LATIN AMERICA: IS CHILE HEADED FOR A SHOWDOWN?
Osiel, Mark J. & Willis, Eliza
One striking image haunts the memory of those who witnessed the military coup that toppled Chilean President Salvador Allende in September 1973: the bombing of the Presidential Palace and its...
...He is an old-fashioned, personal tyrant, and all other generals are his subjects...
...They have fared relatively well, compared to other opposition groups, during the decade of Pinochet's rule...
...Although their current status is only semilegal, their activities have not been subject to the same degree of suppression as those of the Socialists or the Communists...
...After the coup, the party dissolved itself, viewing the military government as a near-perfect expression of its interests and ideals...
...For the Socialists, this experience meant new independence from the Communists and the acceptance of a mixed economy...
...The religious analogy is irresistible: Foreign exile contributed to factionalism by creating two separate leaderships: an official, foreign one and a de facto domestic one...
...It reflected in part the views of a new generation in the party—younger recruits skeptical that anything less than threat to life and limb could induce the military to leave power...
...The political instability that plagued Chile in the early 1970s had sources easy to identify but hard to change...
...The relative strength of the various parties, including the Communist, has remained remarkably constant over long periods of time...
...For this year, at least, the general will in all likelihood continue to enjoy the comforts of his refurbished palace...
...When the U.S...
...THE FATE OF THE REGIME will be resolved, in the end, by noneconomic factors: the willingness of the various parties—left, right, and center—to bury their ideological hatchets long enough to drive Pinochet from power...
...credits to the Chilean government, except for aid that is unambiguously humani212 tarian...
...polled 23 percent in the last elections under Allende...
...These leaders have been influenced by the successes of the European Socialist parties (French, Spanish, Italian), with which they maintain close contacts...
...A further economic question that divides the opposition concerns the fate of the private banks...
...These Socialists are wary of any future electoral coalition with the CP but are prepared to accept the Communists into the Alianza against Pinochet...
...It would thus make possible the kind of economic stability that even the government's "liberals," such as Interior Minister Jarpa, see as a precondition for transition to democracy...
...It is virtually certain that the reorganization of the democratic right will continue in 1984, and that one or two party associations will emerge...
...For example, the direct ties between its labor unions and political parties, unusual in Latin America, ensured that disputes between parties over their world views had wide repercussions at lower levels...
...But in Spain the success of this path was bolstered by the integrity of its constitutional monarch, who could provide a stable point of legitimacy in a highly unstable period...
...Neither factor characterizes today's conditions in Chile...
...Is Pinochet Weakening...
...2) The moderate Socialists will prove to represent only the middleclass intellectuals (that is, themselves), while the organizational base of the SP (to the extent that it still exists) will remain in the hands of its hard-line militants, already aligned with a staunchly pro-Soviet CP...
...Such a move could end credits for Pinochet from the Export-Import Bank and U.S...
...That can be significant in a multiparty system...
...Chile, in short, has no easy equivalent of Alfonsin's pristine Union Civica Radical...
...Regardless of its probable inaccuracy, it will continue to influence the way many Chileans think and act...
...Chile's Christian Democrats have historically been the strongest of all such parties in the hemisphere, and the most genuinely committed to social reform...
...These groups are hesitating at the moment—having withdrawn their public support from Pinochet but not aligned themselves with the opposition...
...The willingness of the Argentine generals to hand power to Alfonsin, moreover, reflected the fact that only the Peronists had been discredited by the earlier experiences with democracy...
...foreign policy in the region has searched for so long and with such pitiable success: the "democratic center...
...Their success will depend less on the GNP than on the imagination of their leaders, the capacity of individuals to transcend their ideological differences and partisan loyalties...
...3) the convocation of a provisional government, and a constituent assembly that is to write a new constitution and schedule prompt elections...
...It differs from the CP not on the legitimacy of violent means in resisting Pinochet's rule but on the issue of formal ties with the Soviet bloc...
...New questions, however, divide the Chilean opposition: (1) whether to employ selective violence against representatives of the regime or to keep exclusively to nonviolent resistance...
...The dilemma is this: how to activate the entire population in open resistance to authoritarianism without rekindling the ideological fires that consumed democracy in 1973...
