Death and the Maiden
The play Death and the Maiden is set in the country of Chile in a time where the deep wounds of a tyrannical dictatorship were only beginning to heal. For seventeen years, Chile endured the iron-fisted rule of former army commander in chief, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. By this time, however, the people of Chile were not at all unfamiliar with a corrupt government. The democracy that preceded Pinochet's dictatorship was also wracked with controversy. Salvador Allende Gossens, a committed Marxist, was elected in 1970 by means of a democratic election; however, he only received 36.6% of the Chilean pubic vote. This was only the beginning of the governmental hullabaloo. As time progressed, Allende's government further lost its democratic character by having repeatedly violated the Chilean Constitution. In effect, Salvador Allende's government bordered on a dictatorship as he repeatedly broke his solemn oath to respect the Constitution and the Chilean laws. This was not only obvious to the majority of Chilean citizens, but also to the House of Deputies (the Lower House of the Chilean Congress) and the Chilean Supreme Court. In the momentous Agreement of 23 August 1973, two thirds of the House of Deputies voted to take action against Allen
Thousands of people were executed after suspicious disappearances, which often included armed confrontations and torture. The Catholic Church and the relatives of the direct victims played a leading role in creating organizations and associations for the defense of human rights. The Rettig Commission's three-volume report, published in March 1991, listed over 2,000 cases in which government agents were responsible for the execution, beating, or disappearance of people. Following the Latin American authoritarian tradition, Chile soon became a country devastated by social anarchy, hyperinflation, expropriation, land invasions and violent confrontations. One of Aylwin's first acts as president was to create the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The types of tyrannical measures used by the military regime included: arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture, forced disappearances, summary executions, collective executions, the negation of the right to appeal War Council sentences, homicide, exile, internal exile, abduction, intimidation, attempted homicide, death threats, raids, dismissal from jobs and surveillance. The Armed Forces, led by Commander in Chief of the Army, General Augusto Pinochet, complied with the Agreement of the House of Deputies. Thousands of people were detained throughout Chile on the day of the coup. Summary executions, disappearances and killings in false-armed confrontations became the norm. The Pinochet's military closed down the National Congress and Constitutional Tribunal; it declared all left-wing political parties dissolved and considered them to be illicit associations. Government repression was almost inhuman in nature. Political torturers walked the streets beside those they persecuted. Some political prisoners were confined to an internal exile in distant and isolated places. While the Rettig Commission Report has helped bring healing to Chile, the country still struggled with its past.
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Acceptance Essays
