Vicent Garcés says that he and his brother could have been two more of the many who died on September 11, 1973 due to the military coup that ended Salvador Allende. “The president asked my brother Joan to leave the Palacio de la Moneda before the bombing, and to explain to the world what had happened,” says Vicent when he remembers what happened that day. He worked in the Ministry of Agriculture “from where I could see everything that was happening in the Palace.” His brother Joan tells this newspaper that "the important thing is not our history, but that of those who lost their lives by soldiers who put an end to a legitimate government and a socialist project unique in the world."
Vicent (1946) and Joan (1944), Valencians from Lliria, were two Valencians who became part of Allende's executive. Vicent, after graduating as an Agricultural Engineer in Valencia, met a group of Chilean engineers who told him about the agrarian reform in that country and he decided to go there. Joan, a doctor in political science, a law graduate and a professor of international relations, entered Salvador Allende's circle of trust, becoming one of his most reputable advisors.
Joan fulfilled the task entrusted to him by the former Chilean president with books such as Allende and the Chilean Experience and was the man who championed the historic arrest of Pinochet in London in 1998. He emphasizes that the US has declassified documents that “confirm that during Military action was being prepared for a long time, since the failed coup of 1970.” The president of the United States, Richard Nixon, faced with the possible victory of Allende, had ordered the director of the CIA, Richard Helms, to “save Chile” and instigate a military coup to prevent the inauguration. General René Schneider, head of the Chilean Armed Forces, who had stated that the army should remain neutral, is murdered in an attempted kidnapping plotted with the support of the CIA.
Three years later, the military coup would triumph. Vicent expresses himself in similar terms: “what happened in Chile was the result of the alliance of the Chilean oligarchy and the United States, whose administration wanted to put an end to an administration that had become a socialist model for the entire continent.” And he adds that “the military coup was neither necessary nor inevitable.”
Joan was at Allende's side. The night before the coup, he was part of the team, in which several ministers participated, who prepared a speech for the next day in which the president was going to announce a plebiscite to the people to continue or not with his government and his reforms. “They didn't give him the opportunity,” says Vicent. Later, Joan went with Allende to the Palacio de la Moneda and experienced the assault firsthand, until the president asked him to leave. He was fortunate. He and Vicent managed to take refuge in the apartment of another Spaniard who played an important role there: Joaquín Leguina. Later, both achieved the protection of the Spanish ambassador, Enrique Pérez Hernández, who saved their lives. They fled the country, but they never stopped defending Allende's memory and legacy.
Joan Garcés does not hesitate to affirm that after the coup, Chile was the "laboratory" to implement the neoliberal model of the "Chicago School": "it was also imposed with whips and shots." This Valencian recently received recognition from the Chamber of Deputies of Chile, comparable to the Spanish Congress, for his contribution to the search for justice and fight against impunity for the crimes of Augusto Pinochet. Vicent, for his part, has been a historical leader of the Socialist Left current of the PSPV. Both are the Valencians of Salvador Allende, and despite the time that has passed, they have never stopped fighting for the memory of that socialist project and against the military coup of September 11, 1973.
