Lucía Hiriart

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Lucía Hiriart (1974)

María Lucía Hiriart Rodríguez , also married Lucía Hiriart de Pinochet , also known as Doña Lucía (born December 10, 1922 in Antofagasta , † December 16, 2021 in Santiago de Chile ) was the wife of the Chilean general and dictator Augusto Pinochet . From December 17, 1974 to March 11, 1990, she was the Primera Dama of Chile, while her husband served as the (unelected) Chilean President .

Life

origin

Doña Lucía came from a wealthy family of the Chilean aristocracy. She was the eldest of four children of Osvaldo Hiriart Corvalán (1895-1982), a lawyer and mining investor who was Senator of the Radical Party from 1937 to 1945 and Chilean Minister of the Interior under President Juan Antonio Ríos Morales in 1943/44 . Her mother Lucía Rodríguez Auda (* 1898), whose father was also a wealthy lawyer, attracted attention in her day because she smoked in public, drove a car and wore trousers. Her father had Basque roots and came from the family of the French writer and revolutionary Dominique Joseph Garat ; her grandfather was a veteran of the saltpeter war and mayor of Talca . On her mother's side, she also has a great-grandfather who immigrated from France in the 19th century. Also through her mother, she is descended from a brother of José Antonio Rodríguez Zorrilla (1752–1832), the royalist bishop of Santiago de Chile at the time of the Chilean War of Independence , and was a direct descendant of the conquistador Alonso de Góngora Marmolejo (1523–1576) who accompanied Pedro de Valdivia .

Officer's wife

At the age of ten, Lucía Hiriart moved with the family to Santiago de Chile . Despite concerns of her father, who disapproved of the connection because of the insignificant social position of her fiancé, she married on 29./30. January 1943 the then lieutenant at the Chilean infantry school Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, with whom she had been together for a year and a half and had been engaged for a year. She had met him when she was 16 at a charity gathering on the street.

She had five children, three daughters ( Inés Lucía , María Verónica, Jacqueline Marie) and two sons (Augusto Osvaldo and Marco Antonio). During the military career of Pinochet, the family was often in economic difficulties, which are said to have been caused by the lifestyle of his wife. From 1956 to 1959 she stayed with her family in Quito , Ecuador , where her husband was on a military mission. Her contacts in the Ecuadorian upper class date from this time.

Representative of the dictatorship

Lucía Hiriart visiting a girls' school in 1984

According to Augusto Pinochet, his wife's advice played a key role in his decision to launch the coup in Chile in 1973 . Even during her husband's rule, she was one of his closest political advisers and influenced numerous decisions of the dictator. One of her confidants was Pinochet's secret service chief Manuel Contreras , for whom she campaigned massively in 1977 when her husband was supposed to fire him as head of DINA under American pressure . She initially had her office with numerous employees on the 17th floor of the Edificio Diego Portal , which until 1981 was the seat of the military government under the leadership of her husband. From 1981 Lucía Hiriart resided with her closest female staff in the southeast wing of the La Moneda presidential palace, which was rebuilt after the destruction caused by the bombing during the coup .

In addition to numerous other organizations, she took over the management of the "Mothers Foundation" CEMA Chile , traditionally headed by the President's wife , a female volunteer organization that she structured in a tightly military manner and expanded into an economically powerful institution. During the dictatorship, CEMA received 20 percent of the Chilean state lottery income and acquired numerous properties. The association with almost one million members, including the majority of the officer's wives, employed more than 35,000 volunteer helpers and was perceived as a parallel apparatus of power of its own, since Lucía Hiriart informally exercised strong social control over the organization, especially in the officer corps. Hiriart retained the presidency of the foundation beyond the end of the military dictatorship until 2016. Until a change in the law in 2005, the organization also received public funding.

Due to international reservations about the military regime in Chile, Lucía Hiriart made very few state visits abroad compared to other heads of state during her husband's reign . The most significant took place in November 1975 when she and her husband attended Francisco Franco's funeral in Spain . In her private life, however, she traveled a lot abroad and also maintained political contacts. During a trip to the USA in November 1982, for example, she met her daughters and the CEMA directors in the White House in Washington for an informal exchange with Nancy Reagan , after her husband Ronald Reagan had recently praised the development of human rights in Chile and an improvement in bilateral developments Had promised relationships. In April 2013, on her own initiative and without diplomatic votes, she sent a condolence telegram to British Prime Minister David Cameron , condoling him on the death of Margaret Thatcher , whom she regarded as an ally and role model because of her friendship with her husband. In addition to Thatcher, whom she also imitated in appearance, Eva Perón was another role model, as her Chilean image she stylized herself in her charity activities.

