Miguel Enríquez (politician)

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For other uses, see Miguel Enríquez.
In this
Spanish name, the first or paternal surname
is Enríquez and the second or maternal family name is Espinosa.
Miguel Enríquez Espinosa
Santiago, Chile
OrganizationMIR
ChildrenMarco Enríquez-Ominami
Parent
(father)

Miguel Humberto Enríquez Espinosa (Spanish pronunciation:

General Secretary
of the MIR between 1967 and his death in 1974.

After the

newly established dictatorship
.

After a year of Enríquez operating clandestinely, Pinochet's secret police, the

Santiago. On October 5, 1974, his house was surrounded by DINA agents backed by heavily armed security forces personnel with an armored personnel carrier and a helicopter. He was wounded in the beginning of the assault covering the retreat of his pregnant wife (Carmen Castillo, also wounded) and two other men that fled. He received ten bullet wounds, including one to the head.[2]

His son,

2021
, losing all of the elections.

Biography

Miguel Enríquez was born in

University of Concepción
, Chile. Miguel had also two uncles which were Senators at the Chilean Parliament, Humberto Enríquez Frödden (Miguel's second name) and Inés Enríquez Frödden.

Miguel did his first school years at Saint John's, an exclusive English private school in Concepción. He continued his secondary education at "Liceo Enrique Molina" where at the age of 13 and 15, respectively, he met

Bautista van Schouwen Vasey. With these friends and his elder brothers Marco Antonio and Edgardo Enríquez, Miguel would constitute at the end of the fifties the first core of comrades around his socialist-libertarian project of those early years. The same group would initiate a few years later the political nucleus at the youth section of the Socialist Party which under Miguel's university years evolved to the foundation of MIR.[3]

Enríquez entered the

Neurologist.[4]

Enríquez was an avid reader of both classical literature and political philosophy. Being also fluent in English he had a wider option of classical texts. Miguel fancied authors from

Manuel Rodríguez; critical of the historical role of Bernardo O'Higgins and he enjoyed engaging in discussion with people who held views different from his.[5]

In 1962, during his second year at the university in Concepción, Miguel officially entered the youth organization of the Chilean Socialist Party (Federación Juvenil Socialista, FJS) together with his brother M. Antonio and some close peers of the medical school.

Bautista van Schouwen Vasey and Marcello Ferrada de Noli (cell's leader), Martin Hernández, and a new university peers Miguel had met at the University of Concepción (Jorge Gutiérrez Correa). All these young men - except Martin Hernández - left the Socialist Party together with Miguel Enríquez in January 1964 amid a stormy National Convention held in the southern city of Concepción.[7]

Senator Raúl Ampuero - the national chairman of the party - had long been dealing with Enríquez's public criticism of a party strategy characterised as "reformist" and alien, according to Enríquez, to the working classes' interest. Chairman Ampuero, supported by a majority of the convention delegates, proceeded to marginalize Enríquez and his closest colleagues of the Spartacus cell from the Socialist Party, some of them in strategic leading positions inside the "Comité Regional de la Juventud Socialista". Miguel Enríquez was then 21 years old. In fact, Miguel had already organized (1963) a clandestine fraction called "Movimiento Socialista Revolucionario", or "MSR", integrated by a handful of his peers and his two elder brothers Marco Antonio and Edgardo Enríquez. Edgardo had had the task of developing the MSR fraction at the Socialist Party in Santiago.

After the events of February 1964 in Concepción, this entire group, together with other small forces mainly from Santiago de Chile, entered the short-lived political group called "VRM". During the VRM-period (1964–1965) some few new cadres - each of them with previous experiences in other political organizations - were recruited by Miguel's group. Among them Luciano Cruz Aguayo, Sergio Pérez Molina, Jorge Fuentes (nickname Trotsko), Edgardo Condeza, Juan Saavedra Gorriategy, Máximo Jara, and Horacio Vergara Mehrson. All of whom, together with old-timers Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Bautista Van Schowen Vasey, Jorge Gutiérrez Correa, and his brothers Edgardo and Marco A., formed Miguel Enríquez first VRM-group in Concepción, the embryo of MIR.[8]

The foundation of MIR took place in August 1965, in a constituent assembly held at the Chilean Anarchist's facilities in Santiago and in which less than a hundred persons participated, mainly from Concepción and Santiago. Here Luciano Cruz participated also for the first time together with Enríquez as militants of the same political organization. The document "La conquista del poder por la vía insureccional" ("the conquest of power through insurrection") with the first political-military theses of MIR and which was elaborated by Miguel Enríquez ("Viriatto"), his brother Marco Antonio ("Bravo") and Marcello Ferrada de Noli ("Atacama") was approved by the foundation congress.[9] Miguel was then elected a member of the new organization's Central Committee, however he became officially MIR's chairman only in 1967. In this post as political leader MIR Miguel Enríquez remained until his death, when he was murdered by Pinochet's forces in October 1974.

Criticism of the Popular Unity government

Under his leadership the MIR provided only critical support to the Unidad Popular (UP) (Popular Unity) government headed by Salvador Allende between 1970 and 1973. Highly critical of the reformist role being played by the Communist Party of Chile in the Popular Unity government, the MIR became the object of considerable criticism and attacks by both the left and right of the political establishment. The MIR vehemently attacked the reluctance of the Popular Unity government to openly utilize force to seize private property and establish a socialist regime.

As the

Chilean armed forces
would avoid a military intervention, the MIR called for an armed revolution. The MIR, organized, recruited and trained people in para-military camps, preparing them to lead the revolution.

Miguel Enriquez's plans for a revolution were interrupted by the September 11 Military Coup.

September 11, 1973 Military Coup

After the

socialist
cause. Instead, they insisted on leading their communist revolution.

One of the first and major undertakings of

Rettig report (Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) emphasized the repression against the MIR.[1]

After the

Cementerio General de Chile
in Santiago and the medicine faculty of the Superior Institute of Medicine of La Habana, Cuba, has been named in his honor.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Report of the Chilean Commission on Truth & Reconciliation Part III Chapter 2 (A.2.b.1)". usip.org. 2002-04-10. Archived from the original on 2006-12-31. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
  2. ^ Cavieses, Manuel (10 Oct 1997). "El último día de Miguel Enríquez". Punto Final. 404.
  3. ISBN 978-91-981615-2-6
    .
  4. ^ From the "Facultad de Ciencias Médicas Dr. Miguel Enríquez" Dr. Miguel Enríquez Faculty of Medical Science, Cuba" information page. "Facultad de Ciencias Médicas Dr. Miguel Enríquez". Archived from the original on 2007-01-15. Retrieved 2007-07-05.
  5. ^ "El último día de Miguel Enríquez by Manuel Cabieses". lahaine.org. 2006-07-10. Retrieved 2007-08-30.
  6. ISBN 978-91-88747-19-8
    .
  7. ISBN 9789560006172
    .
  8. ISBN 9789560005427
    .
  9. ^ Pedro Alfonso Valdés Navarro (2008)"[Elementos teóricos en la formación y desarrollo del MIR durante el periodo 1965-1970][1]". Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Tesis de grado. Pages 120-121.
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