Gladys del Carmen Marín Millie (; July 16, 1938 – March 6, 2005) 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 activist and political figure. She was Secretary-General of the

Communist Party of Chile The Communist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Comunista de Chile, ) is a communist party in Chile. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party () and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth ...

(PCCh) (1994–2002) and then president of the PCCh until her death. She was a staunch opponent of General

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 ...

and filed the first lawsuit against him, in which she accused him of committing

human rights violation Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

s during his seventeen-year

dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in tim ...

ship.

Early life

Marín was born in Curepto, in the Maule region to Heraclio Marín, a farmer, and school teacher Adriana Millie, later moving with her family to Sarmiento, and then to

Talagante Talagante () is a commune and the capital city of the province of the same name in the Santiago Metropolitan Region of central Chile. The word ''Talagante'' in Quechua comes from ''talacanta'', meaning "Lazo de Hechicero", which was the proper n ...

. At the age of eleven she settled in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

Political activism

Marín joined the Communist party while studying at pedagogy faculty in Santiago. 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 Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

embassy in Santiago, where she remained for eight months before being allowed to leave the country to

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. Her husband Jorge Muñoz

disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organi ...

in 1976, while Marín was out of the country, travelling in Costa Rica. She returned to

, 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

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in 1999 and achieved less than four percent of the vote, mainly due to fear from leftist voters that the right-wing candidate

Joaquín Lavín Joaquín José Lavín Infante (born 23 October 1953) is a Chilean politician of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party and former mayor of Las Condes, in the northeastern zone of Santiago. Formerly Lavín has also been mayor of Santiago, ...

could defeat Socialist

Ricardo Lagos Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar (; born 2 March 1938) is a Chilean lawyer, economist and social-democratic politician who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. During the 1980s he was a well-known opponent of the Chilean military dic ...

. On January 12, 1998, Marín filed a complaint — the first person in Chile to do so — against

, accusing him of genocide, kidnapping, illicit association and illegal inhumation. In August 2000, Marín attended the Third Al Mathaba Conference, held by the Al-Mathaba World Anti-Imperialist Centre, a centre in

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

established by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for supporting anti-imperialist and leftist revolutionaries worldwide, as the representative of the PCCh, whose erstwhile anti-Pinochet armed wing, the

Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (in es, link=no, Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez, ''FPMR'') was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla organisation officially founded on 14 December 1983 as the paramilitary arm of the Communist Party of Chil ...

, had received support from Libya and its leader.

Personal life and death

Marín married Jorge Muñoz Poutays in 1963, with whom she had two children. Marín died of brain cancer after a long battle which included treatment in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

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

, with estimates in the press ranging from "tens of thousands of marchers" to "over 200,000 people" to "almost one million people". An avenue crossing a working class district of Santiago was later renamed after her.

References

External links

'Gladys Marín special from 'La Tercera''
(in Spanish)
Declaration of period of mourning

Presidential statement on the death of Gladys Marín
(in Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Marin, Gladys 1941 births 2005 deaths People from Talca Province Chilean people of Spanish descent Chilean people of French descent Communist Party of Chile politicians Deputies of the XLV Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Deputies of the XLVI Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Deputies of the XLVII Legislative Period of the National Congress of Chile Candidates for President of Chile Women members of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile 20th-century Chilean women politicians Chilean schoolteachers Chilean exiles Chilean expatriates in East Germany Deaths from brain tumor Deaths from cancer in Chile