...This lack of a clear economic alternative around which opposition groups might unite has been especially evident in a recent debate over the government's new mining law...
...the Chilean Socialists, like Protestants, are founding sects that split into further sects, multiplying interminably...
...This scenario, while attractive, faces obstacles that now seem insurmountable...
...As with palaces, so with presidents...
...Of these three pipe dreams, this surely is the most attractive...
...On this, see Arturo and Samuel Valenzuela, "Partidos de OposiciOn Bajo El Regimen Autoritario Chileno," in Chile, 1973-1983, special issue of the Revista Mexicana de Sociologia, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, 1983...
...This shift had two sources...
...The Chilean party system of the last half-century represents the quintessential expression of what one political scientist has called "polarized pluralism": a politics in which the society's structure itself is up for grabs, and in which there is consequently little commitment by anyone to the intrinsic value of democratic procedure.' THE PARTIES OF THE RIGHT also are beginning to reorganize, and they are in even greater disarray than those of the left or the center...
...But the party is divided between its left and right wings, albeit not as deeply as the Socialists...
...The Christian Democratic parties of Latin America represent that holy grail for which U.S...
...Who comprises the opposition and what are its strategies for winning a return to democracy...
...would not permit an imbalance in military power to develop between Pinochet's Chile and democratic Argentina...
...IF CHILE, LIKE ALL COUNTRIES, IS unique, so are its opportunities...
...These informal exchanges are quite an advance over the feverish distrust of recent years...
...The Communist party, which prided itself for decades on its commitment to parliamentary methods and social moderation, has flirted since 1980 with the idea of "armed struggle" and has allied itself with a long-standing terrorist group, the MIR—the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria...
...Their dissatisfactions with Pinochet have, in most cases, more to do with his disastrous economic policies than with any enthusiasm for a return to democracy...
...In 1980, when the Chilean Communists adopted their new line, the national economy stood at the peak of a sustained boom...
...Some Christian Democratic leaders, such as Andres Zaldivar and Genaro Arriagada, claim that the party represents the natural "center" of Chilean politics, capable of becoming the The Christian Democratic leaders were evenly divided over whether or not to support the coup...
...One consequence of this official stance has been to reduce the CP's credibility as a potential partner of the democratic opposition...
...Yet despite its new willingness to entertain the possibility of violence (if one can speak so delicately of so indelicate a matter), the CP has not claimed responsibility for any of the frequent terrorist acts in recent years...
...The facade of public order and political quiescence projected by General Augusto Pinochet collapsed last spring in a wave of protests that brought hundreds of thousands of Chileans into the streets...
...This factionalism extends beyond the boundaries of the SP to several other splinter groups, such as the Convergencia Socialista and the Bloque Socialista, which would have to be added in a more detailed account, as well as innumerable small parties of the left, right, and center...
...These cuts would put pressure on Pinochet less in terms of economic impact than of symbolic support for the democratic opposition...
...Conversely, since material betterment leads to embourgeoisement, it also leads to the weakening of class consciousness...
...The officer corps has not been visibly shaken by the mass demonstrations of recent months...
...Since then the number of marchers has diminished, particularly among middleclass participants, and the police have dispersed most attempts at public gathering...
...arms, the Chilean government was very concerned that this might encourage President Rail Alfonsin to settle by force Argentina's dispute with Chile over the Beagle Canal...
...Its leaders assumed prominent positions in Pinochet's government...
...State Department sees little chance that under current conditions Pinochet can last till 1989, the end of his term according to the 1980 Constitution...
...Neither has it dissociated itself, however, from unpopular killings of public officials committed by its ally, the MIR...
...The law permits foreign ownership of copper mines on terms highly favorable to the multinationals...
...And so ended what had hitherto been the region's most stable democracy...
...Some of its leaders spent years in West European exile and many, like their Socialist counterparts, were influenced by changes there in leftist thought and practice...
...The current debt of the private banks to the state is at several times their book value, making them nationalized in all but name...
...IN THIS CAMPAIGN for the hearts of the urban poor, the Communists' principal competitors are the Christian Democrats...
...The foreign visitor is struck by the extent to which Chile's leaders argue—and dream— about their country's political future by way of analogy to events elsewhere...
...The various politicians, union leaders, social scientists, and Western diplomatic observers we spoke with on our December visit offered differing estimates, varying from 10 to 20 percent...
