rule of the military and banned all signing in public. I think the Chilean people will figure out a way to end his rein, we have to. We are all scared of what other tricks he has up his sleeve; he makes our population disappear like magic so we questions the extremities he will go to in order to remain in power a little longer. I hear some organizations are considering posting the idea of a plebiscite, which is when the entire country is permitted to vote on the system of government or to change something in the constitution. I feel like if this doesn’t work this is our last chance to have democracy and peace in our country. We are tired of losing the people of Chile for what we believe in. 

October 5, 1988

We are gaining our country back. There has been enough bloodshed in our grounds we build our homes on. The public has finally decided to conduct a plebiscite to stop Pinochet. He has been in power for sixteen and a half years; he has been no benefit to our country. We have learned a very important lesson, that not all things are what they seem. Pinochet painted the idea of a country where everyone would prosper without the government involved, we believe as a public that is a lie. Some reports suggest the CIA was involved in his ruling and the overthrowing of Allende.  Of course everyone knows that somewhere along the line money was an influence.  We won’t receive answers probably until our children’s, children are grown. The government is so good at keeping secrets; the public hasn’t really been informed from the media of what is going on. We awaited the votes from the plebiscite for nearly six hours. It was the hardest wait of our lives. To think our future lays in the hands of our own people we have no faith in. I think we are gullible to change, any change that sounds a gram better then the current way of life. We have to m we destroyed ourselves but who was to know he would go to such extremes in order to get his political views across. He tried to wipe out anyone who believed in something he could not fathom as great. 

Once we received the final verdict for weather or not Pinochet would stay in power, everyone wanted to know what the percentage of votes was against no. I guess it was to see if we could have faith in our people, only 55.99% of people voted no for him not to return in power. In order for people who had loses during his rein we convinced ourselves that the reason why the Chile people who voted yes, did it just in fear of what would happen if they didn’t.

Today is the when we gain back the terms freedom, happiness and liberation. We fight for ourselves when money is the only thing that speaks for our country. Never again will we be shackled to someone else’s political view. We are the Chilean people, humans just like everyone else all over this globe. There will be no more blood shed of our friends and families. From the beginning we create a new system of government that satisfies us all, not having the influence of outside parties or violence being held over our heads. This is our second chance not forgetting all the people who have fallen in order for us to see this day. We are stronger because of the history that has destroyed and shaped up, we are a miracle. Welcome to Chile.