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LETTERS

She fled a dictatorship in Chile. She’d leave the US if it came to that.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the 1973 military coup that toppled the government of Salvador Allende, people lit candles with the names of detainees who were disappeared and executed during the military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet, at the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile, on Sept. 11, 2023.Esteban Felix/Associated Press

I’ve lived through the preliminary steps leading to a dictatorship. It did not just happen one day on Sept. 11, 1973, in Chile. There were years of planning. All the while, Chilean citizens kept saying, “Chile is not a banana republic.” We have a constitution that has been upheld for decades, they said.

When I see the news now about people being deported and family members not knowing where they are or how to reach them, I cannot help but think of the families of the disappeared. Remember the 1982 movie “Missing”?

I left my country when I was 23 years old because I did not want to live under a dictatorship. I’m 74 now, and I’m willing to move again if my adopted country becomes a dictatorship.

Patricia Busto

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