...funds channeled to him through the InterAmerican Development Bank...
...But it will prove very difficult to cajole such a group (or groups) into joining the Alianza...
...Chilean bankers were recently bailed out by extensive loans from the government, after numerous failures of domestic businesses to which they had lent...
...The Communist party is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with, for it commands between 10 and 20 percent of the population.2 Its influence has probably increased during the years of harshest repression, when its militants were the most energetic force in reorganizing the unions and neighborhood associations...
...support...
...If they do not have as well-organized a network of militants in the poor neighborhoods, they have the considerable influence of an independent communications network...
...restored to Argentina the right to purchase U.S...
...Its members seem to stand even more firmly behind Pinochet than before...
...This has enhanced their credibility and perhaps overcome the onus they have had to bear for supporting the 1973 coup.' The surreptitious support of the episcopate may count for a lot in the future—when and if democracy is restored—for the Church itself has won new resonance within Chilean society...
...But the shift in Communist analysis also reflects that peculiar understanding of history called the "immiseration" thesis: when things get worse for the proletariat, they are actually getting better...
...There would be no possibility of "revenge" against (and justice for) those responsible for torture and disappearances...
...Although there remains an ideological climate of mutual distrust impeding efforts at a unified opposition, there are some encouraging signs of reconciliation and widespread acknowledgment from all quarters of past mistakes...
...By August, police fired on the marchers...
...The Chilean CDP has a vocal and influential center-left, led by Gabriel Valdez, its president...
...the Chilean Communists, like Catholics, impose a single dogma from above, notwithstanding occasional shifts in official interpretation...
...Yet Pinochet's efforts to repress any organization standing between the state and the individual have made such activities perilous...
...Yet in Brazil it is the military, as an institution, that rules—not the person of the president...
...Although this scenario has an apocalyptic strain, it is not without plausibility...
...A party congress, in April, is expected to witness a successful initiative from the right to take control, which in turn may help to win the wavering loyalties of the middle class...
...One striking image haunts the memory of those who witnessed the military coup that toppled Chilean President Salvador Allende in September 1973: the bombing of the Presidential Palace and its futile defense by a handful of aides and Allende himself...
...The party's moderates, however, fear that the rhetorical excess and inflammatory ideologizing of these gatherings foreshadow a polarization of the sort that occurred in the early '70s...
...This enormous indebtedness to the state has greatly strengthened Pinochet's hold over the business community...
...Actually, the Reagan administration has tried hard not to anger General Pinochet...
...There still is an intense fear on the right that the radicalization of the early '70s will recur...
...The Communist leaders, moreover, suggest that their real emphasis is on organizational work in factories and poor neighborhoods...
...The CP appears to prefer acts of violence against property rather than persons, such as the bombing of a power line last December that knocked out virtually the country's entire electrical system for a day...
...Persistent infighting, engendered by personal rivalry and ideological differences, split the party into numerous factions and grouplets, as many as 14 in 1979...
...In Argentina, the rapid transition to democracy was sparked by a humiliating defeat in a war, which fostered widespread revulsion against those who were responsible and united the entire population in a general strike...
...Infighting among the Socialists has gravely weakened the party in its traditional trade-union base, where it has lost much ground (its leaders confess) to the Communists and Christian Democrats...
...Whether to include the CP is the major point of contention between the Socialists and the Christian Democrats, the other important member of the Alianza...
...But no knowledgeable observer ascribes to it less than 10 percent of the population...
...The coalition of Socialists and Communists, however, which formed the backbone of Allende's support in 1970, would now be unthinkable, because of the changes these parties underwent in the years of foreign exile and domestic repression...
...The most significant shift in Communist analysis has been a qualified acceptance of violent tactics...
...The union leaders of today's new generation, such people as Rodolfo Seguel and Manuel Bustos, are highly critical of the disruptions these ties caused within the labor movement and anxious to assert their independence from the parties...
...The fantasy of toppling Pinochet in a Sandinistastyle uprising has taken hold of many younger people in the CP...
...2) whether to include or exclude the Communists in the united front...
...The far left, with its talk of "armed struggle," dreams of repeating the experience of Nicaragua: an uprising of the entire society, aided by a paramilitary group, against an isolated, tottering dictator—a movement founded on widely shared feelings, but quickly captured by those with the guns...
