Chile

On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. Since then, torture, banishment, exile, arrests, disappearances, and widespread intimidation have earned the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet worldwide infamy. Ten years after the coup, the Chilean people face an inflation rate of approximately 30 per cent, unemployment and underemployment of close to the same, and a dramatic 14 per cent drop in the gross national product in 1982. Chileans have taken to the streets in protest.

On May 11, 1983, a National Day of Protest was called by Rodolfo Seguel, president of the Copper Workers Federation (CTC), and the National Workers Coalition (CNT). The protest swelled Santiago. Thousands of Chileans marched and rallied in opposition to the policies of Pinochet. Some banged pots and pans in a cacerolazo reminiscent of the 1971 anti-Allende "March of the Empty Pots."

The protest was more successful than anyone expected, and it reinforced civil disobedience as a strategy for action. Nonviolent protests included partial work stoppages and slowdowns. Some schools reported more than 70 per cent absenteeism, and shop sales were down by about the same percentage.

A psychological state of impotence was transformed into one of power. Organization at the political and social level was reactivated, and national coalitions formed. The organizers of the May 11 protest called for a National Day of Protest to be held each month until Pinochet meets their demands. One newspaper, La Segunda, reported, "A new era has begun, encouraged by the high level of public discontent and the government's loss of support that is acknowledged by practically everyone."

Pinochet was forced to supplement intimidation and repression with some economic modifications. He rescinded a two-week-old 20 per cent price increase on kerosene and cooking oil, and gave a 5 per cent pay raise to government employees and nitrate miners. Meanwhile, police rounded up 10,000 people, arrested 350, and banished eight labor leaders to isolated parts of the country.

The May 11 protest has paved the way for other protests. Support for the second National Day of Protest on June 14 blossomed throughout the nation. The demands voiced on May 11 for economic and labor law reforms were expanded to demands for the redemocratization of Chile. Although a strike was not called for, the truckers union—which was instrumental in paralyzing the country during the Allende years—claimed that 80 per cent of its members stayed off the roads for this second day of protest. Only 55 per cent of the buses were reported to be running in Santiago. Some schools closed, and commercial sales in the metropolitan area were down 70 to 90 per cent.

On the evening of June 14, pots and pans resounded throughout Chile. Barricades were set up in the streets to keep police out. The pro-government daily, El Mercurio, reported several days later, "Even those closest to the regime began to distance themselves and become the regime's most influential critics."

The Chilean government reacted swiftly. It gave instructions to the media to play up the vandalism and violence. Five people were killed by "men in civilian clothes" trying to disperse demonstrators. Many more were injured, some bitten by police dogs. The organizers of the protest energetically condemned the violence.

The emphasis on violence served as the government's justification for the ensuing repression. On June 14, police arrested 1,351 persons, nearly half in Santiago alone. The kidnapping of protest leader Rodolfo Seguel and the dismissal of 23 workers in the El Salvador copper mine provoked a strike there and at El Teniente and Andina mines.

Pinochet responded by ordering thousands of workers fired and banning the media from mentioning the general strike or protests. The state-owned copper company, CODELCO, fired 31 union leaders and dismissed 799 copper workers. By June 27, 15 union leaders were imprisoned. In the following week, 50 armed CNI (Chilean secret police) agents raided the offices of the National Workers Union (CNS) and arrested five CNS directors.

With the unions impaired, the Multipartidaria, a broad coalition of opposition parties, called for the third strike, and political leaders moved into the limelight. Police detained several major opposition party leaders, including Gabriel Valdes (president of the Christian Democratic Party) and Jorge Lavandero (president of the Multipartidaria).

This hard-line response was accompanied by a few gestures of liberalization. Government officials agreed to finance the renegotiation of $120 million in debts held by members of the truckers union, resolving that group's most urgent demand. Pinochet announced an end to the censorship of books. The government also released new lists of exiles who would be allowed to return to Chile, including several prominent opposition politicians. Copper union leaders who met with government officials to request reinstatement of the fired workers were told a response would be given after July 12.

Protests abounded on the third National Day of Protest in July, in spite of harsh censorship, a strict curfew, the deployment of military forces, and the effective neutralization of opposition labor leaders and politicians. During that day 760 were arrested and two killed.

In the following days, some opposition leaders were released, including Valdes and Lavandero. CODELCO began to reinstate some workers. Rodolfo Seguel was released on bail.

As the democratic opposition gains ground and visibility in Chile, U.S. support for an immediate transition to democracy becomes critical.

U.S. involvement in events leading up to the violent overthrow of the Allende government has been amply documented. A Senate Select Committee on Intelligence described in vivid detail CIA conspiracies to prevent Allende from being elected and destroy his government. Within a week of Allende's election, Agustin Edwards, a Chilean financial mogul, had teamed up with his friend Donald Kendall, the president of Pepsico and close friend of Richard Nixon. At a meeting in the White House's Oval Office they decided to "make the Chilean economy scream."

The U.S. quickly installed a credit blockade, while increasing support for the Chilean military. A CIA-manufactured disinformation campaign was hastily launched unleashing a bombardment of hostile articles and broadcasts both inside and outside Chile. The U.S. graciously subsidized demonstrations and strikes to add to the disorder. Ironically, the truckers union, which actively opposed Pinochet in June, spearheaded a series of paralyzing strikes which ultimately helped lead to Allende's death and the installation of 10 years of unbroken tyranny.

