Laura Allende

Template:Short description Template:Family name hatnote Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Laura Sofía Allende Gossens (3 September 1911 – 23 May 1981) was a Chilean politician and member of the Allende family.

Early life and education

Allende was born on 3 September 1911 in Valparaíso, the youngest daughter of Template:Interlanguage link and Laura Gossens Uribe. Through her father, Allende was a member of the Allende family, a prominent Chilean political family. Allende's older brother was the former president of Chile Salvador Allende.

Educated at the Template:Interlanguage link and the Liceo de Viña del Mar, Allende studied law at the La Universidad de Chile en Valparaíso (present-day University of Valparaíso). While at the university Allende joined The Socialist Youth of Chile, the youth wing of Socialist Party of Chile.

Allende married Gastón Pascal Lyon (1909–1993) and had four children, Pedro Gastón, Marianne, Denise Pascal, a politician for the Socialist Party of Chile, and Andrés Pascal Allende, the co-founder and secretary general of the Revolutionary Left Movement.

Political career

From 1955–1965, Allende worked for the Copper Office (Departamento del Cobre). In 1965, Allende was elected Deputy of the Republic of Chile for Santiago and Talagante and was reelected twice in 1969 and 1973.

Allende was part of two international delegations to Havana in 1971 and to China in May 1973. At that time, she already was showing the initial symptoms of lymphatic cancer.

Exile

On 2 November 1974, Allende was arrested together with her daughter Marianne. Allende was detained at the Tres Álamos political prison camp, and was held in the Template:Interlanguage link isolation wing for a period of 5 months. During Allende's imprisonment, Gastón Pascal Lyon was also detained in isolation at Cuatro Álamos. On 6 November 1974, the Mexican Government offered to accept Allende as a political exile. On 21 March 1975, Allende was exiled from Chile indefinitely and was deported to Mexico alongside 94 other Chilean political exiles. From 1976 onwards Allende lived in Cuba. In 1979 Dr. Alejandro Artucio, a representative for the International Commission of Jurists, made an appeal to the Chilean authorities for Allende to be allowed to return from exile.

Following a terminal cancer diagnosis, Allende committed suicide at the Hotel Riviera in Havana on the 23 May 1981. Allende left a suicide note for Fidel Castro, expressing the difficulty of her physical condition and her great sorrow that she couldn't return to Chile. Upon her ashes returning to Chile, a Requiem for Allende's was held on the 28 May 1988 in Santiago. On 28 August 1988, Allende was reinterred at the Allende family mausoleum in the Santiago General Cemetery.

Notes

^α Mandate 1973–1977 was interrupted by the dissolution of the Chilean National Congress on 21 September 1973.