MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Navy returns properties to Punta Arenas communist party

Mid day Thursday and as had been previously announced the Chilean Navy returned two Punta Arenas downtown properties which had been taken over September 11/1973 and which originally belonged to the regional Communist Party.

During the ceremony R/A Edmundo Gonzalez Robles commander of the III Naval Zone formally handed the keys of the two buildings to Punta Arenas mayor Jaime Jelincic.

R/A Gonzalez said that the event must be interpreted as a gesture from the Navy to peaceful coexistence in Chilean society.

September 11, 1973 a military coup headed by General Augusto Pinochet violently ousted elected Socialist president Salvador Allende and immediately proscribed all Marxist inspired groups and confiscated their property.

Present at the ceremony was Punta Arenas Communist Party chairperson Tamara Avendaño who thanked the Chilean Navy's gesture but also requested that all pending cases of human rights abuses involving the service be addressed to they can be definitively closed.

One of the buildings is currently occupied by the Navy's social service office and the second is abandoned. A "Memory museum" is planned for this second property.

Mayor Jelincic finally turned the keys over to Punta Arenas Communist leadership.