Sergio Onofre Jarpa Reyes (8 March 1921 – 19 April 2020) was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an politician who served as a member of the cabinet during the military dictatorship of

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

Biography

Coming from a rural background, he studied agriculture at the

University of Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

.Library of the Chilean National Congress Biography
/ref> He first became involved in politics in the 1950s, initially with the youth movement of the

Agrarian Labor Party The Agrarian Labor Party ( es, Partido Agrario Laborista, PAL) was a Chilean political party supporting the candidacy of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo for the 1952 presidential election. Formed in 1945, it was dissolved in 1958. It was formed in 1945 ...

before becoming involved in the National Action with Jorge Prat. He was instrumental in the formation of the National Party in 1966 and served as leader of the opposition to the

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

government and, from 1971, editor of the anti-socialist journal ''Tribuna''. Elected to the

Senate of Chile The Senate of the Republic of Chile is the upper house of Chile's bicameral National Congress, as established in the current Constitution of Chile. Composition According to the present Constitution of Chile, the Senate is composed of forty-t ...

in the 1973 election, Jarpa became a diplomat following the

1973 Chilean coup d'état The 1973 Chilean coup d'état Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the par ...

, serving as a delegate to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

and before becoming ambassador to Colombia (1976-1978) and then

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

(1978-1983). Jarpa was appointed

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

in 1983 with special orders to open dialogue with the opposition, which had organised under the name Democratic Alliance. This policy of appeasement was quickly abandoned by Pinochet however. He held the post until 1985. He formed his own political movement, the National Labour Front (''Frente Nacional del Trabajo''), in 1985 and this group was one of the three that formed National Renewal two years later. He returned to the Senate as a representative of this new party in 1990. Alongside his political career Jarpa was a noted author on socio-political topics and he was awarded the ''Premio al Mérito Geopolítico'' by the Chilean Institute of Geopolitics in 1991. He died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

on 19 April 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Chile The worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 () severely affected Chile. The virus was confirmed to have reached Chile on 3 March 2020. Initial cases had been imported from So ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jarpa, Sergio Onofre 1921 births 2020 deaths Chilean Ministers of the Interior Chilean anti-communists Agrarian Labor Party politicians National Party (Chile, 1966) politicians Members of the National Labour Front (Chile) National Renewal (Chile) politicians People from Rengo University of Chile alumni Candidates for President of Chile Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile Ministers of the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990) Chilean expatriates in Colombia