René Vidal Basauri
René Vidal Basauri was a Chilean army officer and government minister who served twice as Minister Secretary-General of Government during the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet.
He was also designated as military chief of the State of Emergency Zone for the Metropolitan Region and the Province of San Antonio, holding broad administrative and security powers.
Biography
Little is publicly known about Vidal Basauri’s early life or education. By the early 1970s he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Chilean Army, serving as Head of the Department of Special Affairs (Departamento de Asuntos Especiales) in the Undersecretariat of War.
According to human-rights compilations, he later appeared listed among personnel of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA).
Ministerial career
Vidal Basauri was appointed Minister Secretary-General of Government on 15 November 1977, remaining in office until 27 January 1979, and was reappointed from 20 October 1980 to 29 December 1980 under General Augusto Pinochet.
During his first term he signed Decree-Law No. 2315 (28 September 1978), which reorganised the presidency’s communication system and created the Division of Social Communication (División de Comunicación Social), centralising state propaganda and information control.
He later served as Chief of the State of Emergency Zone for the Santiago Metropolitan Region and the San Antonio Province, exercising broad powers over civil administration, public order, and the press.
Censorship decree
In September 1984, General Vidal Basauri signed Bando N° 19, which prohibited images on the covers of magazines such as Análisis, Apsi, Cauce and Fortín Mapocho.
The order became a symbol of the regime’s media restrictions during the final decade of military rule.