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Journalism of Courage
Night,snow and sand make up the form of/ my narrow country. Pablo Neruda,Chiles undisputed,supreme poet of debated,controversial political repute,talked about the hidden richness of his country which its discoverers,blinded by greed,had failed to recognise. It seemed there were always two Chiles: one conspicuous,the other hidden. Isabel Allende begins her memoir,My Invented Country,with the rebuke and regret that while 9/11 became an instant global metaphor for catastrophe,nobody remembered the original September 11 of her old country,of 1973. That was the day her cousin,President Salvador Allende,lost his presidency to a violent military coup,and his life. It was the bloody fall of a democratically elected government,and the beginning of the brutal Augusto Pinochet dictatorship that killed and disappeared 3,000 political prisoners. But almost 38 years later,Allende still divides Chile was he a radical,reckless Marxist planning to build a Cuba in Chile,or a democratic socialist deposed by a US-sponsored coup? Over Allende,there are still two Chiles.
So the conclusion of the autopsy that claims to have determined Allende indeed committed suicide on September 11,1973,shooting himself with an assault rifle,will not end the doubts and speculation. It hasnt convinced the forensic doctor who had concluded in 2008 that there were likely two weapons used. He maintains the recent autopsy reveals nothing new. Although Allendes family,in the words of his daughter,Senator María Isabel Allende Bussi,had always accepted the official version of suicide. This autopsy only reaffirms their peace with the manner of Allendes death the knowledge that he took his own life rather suffer capture,humiliation and worse.
Perhaps Allendes death will remain a case of what one chooses to believe. It makes little practical difference. But its part of Chiles coming to terms with a past currently under investigation,a past that still separates the hidden from the visible.
