Death of Salvador Allende

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On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, the president of Chile, died by suicide during a coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. In 2011, after decades of suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces, a Chilean court authorized the exhumation and autopsy of Allende's remains, which confirmed that the wounds were self-inflicted. Carlos Altamirano, who was close to Allende, recalls that prior to the coup, Allende had dismissed his suggestion to seek refuge in a loyalist regiment and fight back from there.Altamirano also said that Allende had rejected the option "to do as so many dictators and presidents of Latin America, that is to grab a briefcase full of money and take a plane out the country." Allende was an admirer of José Manuel Balmaceda, a Chilean president who died by suicide in face of his defeat in the Chilean Civil War of 1891. According to Altamirano, Allende was "obsessed with the attitude of Balmaceda...

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