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History: GDR Poster Art

GDR Poster Art and Chile

GDR Poster Art and Nicaragua

GDR Poster Art and other Latin American Countries

GDR Poster Art and other Developing Nations

Anti-USA Posters

"The people will triumph"

I Jann? (1976)

This poster artist created a number of posters focused on Chile. Here, the artist shows a Chilean flag wrapped around a fist which is punching off the head of Pinochet.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte became Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean army in August 1973. On September 11, 1973 he led a military coup of the Allende government with three other generals (each of the Navy, Air Force, and Carabineros (national police)), who formed a ruling junta. They immediately imposed a state of siege, with a dusk to dawn curfew, media censorship, and continual military raids on poor neighborhoods to root out anyone associated with Allende, the Popular Unity parties, or communism in any way. They dissolved the Congress and eliminated the Constitution. Thousands of Chileans fled into exile, many to Canada, some to the US, and many to Europe. Thousands of others were detained, tortured and killed.

"Pinochet's role"

Prof. Alfred Beier-Red (1973)

The title of this drawing is a pun: "Pinochet's role" represents his role as leader. It also means that he is created from a spool (or "roll") of barbed wire made out of US steel.

Pinochet brought in the "Chicago Boys," a group of neoliberal economists, the majority trained at the University of Chicago, to institute economic reforms, including returning state-owned firms to their original private owners, favoring a return to a free market economy run by the laws of supply and demand with as little gvoernment intervention as possible. Their efforts brought the 500% inflation at the time of the coup down to 180% by 1976 and to 10% by 1982. However, the later opening of the economy to extensive foreign investment led local companies to lose out to multi-national corporations. As a result, wages were generally insufficient, and the privatization of social services left many with basic necessities unmet.

A plebiscite in 1988 ended Pinochet's rule. He had won a previous plebiscite in 1978, which showed citizen support for his rule (the validity of this election has been questioned) and, pressed by other nations and international organizations to have another, he decided to risk it. However, extensive television campaigning by the "No" side (saying "no" to Pinochet), who had for the first time gained access to the media for such purposes, brought them success and voted him out of power. The first presidential election in 20 years brought Patricio Alywin, Christian Democrat, supported by an opposition coalition of parties, to the Presidential Palace. However, according to the Constitution, approved in 1980, Pinochet would remain in control of the army until 1998.

"...General"

Fernando Urrejola (1979)

Notice how in the foreground Pinochet is saluting in uniform while in the background a soldier with a machine gun is coming.

This past March 10, in 1998, Pinochet stepped down as Commander-in Chief, according to the date set in the constitution which he wrote. The elaborate ceremony, involving a symbolic transfer of the offical weapons to his successor featured a tearful speech by Pinochet, telling of a carreer spent in the military in the service of his nation. Hundreds of protestors and supporters crowded the outside gate of the Military School, where the ceremony was held. The constitution guaranteed him, however, a position as a lifetime senator, for having been President of Chile for so many years. Amid fervent protests throughout Chile, he assumed his position as Senator in the Congressional session which opened March 11th in Valparaiso, amid thousands of demonstrators both inside and outside of the Congress building. Relatives of the disappeared continue to demand his prosecution, and a court in Spain has begun proceedings ot bring his case to trial. Bodies of the disappeared continue to be found even today buried in isolated rural parts of Chile.