Pinochet's defeat in the referendum to extend his presidency in the spring of 1988 came as a shock to his wife, who could not explain the result and who raised violent charges against the United States and the Catholic Church . An attempt by Pinochet supporters to get them to run for the presidential election of the following year failed because of political realities.

Impunity in retirement

Lucía Hiriart in 2007 at an event in defense of officers suspected of human rights violations

In 2005 she was charged with tax evasion by the Chilean tax authorities in connection with the 2004 uncovered scandal surrounding her husband's secret accounts at the Riggs Bank in Washington , and she was in custody for one day. On November 25, 2006, the 91st birthday of her husband, she read the communiqué in front of his followers, with which Augusto Pinochet assumed political responsibility for all deeds during his rule, protested their necessity and thanked the army for overthrowing Allende . After Pinochet died two weeks later on Hiriart's birthday, the corruption case against her and other suspects was dropped by the Santiago Court of Appeal in January 2007 ; charges remained pending only against General Pinochet's executor and her son Marco Antonio. In the course of further investigations, she was arrested again in October 2007, along with her five children and 17 other people (including three former generals, an ex-lawyer and an ex-private secretary of Pinochet) on charges of embezzlement and the use of false passports. They were accused of illegally transferring US $ 27 million to foreign bank accounts during Pinochet's rule. By being admitted to a military hospital because of a suspected stroke , the then 84-year-old was able to evade the house arrest provided for her, while her children had to stay in prison for two days on bail until they were released. A few weeks later, the charges against her and four of her children were again put down by the appellate court.

In June 2009, Lucía Hiriart attended the funeral services for Rosa Markmann (1908–2009), who died at the age of 101, and who was her widow of Chilean President Gabriel González Videla (a. 1946–1952). Markmann, who was apostrophized as "the Evita Perón of Chile" and who had enforced women's suffrage in Chile, was the first Chilean first wife to have her own office in the presidential palace and had publicly supported Pinochet's regime until the end of his rule.

In August 2016, Hiriart resigned from the Mothers' Foundation after 43 years, after months of investigation into allegations of embezzlement. In 1998 and 1999, when her husband was under house arrest in London , she moved a total of US $ 100,000 from the foundation's assets to the British capital to support himself. Since 1996, funds from the institution's property sales had also been transferred to accounts at Riggs Bank in an unknown total amount. Several properties owned by the foundation had to be handed over to the Chilean state in the course of the investigation. In December 2016, Hiriart was questioned and denied the allegations. After a court settlement reached in March 2018, CEMA Chile was dissolved at the beginning of 2019 after the remaining 108 properties worth 7.6 billion pesos (around 10 million euros in 2018) had been returned to state property.

Doña Lucía as very old

At the turn of the year 2016/17, Lucía Hiriart had to be treated several times in hospital for acute health problems. She was admitted to a military hospital again on December 30, 2018 after falling and breaking her arm and multiple ribs in her Santiago home.

She last appeared in public in April 2020 with an obituary published in Mercurio for Sergio Onofre Jarpa (1921-2020), a figure of identification of the Chilean right and interior minister under Pinochet, who at the age of 99 after an infection with SARS-CoV-2 had passed away. The announcement of photos from the celebration of her 98th birthday in December 2020 led to public criticism for a possible failure to comply with the limitation on the number of participants in private indoor meetings due to the Covid-19 pandemic .

In early August 2021, she had to be hospitalized for obstructive bronchitis and stayed in the military hospital for 10 days.

From August 19 to September 3, 2021, Hiriart spent another two weeks in the military hospital and received oxygen due to respiratory complications . The Senator Iván Moreira from the right-wing UDI criticized the Chileans who impatiently await Hiriarts death, and expressed his hope that they could be despite Covid-19 pandemic older than 100 years.

Lucía Hiriart was considered the last icon of the Chilean military dictatorship and was extremely unpopular with the Chilean public.

Withdrawal of honorary citizenship

On August 10, 2021, at the request of the socialist city ​​council Esteban Barriga , Lucia Hiriart was revoked from the city of Temuco of the honorary citizenship that she and her husband had been given by the then mayor Germán Becker Baechler on October 30, 1976 . The ten-member city council approved the motion with nine votes in favor and one abstention. The symbolic act of removing Pinochet and his wife from the list of honorary citizens was intended to commemorate the more than 177 citizens who were arrested and disappeared in Temuco between September 11, 1973 and the end of the dictatorship in 1990 .

