Edmundo Pérez Zujovic (May 11, 1912 - June 8, 1971) was a Chilean politician of the Christian Democrat Party. He was minister of the Interior, Public Works and Finance under the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970).
Zujovic was born in Antofagasta. He was the father of the politician Edmundo Pérez Yoma, who is also a Christian Democrat.
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On March 9, 1969, a group of Chilean police attempted to remove a group of squatters, killing ten of them, in what has come to be called the "Massacre of Puerto Montt." As Minister of the Interior, Mr. Perez was consulted about what to do with the squatter camp. While no one knows if he ordered police to shoot, he did approve the removal of settlers from the illegal settlement, reversing his government's previous policy of squatter appeasement. It appears that he took this action because an opposition politician from the region, a leader of multiple squatter land-grabs, had recently been elected, thereby politicizing settlements in that area. [1] Police had two encounters with settlers on that day. In the first one the unarmed settlers were repelled and no shots were fired. The settlers subsequently returned in larger numbers and overwhelmed the police using crude weapons. Only then did police fire on the group.[2]
The leftist opposition blamed Pérez Zujovic and Jorge Pérez Sánchez for the death of the squatters, but they were not brought to trial.
Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara wrote a song about the massacre etitled "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" (Questions for Puerto Montt). The lines mentioning Perez Zujovic translate roughly as "You should respond, Mr Pérez Zujovic, why to the unarmed people, did they answer with rifle? Mr Perez your conscience, you have buried it in a coffin, and your hands will not be washed, by all the rains of the South, all the rains of the South" [3] However, themes in the song suggest that the people were defenseless, that the order to kill actually came from Mr. Perez, and that the people who died would not have known why. These statements reflect popular feeling of the time about the event, whereas in the event itself none of them were true.[4]
Mr. Perez's actions were debated at high levels of Chilean government. Mr. Perez's violent assassination, at the hands of members of a communist youth group, has been used as a justification for the deepening divide in Chilean politics and other events leading up to the 1973 Coup d'etat. [5]
On one occasion, Jara sang the song at Saint George's College in Santiago, in the presence of one of Pérez Zujovic's sons.
On June 8, 1971, at approximately 10:47 AM, a he was intercepted Hernando de Aguirre Street when he was driving with his daughter. One of the attackers shot Pérez Zujovic twelve times with a machine gun, killing him.
The name of Edmundo Pérez Zujovic is commemorated on many streets throughout Chile, including a heavily trafficked roundabout in the community of Vitacura in Santiago.
The faculty of Science, Physics and Mathematics at the University of Chile instituted a grant program under his name in 1991.
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