Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean army general and later head of state as a military dictator. He was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of the Republic from 1974 until the return of democratic rule in 1990.

He studied to become an officer and was a professor at the War Academy in Chile. At the beginning of 1972, he was appointed General Chief of Staff of the Army. In August 1973, he was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army by president Salvador Allende.

On 11 September 1973, with active support from the CIA, Pinochet led a coup d'état which put an end to Allende's government and, along with the Navy, Air Force and Carabineros (the national police force), established a military dictatorship. In December 1974, the junta appointed Pinochet as President by a joint decree, to which Air Force General Gustavo Leigh disagreed. From the beginning, the government implemented harsh measures. According to the 1993 Rettig Report, over 3,200 people were killed, while (according to the 2004 Valech Report) at least 80,000 were incarcerated without trials and 30,000 subjected to torture. Another 200,000 people went into exile, particularly to Argentina and Peru, and applied as political refugees; however, some key individuals were followed in their exile by the DINA secret police, in the framework of Operation Condor which linked South American governments together against political opponents.