Democracy Dies in a Day

Summary

Throughline – "Democracy Dies in a Day"

Release Date: November 20, 2025
Hosts: Rund Abdelfatah & Ramtin Arablouei
Guests: Sergio Bitar, John Dingus, Juan Gabriel Valdez, Camila Vergara

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Episode Overview

In "Democracy Dies in a Day," Throughline explores the rise and sudden collapse of Chile's democracy through the 1973 military coup and the enduring aftermath under Augusto Pinochet. Told through the eyes of people who lived it—from a government minister and a journalist to the daughter of a regime supporter and an exile—the episode weaves personal stories, historical insight, and political analysis to understand how democracies can unravel overnight—and how rebuilding them is even harder.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Coup: September 11, 1973

• Opening Memories of the Coup

  • Sergio Bitar recounts the fear of the military moving in and being forced to flee his home.
    • Quote: "6 in the morning, I remember that somebody called saying that the Navy is coming. I was told if it happens would be very violent. So take care, protect yourselves, try to leave your houses." — Sergio Bitar (00:19)
  • The only source of information was the radio, where President Salvador Allende gave his final speech refusing to resign.
    • Quote: "I will not resign, he says. I will pay with my life for the loyalty of the people. The seed we planted... will not be shriveled forever." — Salvador Allende (via Ramtin, 01:36)

• Immediate Aftermath

  • Bitar describes the chaos, the roar of airplanes and bombs, and the announcement of Allende’s death.
  • Detainees, including Bitar, are forced to decide between fleeing or turning themselves in; Bitar chooses the latter, hoping in vain for the protections of democracy.
    • Quote: “I have nothing to hide. This is a democratic government. So I presented myself.” — Sergio Bitar (02:55)

2. Democracy: Fragility & Collapse

• Personal Reflections on Blindness to Danger
  • Quote: "When I look back, I realize my blindness. Because we were a democratic country. For many years, democracy was sure, secure, guaranteed." — Sergio Bitar (04:13)
• Chile was Latin America’s oldest democracy—until it wasn’t.
• The hosts introduce the episode’s quest to understand how democracy collapses and how, against steep odds, it’s rekindled (04:44).

3. Conditions Preceding the Coup

• Economic Inequality and US Involvement

  • Extreme poverty alongside wealth; copper profits benefiting foreign companies, notably American ones.
    • Quote: "All the profits go abroad. Mostly when you go out from the area where middle classes existed, you saw the poverty, the lack of housing, children without food..." — Sergio Bitar (10:25)
  • Allende (self-proclaimed Marxist) elected in 1970, promising to nationalize copper and redistribute land.
    • “He promised to increase wages for the poorest Chileans and vowed that every child would get a free half liter of milk every day.” — Rund Abdelfatah (10:58)
  • The US administration viewed Allende as a threat, imposing an “invisible blockade,” cutting loans and fomenting unrest through CIA operations and media manipulation.
    • Quote: "The US government instituted an invisible blockade... to make the Chilean economy scream." — Rund Abdelfatah (13:12)

• Political Polarization & Pinochet’s Rise

  • Economic crisis, strikes, trucker blockades; opposition stoked by US and local elites.
  • Pinochet, initially seen as a constitutionalist, is courted by the US and promoted by Allende, unaware he would lead the coup.

4. The Coup Unfolds (08:49–19:40)

• Allende’s Final Speech

  • Quote: “Long live Chile. Long live the people. Long live the workers… These are my last words and I am certain my sacrifice will not be in vain.” — President Allende (Ramtin/John Dingus, 09:12, 09:27)

• Societal Breakdown & Military Victory

  • Factories brace for resistance; shipments of weapons fail to materialize; the palace is bombed.
    • Quote: "They bombed the Moneda with the Air force. And once they bombed it, it was clear that the resistance was over." — John Dingus (19:09)
  • Allende found dead in the palace; Pinochet takes command.

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5. Life Under Dictatorship: The Two Faces (22:02–30:50)

• Terror, Torture, and Disappearances

  • Sergio Bitar imprisoned on Dawson Island; details psychological torment, forced labor, military indoctrination.
    • Quote: “When you are in prison, the most dangerous enemy is the sense of time. If you lose the sense of time, you lose your mind.” — Sergio Bitar (22:02)
    • "We felt that they had some sort of manual with orders on how to break the prisoners… you are not a human being." — Sergio Bitar (23:17)
  • 20,000 detained in the national stadium; thousands killed, disappeared, or tortured.
    • Quote: "Over the course of Pinochet's regime, more than 1,000 people disappeared without a trace. 3,000 were killed and 40,000 were tortured or imprisoned." — Rand Abdelfatah (31:17)

• Normalization & Economic ‘Miracle’

  • In privileged neighborhoods, Pinochet’s coup is celebrated, with many believing order and prosperity have returned.
    • Quote: "For them, this was heavenly. This was what they had always dreamed of, that Chile would go back to the time when they were in charge... arranged in line with their privilege." — John Dingus (27:38)
  • Pinochet’s embrace of ‘Chicago Boys’ free-market reforms; privatization and economic restructuring benefit the elite, with skyrocketing prices for the poor.
    • Quote: “The system is created for the rich to get richer in a way and the poor to get stuck.” — Camila Vergara (30:40)
  • Dissent and resistance driven underground; society deeply divided.

