'They shot without asking questions': Broward lawyer recalls 1973 Chile coup

Monday, Sept. 11, marks the 50th anniversary of a dark day in Latin American history: the bloody military coup that started the brutal, 17-year-long dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile — an event witnessed by a South Florida man who, ironically, was there to help Chileans practice law in a democracy.

“We stood on our balcony and watched the jets bomb the Moneda, the presidential palace," Fort Lauderdale attorney George Platt recalled for WLRN.

Platt was a young American attorney living in Santiago in 1973 and was teaching law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile there, on an international fellowship.

Inside La Moneda was controversial left-wing Chilean President Salvador Allende, the target of the right-wing military coup that erupted that day, led by Pinochet.

Allende would commit suicide inside La Moneda during the putsch — but Platt says the more horrible carnage happened outside on the streets, as Pinochet's forces hunted down anyone suspected of being a leftist activist.

"They didn't ask questions, they just shot a lot of people," says Platt, who saw several corpses on the streets.

"The bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, and some of them blindfolded. And they would just sort of stack them like firewood."