The Experience of Chilean Refugees Following the 1973 Coup
The aim of this research was to examine the experience of three different groups of refugees: those who fled to the UK, women, and academics. I carried out this research using documents held at the Modern Records Centre of the University of Warwick. I would encourage anyone interested in this topic to look beyond the examples I have included to the repository at the university.
Firstly, it is necessary to give a brief overview of what the 1973 Coup was. A military coup overthrew the democratically elected Socialist government of Salvador Allende on the 11th of September 1973. A military junta, then a dictatorship under August Pinochet was established. It has been estimated that up to 200,000 Chileans fled the country. Pinochet remained in power until 1990 at the head of a repressive government.
There was a significant response in the UK following the 1973 Coup. One of the main coordinators of this was the Chile Solidarity Committee, who organised protests, campaigns, and other solidarity events in opposition to the Pinochet regime. Appeals were also organised by local committees to support refugees in the area. I found an example of such an appeal within the collection from Leamington Spa, one of the towns close to the University of Warwick. This demonstrated the support by the British public for Chilean refugees, even when the UK government was less supportive. An interesting area for further research would be how support for Chilean refugees compares to the response to other humanitarian crises at the time.
Margaret Stanton, ‘Photograph of rally in Birmingham’ [online] <https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/chile/id/489/rec/36> [accessed 6 March 2023].
Women constituted another group of refugees that I chose to examine. Often they are considered secondary to this story due to the focus on male political activists. However, they were also intimately affected by the coup. At least 4,979 were imprisoned but this was not the only way that they were affected. Women associated with male political activists experienced both repression and psychological trauma. They were also key in the exile community. For example, arpilleras were made depicting repression during the dictatorship. These were then sold which helped to raise funds for the exile community and to support opposition to Pinochet.
Persecution meant that many academics and students were forced to flee following the coup. The British government diverted aid from Chile to the World University Service (WUS) and Academics for Chile. This helped to fund the Chile Scholarship Programme which helped 900 people. These are examples of apolitical groups who organised support for those fleeing the coup, without supporting the left-wing politics of Allende and his supporters. Within the MRC archives, reports published by the WUS on its programme for Chilean refugees enabled analysis of the successes and issues with these programmes.
World University Service, 'A study in exile: A report on the WUS(UK) Chilean refugee scholarship programme' [online] <https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/chile/id/1097/rec/6> [accessed 4 March 2023].
I recognise that this only gives a cursory overview of the topic and briefly looks at the experiences of those fleeing the Pinochet regime. I would direct anyone who is interested in this topic to look at the digitised archive at the MRC at the University of Warwick, as it has been indispensable for my work. I hope that what this post shows is how the experience of refugees and what support was offered to them was highly dependent on their personal situation. This results in an inability to generalise their experiences.
Nia Belcher
University of Warwick
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