...Some of this fear-mongering is nothing more than McCarthyism, Latin style...
...This scenario ignores all the features that made Somoza's ouster unique, principally his clumsiness in dealing with the business community and the weakening of U.S...
...Were it not for Reagan's warmth for Pinochet, it would probably be the Christian Democrats whom the United States would sponsor, as we did in the 1960s...
...The first faction, the social democrats, has won over the middle-class intellectuals, while the second re208 tains considerable strength among workers and students...
...WHILE THE COMMUNIST PARTY has experienced no such internecine warfare, it has retained its unity at the expense of intellectual stagnation...
...They also profess a desire for formal recognition by and alliance with the "bourgeois" opposition parties, although they have no strong interest in becoming members of the Alianza...
...These problems have prevented the emergence of an alternative to Pinochet viable enough to win over a decisive majority of Chileans...
...The recent European ideological currents have sowed dissension among Chile's Socialists as they sought to evaluate and, in part, assimilate the new ideas...
...But for the moment the party is committed, in alliance with the moderate Socialists, to mobilizing the Chilean population in nationwide demonstrations against the regime...
...The party congress scheduled to meet in April will probably succeed only in making the split more public and, perhaps, final...
...Such a party, as part of a center-right alliance including elements of the CDP, would make conservative policies electorally sustainable...
...This facilitates a predictable succession, empowering new presidents every four years...
...Its presence, and a more conservative CDP leadership, would create pressures for a return to the government's bargaining table...
...Privately, some party officials express reservations about the wisdom of certain assassina209 tions...
...While the rulers of other authoritarian states have sought to get rooted in the society, cultivating groups for support, Pinochet's regime is weakly "institutional213 ized...
...Their preoccupation is that such a democracy must prove compatible with maintaining (their) private property...
...With the limited liberalization of the last year, five new rightwing parties have been established...
...The Chilean Communists, by contrast, greeted the discordant notes of their exiled comrades as heresy, causing several departures from the party...
...Reagan quickly sent General Vernon Walters to reassure Pinochet that the U.S...
...The latter are prepared to accept the legalization of the CP but fear that its inclusion in the front against Pinochet will only frighten military and middleclass elements away from the opposition...
...The political parties that have reappeared are essentially the ones that existed in the years preceding the coup, but a decade of fierce authoritarianism has decisively altered relations between them and the issues that divide them...
...But on closer inspection the majestic facade reveals signs of that recent past...
...Its steadfast opposition to Pinochet and its assistance to victims of human rights violations have given it new legitimacy...
...Therefore, today fewer than 10 percent of Chile's workers are union members...
...Ambassador Ricardo Lagos...
...Chile stands in clear contrast here to Brazil, whose military rulers have gone to great lengths to sponsor progovernment unions and neighborhood associations in poor areas, providing them with resources to reward those who will follow their lead...
...Untaxed imports and easy credit, facilitated by foreign loans, produced an orgy in consumer spending that extended to the general population...
...The second faction of the Socialist party is "revolutionary" and unreconstructed...
...Their chief magazine, Hoy, and their radio station have offered the most reliable source of news to Chileans in recent years...
...Their violent forays into "troublesome" neighSantiago, Chile borhoods along the outskirts of Santiago made clear the limits of tolerated protest...
...It is anyone's guess which segment will win the right to wear the mantle of the Socialist party...
...But Pinochet is no faceless official atop a bureaucratic authoritarian regime...
...3) whether to negotiate for concessions from the government or to attempt to force it from office...
...Fearing such a course of events, the democratic right is reluctant to sign up with the Alianza, which is courting it avidly, and thus to lend its name to favor Pinochet's immediate removal and prompt elections...
...At the height of the demonstrations, General Pinochet authorized Interior Minister Sergio Onofre Jarpa to begin negotiations with the major organization of the opposition, the Alianza Democratica, a coalition of five political parties from center-right to center-left...
...Like the CP, with which it is allied, it views democratic institutions not as something of permanent value but of merely tactical merit...
...This led to hopes for compromise, which reduced the attractiveness of confrontational methods for many citizens, and the demonstrations declined...
...Even the U.S...
...But you can see some positive signs...
