This Tuesday, Spain withdrew the Grand Cross for Military Merit from Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, which had been awarded to him in 1975, when the country was governed by General Francisco Franco.
The decision to withdraw the decoration from Pinochet was taken at the meeting of the Council of Ministers of the current Spanish Government in office, headed by the socialist Pedro Sánchez.
The minister and spokesperson for the Government of Spain, Isabel Rodríguez, highlighted that the decoration had been given to Pinochet by another dictator, Francisco Franco.
Today’s decision is consistent “with democratic commitments, with democratic values, with rights and freedoms” and prevents “the continuation of demonstrations within the Spanish legal system that recall another moment in history contrary to these values, these rights and these freedoms,” stated the Minister of Territorial Policy.
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“It is time to repair a historical injustice,” Sánchez added, before announcing the decision to withdraw the Grand Cross of Military Merit from Pinochet.
Last week, the Spanish Executive declassified documents related to the coup d’état in Chile on September 11, 1973 and delivered them to the Chilean Government.
Led by General Augusto Pinochet, the coup overthrew the government of President Salvador Allende, who was killed during the military attack on the La Moneda Palace.
Allende had won the 1970 elections supported by the leftist Popular Unity coalition (UP).
The military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990) resulted in some 40,000 people tortured and imprisoned and more than three thousand opponents executed, a third of whom are still missing, according to official data.
Source: TSF
