Former Chilean president was killed, examiner says

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wed, Jul. 09, 2008 10:15 PM
Former Chilean president was killed, examiner says
By JACK CHANG and HELEN HUGHES
McClatchy Newspapers

VALPARAISO, Chile | A court forensics expert said Wednesday that former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva was assassinated in January 1982 after a hernia operation during the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The statement by Carmen Cerda, the chief of the forensics team investigating the case, confirmed longtime suspicions that Frei Montalva, who was Chile’s elected president from 1964 to 1970, had died of foul play at age 71. Medical officials had said that infection related to the surgery was the cause of death.

Cerda, however, said that a combination of toxins, including mustard gas, gradually administered to the former president ultimately killed him. If confirmed, Frei Montalva would be the only Chilean president to be assassinated.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/698842.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ex-Chilean president was assassinated, forensic expert

Ex-Chilean president was assassinated, forensic expert says
Jack Chang and Helen Hughes

July 9, 2008 5:02 PM

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

VALPARAISO, Chile - A court forensics expert said Wednesday that former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva was assassinated in January 1982 after a simple hernia operation during the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The statement by Carmen Cerda, the chief of the forensics team investigating the case, confirmed longtime suspicions that Frei Montalva, who was Chile's elected president from 1964 to 1970, had died of foul play at age 71. Medical officials had said that infection related to the surgery was the cause of death.

Cerda, however, said that a combination of toxins, including mustard gas, gradually administered to the former president ultimately killed him. If confirmed, Frei Montalva would be the only Chilean president to be assassinated.

Judge Alejandro Madrid, whom Chile's Supreme Court appointed to investigate Frei Montalva's death, said he hadn't issued a final ruling in the case and called any conclusions ''premature.''

Frei Montalva's son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, who was Chile's president from 1994 to 2000, said he was certain that his father had been killed, and he demanded that the crime's ''intellectual authors'' be found.

~snip~
Separate investigations have showed that the Pinochet regime ordered the assassinations of top officials of previous governments such as former army chief Gen. Carlos Prats, who died in a 1974 car bomb attack in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, who was killed in a similar 1976 car bomb attack in Washington.

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565330400660291585

[Judi Lynn]

2. Forensics expert says ex-Chilean president was assasinated

Forensics expert says ex-Chilean president was assasinated
McClatchy newspapers
guardian.co.uk, Thursday July 10, 2008

A court forensics expert said yesterday that former Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva was assassinated in January 1982 after a simple hernia operation during the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The statement by Carmen Cerda, the chief of the forensics team investigating the case, confirmed long-time suspicions that Frei Montalva, who was Chile's elected president from 1964 to 1970, had died of foul play at age 71. Medical officials had said that infection related to the surgery was the cause of death.

Cerda, however, said that a combination of toxins, including mustard gas, gradually administered to the former president ultimately killed him. If confirmed, Frei Montalva would be the only Chilean president to be assassinated.

~snip~
As president, Frei Montalva oversaw ambitious social programs that built housing for poor Chileans and redistributed land to poor farmers. He also seized more state control of the country's mining resources.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/10/chile.pinochet

[Texano78704]

3. If confirmed...

"If confirmed, Frei Montalva would be the only Chilean president to be assassinated."

Only? I think not. I would not call the events of 9-11-73 a "suicide."

[Judi Lynn]

4. I read just yesterday somewhere that there are photos of Allende walking out of La Moneda after it

was under attack.

People have always just taken the "official word" handed down to them by the powers that be who pulled off the violent seize and attack on the Palace, after a sustained attack on the Chilean economy.

Just found a good resource, with a reference to this President:

Hot Debate over Extent of US Intervention in Coup

By Gustavo Gonzalez, IPS. Right and left-wing senators in Chile argue over the extent of US intervention against the government of Salvador Allende. Also on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the coup, former US ambassador to Chile provided new information on CIA intervention in the 1964 presidential elections in Chile, when Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva - the father of current President Eduardo Frei - defeated Allende and his coalition of socialists and communists with the support of right-wing forces.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42a/134.html

Taken from this website:
The retrospective history of Chile

And this section:
U.S. overthrows Chilean democracy (1963-1973)

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42a/index-dg.html

[Judi Lynn]

5. Eventually the truth will be known about it. All we have as a source is the word of Pinochet's

government, the same government which slaughtered, tortured, disappeared thousands of "dissidents," and set in motion the grotesque "Operation Condor" which tracked down leftists all over the world and murdered them. As if these people are trustworthy!

From a search:

While the Chilean government maintains that he committed suicide, many others claim that he was assassinated by Pinochet’s troops.

Salvador Allende : Physician, Socialist, Populist, and President
Sara K. Tedeschi, Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/93/12/2014