Chilean authorities are set to exhume the remains of former President Salvador Allende to see if they can settle the lingering question of whether he was killed in a 1973 U.S.-supported coup or committed suicide.
Mr. Allende’s family called for the exhumation, and a judge ordered it last month in the hopes that forensic experts — seven Chileans and five foreigners — can solve the mystery. Mr. Allende’s daughter, Isabel, now a Chilean senator, called the investigation “tremendously important” because she said it could “dispel any doubts or speculation” about how the democratically elected leader died.
The exhumation is part of a widespread inquiry into 726 alleged abuses during the rule of General Augusto Pinochet, who ousted Mr. Allende in the coup and ruled from 1973 to 1990.
Questions arose shortly after the coup about how Mr. Allende died. A physician who was a member of Mr. Allende’s medical team, Patricio Guijon, says he witnessed the president commit suicide with an AK-47 given to him by then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Guijon says that by the time Mr. Allende committed suicide, the palace had been rocked by hours of bombings and machine gun fire.
General Pinochet died in 2006 of a heart attack while under investigation for alleged corruption, torture and murder. His government is blamed for at least 3,000 killings of political opponents, including murders of those who disappeared.
Mr. Allende, a Marxist, won a narrow election in 1970, but his ascent to power was not welcomed by conservatives in Chile and Washington who feared that he could lead a pro-Soviet communist government. Then-U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger said the issues of the time were “much too important” to be left in the hands of Chilean voters, and said he saw no reason that Washington should “stand by” and let Chile turn communist.
