Santiago, Chile – Mourners at the funeral of Gen. Augusto Pinochet on Tuesday booed the defense minister whose government denied him a state ceremony, exposing the deep divisions in Chile over the former dictator’s legacy.
The funeral service was held after nearly 60,000 mourners, many in tears, filed past Pinochet’s glass-covered casket throughout Monday and early Tuesday at the Santiago Military Academy.
Defense Minister Vivianne Blanlot was noisily booed as she arrived as the government’s only representative at the military funeral for the general who supporters say saved Chile from communism by toppling an elected Marxist president and presiding over a hard-line government that killed thousands of foes.
“Go away! Go away!” chanted many of the mourners, angered that the government of President Michele Bachelet – a Socialist who herself suffered imprisonment and exile under Pinochet’s regime – denied him a state funeral.
Blanlot remained standing beside military commanders. Pinochet’s younger daughter, Jacqueline, eased tensions by shaking Blanlot’s hand at the moment of exchanging peace wishes in the Roman Catholic Mass.
Church leaders called for Chileans to take Pinochet’s passing as an opportunity for national reconciliation.
This is a time “to pray for the soul of Gen. Pinochet, but also for the soul of Chile,” said Santiago Archbishop Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz.
The army chief, Gen. Oscar Izurieta, asked Chileans “to let history make a balanced and fair judgment” of Pinochet, who died Sunday at age 91.
