Carmen Quintana: Set on fire by Pinochet's soldiers
9 September 2013 Last updated at 19:41 ET
Carmen Quintana: Set on fire by Pinochet's soldiers
By Mike Lanchin
BBC World Service
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Carmen Quintana before (left) and after the attack (right)[/font]
Forty years ago, Gen Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile - 17 years of military rule followed, during which thousands of people were tortured or killed. One woman who was doused with kerosene and set on fire, survived to tell the tale.
Carmen Quintana has one lasting image from the day, 27 years ago, when she and another young Chilean student were attacked, and set alight by soldiers during an anti-government protest.
"I just looked down at my blackened hands and at my burning clothes, and I suddenly saw myself in flames," she says.
It was 2 July 1986, the first of two days of nationwide strikes in Chile against Augusto Pinochet's rule.
Eighteen-year-old Carmen was a serious young woman with thick bushy hair, from a left-wing family fiercely opposed to the Pinochet regime. From an early age she had gone with her parents on anti-government demonstrations - and had witnessed first-hand the repression meted out by the feared Carabineros, Pinochet's jackbooted police.
More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24014543
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