Mendoza, Cesar

Born in the family of teacher Atilio Mendoza Valdebenito and pianist Amalia Duran. In 1938 he was drafted into the army, in 1940 he entered the Carabinieri School.

Since 1942 in the police service. He held a number of officer posts in various regional departments. Since 1970 - general, since 1972 - general inspector of the Chilean Carabinieri Corps.

Cesar Mendoza is considered an outstanding athlete of Chile . Since training the carabinieri included horse riding, Mendoza became interested in horse riding .

In 1951 , he won the gold medal of the Pan American Games in team competition. In 1952 he participated in the XV Olympic Games - became the owner of a silver medal in team competition. At the 1959 Pan American Games, he won a bronze medal in dressage and a gold in team dressage.

In September 1973, General Mendoza was the second person in the carabinieri corps. The corps commander, General Jose Maria Sepulveda, supported the Government of National Unity . On September 10, 1973, Mendoza met with the commander of the Chilean Air Force, General Gustavo Lee Guzman, and accepted the offer to join the military rebellion against President Salvador Allende .

September 11, 1973 Mendoza ensured the connection of the Carabinieri to the coup . In particular, he ousted General Sepulveda, who, along with Allende, was in the presidential palace of La Moneda . Allende made special mention of Mendoza in his last radio speech ^[1] , accusing the general of treason to the government.

After the coup, Cesar Mendoza led the carabinieri corps and became a member of the government junta of General Pinochet . He militarized the police service, transferred carabinieri from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Defense. He played a prominent role in political repression. On the other hand, Mendoza also carried out a number of measures to strengthen the effectiveness of the police - a department for combating drug trafficking , a psychometric investigation service, and an operational special forces group were established.

At the end of March 1985 , three Communist Party activists were abducted and killed in Santiago ^[2] . Initially, Mendoza tried to present this as "settling accounts between the Communists." However, the brutal triple murder caused a serious resonance and forced to conduct a professional investigation. The responsibility of the Carabinieri was established ^[3] (although Mendoza tried unsuccessfully to transfer it to the political secret service ). A loud scandal forced Mendoza to resign on August 2, 1985 (he was replaced by Rodolfo Stanche at the head of the Chilean police).

After the resignation, Cesar Mendoza went deep into social activities. In 1987, he became one of the founders of the private University of Las Condes. Mendoza and his wife Alicia Godoy also established a charitable organization to help children.

Cesar Mendoza died in the Carabinieri hospital two days after his 78th birthday.

On the day of the military coup and the overthrow of President Allende - September 11, 1973 - Cesar Mendoza turned 55 years old. Thus, the festive date of the Pinochet times coincided with the birthday of Mendoza.

• Cesar Leonidas Mendoza Duran - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com