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2023-09-11 04:24:00

The traditional Chilean right, which is grouped in the Chile Vamos coalition, already said on Wednesday that it will be absent from the official commemorative events this Monday and that it will not sign the declaration in favor of democracy promoted by President Gabriel Boric. The same announcement was made by the extreme right of the Republican Party.

LOOK: What the documents declassified by the US say regarding the hours before the coup d’état in Chile

Those who did sign that declaration were former presidents Sebastián Piñera, Michelle Bachelet, Ricardo Lagos and Eduardo Frei.

Allende’s presidency, the coup d’état and the plebiscite. (AFP).

Only Bachelet will attend the official ceremony this Monday. Piñera declined the invitation on Wednesday, while Lagos and Frei, both heads of state during the Concertación, the coalition that led the transition following the end of the dictatorship, had declined earlier.

The text promoted by Boric includes four points: “care for and defend democracy,” “face the challenges of democracy with more democracy,” “the defense and promotion of human rights” and “strengthen collaboration between States.”

Chile Vamos responded to Boric by presenting its own text, without mentioning the dictatorship or the coup d’état, and insisting on also condemning what they consider “the violations of fundamental rights” that occurred during the Popular Unity Government of Salvador Allende.

At this Monday’s event,

which will be held in a square next to the La Moneda palace, several world leaders will attend, such as the Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Colombian Gustavo Petro, the Argentine Alberto Fernández, the Uruguayan Luis Lacalle Pou and the Portuguese António Costa.

Far-right protesters celebrate the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, on September 9, 2023. (JAVIER TORRES / AFP).

/ JAVIER TORRES

The figure of Pinochet on the rise

On March 11, 1990, Pinochet handed over power following losing a plebiscite, but he remained at the head of the army for another eight years. In addition, he was a senator for “life” until 2002.

Pinochet and impunity. (AFP).

In May of this year, a survey by the prestigious firm Cerc-Mori titled “Chile in the shadow of Pinochet” surprised the country: 36% of those surveyed considered that the Armed Forces “were right to carry out the coup d’état.” Just 10 years ago, 18% justified the coup. And in 2013, when 30 years passed since the coup, it was 16%.

In the same survey from May 2023, 41% indicated that the military “is never right” for a coup d’état.

The figures reflect a changing public opinion in Chile. Cerc-Mori has asked the same question for the last 20 years: In 2003, 46% said “there is never a reason to strike a coup,” the figure rose to 65% in 2006, dropped to 54% in 2009. and rose to 68% in 2013.

Furthermore, in the latest Cerc-Mori survey, 39% of those consulted answered that Pinochet modernized the country and 20% saw him as the best ruler of the 20th century.

General Augusto Pinochet (left) poses with Chilean President and Marxist leader Salvador Allende in Santiago on August 23, 1973, shortly following Allende appointed him head of the army. (AFP photo).

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Marta Lagos, director of regional pollster Latinobarómetro and founder of Mori Chile, told The counter that there is no definitive position among those surveyed regarding the Pinochet dictatorship.

“The transition validated Pinochet,” said Lagos, referring to the first governments that alternated power in Chile since 1990.

He recalled that Pinochet left power in March 1990 and that he immediately became commander in chief of the Army until 1998, which did not allow him to confront the atrocities experienced during the dictatorship.

“We have been very tolerant with those who came from the dictatorship. Here there are countless people who participated in major political positions during the dictatorship and who continued trying to represent the people in democracy. That has not happened in any other dictatorship… In other countries you do not find ministers of the dictatorship serving as senators, nor former undersecretaries of the dictatorship being mayors. My conclusion, with this study, is that we have validated Pinochet,” Lagos noted.

For Andrés Gómez de la Torre, a specialist in Defense issues, unlike the military dictatorships of Argentina and Peru, which had disastrous statist and interventionist economic management, Pinochet had some success in economic matters due to the plan and the team he formed. starting in 1974, hence its high acceptance in the last survey.

“There is a reminiscence because the economy was finally stabilized and there were some development indicators, and that compared to other military governments made the difference. It was very clear. And when La Concertación comes to power with Patricio Aylwin, he says growth with equity, but he does not touch in depth the economic model established by Pinochet, but rather he wants to give it a social content, but he failed in that purpose of seeking social equity once morest the economic growth,” says Gómez de la Torre in dialogue with El Comercio.

A young man holds a photograph of the late Chilean president Salvador Allende and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet outside the La Moneda Presidential Palace, on August 1, 2023. (MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP).

/ MARTIN BERNETTI

Interview

“Authoritarianism is present in an important segment of society in Chile”

Octavio Avendaño, political scientist and academic at the University of Chile

-How does Chile receive the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup?

