A divided Chile marks 50 years since Pinochet's bloody military coup

A woman dressed in black holds a candle as she walks around La Moneda presidential palace during an event ahead of the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Chilean military coup, in Santiago, Chile, September 10, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chile on Monday marked 50 years since a violent coup by Augusto Pinochet against socialist President Salvador Allende ushered in two decades of military rule that saw thousands killed and seeded the country's market-led economic model.

The coup on Sept. 11, 1973, in which tanks roamed the streets of Santiago and Hawker Hunter planes bombed a burning La Moneda presidential place, reverberated around the world. It marked the start of a series of U.S.-friendly, right-wing dictatorships that governed much of South America well into the 1980s and were characterized by mass arrests, torture and disappearances.