Note: The annual event is being held on a different date this year – Friday, September 23rd.

Each year, we gather at Sheridan Circle Park, the site of the assassinations, to celebrate the lives of Ronni Karpen Moffitt and Orlando Letelier. This year, on the 40th anniversary of the assassinations, we are proud to be joined by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and several of Orlando and Ronni’s family members.

Memorial Program

MC: John Cavanagh, Director, Institute for Policy Studies

Remarks by:
Representatives from the families of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt
The U.S. Department of State
Her Excellency Michelle Bachelet, President of the Republic of Chile

Music:
Miguel Cordova, guitar/charango; David Rabin, cello; Patricio Zamorano, guitar/charango/vocals; Elisa Cordova, vocals
Peter Yarrow of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary

Laying of Flowers

Background

On September 21, 1976, agents of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile detonated a car bomb on Washington, DC’s Embassy Row, taking the lives but not the memory of Institute for Policy Studies colleagues Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt.

Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the United States, had become one of the most outspoken critics of the Pinochet regime. Moffitt was a 25-year-old IPS development associate. For more than three decades, the pursuit of justice for their murders has been a symbol of hope for victims of tyranny everywhere.

On the Sunday closest to the date of this tragic event, human rights activists, friends, family, and colleagues gather in remembrance of Letelier and Moffitt and to reflect on the ongoing struggle for human rights around the world.

This program will take place outdoors at the site of the assassination and end with a laying of flowers on the Letelier-Moffitt memorial across the street from Sheridan Circle. Please bring flowers.

You are also invited to the 40th Annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards on September 21, 2016,  5:30 pm at Carnegie Institution, 1530 P Street NW, Washington, DC. Early bird tickets will be available until August 22nd.