During the weeks following Pinochet's coup, reports of government atrocities filtered out, while U.S. military and economic aid increased dramatically to Chile. The U.S. Congress, incensed by the coup, began to examine the overall aid program within weeks and amendments to suspend military aid were soon introduced. By 1976, largely due to the efforts of Senators Edward Kennedy and James Abourezk, military aid to Chile was effectively halted. Concurrently, however, economic aid was proportionately increased.

Pinochet did not confine his terrorism to Chile. In September, 1976, Chilean agents assassinated Orlando Letelier, who had been ambassador to the United States under Allende, and Ronni Moffitt, Letelier's co-worker at the Institute for Policy Studies, on Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C. The public outrage that followed led to sterner sanctions. President Carter, assuming office in January, 1977, quickly proceeded to stop the military pipeline deliveries, disband the military group assigned to the embassy, and reduce the U.S. mission in Chile. Export and import programs were also prohibited, as were all new overseas Private Investment Corporation guarantees.

President Reagan, on the other hand, wasted no time in demonstrating his support for Pinochet. He moved with dispatch to lift the prohibitions on Export-Import Bank loans and invited the Chilean navy to conduct joint exercises with the U.S. navy. In spite of the Reagan administration's purported commitment to promote democracy and combat international terrorism, a trend toward closer U.S.-Chile relations ensued. In July, 1981, the Reagan administration decreed that the U.S. would never see a long-standing policy of opposing multilateral development bank loans to Chile. In addition, the U.S. began to oppose resolutions by international human rights organizations that condemned human rights violations in Chile.

In December, 1981, the Kennedy Amendment, which cut off U.S. military assistance to Chile, was repealed. Congress, however, did attach conditions, including an improvement in the human rights situation, which the president must certify before military aid to Chile can be restored.

In early May, 1983, the Reagan administration signaled its continued support of Pinochet by notifying Chile's creditor banks that $144.5 million in Commodity Credit Corporation guarantees and $50 million through the U.S. Export-Import Bank had been approved by the U.S. government. That same month Chile requested a $400 million loan from the U.S. Treasury. Days later, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) granted Chile a $350 million bridge loan. Although for technical reasons the United States is not a member of the BIS, the U.S. has sometimes contributed up to one-third of a BIS loan. The IMF and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) alone gave well over a billion dollars to Chile in the past two years in addition to the Reagan administration's generosity.

Chile, with a population of 11 million, now has one of the highest per capita debts in the world. Pinochet is casting desperately about the banking community to resolve Chile's $18 billion debt crisis. For 10 years Chile's economy has been guided by the theories of the conservative University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman. As a result, Chile is in its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Bankruptcies for 1982 approached 1,000, eight times those reported in 1976. In 1982, Chile's GNP declined more than that of any other Latin American country.

The recent appointment of Ambassador Langhorne Motley as the assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs suggests that the Reagan administration is willing to continue support for the Pinochet model. In Motley's confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was questioned about popular elections in Chile. Motley replied that the democratic process in Chile contemplates elections "possibly in the next decade." (The Constitution approved in a plebiscite in 1980 grants executive authority to General Pinochet until 1989, with possible elections in 1998.) Motley added that Chile is the one country which "came back from a Marxist regime," a friendly country whose redemocratization process we applaud and whose timetable for elections it would be incorrect for the United States to dictate.

On the other hand, some within the Reagan administration are beginning to consider the Pinochet regime a dangerous economic liability. A tilt against Pinochet could also be an opportunity to recover some of the human rights credibility lost in Central America. Such public relations considerations may ultimately work in favor of a democratic opening in Chile. In June and July, 1983, the U.S. State Department made several statements supporting this trend. These statements, although sometimes ambiguous, lacked the usual references to the Chilean Constitution of 1980 and surpassed the "quiet diplomacy" generally employed by the Reagan administration.

At a June 16 State Department press briefing, administration spokesperson John Hughes stated that the then detained Chilean opposition leader Rodolfo Seguel "speaks for an important segment of the people of that country." In another press briefing a week later, Hughes commented that the return of some exiles was "a moderate and positive step" and added the hope that a resolution to Chile's crisis could be found "through further steps such as this."

The arrest of Gabriel Valdes and other Christian Democratic leaders on July 9 prompted a critical statement by the State Department which publicly announced that U.S. concern about the arrests had been communicated to "senior [Chilean] government officials." In that statement, the State Department supported the transition to democracy "as defined by the Chileans themselves."

The State Department response to the July 12 protests admitted that "considerable evidence of popular discontent was manifested," and reiterated its belief that "the current political tensions in Chile can best be resolved through moderation and dialogue regarding national issues, such as the transition to democracy."

In the final days of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, U.S. policy makers finally recognized the inevitability of Somoza's fall and formally distanced themselves from that regime. A similar process may be currently under way in the case of Chile. The administration's recent abandonment of "silent diplomacy" in Chile is a step forward. But statements such as Motley's and continued U.S. backing for loans suggest that the United States may continue to back a modified strategy of repression and concession, rather than the immediate redemocratization called for by the Chilean people.

Virginia Bouvier was a staff associate for the Washington Office on Latin America when this article appeared.