Eduardo Frei Montalva

Eduardo Frei Montalva

Eduardo Frei Montalva (born January 16, 1911 in Santiago de Chile , † January 22, 1982 ibid) was a Chilean politician . From 1964 to 1970 he was president of his country. His son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle , later also became President of Chile.

Life

Eduardo Frei Montalva was the son of Edouard Frei, a Swiss born in Feldkirch, Austria (state of Vorarlberg ) , and Victoria Montalva. His ancestors came from Nesslau , Canton St. Gallen (Switzerland).

He studied at the Universidad Catolica in Santiago de Chile Jura . During his student days, in 1934, he joined the Conservative Party and joined the youth organization of the Conservative Party, the Movimiento Nacional de la Juventud Conservadora (German: National Movement of Conservative Youth), which was renamed Falange Nacional in 1936 , a Christian-social and anti-fascist movement in Chile. After completing his studies, he worked as a political journalist and was editor-in-chief of the daily El Tarapacá until 1937 .

In 1938 he was one of the founders of the Falange Nacional party when the Falange split from the Conservative Party. In 1945 he became Minister of State for Public Buildings (Obras Públicas) in the left-wing government of Juan Antonio Ríos Morales . In 1949 he was elected to the Senate. In 1957 he participated in the founding of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile . In September 1964 Frei won the presidential election.

His term of office until 1970 was marked by the deep division in Chile. Frei tried the overdue social reforms and modernization of the state and administration. He endeavored to improve provisions for the poor and to reform the land , but always kept an eye on the cohesion of the country and the maintenance of democratic order. This was not easy given the radical demands of socialists and trade unions who called for extensive expropriation and nationalization of the economy. Frei's government got more and more between the fronts and could not please either side: his reform efforts did not go far enough for the left, while the conservative forces - especially the influential families, who owned a significant part of the land and large Chilean companies - were in his Redistributive efforts already saw overthrow, chaos and communism . When Frei's term ended in 1970, the presidential election of the united left, Salvador Allende , was elected by a relative majority.

Frei became a senator again and retained the chairmanship of the Christian Democrats. Even after supported by the Christian military coup of Augusto Pinochet , who overthrew by force in September 1973, Frei's successor Allende, remained free until 1977 Chairman and justified the military dictatorship, z. B. in November 1973 in a letter to Mariano Rumor , the chairman of the Christian-Democratic World Union , in which he described the coup as necessary and reports of the atrocities committed by the military regime as “lies” and “gigantic campaigns” of “world communism”.

Eduardo Frei Montalva (right) in 1980

Frei later turned into an opponent of the dictatorship and was deposed as party chairman.

death

Frei died under mysterious circumstances on January 22, 1982 in a clinic in the capital, Santiago, where he had been treated for an inguinal hernia operation. Although he initially survived the operation well, he died shortly afterwards after six more operations from the consequences of a rapidly worsening infection. Frei's family has claimed that tissue samples examined by experts from the Belgian University of Ghent have found traces of mustard gas and the highly toxic thallium , which can accelerate infections. However, there is still no confirmation from the University of Ghent. In addition, three pathologists from the Clinic of the Catholic University removed his organs, which then disappeared without a trace.

His son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (* 1942), was elected President of Chile to succeed Patricio Aylwin . At the end of January 2007, now in the office of Senate President, he filed a private lawsuit for murder. Frei's family suspects the former military secret police DINA to be behind the death of the ex-president.

In December 2009, almost 28 years after his death, four former doctors and two alleged helpers were arrested for poisoning Frei Montalva. In 2013, the Chilean investigative authorities see a possible connection with the alleged poisoning of Pablo Neruda , who died in 1973 in the same hospital a few days after the coup d'état. In January 2019 in Santiago de Chile, the ex-president's doctors at the time, his chauffeur, an army officer and a former secret service employee were sentenced to prison terms of between three and ten years for the murder of Frei.

Honors

A Chilean Antarctic research station was named after Eduardo Frei Montalva; the large Frei station ( Base Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva ) is located on King George Island .

Fonts

• Latin America at a crossroads . v. Hase & Koehler, Mainz 1978. ISBN 3-7758-0956-2 .

literature

• Cristián Gazmuri, Patricia Arancibia, Alvaro Góngora (eds.): Eduardo Frei Montalva (1911–1982). Fondo de Cultura Económica, Santiago de Chile 1996, ISBN 956-7083-62-2 .
• Sebastian Hurtado-Torres: The Gathering Storm: Eduardo Frei's Revolution in Liberty and Chile's Cold War. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 2020, ISBN 978-1-5017-4718-2 .
• Benedicto Castillo Irrtibarra: Magnicidio. La verdad del asesinato del Presidente de la República Eduardo Frei Montalva, en un complot organizado y ejecutado por agentes de las brigadas de exterminio de la DINA, CNI y DINE. Momentum, Santiago de Chile 2011, ISBN 978-956-808934-4 .
• Georg Sutterlüty: The Chilean political dynasty Frei and their Vorarlberg roots. In: Rheticus. Quarterly publication of the Rheticus Society . 28, Issue 1, 2006, pp. 71-94.

Web links

Commons : Eduardo Frei Montalva  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The mirror 38/1964 of 16 September 1964: Help from Bonn . His opponent was Salvador Allende.
2. ^ Letter to Mariano Rumor dated November 8, 1973 PDF wikisource (both in Spanish)
3. ↑ 6 Accused in 1982 Poisoning Death of Chilean Leader The New York Times December 7, 2009
4. ^ Announcement by the afp agency from January 25, 2007, see also [1] , [2]
5. ↑ Six people arrested for the murder of ex-presidents. In: the standard. December 7, 2009, accessed December 7, 2009 . 
6. ↑ Cause of death after Pablo Neruda's exhumation remains unclear . Online on ORF.at from May 3, 2013.
7. ↑ Chile - Six defendants convicted of murdering former President Frei. Accessed January 30, 2019 (German).