6. Exile and the Global Struggle Against the Dictatorship (31:55–35:16)

• Chilean Exiles Lead the Opposition
  • Orlando Letelier, former ambassador imprisoned and then exiled, becomes a key anti-Pinochet figure abroad.
  • US-based Chilean community lobbies, spreads evidence of human rights abuses, and agitates for democracy’s return.
    • Quote: “The Chilean dictatorship didn't eliminate just its enemies inside the country, but also outside the country.” — Juan Gabriel Valdez (35:35)
  • Letelier is assassinated by car bomb in Washington, D.C., 1976. Years later, US documents confirm Pinochet’s direct involvement.
    • Quote: "It was a bomb. And I couldn't believe it." — Juan Gabriel Valdez (34:36)
    • "General Pinochet had personally ordered the killing of le Tellier on U.S. soil." — Ramtin Arablouei (34:53)

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7. Resistance & The Road Back to Democracy (36:48–50:13)

• Awakening to Repression

  • Camila Vergara, as a child of privilege, is shielded from the violence until caught in a protest as a child—a moment of awakening.
    • Quote: "So for the first time in my life, I was exposed to the glimpse of what is happening." — Camila Vergara (38:14)
  • Widespread economic crisis in the 1980s, with soaring unemployment and poverty, finally sparks mass protests.
    • “Unemployment was over 25%. Wages had dropped more than 30%. For those who still did have a job, almost half the population was living in poverty.” — Rand Abdelfatah (38:44)

• Reluctant Return to Chile & Opposition Strategies

  • Exiles (Bitar, Valdez) risk re-entering Chile, balancing safety and their sense of duty.
    • “Some people believe that security is more important than freedom. And they will discover after some time that when freedom is lost, there is not security anymore.” — Juan Gabriel Valdez (40:12)
  • Debate within the opposition: armed struggle vs. nonviolent mass political action.
    • “We cannot fight a dictatorship through the armed resistance or violence.” — Sergio Bitar (41:34)
    • Coalition-building prioritized over ideological purity.

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8. The 1988 Plebiscite – ‘Happiness is Coming’ (42:28–49:38)

• The Vote that Changed Everything (42:28–48:19)

  • Pinochet’s 1980 constitution requires a plebiscite to legitimize another 8-year term; opposition sees it as their only shot.
    • “A plebiscite designed by the dictators. They will count the votes. Are you crazy? It's impossible.” — Sergio Bitar (43:05)

• Overcoming Fear & The ‘No’ Campaign

  • Overcoming fear is central; ad campaign focuses on hope and happiness, not just horror of past years.
    • Quote: “The whole campaign was Happiness is coming.” — Sergio Bitar (46:03)
  • 97% voter turnout; Chileans risk retaliation to cast their ballots.

• The Tense Night of Results

  • Delays and rumors swirl; military leaders muster but ultimately deny Pinochet's bid to ignore results. US signals the end of support.
    • “Pinochet didn't want to step down. But his generals and the US government had told Pinochet, we're done.” — Camila Vergara (49:03)
  • The “NO” side wins (56%); Pinochet’s dictatorship is forced to end—though he shields himself and his allies with immunity and positions of power.
    • Quote: “From that point on, the mood in the headquarters of the NO Command was joyful. And I think we danced and we cried and we sang until four in the morning, five.” — Juan Gabriel Valdez (49:31)
    • “Probably the most unforgettable day in my life, a moment that my life started again.” — Sergio Bitar (49:55–49:58)

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9. Aftermath: Democracy Isn’t Automatic or Easy (50:13–53:25)

• Transition Is Incomplete

  • Military and police remain unchanged. Pinochet installs himself as senator-for-life, vetoes reforms, and is never fully brought to justice.
    • Quote: "He was an active voter in the Senate vetoing reform. Almost a decade of Pinochet in some kind of position of power during the young democracy." — Camila Vergara (51:35)
  • In 1998, Pinochet is detained in London on human rights charges but eventually returns to Chile, dying in 2006.

• Struggles of Modern Democracy

  • Today, Chile still wrestles with inequality and unfinished work toward a fully representative, just democracy.
    • Quote: “You cannot try to build a democracy with aggression. If you have a corrupt guy and winning lots of money, well, you cannot have a democracy under these conditions.” — Sergio Bitar (53:03)
    • “What we have today in the so called free world is an oligarchy that keeps benefiting every year… Is a system that formally looks like what we call democracy… But the people on the top… are the ones really calling the shots.” — Camila Vergara (53:25)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Democracy was sure, secure, guaranteed. Until it wasn't." — Sergio Bitar (04:13)
• "If you lose the sense of time, you lose your mind." — Sergio Bitar (22:02)
• "They bombed the Moneda with the Air force. And once they bombed it, it was clear that the resistance was over." — John Dingus (19:09)
• "The system is created for the rich to get richer in a way and the poor to get stuck." — Camila Vergara (30:40)
• "Probably the most unforgettable day in my life, a moment that my life started again." — Sergio Bitar (49:55)
• “What we have today in the so called free world is an oligarchy… a system that formally looks like what we call democracy… But the people on the top… are the ones really calling the shots.” — Camila Vergara (53:25)

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Timed Segment Highlights

• 00:19–04:13: Sergio Bitar recounts the coup’s immediate chaos and his arrest.
• 08:49–09:33: Allende’s final speech is broadcast and analyzed.
• 10:58–13:12: Rund details Allende’s election, reform plans, and US opposition.
• 22:02–23:57: Sergio Bitar describes imprisonment and tactics of psychological torture.
• 27:38–30:40: Life for the rich under Pinochet; the rise of neoliberal economics.
• 34:36–34:53: The car bombing of Letelier in the US—Pinochet’s crimes abroad revealed.
• 38:14: Camila Vergara’s epiphany about the regime after witnessing violent protests as a child.
• 42:28–48:19: The drama, hope, and risk of the 1988 plebiscite and the ‘NO’ campaign.
• 51:29–53:25: Aftermath; Pinochet’s continuing influence, the unfinished journey to real democracy.

