Miguel Humberto Enríquez Espinosa (; March 27, 1944 – October 5, 1974) was a

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

and a founder of the Chilean Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), founded in 1965. He was

General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

of the MIR between 1967 and his death in 1974. After the September 11, 1973, coup Enriquez led the political-military resistance of MIR against the newly established dictatorship. After a year of Enríquez operating clandestinely, Pinochet's secret police, the DINA, discovered his safe-house in the

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

district of San Miguel in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

. On October 5, 1974, his house was surrounded by DINA agents backed by heavily armed security forces personnel with an armored personnel carrier and a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

. He was wounded in the beginning of the assault covering the retreat of his pregnant wife (Carmen Castillo, also wounded) and two other men that fled. He received ten bullet wounds, including one to the head. His son, Marco Enríquez-Ominami, is a prominent politician in Chile, and was a candidate for the presidential election of 2009, and then again in

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

and in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, losing all of the elections.

Biography

Miguel Enríquez was born in

Talcahuano Talcahuano () (From Mapudungun ''Tralkawenu'', "Thundering Sky") is a port city and commune in the Biobío Region of Chile. It is part of the Greater Concepción conurbation. Talcahuano is located in the south of the Central Zone of Chile. ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, into the

upper middle class In sociology, the upper middle class is the social group constituted by higher status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term '' lower middle class'', which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle-class stra ...

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 Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

of the University of Concepción, Chile, where he was principal (1969–1972). He had been a prominent figure in the Partido Radical (Radical Party) - in 1973 and he was appointed by

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until Death of Salvador Allende, his death in 1973 Chilean coup d'état, 1973. As a ...

to the position of

Minister of Education An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...

in the Popular Unity government. Dr. Edgardo Enríquez Frödden served also during 25 years as medical-surgeon in 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 exclusive 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 de Noli and Bautista van Schouwen 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. Enríquez entered the University of Concepción,

, at the age of 16 to study

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

. At the age of 23 he graduated with a

Medical Degree A medical degree is a professional degree admitted to those who have passed coursework in the fields of medicine and/or surgery from an accredited medical school. Obtaining a degree in medicine allows for the recipient to continue on into special ...

, 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 Schouwen, also militants of MIR). This distinction earned Miguel at the same time a specialization scholarship to attend the prestigious

Neurological Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the s ...

Institute of

Santiago de Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital city, capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's Chilean Central Valley, central valley and is the center ...

. He specialized and was trained as a

Neurologist Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the ...

. Enríquez was an avid 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 Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...

Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss poet and novelist, and the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His interest in Eastern philosophy, Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophic ...

and

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

to utopian socialists and classical anarchists. He was also a great debater, always citing works of world history, well read in the literature of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

and

Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg ( ; ; ; born Rozalia Luksenburg; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary and Marxist theorist. She was a key figure of the socialist movements in Poland and Germany in the early 20t ...

, he studied the Chinese revolution, he knew in great detail the events of the

Cuban revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

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 Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme (; 20 August 1778 – 24 October 1842) was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He was a wealthy landowner of Basque people, Basque-Spanish people, Spani ...

and he enjoyed engaging in discussion with people who held views different from his. 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 Marcello Ferrada de 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 Schouwen Vasey and Marcello Ferrada de Noli (cell's leader), Martin Hernández, and a new university peers Miguel had met at the University of Concepción (Jorge Gutiérrez 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 Spartacus cell 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. All of whom, together with old-timers Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Bautista Van Schowen Vasey, Jorge Gutiérrez Correa, and his brothers Edgardo and Marco A., formed Miguel Enríquez first VRM-group in Concepción, the embryo of MIR. 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 de Noli ("Atacama") was approved by the foundation congress.Pedro Alfonso Valdés Navarro (2008)" lementos teóricos en la formación y desarrollo del MIR durante el periodo 1965-197

. Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Tesis de grado. Pages 120-121. 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 MIR Miguel Enríquez remained until his death, when he was murdered by Pinochet's forces in October 1974.

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

between 1970 and 1973. Highly critical of the reformist role being played by the

Communist Party of Chile The Communist Party of 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 of Chile (, JJ.CC), in 1932. ...

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 openly utilize force to seize private property and establish a socialist regime. As the '' U.P.'' coalition headed by

leaned more to a gradual transition to socialism, abiding by the Laws and current Constitution and trusting that the "neutral political tradition" of the Chilean armed forces would avoid a military intervention, the MIR called for an armed revolution. The MIR, organized, recruited and trained people in para-military camps, preparing them to lead the revolution. Miguel Enriquez's plans for a revolution were interrupted by the September 11 Military Coup.

September 11, 1973 Military Coup

After the September 11, 1973 coup Miguel Enríquez and other members of the

MIR ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

refused to accept

political asylum The right of asylum, sometimes called right of political asylum (''asylum'' ), is a juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereignty, sovereign authority, such as a second country or ...

in foreign embassies and rejected a condition of

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

outside their country – considering the act of fleeing for personal security a form of betrayal to their

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

cause. Instead, they insisted on leading their communist revolution. One of the first and major undertakings of Army Intelligence DINA was to exterminate by all means the leadership of the MIR. The

became of particular concern to Pinochet because it had had no formal organization framework and relied on cells; much of its activities were unpredictable and irregular in nature; they had also managed to infiltrate the Chilean Armed Forces. The MIR became the object of Pinochet’s paranoia. As a result, between 1973 and 1976 most of its young leaders like Miguel Enriquez and Bautista van Schouwen Vasey were killed. The

Rettig report The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report (), is a 1991 report by a commission designated by Chilean President Patricio Aylwin (from the '' Concertación'') detailing human rights abuses resulting i ...

(Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) emphasized the repression against the MIR. After the

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

by the armed forces against Allende's government on Tuesday 11 September 1973, Miguel was one of the main guerrilla leaders that remained after many fled the country. 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 slum home where he was carrying out his clandestine operations. He is buried 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 honor.

References

Sources

Chilean Library of Congress biography

{{DEFAULTSORT:Enriquez, Miguel Anti-revisionists Chilean anti-fascists Assassinated Chilean politicians Chilean atheism activists Chilean revolutionaries Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile) politicians Executed communists Executed revolutionaries Presidency of Salvador Allende Chilean people of German descent Chilean people of Scottish descent People from Concepción, Chile People murdered in Chile University of Concepción alumni 1944 births 1974 deaths Chilean neurologists 20th-century atheists Chilean Marxists South American politicians assassinated in the 1970s Politicians assassinated in 1974 People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Chile

Biography

Criticism of the Popular Unity government

September 11, 1973 Military Coup

See also

References

Sources