At an event held in La Florida attended by various municipal authorities, Deputy Camila Vallejo (PC) was seen looking very happy while posing next to former DINA member Alberto Chaji, the man in the black suit.

The deputy did not know who she was sitting (nearly) next to, and the former DINA agent, as they say in the popular southern Santiago commune, "played her for a fool"—meaning he mocked the parliamentarian and the Councilwoman without them knowing who he was.

Chaji is the president of the senior citizens' group "Envejecer con Amor" (Aging with Love) of La Florida. Also with her was the commune's councilwoman, Marcela Abedrapo, also of the PC, who, after being photographed and having the image uploaded to social media, denounced identity theft, blaming the right wing for playing dirty.

On the social network Twitter, there were many comments regarding this incident for taking photos with the man who was a driver and bodyguard for the dictator Augusto Pinochet. In the Pinochetist digital magazine called "Héroes de Chile," it is noted that Alberto Chaji is the son of one of the many Chinese families that arrived in Chile from Canton in the 1930s.

He spent his childhood in Iquique, among merchants. When the time came to decide his future, he did not hesitate to enter military service. He liked the Army, stayed, and ended up becoming a commando in the prestigious Paratrooper School.

Everything followed its normal course until he was informed, one month after the military junta was installed, that he had been selected to be a bodyguard for Augusto Pinochet. "Chi, you're Chinese!" was the first thing the general said to him the day he arrived by bus at the Diego Portales building.

From that episode, a relationship was formed that lasted 23 years in active service. He was the man who protected the life of Pinochet and his wife, Lucía Hiriart. What did he like least about his job? "You know that when the moment of an attack arrives, you just have to step in.

Sometimes I thought, what will happen to my children, to my family? It's just that you see tons of cases where they hold half-hearted funerals and then everyone forgets."

Source: Cambio 21, October 03, 2018