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Conclusion

Through first-person testimony, sound-rich storytelling, and historical analysis, this episode paints a vivid picture of how democracy can appear stable—until it isn’t. The Chilean experience offers a haunting warning: democracies can collapse with terrifying speed, but rebuilding them takes long, uncertain, and sometimes incomplete work. The legacy of these events continues to reverberate, in Chile and beyond.

Transcript

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[Sergio Bitar]

6 in the morning, I remember that somebody called saying that the Navy is coming. I was told if it happens would be very violent. So take care, protect yourselves, try to leave your houses. My name is Sergio Vitar.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Sergio has been a lot of things. A civil engineer, an author, and at the time he's speaking about, he's a government worker. We'll get to all that later. Right now Sergio needs to make a decision. He has to leave his house. But where should he go? Where is even safe anymore?

[Sergio Bitar]

Should I go to the palace? Government palace? It was completely blocked.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The only information he could get was by tuning into the radio. So he flipped it on in the car. As he headed for a friend's house on the outskirts of the city, The president of Chile, Salvador Allende, came on the radio.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I will not resign, he says. I will pay with my life for the loyalty of the people. The seed we planted in the dignified conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Sergio reached his friend's house. Throughout the day he could hear bombs. Airplanes buzzed low to the ground and gunfire echoed throughout the neighborhood. That afternoon, over the radio, the announcement came. The president was dead.

[Sergio Bitar]

By the radio, there was a list of people called by the military that we should present ourselves.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The next day at 7am, Sergio's name became one of them.

[Sergio Bitar]

I called my wife saying, could you come? I've been called.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

His mind was racing. And some embassies had called and offered asylum. But if he tried to take refuge there and the embassies fell, then he might be in even bigger trouble. So Sergio decided to turn himself in.

[Sergio Bitar]

I have nothing to hide. This is a democratic government. So I presented myself.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The soldiers took his documents and detained him along with a bunch of other people, some of them who he knew.

[Sergio Bitar]

So we stayed 24 hours or 48 hours. And at the time, I think there was a decision among the heads of the military, what is called the junta. Should we kill these guys or send them abroad? And helicopter arrived, but it was no answer. They took us and then they push us to a bus with guys with machine guns.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The soldiers told them if anyone moved, they would be shot.

[Sergio Bitar]

And they took us to a plane.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

On the plane, armed men guarded them closely.

[Sergio Bitar]

We didn't know what we were going.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Just days Before Sergio Bitar worked for the Chilean government, he was living in Santiago, the capital city. He was a husband, a father.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Now he was a political prisoner.

[Sergio Bitar]

When I look back, I realize my blindness. Because we were a democratic country. For many years, democracy was sure, secure, guaranteed.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Until it wasn't.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

I'm Rand Abdelfatah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And I'm Ramtin Arablouei.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Chile was once one of Latin America's oldest democracies. That all changed in a matter of hours after a military coup on September 11, 1973.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

For the next 17 years, Chileans found themselves in the grip of brutal authoritarian rule. People lived in fear. There were no elections and that people had no voice. Today on the show, how democracy collapses and how it is resuscitated through the eyes of four people who lived through it.

[Sergio Bitar]

The PRISONER the conditions were how to control your mind, that you feel that you are nothing.

[John Dingus]

The journalist I was not able to use a byline. And as soon as I did, the reprisals came down on me.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

The exile Chilean dictatorship didn't eliminate just its enemies in the country, but also outside the country.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And the child.

[Camila Vergara]

And I don't know anything. And I am like, you know, a daughter of privilege. Like, what is this? It was more than an awakening, is like you see the kind of slivers of, you know, truth coming.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Coming up. Democracy dies in a day. Hello, this is Nathalie Valliere calling from Montreal, Quebec. Montreal, Quebec. And you are listening to Throughline from npr. I find it such a mind refreshing podcast. Thank you very much.

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[Camila Vergara]

Part one. These are my last words.

[John Dingus]

I got up that morning, My girlfriend comes back and says, things are happening.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

This is John Dingus. He's written several books on Latin America.

[John Dingus]

My recent book came out in April called Chile and their hearts.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

In 1973. He was an American reporter living in Chile.

[John Dingus]

We turned on the radio immediately.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

All of the stations had been taken over by the military, except for one, Radio Magallanes.

[John Dingus]

And I had my tape recorder. I flipped it on record and I recorded them saying, we are about to hear from the President of the Republic. He is in La Moneda.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

La Moneda, the Presidential Palace.

[John Dingus]

There are troops surrounding the palace and he is going to address all of Chile.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is the last opportunity for me to address you. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets. But they cannot be humiliated either.

[John Dingus]

He was not giving us any hope that he could beat back the coup.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Long live Chile. Long live the people. Long live the workers.

[John Dingus]

He implied that he was not going to leave alive.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

These are my last words and I am certain my sacrifice will not be in vain.

[John Dingus]

It was an amazingly eloquent speech for history. Then we said, well, what do we do?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In the years leading up to this day, the day of the coup, Chile had been in crisis. It had some of the highest income inequality in Latin America. Despite high mining taxes, profits from Chile's main industry, copper mining, didn't trickle down.

