CHILE’S PRESIDENTS

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We visited the Presidential Palace or as it is also called Palacio Moneda because they still make Chile’s peso coins here. The president doesn’t live in the palace but lives in his own house alongside the rest of the population. Outside the palace there are statues of Chile’s presidents. It was in 1970 that Chile elected its’ first socialist president Salvador Allende. He struggled to maintain his position because he wanted to go about things in a peaceful way but he faced heavy international pressure from extreme left and right wing groups. Fidel Castro who was beginning his revolution in Cuba about then, wanted Allende to make reforms in a more extreme way and become part of the revolution. On the other hand the American President Nixon refused to finance Chile if Allende took sides with Cuba and communism.



In 1973 this brought about a military coup. On September 11^th at 11am on 1973 the whole Presidential Palace was bombed and Allende still inside it commited suicide. Every year on this date outside the Presidential Palace people fight, fires are started, terrorist acts are carried out sometimes on the subway and bombs are detonated, and huge riots take place as many people are still angry about the past politics.

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