How the Chilean coup forever changed Canada's refugee policies
How the Chilean coup forever changed Canada's refugee policies
EVA SALINAS
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Sep. 06 2013, 11:04 PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Sep. 08 2013, 10:45 AM EDT
First came the sound of low-flying planes, then of explosions. Marc Dolgin, the young diplomat in charge of Canada’s embassy in the Chilean capital of Santiago, huddled by the radio at work and soon realized the bombs were falling on the presidential palace.
It was Sept. 11, 1973. The military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet had begun, opening a dark chapter of torture and repression for Chile. And over the next few days, Mr. Dolgin would make a fateful decision that would help reshape Canada’s foreign policy, galvanize Ottawa to create an immigration category for refugees and alter forever the lives of thousands of Chileans.
Across the city that day, a young leftist professor named Claudio Duran realized that he was in mortal danger as the tanks rolled in and the junta began rounding up anyone suspected of supporting the dead president, Salvador Allende. With nothing more than the clothes he was wearing, he went into hiding, slipping through the shadows as he moved from the home of one friend after another. After about a week, he and his family turned up at the Canadian mission seeking refuge. Mr. Dolgin let them in.
There was no diplomatic precedent for his decision to offer shelter to Chileans who were fleeing the widening net cast by the junta. Six years later, when Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took most of the staff hostage, the Canadian embassy famously helped six American diplomats evade detection and fly home – the dramatic “Canadian caper” that was fictionalized in last year’s Oscar-winning film Argo.
More:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/escape-from-chile/article14176379/