[Sergio Bitar]

To everyone and it was in the hands of American companies.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Sergio Bitar. You met him at the top of the episode. He was born and raised in Chile.

[Sergio Bitar]

We don't know what we receive for that. All the. All the profits go abroad. Mostly when you go out from the area where middle classes existed, you saw the poverty, the lack of housing, children without food, the mortality rate was very high. Unemployment and kids going walking and barefoot.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

A movement of working class people began to demand change.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Enter Salvador Allende. Allende was a self proclaimed Marxist and in 1970 he ran for president with the promise of a full socialist makeover of Chilean society. He wanted the Chilean government to take control of the US dominated copper industry. He promised to increase wages for the poorest Chileans and vowed that every child would get a free half liter of milk every day. Allende also wanted to redistribute farmland, taking it from rich landowners and giving it to the poor.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I ask you to go home in joy with the fair victory we have achieved.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Allende won the election.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

We'll have to put more passion and more love to make Chile ever greater and life in our homeland more just.

[Sergio Bitar]

So that's the beginning of my political life.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Sergio was in the us, studying at Harvard when Allende was elected. He didn't consider himself a socialist, but he saw Allende as an opportunity for change.

[Sergio Bitar]

So I said to myself, I will go back and I will be available to work with the Allende government.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

He was appointed the Minister of Mining. As Allende made moves to nationalize the copper industry, alarm bells started ringing in the us.

[Sergio Bitar]

Instead of seeing a movement towards democracy, they were seeing risk to their security, the security of their business.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

This was the Cold War era and the US government feared communism was spreading across Latin America.

[John Dingus]

This wasn't Castro. This wasn't the Cuban Revolution. This wasn't a takeover. This was a parliamentary system that had won enough of a majority to govern. And they were implementing a radical economic and social change.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

But still the US saw Allende's reforms as a threat. The US government instituted an invisible blockade against Chile. They cut off loans and foreign aid in order to, as the Nixon administration put it, make the Chilean economy scream.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

By October 1972, when John landed in.

[John Dingus]

Chile, there was a general strike against the government. Small businesses and truckers had basically closed down the country.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The rich were panicking because Allende was instituting policies that threatened to take their land and their money and redistribute it. But the poor were also suffering as Chile's economy descended into chaos. Inflation was the highest in the world. There were food shortages everywhere.

[John Dingus]

It was in the middle of a crisis. The country was very divided.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Messing with the economy wasn't the only way the US put its hand on this scale. President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger collaborated with all kinds of US government officials and the CIA to destabilize Allende. The CIA poured millions of dollars into covert operations to support opposition groups and spread anti Allende propaganda.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

They paid almost $2 million to El Mercuryo, Chile's New York Times, to slant its coverage against Allende. The paper ran headlines like Marxists Threaten Middle Class and Reds Plan to Attack Army.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The US government was also trying to court Chilean military leaders.

[John Dingus]

Augusto Pinochet is the number two military.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Person in the army, Pinochet was a bit of an enigma. He grew up in a middle class family and joined the military as a teenager. He climbed the ranks, doing just enough to get promoted, but not so much that he stood out. In September 1972, Chile's military is trying to purchase tanks from the US government. So Pinochet heads to Panama where the US had bases.

[John Dingus]

They wine and dine him and at.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

One point, a member of Pinochet's delegation has a conversation with some American officers.

[John Dingus]

Who tell him, I'm not quoting it exactly. If there's a plan to overthrow the Marxist government, we want you to know that we will support it. And Pinochet did not tip his hand. And I'm pretty convinced that at that time he hadn't decided whether he was going to be involved in the coup. But the US has basically given him the green light.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The US was saying, okay, we won't organize the coup for you, but we also won't stand in your way. And we think it's a good idea.

[John Dingus]

So Pinochet returns to Chile and when.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

He gets back, he gets a big promotion.

[John Dingus]

Allende names Pinochet as the commander of the army, the top military officer. People did not suspect. They thought, okay, that's good, because Pinochet is a loyalist. He's somebody who believes in the Constitution.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In other words, Pinochet could be a stabilizing force that would help uphold democracy in Chile. At a time when life in Chile was reaching a breaking point.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

In the summer of 1973.

[John Dingus]

There were demonstrations every week. And there were demonstrations by the right, demonstrations by the left. It was chaotic in those final days. There were a coterie of high ranking officers who had decided that they were going to pull off a coup.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

They met with Pinochet on Sunday, September.

[John Dingus]

9, and he was reluctant. His choice is divide the armed forces and oppose this military coup, which would be bloody, almost a civil war, or take charge of it. He decides that he's going to lead the coup.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

That brings us back to September 11, 1973. When John turned on the radio to hear President Allende's final address.

[John Dingus]

We said, well, what do we do?

[Rand Abdelfatah]

John and his roommates set out for the big working class neighborhood of the city, the hub for Allende supporters.

[John Dingus]

They were going to lead the opposition if any coup came.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

They get to this part of Santiago, the industrial belt, where all the factories are. At the first factory, the workers said.

[John Dingus]

Go home, it's going to be really, really dangerous.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Then they went to a second factory where the workers had blockaded themselves inside and were waiting for a weapons delivery.

[John Dingus]

They'd been told that they were going to arrive in a green truck. They waited all day.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The green truck never arrived. The weapons didn't come.

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Back.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

At the Presidential palace, explosions rang out.

[John Dingus]

They bombed the Moneda with the Air force. And once they bombed it, it was clear that the resistance was over.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The military moved into the palace. Allende was on the second floor.