In September 2021, at the same time as her deceased husband, her honorary citizenship of the city of Valdivia was withdrawn by the local city council with 7 to 1 votes with one abstention. Carla Amtmann ( RD ), the mayor of Valdivia, described the honor that Hiriart has held since 1983 (Augusto Pinochet since 1978) as “a symbolic legacy that we without a doubt want to eradicate”.

family

While her mother took an active part in her eldest daughter's social life as Primera Dama , her father Osvaldo Hiriart Corvalán kept her distance after the military coup and rejected Pinochet's undemocratic regime. The media loyal to the government reported reluctantly about his death in November 1982. Her brother Osvaldo (1925–1992), an agricultural engineer, did not take on any political function during the dictatorship, while her youngest brother Sergio Hiriart worked as a cultural attaché at the Chilean embassy in Quito (Ecuador) until 1976 and married an Ecuadorian. Her younger sister Tatiana Hiriart Rodríguez (* 1927) is married to the entrepreneur Vladimir Luksic Abaroa (* 1924), the older brother of the Chilean industrialist and billionaire Andrónico Luksic Abaroa (1926-2005).

literature

  • Alejandra Matus Acuña: Doña Lucía. La biografía no autorizada. DeBolsillo, Santiago de Chile 2013, ISBN 978-956-6056-20-1 .

