page_title: Salvador Allende
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Salvador Allende / Coup / Death
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Salvador Allende (sculptor: Arturo Hevia) in front of the Palacio de la Moneda. Español: Estatua en bronce de Salvador Allende ubicada en una esquina de la plaza de la Constitución, frente al Palacio de La Moneda. Es obra del escultor Arturo Hevia y fue inaugurada por el entonces presidente Ricardo Lagos el 26 de junio de 2000. El monumento tiene 6 metros de alto: 3 la estatua de Allende y otros 3 su base; pesa en total 1.480 kilos.Français&#160;: Statue de Salvador Allende devant la Moneda à Santiago du ChiliDeutsch: ... Salvador AllendeItaliano: Statua di Allende alla MonedaPolski: Pomnik Salvadora AllendePortuguês: Estátua de Salvador AllendeРусский: Памятник Сальвадору Альенде у дворца Ла Монеда в Сантьяго (Чили).Svenska: Monument till minne av Salvador Allende framför presidentpalatsen, La Monedaالعربية: نصب تذكاري للرئيس التشيلي الراحل سلفادور أليندي.
context_page_description: Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and socialist politician, who served as the 28th President of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.
  Allende's involvement in Chilean political life spanned a period of nearly forty years, having covered the posts of senator, deputy and cabinet minister. As a life-long committed member of the Socialist Party of Chile, whose foundation he had actively contributed to, he unsuccessfully ran for the national presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition, in a close three-way race. He was elected in a run-off by Congress as no candidate had gained a majority.
  As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education and improve the living standards of the working class. He clashed with the right-wing parties that controlled Congress and with the judiciary. On 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup d'état supported by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
context_section_description: Just before the capture of La Moneda (the Presidential Palace), with gunfire and explosions clearly audible in the background, Allende gave his farewell speech to Chileans on live radio, speaking of himself in the past tense, of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future. He stated that his commitment to Chile did not allow him to take an easy way out, and he would not be used as a propaganda tool by those he called "traitors" (he refused an offer of safe passage), clearly implying he intended to fight to the end.
  Shortly afterwards, the coup plotters announced that Allende had committed suicide. An official announcement declared that the weapon he had used was an automatic rifle. Before his death he had been photographed several times holding an AK-47, a gift from Fidel Castro. He was found dead with this gun, according to contemporaneous statements made by officials in the Pinochet regime.
  Lingering doubts regarding the manner of Allende's death persisted throughout the period of the Pinochet regime. Many Chileans and independent observers refused to accept on faith the government's version of events amid speculation that Allende had been murdered by government agents.  When in 2011 a Chilean court opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances of Allende's death, Pinochet had long since left power and Chile had meanwhile become one of the most stable democracies in the Americas according to The Economist magazine's democracy index.
  The ongoing criminal investigation led to a May 2011 court order that Allende's remains be exhumed and autopsied by an international team of experts. Results of the autopsy were officially released in mid-July 2011. The team of experts concluded that the former president had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle. In December 2011 the judge in charge of the investigation affirmed the experts' findings and ruled Allende's death a suicide. On 11 September 2012, the 39th anniversary of Allende's death, a Chilean appeals court unanimously upheld the trial court's ruling, officially closing the case.
  The Guardian reported that a scientific autopsy of the remains had confirmed that "Salvador Allende committed suicide during the 1973 coup that toppled his socialist government." It went on to say that: 
  British ballistics expert David Prayer said Allende died of two shots fired from an assault rifle that was held between his legs and under his chin and was set to fire automatically. The bullets blew out the top of his head and killed him instantly. The forensics team's conclusion was unanimous. Spanish expert Francisco Etxeberria said: "We have absolutely no doubt" that Allende committed suicide.
  According to Isabel Allende Bussi—the daughter of Salvador Allende and currently a member of the Chilean Senate—the Allende family has long accepted that the former president shot himself, telling the BBC that: "The report conclusions are consistent with what we already believed. When faced with extreme circumstances, he made the decision of taking his own life, instead of being humiliated."
  The definitive and unanimous results produced by the 2011 Chilean judicial investigation appear to have laid to rest decades of nagging suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces. But public acceptance of the suicide theory had already been growing for much of the previous decade. In a post-junta Chile where restrictions on free speech were steadily eroding, independent and seemingly reliable witnesses at last began to tell their stories to the news media and to human rights researchers. The cumulative weight of the facts reported by these witnesses provided factual support for many previously unconfirmed details relating to Allende's death.
  The widespread acceptance of suicide as the cause Salvador Allende's death was, however, preceded by decades of speculation and controversializing about the circumstances surrounding his death. Several examples of pre-2011 speculation are shown below or on the Wikipedia page regarding the Death of Salvador Allende.
  Alterna
caption: Statue of Allende in front of the Palacio de la Moneda. A portion of the statue's drapery, shown worn as a cape, is the national flag of Chile.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS CORPORATION", "Image Model": "C160,D395", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "144", "Image YResolution": "144", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.8.16", "Image DateTime": "2018:08:17 23:13:59", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF ExposureTime": "49/10000", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:01:05 05:32:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:01:05 05:32:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "11/10", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "598", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "798", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1212", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "13/10", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}