[John Dingus]

By the time they got up there, Allende was was dead from a bullet to the head.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

General Augusto Pinochet was in power now.

[John Dingus]

There were military barriers on the corners, people with automatic weapons behind sandbags.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The military imposed a curfew during that period.

[John Dingus]

We're listening to the radio. There's no information going on. On a regular basis. We would hear gunshots.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

John and his roommates hunkered down for the night, waiting to see what would happen.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Coming up, dawn breaks on a new reality. Pritchile.

[John Dingus]

Hi, this is Jewel from Toledo, Ohio.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

I love listening to Throughline on my drive and on my runs and really.

[Camila Vergara]

Anytime you're listening to throughline from NPR.

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[Rand Abdelfatah]

Part 2 Las DOJ Cara de la.

[Sergio Bitar]

Dictadura the two faces of dictatorship when you are in prison, the most dangerous enemy is the sense of time. If you lose the sense of time, you you lose your mind.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Sergio Bitar again. In the hours and days that followed the bombing of La Moneda, Sergio's whole life was turned upside down. He was detained and he was taken by Pinochet's Forces to the very southern tip of South America, to a prison on Dawson Island.

[Sergio Bitar]

It's very cold. The south of Magellan Strait is one of the closest islands to the Antarctic, With the worst guys they had in order to impose on us. Singing of military songs every day, every.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Morning, like the Navy hymn, the military.

[Sergio Bitar]

Anthem of each branch.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Day and night, Sergio and the other prisoners were under the watchful eye of Pinochet's armed forces.

[Sergio Bitar]

We felt that they had some sort of manual with orders on how to deal with the prisoners or how to break the prisoners. And the way to do it is to feel that the other one is an animal. You are not a human being. That's part of the logic.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Sergio and the others did hard physical labor for 10 plus hours a day with little to no food. Many were tortured, kept in isolation with glaring lights in their eyes.

[Sergio Bitar]

It was hard to understand where you were, who you were, what was happening. The mind is not able to recognize, it's not conscious about what is surrounding you. What would happen to my wife, to my children, to the earth at that time? Your body reacts in a different way. What happens at the moment is survive.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

In the days and months after the couple, Chile descended into chaos as the Pinochet regime took control of all facets of Chilean life.

[John Dingus]

The democracy was over. They dissolved Congress, they rewrote the constitution, they raided all of the universities and took over them by force.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

This is John Dingus again as an American reporter in Santiago. He was on the ground trying to figure out why, what was actually happening in real time.

[John Dingus]

It was obvious that they were arresting people because of their sympathy with the Allende government.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

People were detained across the city.

[John Dingus]

They were raiding the poor people's areas and the factories.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

20,000 people were held in the National Stadium, which overnight transformed from a soccer pitch to an open air prison. Some of the people who were sent there never returned.

[John Dingus]

We had vague reports of a lot of violence going on in the countryside. And in fact, a lot of the deaths were owners of farms telling the police to kill certain peasants because they had been leading the political movements.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

And still amid this violence and chaos.

[John Dingus]

Life was still going on.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Many people were still going to work, to school and to buy groceries.

[John Dingus]

In some sense it's easier because the economic chaos that was happening right before the coup, where there were food shortages, there was a black market, there were protests all over the place. All of that ended and it was, on the surface, more peaceful.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

A veneer of civility and normalcy seemed to return to Chile. Countries like the United States quickly recognized and legitimized the military government, also known as the Junta.

[John Dingus]

The immediate violence calms down. By the end of 1973, the patrols, the constant raiding of houses, all of that had died down. They emptied the National Stadium and the other stadiums.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The junta played up the idea that rule of law had returned to Chile. In the poor working class neighborhoods, that narrative was a hard pill to swallow.

[John Dingus]

There, the number of people who had lost their jobs, the number of people that had been taken to prison or had been forced into exile, they had.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Seen the violence of the military coup with their own eyes. It was their family members that were gone, they dead or simply disappeared.

[John Dingus]

The environment of fear was much, much stronger.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

In 1974, some prisoners began to be released, including Sergio Bitar, who immediately left the country. John and others took it as a sign that the violence had finally come to an end.

[John Dingus]

So we thought that things are returning to normal.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And for some Chileans, life wasn't just returning to normal. It was better than ever.

[John Dingus]

There was the rich neighborhood, the Providencia and Las Condes neighborhoods, and they were overjoyed. I mean, they broke out the champagne on September 11th. For them, this was heavenly. This was what they had always dreamed of, that Chile would go back to the time when they were in charge. And basically things were arranged in line with their privilege.

[Camila Vergara]

So basically, it depends on where are you from, where are you looking? The dictatorship and who is suffering the dictatorship.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Camila Vergara, a lecturer in political theory at the University of Essex. She grew up in chile during the 1980s. Her family, like many middle class and wealthy families, supported Pinochet.

[Camila Vergara]

I am like, you know, a daughter of privilege. I, I come from a family of landowner in the south.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The way her grandfather saw it, Allende and his communist cronies had threatened to destroy everything he had worked for by redistributing farmland to poor farmers.

[Camila Vergara]

My grandfather says these communists, we need to kill them all. We need to just get rid of them. In a way, this was the narrative of the regime.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And frankly, as a child from a wealthy family, Camila had no real conception of the regime's violence.

