Pinochet

While I was growing up in an Australia of peace and prosperity, the nation of Chile was undergoing a very different time. We'll start back in 1970 when Salvador Allende became the world's first (and only?) democratically elected socialist president. He quickly introduced a number of extreme, and controversial, left-wing measures - the nationalisation of major industries, the redistribution of land, raising of the minimum wage and increased social spending. By 1972 inflation had soared, basic commodities were no longer freely available, the government announced its intention to default on international debts - and the international price for copper (Chile's most important export) had plummeted.1 The resulting unrest climaxed on September 11 1973 when the right-wing army commander, Augusto Pinochet, toppled the government in a violent coup (during which Allende killed himself).

Pinochet was in power for nearly 17 years. During this time at least 3200 people were murdered or disappeared and 27 000 tortured. The 2003 National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture found that two thirds of tortures happened in the three months following the coup and that the victims were largely innocent civilians. "The physical trauma had taken a heavy psychological toll on many torture victims, leaving them humilitated, depressed and often unable to keep a job or sustain close relationships."2

Today, people's perception of Pinochet's regime varies enormously. An author writing about a town with the highest recorded number of disappearances/killings tells of, "A hairdresser whose father had disappeared when she was two years old [who] said her earliest memory was of her mother leaving her and her siblings home alone to search for him. At the salon where she works, many of the customers are still very vocal about their admiration for Pinochet."3 And in the same town, "A teacher at the local high school told me most of his students had no idea about what had happened in their town in wake of the 1973 military coup, though occasionally some ask him about life during the regime."4 The director of a Chilean polling organisation also observed that, although Santiago remains Latin America's safest capital, "fear of crime in present-day Chile [is] higher than fear of the military had been under Pinochet. 'If you kept your head down you could avoid trouble with the military.'"5

During Pinochet's reign, some structures of civil society were abolished (congress, the presidency, freedom of speech) or used to serve Pinochet's ends (the media, the judiciary - which retained its powers yet failed to take any action in regard to human rights abuses). Yet despite this, Pinochet did operate within the boundaries prescribed by his 1980 constitution. Indeed, his reign ended peacefully after a 1988 nationwide plebisite on whether his presidency should continue for another eight-year term. Pinochet's opponents formed a sixteen-party Comando del No coalition which began by urging people to sign onto the electoral roll (the earlier version of which was destroyed in the coup). Over 90% of Chileans obliged. Pinochet also permitted various measures which ensured a fair voting process. And, unlike the previous (corrupt) plebisites, the "no" vote won the day. Initially, Pinochet threatened privately to maintain his rule by force, but he later allowed elections to take place and handed over power to a new, left-wing president.

This mixture of autocracy and democracy is intriguing enough, but the complex situation continued. Despite losing the presidency, Pinochet remained army commander for the next ten years. This meant that "democratic leaders had to engage in an elaborate and prolonged bargaining process with the former dictator and his supporters . . . . Though it was never clear whether the army's officer corps and soldiers would support another coup, Pinochet often implied he might take such a course if the situation warranted."6 During this time he also "managed to dodge a series of judicial investigations into some of the worst crimes of his regimes as well as an inquiry into an illicit fortune he had built up during his rule and hidden in bank accounts abroad."7 Pinochet died in Chile in 2006, during the government of Michelle Bachelet, the fourth democratically elected president since his regime.



1 Above information obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende
2 MH Spooner, The General's Slow Retreat: Chile After Pinochet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 193. All unacknowledged information is from this source.
3 Ibid, 8.
4 Ibid, 7.
5 Ibid, 5.
6 Ibid, 3.
7 Ibid, 3.