How do I convince a friend of how bad Pinochet was?

Pinochet and Allende is not black & white as many chileans make it to be. Both sides did horrible shit. Allende had terrible management of many things. The economy went to the gutter (the US sanctions made an effect, but at the same time, Allende opened up to the communist markets) and there was hyperinflation (nearly 600%), Many lands were expropiated from owners who were not particularly wealthy and given to workers who did not know how to manage them and also to high ranking socialist party members, making food shortages and lines for food.

Since nearly everyone (except socialist party members and friends) had to queue for hours, sometimes a whole day for a possibility of maybe getting some food pissed off many people and his support was under 50%. Some people and political parties asked for a military coup, and even threw corn and grains to military men calling them chickens for not acting.

Allende had a country with people making lines to get anything, properties being expropiated and given to people who did not know to manage them, industry productivity fell (an example is a siderurgical industry "Huachipato", whose workers increased from circa 2000 to 6000 and most of those new workers were the "friend who did not have a job" and were not exactly qualified for their jobs, and many of those were invented positions).

Now, during Allende's last year, he alienated a lot of left wing party members because he was not radical enough (he was more on the democracy side than establishing a dictatorship). Some radical members split off to join paramilitary groups, who recieved weapons from the Soviet Union (the USSR and Cuba were not fond of Allende since he was elected democratically*, which would underminde the idea of a revolution as the way of a communist society and Fidel Castro distanced himself with Allende because he though it might undermine his legitimacy). These paramilitary groups had their intentions of overthrowing Allende to establish a dictatorship in a way similar to Cuba.

*Allende's election had around 36% of the votes, while the right wing candidate, Alessandri had a 35%. 1% of the voters isn't a large number, considering the size of the voting population. It was around 70k people.

Also, during Allende's period, violence and crime rose a lot, since the society was becoming polarized into pro-Allende and pro-coup and a few fringes of wanting a left wing coup. People fighting in the streets was rather common.

On the contrary, the center and right wing parties called for a coup, and this was around 56% of the population. From 1973-1975 the economy didn't improve much, but when the neoliberal reforms began, the economy rose boomed. People could have access to cars, TVs and a lot of stuff that was hard to get during Allende's times, but most imporantly, people did not have to queue to get basic stuff, which pleased a lot of the people. Going from a country lacking basic goods to having a surplus in stores made a lot of people happy.

The violence in the streets diminished since right wingers had no need to fight anymore, but the armed paramilitary groups commited terrorist attacks. Some not really "terrorist" as killing people, but they commited acts like cutting power lines, but some attacks were violent. A known one was when Pinochet's guards car, which was behind him, was blown up by left wing radicals. Many people view them as people who perturbed peace.

I won't get into detail of the bad things he did, since it they are well known. Anyways, Allende was not a saint who did nothing wrong and Pinochet at the same time isn't the reincarnation of Hitler. That time of history was very polarized and a lot of people still are polarized to this day.

For many people, not waiting hours to get basic goods, and having the possibility of getting mugged or his properties expropiated was much better than the possibility of getting tortured due to supporting paramilitary groups or being part of the left wing parties. Not trying to support his actions, but most of the victims were communist paramilitaries, left winger party members and strong left winger supporters and the average guy was not part of this group. Allende's policies affected nearly everyone (the lines), while Pinochet's suppression affected less people.

I've had a lot of arguments with her

I really need to make a push

Not related to the rest of this, but if you keep insisting, you will possibly end up as a pushy asshole.