[Camila Vergara]

If you are really in the richest 10%, which means that you are dressed a certain way, you have a car, you have all these other things that insulate you from the repression, because when you're on the top, you're not really suffering, you are profiting from.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Right.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

After the coup, Pinochet undid Allende's efforts to bring Chile's land and resources back under national control. They returned more than 300 businesses into private hands and foreign investors. And with help from a group of Chilean economists educated in the US called the Chicago Boys, transformed Chile's economy into a laboratory of neoliberal capitalism.

[Camila Vergara]

They drafted a manifesto of this new society in which was based on the individual rational consumer in a way. And it was basically the bible of neoliberal economics. And this bible then became the program of the Pinochet regime.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The idea was simple. The government had little role to play in the economy. State run services were largely privatized. Price controls were lifted. No big labor unions. The economy ran best when there was ample competition and very little to no regulation. Only the best would rise to the top.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The change was a shock. Almost immediately, the price of common goods shot up. The price of sugar for instance, went up 500%. This was great for profit margins and sugar CEOs like Camila's mom. And in theory these riches were supposed to trickle down. In reality, that's not how it played out.

[Camila Vergara]

The system is created for the rich to get richer in a way and the poor to get stuck.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

John Dingis saw these disparities firsthand. And it wasn't long before he realized that nothing had actually returned to normal.

[John Dingus]

Hundreds of people were being arrested and put in secret prisons. In other words, people that had been arrested and and after months had gone by were not appearing. And this then is the phenomenon that is known as disappearance.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Over the course of Pinochet's regime, more than 1,000 people disappeared without a trace. 3,000 were killed and 40,000 were tortured or imprisoned.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

As a reporter for Time magazine and the Washington Post, John's stories made US readers face what was happening in Chile.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

And ironically enough, even though the US welcomed Pinochet and helped establish the conditions that led to Allende's overthrow, some of the loudest voices against Pinochet's regime were coming from the Chilean diaspora in the United States.

[Sergio Bitar]

I would say that something that was really very impressive was the the capacity of human being to resist.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Orlando Letellier, the former ambassador to the US under the Allende government, emerged as one of the leaders of Chile's exile community.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

When Orlando Letelier came, he had access to ambassadors, even to ministers. And we decided of course that he was appointed as the head of the excise in the us.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

This is Juan Gabriel Valdez. He's Chile's current ambassador to the us. At the time of the coup, he was a student in the US studying abroad. After Pinochet took power, he decided to stay in the United States and become Le Tellier's assistant to fight for Chile from afar.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

Orlando Letelier. He was very effective communicating from a moderate point of view what we wanted to do, which was to recuperate democracy.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Le Tellier had been imprisoned at Dawson island at the same time as Sergio Bitar, and he wasn't afraid to tell people what he had seen firsthand, including The Press. In 1975, he told NPR, There were.

[Sergio Bitar]

I would say, at least 60 or 70 minors people, boys from 15 to 16, 17 years old. All of them were Churchill. All of them.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

As Le Tellier's calls against Pinochet gained more and more attention, Juan Gabriel remembers being afraid that something would happen to his friend and mentor.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

The Chilean dictatorship didn't eliminate just its enemies inside the country, but also outside the country.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

And that fear proved to be well founded.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

I was with my children at home and suddenly I received a call from Orlando's secretary. And Orlando's secretary said to me, something happened. There was an accident apparently, and everybody left the institute and they are running there. Orlando was so careless when he drove and it's raining and probably he had an accident. And then this woman called me and said, are you going home to see the FBI or are you going to the hospital? And he said, what does the FBI have to do with an accident? An accident? It was a bomb. And I couldn't believe it.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Chilean government denied involvement in the car bombing that killed Orlando Letelier and a young American colleague.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Did you ever buy that story or did you kind of know? Yeah, you knew.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

It was absolutely sure. It was.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Decades later, in 2015, newly declassified US intelligence documents made concluded what Juan Gabriel and others already suspected. General Pinochet had personally ordered the killing of le Tellier on U.S. soil. At the time, the junta denied involvement, but the opposition was getting louder and louder.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The long tentacles of the dictatorship were starting to create cracks in the facade and soon they would split wide open.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

That's coming up.

[Sergio Bitar]

Hi, this is Lea Marjolet from Paris, France.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

I'm a teacher and I love Throughline and you are listening to Throughline from npr.

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[Camila Vergara]

Part 3 El Camino Patras the Road Back I must have been around, you know, nine years old or eight years old.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

It was the 1980s, and Camila Vergara was excited to spend the day with her mom.

[Camila Vergara]

My mom was the CEO of the sugar industry, which was state industry, and I would never see her.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Camila was usually at home, very isolated.

[Camila Vergara]

From the real world.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

But on this day, her mom surprised.

[Camila Vergara]

Her and said, oh, let's do something together. I will take you to a ballet in central Santiago.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

So Camila put on her leotard, her tutu and slippers, and then they drove into the city. When they arrived at the Teatro Municipal, a towering white stone theater, Camila and her mom eagerly walked up to the gates.

[Camila Vergara]

And it was closed.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Her mom was confused. Had they gotten the date wrong? Were they too early, too late? Where was everyone?

[Camila Vergara]

And suddenly.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Thousands of people come flooding down the street. The crowd's chants mixed with the loud barking of police dogs.

[Camila Vergara]

We were caught in the middle of the protest. My mom immediately started trying to cover.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Me.

