The human rights adviser to the President of Chile resigns for his comments on the 1973 coup d’etat

Patricio Fernandez, Human Rights adviser to the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, presented his resignation this Wednesday after the controversy unleashed as a result of a series of comments on the 1973 coup d’etat.

“On July 5, 2023, the presidential adviser Patricio Fernandez has presented his voluntary resignation from the functions carried out in the framework of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of September 11, 1973”, the Chilean Presidency indicated in a statement after that dozens of organizations accused Fernandez of “relativizing” what happened 50 years ago.

The text indicates that Boric himself has “valued” the decision taken by Fernandez, whom he has thanked for his “democratic spirit and his commitment to Human Rights.” Thus, he stresses that Human Rights organizations are “essential to move forward” in the face of the “brutal crimes of the dictatorship.”

“They have been the pillar to keep memory alive when many wanted to comfortably forget. We owe them a lot as a country,” indicated the Chilean Presidency, which has reported that the commemorative activities planned for September 11 will continue under the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture .

The controversy originated when Boric decided to hire the writer Patricio Fernandez to organize and manage the multiple activities that will take place in September as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup, since both activists and relatives of the victims of the Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990) do not consider him “fit” for the position.

Since then, more than 150 activists and organizations have signed a letter asking for his departure and attaching a series of statements made by Fernandez in which he supposedly justifies Pinochet’s coup. According to these organizations, the writer would have indicated that “supporting the coup d’etat was something understandable since times of great tension were lived and nobody knew what would come.”