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CHRONOLOGY - 1975
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FEBRUARY 19, 1975
Four MIR leaders, who had been arrested by the DINA, appear on national television to declare the political and military defeat of the MIR and to call on their party to renounce armed struggle.
MARCH 25, 1975
Milton Friedman, founder of the Chicago School of Economics, visits Chile. His stay roughly coincides with changes to the Junta's economic policy, influenced by a group of monetarists dubbed "the Chicago boys" after Friedman's thought.
JULY 23, 1975
A list of 119 disappeared Chileans are reported dead in the foreign media. The Chilean media reproduce two lists of disappeared people, originally published in Argentina and Brazil. The first list of 60 people, appears in an obscure Argentine magazine "LEA" on July 15. A second list of 59 Chileans, also disappeared, is taken from Brazil's "O Dia" on July 17, the only issue of that magazine ever published. The deceased Chileans are reported to be MIR members, victims of infighting among factions. The Chilean media conclude that these press reports confirm the Junta's argument that the disappeared are extremists who have gone underground or moved abroad, is in fact true. However, subsequent investigations and eyewitness accounts prove the entire incident to be a fabrication called "Operation Colombo" carried out by the Chilean military regime in collaboration with intelligence forces from other countries. The 119 remain disappeared.
JULY 31, 1975
Ninety-five political prisoners go on a hunger strike to denounce the falsehood of the list of 119 disappeared. The striking prisoners, from the Melinka concentration camp in Puchuncavi, claim to know of at least 33 individuals from the list of 119 that were confined and tortured alongside them in different detention centers run by the DINA secret police.
AUGUST 1, 1975
The state-run television station, Television Nacional, suspends the Mafalda cartoon series, based on Argentine artist Quino's comic strip, for its critical and "destructive" tendencies. The station's director Jaime del Valle says the decision was made after receiving numerous complaints from viewers.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1975
The Comando Conjunto anti-Communist squad is formed, joining officers from the Air Force intelligence service SIFA, the Navy and Carabineros as well as former members of the civilian paramilitary group Patria y Libertad. The commando is led by SIFA chief Colonel Edgardo Ceballos Jones and has as its principal objective the elimination of the Communist Party (PC). From the Comando Conjunto's creation until the end of 1976, two successive central committees of the PC and numerous members of the Communist Youth, are arrested and made to disappear. The Rettig report holds the Comando Conjunto responsible for at least 30 of these disappearances while other sources cite figures as high as 70.
OCTOBER 6, 1975
Bernardo Leighton and his wife Ana Fresno escape an assassination attempt in Rome where they live in voluntary exile. Leighton, former vice-president under president Eduardo Frei Montalva, was one of the few Christian Democrats to oppose the 1973 military coup from the outset and was an advocate of dialogue between his party and the Chilean left.
NOVEMBER 27, 1975
The Comite para la Paz is dissolved due to pressure from the regime. In a letter to Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez requesting the organization's closure, General Augusto Pinochet says the regime considers the Comite to be a "medium used by Marxist-Leninists to create problems that disrupt the peace of the citizenry...."
DECEMBER 1975
The ruling Junta broadens powers to suspend publications or other media for up to six days if they are found to be "distorting the facts or creating public alarm." The Journalists' Guild and other media organizations protest these new powers.
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