[Camila Vergara]

And the police repressing the people who protested, beating up people, tear gas everywhere. So for the first time in my life, I was exposed to the glimpse of what is happening.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The protests had begun in May 1983. Copper miners took to the streets first. They demanded an end to government repression, disappearances, mass arrests, police violence, censorship of.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The press, and an end to a catastrophic economic crisis. The country had been plunged into a year earlier, largely a result of the Chicago Boys experimental policies. Unemployment was over 25%. Wages had dropped more than 30%. For those who still did have a job, almost half the population was living in poverty.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was a tinderbox waiting to erupt. And when the copper miners took to the streets, the fuse was lit. Before long, hundreds of thousands of others joined them in Jornadas de Protesta Nacional, a series of massive national protests.

[Camila Vergara]

It was more than an awakening. Is like you see the kind of slivers of, you know, truth coming in.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And for Chileans Living in exile, these protests were a kind of invitation to return home and attempt to take down Pinochet.

[Sergio Bitar]

We went to Mendoza, the city that is close to the mountains, from the side of the Argentinians, and we go cross the border.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Sergio Bitar understood the risks of crossing that border. He could be arrested, imprisoned again.

[Sergio Bitar]

So looks a little bit crazy, but.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But it was something he felt he had to do to be in my.

[Sergio Bitar]

Country and to fight against the dictatorship.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

Some people believe that security is more important than freedom. And they will discover after some time that when freedom is lost, there is not security anymore.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Juan Gabriel Valdez also returned to Chile around this time with his family. And he says almost from the moment they got there, they knew the government was keeping a close eye on them.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

Four days or five days after I came back, my wife and myself, we were invited by friends. The person who was in charge of our children called us at 10 at night saying, There are two people here who entered. I had to allow them to come into the house, and they are looking at your pictures. They are taking some of the pictures in your albums. These kind of things began to happen very often.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Both Sergio and Juan Gabriel got involved in the growing opposition movement, this so called democratic alliance. Disagreements quickly arose. What were their goals? Who was allowed in? What kind of resistance was off limits?

[Camila Vergara]

There was a guerrilla movement putting bombs everywhere. So we had, you know, outages of power that were due to the guerrilla people.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

But many in the movement disagreed with that approach.

[Sergio Bitar]

We cannot fight a dictatorship through the armed resistance or violence.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Sergio says their weapons would never compare to what the government had. So instead of fighting fire with fire.

[Sergio Bitar]

We had to do it through rules within the rules.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

And they realized they needed to make the umbrella bigger to bring more people into the movement. Conservatives, trade unions, democratic socialists, they couldn't afford to box people out if they didn't agree on everything. The main thing they all needed to agree on was that democracy was the way forward for Chile, not Pinochet. The rest they could figure out later.

[Sergio Bitar]

No one of us can get democracy back alone, so we have to start building actions together and to define a strategy.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

They figured their best shot at ousting Pinochet was be in October 1988, when something called a plebiscite was scheduled to take place. Basically, the plebiscite would be an election in which Chileans would vote yes or no to keeping Pinochet as president for another eight years. It was a footnote that Pinochet had included in the new constitution he passed in 1980. To give the world the illusion of term limits and fair elections.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

I remember my best friends at the time in Spain telling me, you are getting into a very difficult situation.

[Sergio Bitar]

A plebiscite designed by the dictators. They will count the votes. Are you crazy? It's impossible.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Impossible, but kind of their only chance of ousting Pinochet while playing by the rules.

[Sergio Bitar]

So we said, let's create a big mass of people to vote.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Convincing people to vote would be an uphill climb.

[Sergio Bitar]

The central key issue is to combat fear. The dictatorship uses fear as a control of the mind and the people. And people were afraid. If I go, if I say, if they see me, they can kill me, they can take me, they can clean my job.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was risky. They needed people to buy into the idea that it was worth that risk to get out and vote no to another term for Pinochet. So they turned to the most powerful tool they had, television. On channels across the country, including Television Nacional de Chile, Chile's pbs.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

I was called to be the leader of the television campaign which was allowed by the dictatorship and was the first time in which the opposition would show itself on tv.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

You might be wondering why a dictator would give an opposition movement that's trying to oust him any TV time. Chileans were surprised too, when the junta passed a law that allowed yes and no sides to both have free free time for their own political commercials. It was meant to give the whole process a veneer of credibility. So in the month leading up to the election day, the opposition was given 15 minutes of airtime on national television every day. Pinochet and his crew were sure it wouldn't make any difference that the yes side would dominate. And they figured it would appease the international community, especially the us which had long since soured on Pinochet.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The no campaign was given a late night time slot.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

The government considered that the program at 11 o' clock at night would be considered irrelevant by the majority of the population, and they wouldn't see it.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

But Juan Gabriel was determined to make the most of those 15 minutes every night. He hired an army of admin people.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

Working in publicity filmmaking, sociologists and politicians, political analysts.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

And they set out to sell democracy.

[Sergio Bitar]

It's not just complaining for what we suffered. If we do that, you never win. In order to win, you have to propose something better than what you are doing now.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

In other words, give the people hope.

[Sergio Bitar]

The whole campaign was Happiness is coming.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

These ads were high quality, optimistic. The young people singing with lyrics like, whatever they say, I'm free. To think, because it's time to win freedom.

[Sergio Bitar]

And the colors.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

The campaign had a rainbow logo.

[Sergio Bitar]

The feeling of community.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

They avoided heavy ideological language and instead.

[Sergio Bitar]

Emphasized how you can eat better food, have your kid go to school, have some place where to go if you.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Are ill, let's say no.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Each night, more and more people tuned into those 15 minutes and support for the NO campaign, which would vote out.

[Sergio Bitar]

Pinochet grew step by step, step by step, step by step.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

On the eve of election day, no one had any idea what would happen.

