麻豆社

11 September is a tremendously significant date in Chile. In 1973 - 50 years ago - military officers, led by General August Pinochet, overthrew the democratically elected government of the left-wing president, Salvador Allende.

General Pinochet would remain in power for the next 17 years, turning his country into a poster-child for neo-liberal economics - but it also became a country known for a regime of fear epitomised by the tactic of "disappearing" suspected dissidents.

Ariel Dorfman is Professor Emeritus of Literature at Duke University in the United States; his most recent novel,聽The Suicide Museum, investigates the death of President Allende. But, in 1973, he was the media and cultural adviser to Mr Allende's chief of staff and he told Newshour's Tim Franks about what the date and the coup mean to him.

(Photo shows a person crossing a street in Santiago, behind a military tank on its way to the Presidential Palace in 1973. Credit: Radiophoto/AFP)