...q 214...
...The real purpose of the CP's professed acceptance of armed struggle may simply be to dissociate the party from opposition groups prepared to negotiate with the government, thereby removing it from any taint of collaboration with authoritarianism...
...the Communist parties of Western Europe, Chile's CP has preserved an image of dynamism, and so has retained an appeal for many workers and students...
...There now exist extensive, informal contacts between most of the significant parties—between the democratic right and the moderate Socialists, the Christian Democrats and the Communists...
...On both the left and the right one can see hesitation concerning the willingness to associate with the other, despite the common adversary...
...The principal standard-bearer of the Chilean right before 1973 was the National party, which ' Giovanni Sartori, Political Parties: Parties and Party Systems (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976...
...The response of the two Chilean parties to the ideas they were exposed to in exile indeed has been decidedly different...
...The democratic right is staking its bets on the idea of renewed negotiations between Jarpa and elements of the democratic opposition, including themselves...
...210 decisive force by swinging its weight to left or right as fits the moment...
...Beneath the smooth, fresh coats of paint one discerns the rough surfaces of bullet holes that have been plastered over...
...But they have lost all influence over economic policy to a handful of presidential advisers, the "Chicago Boys," and have come to believe that only a more democratic regime will prove responsive to their needs as businessmen...
...They reject "armed struggle" against Pinochet, believing that such a strategy will only heighten military and middleclass fears of social chaos, and so will harden the government against the possibility of handing back power to civilians...
...When it becomes clear that the new party system will include a stable center-right, another constitutional amendment from Pinochet would set a date for elections, presumably two to three years hence...
...It quickly became evident to the Alianza's leaders, whose dominant force is the Christian Democratic party, that Minister Jarpa had not been empowered to give any ground...
...Without free elections, however, such conclusions rest on little more than informed speculation.' The acrimonious relations between the two factions, and the history of sectarian fragmentation that preceded it, makes the restoration of unity in the SP unlikely...
...The Communists now support the principle of armed struggle, which thoroughly antagonizes the other opposition parties, but show little enthusiasm for it in practice (though privately they distance themselves from their more violent allies...
...Considering our role in putting the present Chilean government in power, this is the least we might do to displace it...
...The continuing divisions within and between the parties of the democratic opposition, the CP's enduring strength, and the wild card of the terrorists (who are unlikely to put away their guns with the restoration of democracy) continue to present enormous problems...
...As the protests grew, the political parties assumed a larger role...
...Its center of gravity lies considerably to the left of what Christian Democrats have come to symbolize in European politics...
...Through such negotiations they hope to extract a series of constitutional amendments from the government, beginning with the legalization of the political parties (excepting the Communists...
...If there is nearly unanimous hostility to the "Chicago Boys," there is little consensus on who or what should replace them...
...Thus the two elements that appeared to make up a stable center will evaporate, and the CP will appear to Chileans as the only remaining political force untouched by association with the horrors of Pinochet's rule...
...The center and center-left long to relive the experience of Spain or Argentina: a rapid transition from authoritarianism to democracy that avoids a polarization into uncompromising ideological camps...
...When he goes, the whole deck of cards may fall...
...In Chile, it was the entire political class, including the Christian Democrats, that became the target of military repugnance...
...The result is confusion concerning the party's strategy and heightened distrust in dealing with it...
...Chile would have no stand-in for Juan Carlos...
...Since 1981 an effort at reunification has narrowed the principal contenders to two...
...He has not established organizations that would support his continued rule...
...The threat by the AFL—CIO of a possible boycott of Chilean imports was enough to force Pinochet into allowing the passage of a labor law in 1979 that legalized the organization of unions and wage-bargaining, albeit under far from ideal conditions...
...A shift of focus from industrial workers to unemployed squatters has also helped to swell its ranks...
...Such fears are not without foundation...
...The Alianza made three demands in the negotiations: (1) the dissolution of the Central Nacional de InformaciOn, the secret police responsible for torture and disappearances...
...A regathering of the right as a single party could easily prove the decisive factor in inducing Pinochet to leave power...
...Today there doesn't exist anything approaching the degree of unity necessary to make Chilean society "ungovernable" for Pinochet—unity within the leadership of the parties or within Chilean society itself...
