Boinazo
| Boinazo | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Chilean transition to democracy | |||
 General Augusto Pinochet, by then a former dictator, and the sitting president, Patricio Aylwin | |||
| Date | 28 May 1993 | ||
| Location | Santiago, Chile | ||
| Caused by | Reopening of the judicial investigation into the Pinocheques scandal | ||
| Goals | Halt the corruption investigation into Pinochet's son | ||
| Result | Investigation later closed by the government; case reopened in the 2000s and permanently closed in 2010 | ||
| Parties | |||
| |||
| Lead figures | |||
Augusto Pinochet | |||
The Boinazo (Spanish: "the beret incident") was a civil–military crisis that took place in Santiago, Chile, on 28 May 1993, during the presidency of Patricio Aylwin. Commandos of the Chilean Army, acting under orders from the army's commander-in-chief, former dictator General Augusto Pinochet, assembled in combat gear near the Palacio de La Moneda, the seat of the Chilean government. The soldiers wore camouflage fatigues, carried automatic weapons, and had their faces painted; the event took its name from their black berets (boinas). The mobilization was widely understood as an attempt by Pinochet to pressure the civilian government into halting a judicial investigation into corrupt payments made by the army to his son, a scandal known as the Pinocheques affair.
The incident occurred while Aylwin was on an official visit to Denmark, leaving Interior Minister Enrique Krauss in charge of the government. It was regarded at the time as the most serious test of Chile's fragile transition to democracy since the end of the military dictatorship in 1990, and one of a series of shows of force by which Pinochet, despite having relinquished the presidency, continued to assert his influence and shield his family from prosecution throughout the 1990s.
Background
[edit]
The crisis originated in the Pinocheques affair, a corruption case involving Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, the general's eldest son. In 1987, a company controlled by the younger Pinochet acquired Valmoval, a small, financially insolvent rifle manufacturer. Two years later, in January 1989, the army's Fábricas y Maestranzas del Ejército (FAMAE) repurchased the company, paying Pinochet Hiriart approximately 971 million pesos (about US$3 million) through three checks that became known in Chile as the pinocheques.[1]
The payments came to light in 1990 through an investigative committee of the Chamber of Deputies chaired by Deputy Jorge Schaulsohn. In response, on 19 December 1990 General Pinochet, still army commander-in-chief, placed the roughly 57,000-strong force on alert in what he termed an ejercicio de enlace ("liaison exercise"), a show of force intended to persuade the newly installed democratic government to drop the matter. The Aylwin administration, only months into its term, yielded to the pressure, and the case was shelved.[2][3]
The matter resurfaced in May 1993, when the Council for the Defense of the State (Consejo de Defensa del Estado, CDE) decided to reopen its investigation into the payments. Days before the events described below, the Santiago newspaper La Nación ran the headline "Reabren caso cheques del hijo de Pinochet" ("Case of Pinochet's son's checks reopened"), alerting the public—and, evidently, the army—that the corruption inquiry was again active.[3][4]
The incident
[edit]On the morning of Friday, 28 May 1993, more than a hundred Chilean Army commandos, some reportedly arriving by parachute, converged on the Edificio de las Fuerzas Armadas (Armed Forces Building), located roughly 200 meters from the Palacio de La Moneda. The troops, dressed in combat fatigues and black berets, with their faces painted and carrying automatic rifles, replaced the building's usual guard detail, in a clear and deliberate display of military force directed at the civilian government.[5][6]
The mobilization took place while President Aylwin was abroad on a state visit to Denmark, leaving Interior Minister Enrique Krauss to exercise executive authority in his absence. Alongside the demand that the pinocheques investigation be dropped, army officers reportedly raised additional grievances during the standoff, including calls for a new amnesty law covering military personnel implicated in human rights cases from the dictatorship era.[7]
The episode alarmed Chile's political class, coming barely three years after the return to elected government, and some observers feared it signaled the possibility of a renewed coup. Human Rights Watch later described it as the most serious civil-military incident since the restoration of democracy in 1990.[2]
Aftermath
[edit]Facing the show of force, and mindful of the fragility of the democratic transition then under way, the Aylwin government again backed down, effectively allowing the pressure to succeed a second time.[3][7] The pinocheques case was ultimately closed for good during the presidency of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994–2000); in July 1995, at the government's request, the state's prosecuting body dropped its appeal, citing reasons of state, after further pressure from army officers—this time in civilian dress, in an episode known as the "picnic" held outside Punta Peuco prison, where soldiers convicted of human rights violations under the dictatorship were incarcerated.[3][4][2]
Later revival of the case
[edit]The Pinochet family's finances came under renewed scrutiny in 2004 and 2005, following the disclosure of secret accounts held by the general at Riggs Bank in the United States. As part of the broader Riggs investigation, Judge Manuel Valderrama reopened the pinocheques matter to determine whether the funds paid for Valmoval had ended up in Pinochet's hidden accounts. Augusto Pinochet Hiriart was questioned as a suspect in September 2009. In May 2010, Valderrama closed the case permanently, ruling that investigators had been unable to establish that the money had reached his father's accounts.[8]
The Boinazo has since been cited by historians and human rights researchers as emblematic of the constraints Pinochet continued to place on Chile's elected governments throughout the 1990s, even after leaving the presidency, through his enduring position as army commander-in-chief and, later, as a senator-for-life.[9]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ "Augusto Pinochet Hiriart declaró como inculpado en caso "Pinocheques"" (in Spanish). BioBioChile. 29 September 2009. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- 1 2 3 Human Rights Watch (October 1999). When Tyrants Tremble: The Pinochet Case (Report). Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 BBC Mundo (11 August 2005). "Los conflictos de la familia Pinochet" (in Spanish). Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- 1 2 "Hijo de Pinochet declara por "Pinocheques"" (in Spanish). El Nacional. 29 September 2009. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
- ↑ "Período presidencial" (in Spanish). Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- ↑ ""El boinazo": el momento más tenso del gobierno de Patricio Aylwin". La Tercera (in Spanish). 14 February 2020. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- 1 2 "Hijo de Pinochet fue interrogado por presunta malversación" (in Spanish). Noticias 24. 29 September 2009. Archived from the original on 8 October 2009. Retrieved 3 May 2012.
- ↑ "Juez Valderrama sobreseyó arista de los "Pinocheques" en caso Riggs" (in Spanish). Cooperativa.cl. 7 May 2010. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- ↑ Weeks, Gregory (2000). "Waiting for Cincinnatus: The Role of Pinochet in Post-Authoritarian Chile". Third World Quarterly. 21 (5): 725–738. doi:10.1080/713701081.