Ricardo Edmundo Izurieta Caffarena (11 June 1943 – 17 August 2014) was a Chilean military officer and Commander-in-Chief of the Army between 1998 and 2002.
[1] Izurieta was a key figure in managing civil-military relations as Chile worked to consolidate democracy in the years after the military government of Augusto Pinochet.
During his career he served as a military professor, Director of the Academia de Guerra del Ejército, and military attache to Israel and the United States.
Izurieta played an important role in moving the Chilean armed forces beyond the Pinochet era and working with Concertacion governments to address the legacy of human rights abuses.
Izurieta and his 1998-2002 term at the head of the Chilean Army navigated such a critical period in the consolidation of Chilean democracy that some termed Izurieta an "eje de cambio" or axis of change for post-authoritarian Chile.