PINOCHET'S PLEBISCITE: CHOICE WITH NO OPTIONS
CARMEN GLORIA QUINTANA SPOKE barely above a whisper: "I would like to believe in this plebiscite, I would like to believe that it will make a difference, but after what this regime did to...
...While committed to a transition to civilian rule, Washington is intent on excluding much of Allende's Popular Unity coalition from power in the post-dictatorship period...
...the labor movement...
...In fact, 1983-1986 saw some of the worst repression since the period immediately after the 1973 coup...
...This desire has given rise to contradictory policies and mixed messages, compounded by the inability of Administration policy-makers to reach agreement...
...and the United States, as each faces the decisive year of 1988...
...By 1986, Secretary of State George Shultz placed Chile on the hemisphere's list of "odd men out...
...Believing the process will surely be fraudulent, some Pinochet opponents have decided not to bother signing up...
...The No campaign is nearly two million short of the 6.5 million registered voters deemed necessary to ensure opposition victory...
...Many union leaders have also been committed members of political parties, sometimes causing tension between political and economic agendas...
...Sometime this summer, commanders of the four branches of the armed forces will name their candidate, whom voters may simply confirm or reject...
...If they detected fraud, they pledged to take their displeasure to the streets in a Phillippine-style wave of protest...
...Since the commanders are unlikely to risk a split in the military or a threat to their political agenda, few believe the candidate will be other than Gen...
...But by the mid-1980s it was clear this approach had brought little change...
...The terms of that consensus, suggests Report editor Martha Doggett, are an acceptance of Washington's right to intervene in the affairs of neighbors in the hemisphere...
...When he was first inaugurated, Ronald Reagan signalled that human rights would no longer figure prominently in the U.S...
...Friends were treated as friends, and Augusto Pinochet was firmly in that category...
...The politicians had described their mass registration drive which would lead, they hoped, to a majority of No votes in Gen...
...Some of Reagan's approach has met approval from congressional liberals, giving rise to talk of a bipartisan consensus on Chile...
...Fourteen years of dictatorship have reinforced Chile's sectarian traditions, which contributed to the opposition's failure to topple the regime in the years 1983-1986 when victory seemed at hand...
...Others have been disenfranchised by a cumbersome process that is also prohibitively expensive for many Chileans...
...This issue's final piece, "Washington's Not-SoQuiet Diplomacy" examines the roots of the Administration's shift to a more critical posture on Chile...
...Pinochet...
...But for Quintana, set afire by Chilean troops, talk of a peaceful end to the 14-year-old dictatorship seemed unrealistic...
...foreign policy agenda...
...Trade unions have long been important to class-conscious Chileans...
...Two top union leaders, Manuel Bustos and Arturo Martinez, were sentenced in January to one and a half years imprisonment for organizing a strike last October...
...If No votes prevail, power must be turned over to the winner of competitive elections by March 1990...
...In this issue's "Me or Chaos," he writes that the parties "have squandered much of their capacity to lead in sterile ideological feuding...
...This Fall's polling will take place according to a process laid out in Chile's controversial 1980 constitution...
...Committed to ousting the dictatorship, unions are once again planning a single federation, to be launched in 1988...
...The parties' eleventh hour attempt at unity is not surprising, according to Fernando Villagrin, an editor at the opposition weekly, Apsi...
...Thousands of tear-gas wielding soldiers clubbed their way through shantytowns, detaining many...
...Quintana's message came at the end of a Latin American Studies Association seminar featuring representatives of Chile's opposition...
...After initial discussion about how to approach this very limited form of suffrage, 13 opposition parties have launched a unified "Campaign for the No," encouraging their supporters to register and cast their votes against continued military rule...
...Pinochet's Plebiscite: Choice With No Options" looks at the major actors: Chile's political opposition...
...the military regime...
...Employing "quiet diplomacy," his government raised concerns about rights violations behind closed doors...
...In the view of Lance Compa, an attorney who studied Chile's unions during the Popular Unity years, the country's fractionalized labor movement is a major obstacle to unity among the political opposition...
...Grasping the potential of a unified movement, the regime struck back...
...Pinochet's one-candidate election...
...The denial of workers' rights to organize coupled with continued repression have brought a change in Washington's relations with Santiago...
...The two remain free pending appeal...
...These tensions were particularly pronounced during the Allende years (1970-1973), when workers expected the government they had helped elect to deliver on long-held demands...
...CARMEN GLORIA QUINTANA SPOKE barely above a whisper: "I would like to believe in this plebiscite, I would like to believe that it will make a difference, but after what this regime did to me, I can't...
Vol. 22 • March 1988 • No. 2
