Funeral
In a government decision, he was not granted a state funeral, an honor bestowed upon constitutionally elected Chilean presidents, but a military funeral as former commander-in-chief of the Army appointed by President Salvador Allende. The government also refused to declare an official national day of mourning, but it did authorize flags at military barracks to fly at half staff. Pinochet's coffin was also allowed to be draped in a Chilean flag. Socialist President Michelle Bachelet, whose father Alberto was temporarily imprisoned and tortured after the 1973 coup, dying shortly after from heart complications, said it would be "a violation of conscience" to attend a state funeral for Pinochet. The only government authority present at the public funeral was the Defense Minister, Vivianne Blanlot.
Famous quotes containing the word funeral:
“I make it a kind of pious rule to go to every funeral to which I am invited, both as I wish to pay a proper respect to the dead, unless their characters have been bad, and as I would wish to have the funeral of my own near relations or of myself well attended.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“Suddenly, she wasn’t drunk anymore. Her hand was steady and she was cool. Like somebody making funeral arrangements for a murder not yet committed.”
—John Paxton (1911–1985)
“You scour the Bowery, ransack the Bronx,
Through funeral parlors and honky-tonks.
From river to river you comb the town
For a place to lay your family down.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)