Gladys Marín

Gladys del Carmen Marín Millie (July 16 1941 – March 6 2005) was a Chilean activist and political figure. She was Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh) (1994-2002) and then president of the PCCh until her death. She was a staunch opponent of General Augusto Pinochet and filed the first lawsuit against him, in which she accused him of committing human rights violations during his seventeen-year dictatorship.

Marín was born in Curepto, in the Maule region to peasant Heraclio Marín and school teacher Adriana Millie, later moving with her family to Sarmiento, and then to Talagante. At the age of eleven she settled in Santiago. It was while studying at the "Normal" teacher-training college in the capital that she joined the Communist Party.

Marín married Jorge Muñoz Poutays in 1963, with whom she had two children. She was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1965, and again in 1970, representing a working-class district of Santiago.

Following the 1973 coup d'état, Marín first went underground and then, at the PCCh's insistence, took refuge in the Dutch embassy in Santiago, where she remained for eight months before being allowed to leave the country. Jorge Muñoz disappeared in 1976, while Marín was out of the country, travelling in Costa Rica. She returned to Chile, clandestinely, in 1978 and fought from the underground for the return of democracy.

In 1997, Marín ran for a seat in the Senate and obtained the eighth largest national majority, but was not elected due to the nature of the Chilean electoral system, which favours the two dominant parties or coalitions. She ran for president in 1999 and achieved less that four percent of the vote, mainly due to fear from leftist voters that the right-wing candidate Joaquín Lavín could defeat Socialist Ricardo Lagos.

On January 12, 1998, Marín filed a complaint — the first person in Chile to do so — against Augusto Pinochet, accusing him of genocide, kidnapping, illicit association and illegal inhumation.

Marín died of brain cancer after a long battle which included treatment in Cuba and Sweden. Upon her death the government declared two days of national mourning. In accordance with her wishes, her coffin was exhibited at the former National Congress in Santiago and was viewed by thousands of mourners prior to its cremation. For her funeral the PCCh and her family organized a march through the center of Santiago, where there were between 500,000 and 1 million marchers. An avenue crossing a working class district of Santiago was later renamed after her.

External links

* [http://docs.latercera.cl/especiales/2005/gladysmarin/intro.htm 'Gladys Marín special from 'La Tercera"] (in Spanish)
* [http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={89FDBBE2-23B0-43F8-BB9C-52B1622ECF9F}&language=EN Declaration of period of mourning]
* [http://www.presidencia.gob.cl/view/viewArticulo.asp?idArticulo=956&seccion=Noticia%20Portada%201 Presidential statement on the death of Gladys Marín] (in Spanish)