Every serious historian and all honest Chilean citizen will answer YES.

On the one hand, Pinochet’s regime is responsible for violations to human rights (about 2500 dead) which is something everybody regrets (although this still is nothing compared to the 500,000 dead the Spanish had to go through to avoid becoming a communist country in the 1930s). It was bad and inexcusable.

But on the other hand, what Pinochet did, in terms of liberating Chile from the Soviet influence is something the Chileans will never thank him enough. Without Pinochet Chile would be a miserable country, immersed in poverty and lacking the most basic freedoms, just like Cuba and Venezuela.

Figure: From the newspaper “Allende: There is flour for 3 or 4 more days only”. That’s the level of the disaster of his government.

The evidence proving that Allende and his socialist government were planning turning Chile into a Soviet satellite in 1973 is overwhelming. Even the Senate and the Supreme Court issued clear statements declaring the socialist government inconstitutional. The violent ‘revolucion’ was about take full swing when the armed forces intervened to save the country.

I fully understand those people who show repugnance for Pinochet, especially if they lost a relative or a friend during his regime, but the cold truth is that Pinochet saved Chile and future generations of Chileans from a horrible and deadly communist experience.