Augusto Pinochet Quotes

This is not a dictadura [dictatorship/hard rule] but a dictablanda [soft rule].

The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Comptroller. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all.

Not a single leaf moves in this country if I'm not the one moving it. I want that to be clear!

I am going to die. The person who succeeds me also would die. But elections, you won't have.

Rome cut off the heads of Christians and they continued to reappear one way or another. Something similar happens with Marxists.

I was only an aspiring dictator. I was never a real dictator.

The only solution to the issue of human rights is oblivion.

I'm looking at them from above, because God put me there.

The freedoms which had been so hard won from colonial domination were being crushed by Soviet-inspired and funded military and political forces. Their clear intention was to deprive the people of their democratic freedoms. As history shows, this is what had happened in the Soviet Union and in Cuba, and continues to be the case in other parts of the world.

I'm not someone who usually sends out threats. I warn only once. The day they touch one of my men, the rule of law is over.

I have lived with my conscience and my own memories for over quarter of a century since the events of 1973.… These are not easy reflections for me. But I am at peace with myself, and with the Chilean people, about what happened. I am clear in my mind that the return to Chile of true democracy, and from that the true freedom to which all individual people are entitled, could not have been achieved without the removal of the Marxist government.

Remark to reporters (September 1991) when asked about the burial of 125 political opponents in 108 graves. Quoted in Chile Under Pinochet (2000) by Mark Ensalaco

Is it true what Contreras testified before the courts, that the president of the junta and later the president of the Republic was the direct head of DINA? I don't remember, but it is not true. It is not true and if it was, I don't remember. Contreras liked to cajole, wrap around his boss. Contreras gave the orders. It was he who managed the institution.

How very economical! (¡Pero que economía más grande!)

I have a sour face. Maybe that's why they say I'm a dictator.