Regardless of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup, there is no shared opinion regarding what the coup was, there is no generalized condemnation: there are sectors that justify it and there are others that condemn. There is also no common opinion regarding what the previous stage was, that is, the experience of the Popular Unity, nor what comes following, the experience of the dictatorship. The sectors for and once morest then are replicated to this day.

Now, this commemoration has something special beyond the 50 years, it has to do with not only including the moment of the coup itself, but also taking stock of what happened, and taking stock means having an opinion regarding it. from the experience of Unidad Popular, the coup, the experience of the dictatorship and the transition process and the democratic governments in the following 30 years. And that generates greater complexity from the analysis point of view. Of course, the most central and controversial element has to do with the coup itself.

-Why do 36% of respondents believe that there was a reason for the coup d’état, why is public opinion in Chile so changing regarding the figure of Pinochet?

It is not that public opinion in Chile is changing, I believe that there has been a positive evaluation for a long time regarding the dictatorial experience and even the figure of Pinochet. Despite the fact that there are sectors that refuse to recognize this reality. Dictatorship experiences leave a mark, a sequel, which is also expressed in cultural terms, recognition and even nostalgia. There are sectors that feel nostalgic regarding the authoritarian past. Every time there are crisis situations or problems associated with citizen security, the instability of the social and political order, voices appear that appeal to an authoritarian solution. So, this authoritarianism is present in a significant segment of Chilean society, some speak of 30% or more. Others say that it can reach 40% of the population.

-What did the center-left governments fail to prevent the figure of Pinochet from emerging as he is doing now?

The center-left governments were unable to reverse the issue because a cultural transformation was required, something that was not achieved. Greater centrality was also required in citizen education and civic education. The educational model tended to be commercialized and focused on productive and pragmatic aspects, leaving aside citizen and civic education. The result is what we have today: an uninformed, apathetic citizenry, disinterested in public affairs and with certain authoritarian inclinations.

-Do they teach what the dictatorship was in schools, do they talk clearly regarding the dictatorship?

In schools now they do talk regarding dictatorship, but for young people dictatorship is something quite remote, it is not something they associate with the reality of the present. We must keep in mind that when we talk regarding the dictatorship in objective terms, we are facing an event that leaves traces and various legacies from the economic, institutional and political point of view, in terms of violations of human rights, and that legacy is present today. Because we have the political institutions, the inherited economic model, the unresolved problems regarding human rights. But for young people who did not live through the dictatorial experience or who were born following the 90s, more than 60% of the population, the dictatorial experience is something very remote, they do not associate it with the present.

Justice, a pending task

Pinochet and impunity. (AFP).

Pinochet died in 2006 without ever going to jail. He was never sentenced for the crimes of the dictatorship. When he died he was 91 years old and was under house arrest for three cases of human rights violations and one of embezzlement of public funds.

Only since 2000 did complaints of kidnappings, rapes, murders and torture during the dictatorship begin to be investigated in depth.

Currently, some 250 soldiers are imprisoned for human rights violations.

And this year the Supreme Court issued final rulings in emblematic cases such as the “Caravan of Death” and the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, which occurred in 1973.

A poster with a photo of teacher and singer Víctor Jara, who was tortured and shot to death during the Chilean dictatorship, is seen as people demonstrate at the General Cemetery. (Photo by Javier TORRES/AFP).

/ JAVIER TORRES

For Octavio Avendaño, political scientist and academic at the University of Chile, justice for human rights violations is a pending task.

“There is still a long way to go, starting because the sectors of the right that were ultimately complicit in everything that happened have never made a recognition and self-criticism, nor have they assumed responsibility. There are sectors of the Armed Forces that have not wanted to collaborate in clarifying the disappearances. So, in terms of justice, I think there is a lot missing. However, public discourse falls into a simplification that we must move towards greater reconciliation, but how is reconciliation without justice possible? There is a lot ahead here and many pending tasks left by the authoritarian experience and that is why the commemoration of the 50 years is so strong and has such a notable connotation,” says Avendaño in dialogue with El Comercio.

Andrés Gómez de la Torre indicates that on the issue of human rights and Pinochet, President Patricio Aylwin’s motto was justice as far as possible, because it was very difficult to lead that transition.

“We must remember that Pinochet might not be removed from the general command of the army by the president when he requested it. He said that the best guarantee for the stability of his government was his permanence as commander in chief. In Chile in the 90s it was impossible to think of a kind of ‘Argentinization’, that is, what Raúl Alfonsín did with the immediate trials of the military junta, there was no way to do it. The Chilean military, unlike the Peruvian and Argentine military, emerged quite strengthened with the transition to democracy. Justice was not served because Aylwin was very tied up. It was a very complex transition, in slow motion from a political point of view due to the de facto powers that the military retained,” says Gómez de la Torre.

The disappeared in Chile. (AFP).

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