[Sergio Bitar]

The United States has heard reports that the Chilean government plans to cancel the referendum or nullify its results.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And on the morning of October 5, 1988, when the polls opened, the fear.

[Sergio Bitar]

Was that people will not come out and will not vote. They went out to visit all the voting places and it was impressive because it was very hot. I remember the lines were long, long, long all the day. So that gave us the hope that we could win. By 10 o' clock this morning, there were lines six blocks long in many voting places. Here in Santiago, people complained they had to wait.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

97% of the country's registered voters came out to vote, including Pinochet himself, dressed not as a general, but but in civilian clothes. The question was, should Augusto Pinochet continue on as president for another eight years? Yes or no?

[Sergio Bitar]

The first results that were announced showed the NO vote winning.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

There was a moment that day which created an enormous alarm. The Ministry of the Interior that is in charge of giving the results of the election and the plebiscite stopped giving the results around 3 o' clock or 4 o' clock in the afternoon.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The NO vote was expanding its lead by this point.

[Sergio Bitar]

Pinochet called the commanders in chief at one in the morning to his office. So I said, what? What is going to happen here?

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

Some people thought that he would not recognize the result.

[Camila Vergara]

I remember very vividly because there were phone calls being made and Pinochet didn't want step down.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But his generals and the US government had told Pinochet, we're done.

[Camila Vergara]

We are not going to support the dictatorship anymore. You need to move on.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

And that night, the government came back to the television and said.

[Sergio Bitar]

The no. 1 and president. From that point on, the mood in the headquarters of the NO Command was joyful.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

And I think we danced and we cried and we sang until four in the morning, five.

[Sergio Bitar]

It's a feeling of expansion, of big feeling of joy, means that we are, we exist, we have rights. Chile today could be on its way back to democracy.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

Probably the most unforgettable day in my.

[Sergio Bitar]

Life, a moment that my life started again.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Nearly 56% of Chileans voted no, which was a majority, a win, but not a resounding majority. Even after years of torture, censorship and repression. Camila Vergara says it wasn't simply a vote on democracy versus dictatorship.

[Camila Vergara]

Imagine the fear. Everybody was afraid of the military coming back out.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Would a no vote lead to chaos, violence, another economic recession? By 1988, the economy was in much better shape and a new middle class was emerging. Some saw that as Pinochet's free market model working. So it was complicated. Still, Pinochet's reign as president finally came to an end.

[Camila Vergara]

The idea of defeating the dictatorship with the pen and pencil, that was kind of the narrative.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

But in reality, defeating the dictatorship didn't automatically mean democracy was restored.

[Juan Gabriel Valdez]

We knew that it was not just a matter of replacing Pinochet with somebody else. It was a much more complicated thing. And we had to make concession. Of course, we negotiated with the military.

[Camila Vergara]

The first democratic government. Pinochet was the leader of the armed forces. Yes.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Wow.

[Camila Vergara]

The police basically was the same police. There was no purge. And then Pinochet, after stepping down from the military, became senator for life in the Senate and therefore with full immunity. So basically, he insulated himself and his people. And not only insulated himself, he was an active voter in the Senate vetoing reform. Almost a decade of Pinochet in in some kind of position of power during the young democracy.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

In 1998, Pinochet was arrested in London on charges of genocide, torture and kidnapping. He was ultimately found unfit to stand trial and was released back to Chile, where He died in 2006.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Today, Chile is in the middle of a close presidential race. The current election just went into a run. The next vote is scheduled for December 14th. 37 years after the plebiscite vote, there is still a big gap between the hopes and dreams of those TV ads and the reality of people's lives. For Sergio Bitar, that doesn't mean they've failed. It simply means there's more work to do.

[Sergio Bitar]

It's a work in progress, and it's a cultural progress. Also. The idea of negotiations is part of democracy. The guys in power have the big responsibility of behaving in the way they want the society to become. You cannot try to build a democracy with aggression. If you have a corrupt guy and winning lots of money, well, you cannot have a democracy under these conditions.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Camila Vergara, who is now a lecturer in political theory at the University of Essex, says this isn't just a problem Chile is facing today.

[Camila Vergara]

What we have today in the so called free world is an oligarchy that keeps benefiting every year. Doesn't matter who wins the election, they are the ones who are increasing their wealth. So basically is a system that formally looks like what we call democracy. Separation of powers, universal suffrage, free freedom of speech. But the people on the top, the wealthy few, the powerful few, are the ones really calling the shots, controlling everything, passing law to benefit themselves more than others. And that we see through the growing inequality of the system.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfattah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And I'm Ramtin Arablouei and you've been listening to Throughline from npr.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

This episode was produced by me and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Me and Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Steinberg, Casey Miner, Christina Kim, Devon Kadayama, Irene Noguchi.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Thank you to Aunt Sofia Vera, Peter Kornblu, Micah Ratner, Maisha Galiba, Laura Schwartz, Johannes Durgi, Beth Donovan and Tommy Evans.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This episode was mixed by Jimmy Keeley.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which includes Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And we've got a favorite to ask. We know there are a lot of great NPR shows out there and we all know who's the best. Wink wink. NPR is celebrating the best podcast of the year and you get to crown the winner of the People's Choice Award. Vote for [e-mail] PeoplesChoice may the best pod win.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at throughlineplace and make sure to rate us. And leave us a comment on Apple or Spotify. It helps other people find the show. Thanks for listening.

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[Sergio Bitar]

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[John Dingus]

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