Miguel Enríquez Espinosa (Spanish pronunciation: [miˈɣel enˈrikes espiˈnosa]) (March 27, 1944 - October 5, 1974 ^[1]) was a physician and the General Secretary of the Chilean Marxist-Leninist political party Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) (Spanish Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria) between 1967 and his death in 1974.

After the September 11, 1973 coup Enriquez would organise and lead an underground résistance against the Pinochet dictatorship. After a year of clandestinity Pinochet’s secret police DINA would uncover his location in a working class district of Santiago from where he wrote, worked and organised his political organisation and supporters. On October 5, 1974 his house was surrounded by DINA agents backed by hundreds of heavily armed security forces personnel with tanks and helicopter. Enriquez refused to surrender and he died from the ensuing grenade bombing of his home and fire exchange.

His son, Marco Enríquez, is a prominent politician in Chile and a candidate for the presidential election of 2009.

[edit] Biography

Miguel Humberto Enríquez Espinosa was born in Concepción, Chile into the upper middle class family of Edgardo Enríquez Frödden and Raquel Espinosa Townsend. His father Enríquez Frödden had been a prominent academic and political figure in Chile. He was a medical doctor and professor of anatomy of the University of Concepción, Chile, where he was rector (1969-1972). He had been a prominent figure in the Partido Radical (Radical Party) - in 1973 and he was appointed by Salvador Allende to the position of Minister of Education in the Popular Unity government. Dr. Edgardo Enríquez Frödden served also during 25 years as medical-surgeon of the Chilean Navy, as commander of the Hospital at the Navy Base in Talcahuano and with a one year-long specialization in the USA. His mother Espinosa Townsend graduated from the School of Law of the 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 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 Marcello Ferrada Noli and Bautista Van Schowen 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.

Enriquez entered the University of Concepcion, Chile at the age of 16 to study medicine. At the age of 23 he graduated with a Medical Degree, which he obtained with "greatest distinction" ("distinción máxima"), obtaining the second highest marks in his class (first and third were respectively Jorge Gutiérrez Correa and Bautista Van Schowen, also militants of MIR). This distinction earned Miguel at the same time a specialization scholarship to attend the prestigious Neurological Institute of Santiago de Chile. He specialized and was trained as a Neurologist. ^[2]

Enriquez was a great 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 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse and Ernest Hemingway to utopian socialists and classical anarchists. He was also a great debater, always citing works of world revolutionary history, well read in the literature of Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg, he studied the Chinese revolution, he knew in great detail the events of the Cuban revolution and had extensive knowledge of Chilean history. He was a Carrerist; an admirer of 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. ^[3]

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. Enríquez' first political activities are conducted in the Spartacus cell ("núcleo Espartaco"), a cell organized in advance by his friend Marcelo Ferrada Noli who for that purpose had entered the Socialist Party a year before. The group became integrated by Miguel Enríquez and his brother Marco Antonio, his old-time friends Bautista Van Schowen and Marcello Ferrada Noli (cell's leader), Martin Hernández, and a new university peers Miguel had met at the University of Concepción (Jorge Gutierrez 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.

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 cell Spartacus 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.

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 Noli ("Atacama") was approved by the foundation congress ^[4]. 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 and military commander of MIR Miguel Enríquez remained until his death, in combat with Pinochet's forces in October 1974.

[edit] 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 to 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 utilize the organs of Popular Power the UP itself had called upon the Chilean working class to form.

As the U.P. coalition headed by Salvador Allende leant more on constitutional legality and the "neutral tradition" of the Chilean armed forces to maintain its framework, the MIR called for the independent mobilization of the working class via its independently created organs of Popular Power to defend the process.

Much of the criticism of the reformist program of the Popular Unity government and prognoses made by the MIR under Miguel Enriquez came to pass as the deepest political crisis in Chile was resolved by one of the bloodiest military coup d’etat in recorded history.

[edit] September 11, 1973 Military Coup

After the September 11, 1973 coup Miguel Enriquez and other members of the MIR refused to accept political asylum in foreign embassies and rejected a condition of exile outside their country – considering the act of fleeing for personal security a form of betrayal to their socialist cause. Instead they began to organize a résistance against the Pinochet dictatorship during its most repressive and macabre period. ^[5]

One of the first and major undertakings of Pinochet’s secret police DINA was to exterminate by all means the leadership of the MIR. The MIR became of particular concern to Pinochet because it had had no formal ties with the Popular Unity government that quickly fell after the coup; much of its activities were of a spontaneous and irregular nature; they also had had ties to rank and file soldiers and sub officers in the Chilean Armed Forces. The MIR became the object of Pinochet’s paranoia; he came to consider the MIR the only political organization that could pose a threat to the consolidation of his rule in Chile. As a result between 1973-1976 most of its young leaders like Miguel Enriquez and Bautista von Schouwen were murdered. The rettig report (Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) emphasized the repression against the MIR and noted that its members suffered an almost exclusive form of persecution and more assassinations than any other political organization in Chile.^[1]

After the coup d'état by the armed forces against Allende's government on Tuesday 11 September 1973 Miguel was one of the main leaders in the resistance against the military junta led by Augusto Pinochet. This proved to be a precarious existence and Miguel was killed in a gun fight with agents of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) (National Intelligence Directorate) in the suburban home were he was carrying out his clandestine resistance work. He is interred in 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 honour.

[edit] Miguel Enríquez Quotes

[edit] 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. http://www.usip.org/library/tc/doc/reports/chile/1993_pt3ch2_A2b1_1.html. Retrieved 2007-01-06. 
2. ^ From the "Facultad de Ciencias Médicas Dr. Miguel Enríquez" Dr. Miguel Enriquez Faculty of Medical Science, Cuba" information page. [1]
3. ^ "El último día de Miguel Enríquez by Manuel Cabieses". lahaine.org. 2006-07-10. http://lahaine.org/internacional/historia/ultimodiaEnriquez.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-30. 
4. ^ Pedro Alfonso Valdés Navarro (2008)"[Elementos teóricos en la formación y desarrollo del MIR durante el periodo 1965-1970][2]". Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Tesis de grado. Pages 120-121.
5. ^ "Miguel Enríquez, the Man Behind the Legend By Gustavo González". chasque.net. 2004-10-06. http://lahaine.org/internacional/historia/ultimodiaEnriquez.htm. Retrieved 2007-08-30. 
6. ^ From an interview Miguel Enríquez held shortly after the military coup of September 11, 1973, that ended the socialist government of Salvador Allende[3]
7. ^ Answer that Miguel Enriquez gave the press in October, 1973 when asked: “According to your judgment: Why did the Popular Unity government collapse?" [4]

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[edit] Additional information

[edit] See also

• Criticisms of Salvador Allende
• Andrés Pascal Allende
• History of Chile
• A 2007 film by Carmen Castillo, Enriquez' companion who survived his assassination.

[edit] Sources

• Chilean Library of Congress biography (Spanish)
• Family information from official site (Spanish)
• Memories of her arrest at Cuatro Alamos (Spanish)