Web links

Commons : Lucía Hiriart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Javier Sandoval: A los 99 años murió Lucía Hiriart, la viuda del dictador Augusto Pinochet. In: los40.cl. December 16, 2021, accessed December 16, 2021 (Spanish).
  2. ↑ The curriculum vitae of Osvaldo Hiriart , Library of the National Congress .
  3. ↑ a b c d Francisco Marín: Los secretos de la dictadora. In: El Ciudadano , No. 149 (December 2013).
  4. ↑ a b c Alejandra Matus: Doña Lucía. DeBolsillo, Santiago 2013, chap. 1 (Inocencia) .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Un poder en la sombra. In: Proceso , August 14, 2005, accessed June 13, 2021 (Spanish).
  6. ↑ Augusto Pinochet's curriculum vitae , Library of the National Congress.
  7. ↑ a b c Maximiliano Alarcón González: La influencia de Lucía Hiriart en Pinochet sigue encendiendo el debate. In: Diario Concepción , January 3, 2017, accessed June 12, 2021 (Spanish).
  8. ↑ Claudia Farfán: Lucía Hiriart: "Nunca he sido tan mandona como dicen". In: La Tercera , December 5, 2008, accessed September 6, 2021 (Spanish).
  9. ↑ a b c Alejandra Matus: La avaricia de doña Lucía. In: Interferencia , June 12, 2021, accessed on August 15, 2021 (excerpt from Doña Lucía , Santiago 2013, Spanish).
  10. ↑ Juan Pablo Figueroa, María José Ahumada: Cema Chile al cierre. In: La Tercera , October 20, 2018, accessed November 7, 2021 (Spanish).
  11. ↑ a b Jonathan Franklin: Pinochet's widow under investigation on suspicion of swindling millions. In: The Guardian . August 19, 2016, accessed June 12, 2021 .
  12. ↑ a b Vilma Guzmán: Investigations in Chile against the "mother foundation" of the widow of Pinochet. In: amerika21 , January 24, 2016, accessed June 13, 2021.
  13. ↑ Rosa Ana Alija Fernández: El inextricable camino entre el lecho de muerte y la lucha contra la impunidad: los casos de Franco y Pinochet. In: Sévane Garibian (ed.): La muerte del verdugo. Reflections interdisciplinarias sobre el cadáver de los criminales de masa. Miño y Dávila, Buenos Aires 2016, ISBN 978-84-16467-70-9 , pp. 101–122 (here: p. 115).
  14. ↑ Pinochet remains unapologetic. In: TAZ , edition 8136 (November 27, 2006), p. 10.
  15. ↑ Cinthya Carvajal ( El Mercurio ) : Corte revoca mayoría de procesamientos en caso Riggs. In: Emol , January 3, 2007, accessed June 14, 2021 (Spanish).
  16. ^ Pinochet family arrested in Chile . October 4, 2007 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed June 12, 2021]).
  17. ↑ Pinochet's widow and five children arrested. In: Die Welt , October 5, 2007, accessed June 13, 2021.
  18. ^ David Muñoz (El Mercurio) : Corte anula procesos contra viuda y cuatro hijos de Augusto Pinochet. In: Emol , October 26, 2007, accessed June 14, 2021 (Spanish).
  19. ↑ Lucía Hiriart va a velatorio de Rosa Markmann, viuda de González Videla. In: La Tercera , June 14, 2009, accessed September 6, 2021 (Spanish).
  20. ↑ A los 101 años falleció viuda de ex Presidente González Videla. In: La Tercera , June 13, 2009, accessed September 6, 2021 (Spanish).
  21. ↑ Karina Sainz Borgo: La Evita Perón de los chilenos. In: El Mundo , June 17, 2009, accessed September 6, 2021 (Spanish).
  22. ↑ a b CEMA Chile cerró sus puertas tras entregar último inmueble al Estado. In: Cooperativa.cl. January 19, 2019, accessed June 14, 2021 (Spanish).
  23. ↑ Lucía Hiriart por caso Cema-Chile: "Por mí no pasaba ni un centavo". In: El Mostrador , December 29, 2016, accessed June 14, 2021 (Spanish).
  24. ↑ Lucía Hiriart sufrió accidente casero y fue internada en el Hospital Militar. In: Cooperativa.cl. December 30, 2018, accessed April 20, 2021 (Spanish).
  25. ↑ Lucía Hiriart: Dan a conocer nuevos antecedentes del estado de salud de la viuda del dictador Pinochet. In: El Desconcierto , August 21, 2021, accessed August 22, 2021 (Spanish).
  26. ↑ La atrevida foto del 98 cumpleaños de Lucía Hiriart de la que tanto se habla. In: as , December 14, 2020, accessed on June 14, 2021 (Spanish):
    Zsfg .: In the community where the pictures were presumably taken, there was a limit of 10 people for indoor meetings on the day of the celebration, while the pictures show 11 people including a small child in one room and the photographer should be counted if necessary.
  27. ^ Alberto González, Daniela Forero-Ortiz: Lucía Hiriart fue dada de alta tras estar internada en el Hospital Militar por cuadro respiratorio. In: biobiochile.cl , August 13, 2021, accessed August 21, 2021 (Spanish).
  28. ^ Verónica Reyes, Daniela Forero-Ortiz: Lucía Hiriart continúa bajo observación médica en Hospital Militar ante cuadro respiratorio. In: biobiochile.cl , August 21, 2021, accessed the same day (Spanish).
  29. ^ Daniel Parra Roa: Lucía Hiriart es dada de alta tras permanentecer dos semanas hospitalizada. In: Radio Agricultura , September 3, 2021, accessed on September 4, 2021.
  30. ↑ Senador Iván Moreira defendió a Lucía Hiriart tras nuevo problema de salud: “Vivirá más de 100 años”. In: ADN Radio , August 8, 2021, accessed August 21, 2021 (Spanish).
  31. ↑ Augusto Pinochet y Lucía Hiriart pierden calidad de ciudadanos ilustres en Temuco. In: T13 , August 11, 2021, accessed September 3, 2021 (Spanish).
  32. ^ Concejo Municipal de Temuco le quita a Augusto Pinochet y Lucía Hiriart la distinción de 'ciudadanos ilustres'. In: FM 1001 Infinita , August 11, 2021, accessed August 21, 2021 (Spanish).
  33. ↑ Municipalidad de Valdivia revoca títulos honoríficos de Augusto Pinochet y Lucía Hiriart: ya no son hijos ilustres de la comuna. In: El Mostrador , 22 September 2021, accessed on 6 November 2021: “'Tener como hijo ilustre a Augusto Pinochet y Lucía Hiriart es sin duda un legado simbólico que queremos erradicar', manifestó bailiff."
  34. ↑ Patricio Legarraga, Albert Chabagno: Los Hiriart de la casa Beaulieu en Macaye. In: Revista de Estudios Históricos (Journal of the Instituto Chileno de Investigaciones Genealógicas ), No. 43, pp. 25–85 (online) , strain no. IX.7.3.
personal data
SURNAME Hiriart, Lucía
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hiriart Rodríguez, María Lucía (full name, maiden name); Hiriart de Pinochet, Lucía; Doña Lucía (other name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chilean Primera Dama (First Lady)
BIRTH DATE December 10, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Antofagasta
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 2021
PLACE OF DEATH Santiago de Chile