The House of Salvador Allende and the Denied Memory
By Andres Kogan Valderrama
HAVANA TIMES – Another September 11th arrives in Chile, along with a new commemoration of the criminal coup d’état that took place in 1973. However, it seems that as a society, we are still unable to agree on something as fundamental as the unrestricted respect and protection of democracy and human rights.
I mention this based on last year’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the worst attack in Chile’s history. As I noted in a previous column, certain political sectors of the country failed to rise to the occasion, especially in reaching a minimum consensus that democracy must never again be broken under any circumstances.
This is why we are still far from achieving that goal, and we must continue fighting so that one day, as Chileans, without exception, we understand that the events since 1973 can never be justified or relativized. We must rescue the memory throughout Chile, in every existing municipality.
One such municipality is Las Condes, in Santiago de Chile, where Salvador Allende’s house stood, the house where he spent his last days and which was bombed by the Chilean Air Force on September 11th, 1973. The house was subsequently seized by the dictatorship and first converted into a children’s home, and later, into a home for the elderly, which it remains to this day.
As of now, the nursing home is still administered by the Conapran organization, which is linked to the military, despite being state property and having been declared a historical monument in 2006. This raises questions about the importance of recovering that house and transforming it into a space for remembrance.
Various human rights organizations in Chile have expressed the same sentiment, advocating for the memory to be preserved in that house as well. The Salvador Allende Foundation is one such organization, and its former executive director, Patricia Espejo, has highlighted the need for the state to reclaim the property.
Unfortunately, none of this has happened yet, and every September 11th, we gather outside the house on Tomás Moro Street to commemorate that tragic day in Chile’s history, unable to enter a place that should be open to everyone.
Let us hope that one day, memory will also be present in Santiago de Chile, and that the house where Salvador Allende spent his last days, defending the Republic and the democracy of Chile, will be opened. Meanwhile, others dedicated themselves to destroying it and establishing a regime of death that, to this day, continues to cause us pain and division as a country.