Chile Marks 53rd Coup Anniversary Without Official State Ceremony

Chileans marked the 53rd anniversary of the military coup that toppled President Salvador Allende on Friday, gathering for marches, candle-lighting and floral tributes to the victims of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The commemorations were organised by civil society groups, relatives of victims and opposition parties rather than by the state. President José Antonio Kast's conservative government held no official ceremony — a break with practice observed every year since Chile returned to democracy in 1990.

Speaking in Corral, Kast said his administration was concentrating on the concerns of citizens today and on the country's future. He said he could not erase history, but added that he could not ask Chileans to let that history prevent them from looking ahead.

In Santiago, marchers passed the La Moneda presidential palace carrying a banner bearing the last photograph of Allende alive, and later threw flowers towards the gate he used. A woman lit a candle, and others gathered at a statue of the former president.

At one gathering, Andrés Troncoso, a leader of the union group Central Clasista, called for truth and justice for the more than 3,000 people killed or executed under military rule and demanded answers for each of the disappeared. He said the occasion honoured the suffering of those tortured and exiled.

One protester, Silvia Espinoza, said she felt deeper disappointment because gains made under Allende had been lost, and lamented that fewer people attend the events each year.

At the National Stadium, which served as a detention and torture centre after the coup, members of the AUCH+ Feminist Literary Collective displayed embroidery honouring women who were detained and forcibly disappeared. Hilda Carrera, a speaker for the collective, said the work paid tribute in particular to women who were pregnant at the time of their detention.