Augusto Olivares

Augusto Olivares Becerra (born June 27, 1930 in Punta Arenas , † September 11, 1973 in Santiago de Chile ) was a Chilean journalist . Olivares was the head of state television and adviser to Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens . He was the first victim of the military coup of General and later President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte .

Life

Augusto Olivares , who was born by Julia Becerra Carrasco in Punta Arenas in 1930 in Punta Arenas, began his journalistic career as a radio announcer at an early age as the son of the retired Major of the Army , Tómas Olivares . After working as a reporter for the La Tercera newspaper and a columnist for Las Noticias de Ultima Hora y Clarín , El Perro , as he was called by political friends and enemies, became director of the state television TVN and taught at the Universidad de Chile in the 1960s .

With his way of investigative journalism, he made many friends and enemies during the tenure of Socialist President Salvador Allende, whose friend and advisor he was.
Together with Allende and his closest advisers, he stayed in the presidential palace, the Moneda , when it was besieged by the coup military under General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973.

President Allende had appealed to his companions to leave the Moneda in order to be able to return safely to their families and to avoid a bloodbath. However, Augusto Olivares remained with Allende and a remnant of 54 people: friends and advisers, including five ministers, 19 officials, 16 policemen and 20 members of the GAP security service.

When the presidential palace was finally bombed by several Hawker Hunter aircraft and the hopelessness of the fight became evident, Augusto Olivares took his own life with an assault rifle in the bathroom on the first floor, knowing full well that the worst would threaten the survivors. This confirmed the orders of Pinochet, which he issued on the same day at his headquarters in Peñaloen. Olivares thus became the first victim of the Chilean military dictatorship. In the midst of the fighting, President Allende, armed with a steel helmet and AK-47 , ordered a minute's silence for Olivares; later he committed suicide on the first floor to avoid capture. A total of four people were killed in the fighting in the government palace. The doctors present were released, except for Allende's personal doctor Guijón, as were the police officers, who were said to have only performed their official duties. The majority of the defenders, however, were interned in camps in the Chilean Antarctic Territory and later exiled . Most of the GAP members were either executed after severe torture or did not turn up.

A street in Santiago de Chile and numerous organizations in Cuba still bear his name in memory of Augusto Olivares.

Posthumously, he was awarded several prizes, such as by the Organización Internacional de Periodístas (OIP) and the Federación Latinoamericana de Periodístas (FELAP) .

Web links

• Chronology of September 11, 1973 (Spanish)