VALPARAISO, Chile -- Gen. Augusto Pinochet turned over the presidential sash Sunday to former opposition leader Patricio Aylwin, restoring the country to democracy and ending 16 years of military rule that began with a bloody coup d'etat.
Aylwin recited the oath of office and the 74-year-old army commander removed the sash in a ceremony before invited guests and Congress, which had met just hours before for the first time since Pinochet seized power. Aylwin then put on another sash made especially for the occasion.
Aylwin, a 71-year-old veteran of four decades of Chilean politics, won the presidency during elections in December. Pinochet agreed to the elections after Chileans refused him another eight-year presidential term in a 1988 referendum.
The inauguration took place in the House chamber of the partially finished congressional building whose construction was approved by the military government. Hundreds of people gathered near the building, yelling slogans for and against the old and new governments.
A group of family members of leftists and political prisoners allegedly executed by the military regime yelled, 'Murderers! Cutthroats!' as military units passed.
Pinochet was pelted with eggs and vegetables as he rode five blocks in an open car to the inauguration site. A bodyguard opened an umbrella over him and his car sped up at one point to protect him from the flying debris. Radio Cooperativa said the general, who will remain as commander of the 60,000-member army, at one point shouted back, 'Ungrateful!'
A few hours after the ceremony, Aylwin traveled to the capital, Santiago, where he was met by thousands of cheering, flag-waving citizens.
Some celebrators in the huge crowd surrounding the presidential palace in the heart of Santiago attacked police with sticks and other objects, and the officers responded with tear gas and water cannons.
'Chile returns to democracy, it returns without violence, without blood, without hate -- it returns by the road of peace,' said Aylwin, appearing on a balcony and speaking to the crowd below. He urged Chileans to 'rebuild a true democracy in freedom and a climate of justice.'
Police said five bombs exploded in Santiago early Sunday, including one that damaged the home of a former top official of Pinochet's feared secret police, the National Information Center. The small bomb broke windows in the home of Marco Derpic Mirando, former deputy director of the secret police who are accused of the murders and torture of political prisoners.
Other bombs were aimed at a Mormon church, private businesses and a building belonging to a pro-Pinochet political party. No injuries were reported.
Pinochet, a general who assumed the presidency after the coup d'etat, was driven his residence in an upper class Santiago neighborhood to the military school. He attended a Catholic mass before traveling to Valparaiso, 75 miles west of Santiago.
Thousands of people lined the streets of Pinochet's route, waving signs saying 'Thank you my general' and 'We will never forget you.' They shouted 'Pinochet, Pinochet' and 'He's going to return, he's going to return,' crushing against barriers to get a look at the white uniformed figured who raised both hands in acknowledgment of the cries.
Vice President Dan Quayle was greeted by yells of 'Go Away' and 'Pinochet, Pinochet' when he visited Pinochet for a 25-minute protocol visit early Sunday at the army commander's Santiago resident.
The cries reflected the cold relations between the Pinochet government and United States, which has criticized the military government for human rights violations and supported a free election campaign in 1988.
'We had a very good discussion,' said Quayle after his meeting with Pinochet. 'This is a new era in Chile where democracy is going to prevail.'
He said the two talked of Pinochet's farewell speech to the nation Sunday night in which Pinochet spoke 'of the destiny of the Chilean people. That destiny is of democracy.'
Pinochet swept to power in the thunder of bombs and gunfire in the bloody Sept. 11, 1973, coup that ousted the elected government of Marxist President Salvador Allende. Allende died during the coup, either a suicide as the military says or murdered as some of his followers believe.
For a decade and a half Pinochet ruled Chile virtually unchallenged, accused by human rights groups of the brutual killings and torture of his enemies, real and perceived. All opposition was stifled and thousands of Chileans were exiled.
But in the 1988 vote, Chileans said 'no' by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin to his request to continue as president.
Socialists, who are part of the opposition coalition supporting Aylwin, held an early morning memorial service at the grave of Allende in Vina del Mar, a resort city bordering Valparaiso. Allende was buried without ceremony the day after the coup.
'We have confidence and hope in recovering our freedom and dignity in our country and we hope that never again occurs that which has occurred,' said Isabel Allende, daughter of the dead president.
