Yungay is also the home to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, that is dedicated to the memory of the military coup in 1973 and the following dictatorship.
It is a modern building that recounts the events of 11 September 1973, when the military staged a coup against the elected socialist president Allende, who later shot himself in the presidential place.
What followed, and is shown in detail (albeit mostly only in Spanish) are years of persecution, torture and disappearance of the opposition…
The museum shows a lot of personal witnesses, and exhibits from the torture chambers. It is quite eerie to see how thin the ice can be sometimes, and how fast a democracy can collapse and a people be oppressed under brutal terror.
The museum also explains the way back to democracy, with the referendum held in 1988 on Pinochet remaining in power, and the joy and force the opposition developed so that the country said NO.
Being German, I have been approached several times already by people mentioning the fact that Germany granted refuge to Chileans (among them former and possible future President Michelle Bachelet who found refuge in East-Berlin)…
Ironically, it was not only Western Germany, but the GDR who granted asylum to fellow socialist refugees, a weird twist of history thinking about the human rights record of the GDR… which then leads to another ironic turn of events, 20 years later when Honecker found refuge in Chile: just a few kilometers from here lives Margot, widow of Erich…
All the countries of South America that I have visited have gone through their military dictatorships in the 20th century, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile (and many more). Nearly everyone I met here during this trip was born in an undemocratic regime.
It’s sad to think about it and a good reminder to be thankful, and not to accept having your freedoms curtailed… not even in the name of security or fight agains terror… NSA, are you listening? Sure.