...The first faction is a moderate, social-democratic wing led by Carlos Altamirano and Allende's former U.N...
...Fearing that the masses would begin to support the regime, the CP lost confidence in the possibility of mass opposition to Pinochet...
...The present-day visitor to Santiago who is escorted around the Presidential Palace might not guess that it had so recently been reduced to near-rubble by Chile's armed forces, whose commander-inchief now occupies its spacious quarters...
...Hence there are no generals or admirals known to be "softer" than the Generalissimo...
...In the absence of such an alternative, there is little reason for optimism about chances for a hasty exit of the Generalissimo...
...While sporadic demonstrations and arrests continue, a less viable but more significant drama is unfolding...
...Such views are, of course, now considered antiquated and foolish among serious Marxists in the developed countries, but they are still the stock-in-trade of the cut-rate Marxism that prospers in the Third World...
...Because Chile's opposition parties encounter no such competition, the Christian Democrats and the Communists have been able to become the predominant forces in the labor movement and neighborhood associations...
...Indeed, the negotiations had only succeeded in dividing the opposition—between those who did and those who did not wish to negotiate—without yielding any liberalization...
...Unlike An estimate of Communist strength is tricky...
...Past disagreements between Communists and Socialists over whether Allende moved "too fast" or "too slow" are recognized by both as irrelevant today...
...So it appears unlikely that there will be a single opposition front or even a formal alliance between two blocs...
...Eurocommunist tendencies, always weak, by now have been thoroughly squashed...
...Yet even the Alianza was unable to arrive at unanimity on opposing the measure...
...The Political Parties THE FAILURE of the Unidad Popular government provoked a crisis of direction and purpose in the Socialist party, just as Allende's death produced a vacuum in its leadership...
...It goes as follows: (1) The Christian Democratic party will either be taken over by its right, whose leaders will be unelectable because of their complicity in the 1973 coup, or it will remain in the hands of its left, whose fuzzyminded Christian "communitarianism" makes them susceptible to facile manipulations by the 211 more clear-sighted CP...
...The impoverishment of the masses exacerbates social contradictions, and so advances the coming of the revolution...
...Moreover Chile, unlike Brazil, has a strong Communist party that won't just disappear...
...The United States, undoubtedly, can play a role in helping the opposition achieve its objectives...
...Their capacity to do this will be the true test of whether they are any more committed to democracy than they were in 1973...
...The political parties of the pre-coup years are collecting themselves and, together with the Catholic Church and the reemergent labor movement, they seek to form a united front against Pinochet...
...Rather than moderate their demands, the leaders of the Alianza chose to return to "social mobilization," an effort to bring Chilean society to a halt through sustained and recurring demonstrations—to culminate in the kind of national strike that proved successful in Argentina...
...Another obstacle to including the democratic right in a united front against Pinochet is disagreement on economic policy...
...In this regard, the success of armed insurrection in Nicaragua had deep repercussions within Chile's CP...
...Its exiled leader, Carlos Almeyda, nevertheless continues to reside in East Berlin...
...2) the resignation of President Pinochet...
...But in the face 207 of increased police violence and heightened economic insecurity, this strategy has made only moderate headway...
...Were such unity among politicians and citizens miraculously to appear, there still would remain another major difficulty...
...The Chilean right dreams of emulating Brazil: hoping for a lengthy process of gradual liberalization during which (literal and figurative) wounds have time to heal and each concession to democracy can be controlled...
...As a result, perhaps, the party has failed to win over the industrialists and businessmen...
...Its fears of nationalization make it reluctant to criticize Pinochet or to identify itself with even the democratic right...
...So ended the life of the only professed Marxist to be elected president of a Latin American nation...
...Parties whose leaders were at each other's throats during Allende's presidency, such as the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, are now close colleagues in the Alianza...
...for the Communists, a new commitment to democratic values and a strident independence from Moscow...
...And Senator Kennedy soon will introduce a proposal to cut all remaining U.S...
...The remotest suggestion of collaboration with Pinochet, the Communists believe, would be the kiss of death once democracy is restored...
...In May, the first major public gatherings were organized by union leaders...
...Nor is there any agreement among the opposition parties over what to do about this debt, which is far more widely debated in Chile than even the foreign debt...
Vol. 31 • April 1984 • No. 2
