Augusto Pinochet
Pinochet was born in Valparaíso, the son of Augusto Pinochet Vera, a descendant of an 18th-century French Breton immigrant from Lamballe, and Avelina Ugarte Martínez, a woman whose family had been in Chile since the 17th century and was of partial Basque descent. Pinochet went to primary and secondary school at the San Rafael Seminary of Valparaíso, the Rafael Ariztía Institute (Marist Brothers) in Quillota, the French Fathers' School of Valparaíso, and then to the Military School in Santiago, which he entered in 1931. In 1935, after four years studying military geography he graduated with the rank of "alférez" (Second Lieutenant) in the infantry. In September 1937, Pinochet was assigned to the "Chacabuco" Regiment, in Concepción. Two years later, in 1939, then with the rank of Sub-lieutenant, he moved to the "Maipo" Regiment, garrisoned in Valparaíso. He returned to Infantry School in 1940. On 30 January 1943, Pinochet married Lucía Hiriart Rodríguez, with whom he had five children: Inés Lucía, María Verónica, Jacqueline Marie, Augusto Osvaldo and Marco Antonio.
Human rights violations in Pinochet's Chile
From its inception on September 11, 1973, the Chilean bureaucratic authoritarian regime's ultimate agenda was to repress political dissidents—which some have classified as ""politicide"" (or "political genocide). General Pinochet's assumption of power through a violent, and bloody military coup d'état foreshadowed the brutal conditions that many innocent people would endure over the next 17 years. Pinochet genuinely feared the supporters of the Popular Unity Party (PU) and its leader President Salvador Allende, who had been the first Marxist to become President of a Latin American region through open elections. General Pinochet lived in a state of paranoia, and constantly feared being assassinated or losing power. Thus, he set out to destroy those who were not in unity with his policies, particularly those who had once served the PU.