Fifty years after the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington, Latin America is experiencing a marked political shift to the right. From Chile and Colombia to Ecuador, Paraguay and Costa Rica, a new generation of conservative leaders is reshaping the region—and the diplomats representing it in Washington.
Tag: Chile
On that day in 1973, a US-backed military coup violently overthrew the world’s first democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. That led to the torture, murder and exile of an estimated 30,000 Chileans, as well as the establishment of a dictatorship under Gen. Augusto Pinochet that lasted until 1989.
Veteran diplomat Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador to the US, warns of far-right extremism even though leftists now govern much of Latin America.
