Voices From the Chilean Left: Toward the Recovery of Popular Sovereignty
Bustos, Carlos A. Molina
On the 30th anniversary of the military coup that toppled the Popular Unity (UP) government of Salvador Allende, we have both a political and a moral obligation to uncover the historical...
...This recognition legitimated the viability of popular sovereignty both institutionally and in the mentality of Chileans...
...As Chile contemplates the 30th anniversary of the military coup, it does so with political institutions and achieved by the dictatorship, institu"urrent President Ricardo Lagos claims "are The major problem is that the fight for of the 1980s always had as its objective Itling and transformation of the institutions by the dictatorship...
...Popular sovereignty emerged and thrived in places where the practice of politics was widespread...
...The collective forgetting of our history means we must once again begin to recover our historical memory-base of our national identity...
...mass protest and civil disobedience left his program for transition questioned and largely rejected...
...It failed to substantially modify the social-economic model imposed by the dictatorship...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16CHILE: THIRTY YEARS LATER One fears the recent discoveries are only the tip of the iceberg...
...a national The institutionality protected from expressed popu- recovery o lar will denies citizens a role in directing or control- tity...
...There is now a homogenized political spectrum that reinforces the concentration of power...
...Even after the plebiscites of 1988 and 1989, the Chacarillas discourse realized in the Constitution of 1980 remains prominent in Chile's institutional trajectory...
...Judicial power and the courts are increas- Ileft ingly administrating these processes with the detri- . stan mental consequence of inequality before the law...
...The right, with the UDI at the helm, is preparing to take formal control of the presidency by the very avenues opened by its own transition...
...State universities are conself-financing, leading to significant cutyen to their eventual disappearance...
...He was vice-minister of public health for the Allende gov- ernment, political exile in Mexico (1974-83) and founding mem- ber of the Broad Party of the Socialist Left (PAlS...
...The politics of the UP expressed the viability of popular sovereignty-genuine self rule-that had been building in diverse ways since the 1920s...
...true transit National officials pride themselves on good looking ined by Pi macroeconomic balances and Chile's low "country Concertaci risk" rating at the same time that statistics from inter- Concertaci Abandoning its democratizing role was the price the Concertaci6n paid to the forces of the dictatorship so it could come to power...
...The political class in power has forgotten the promises made in the agreements regarding reparations to victims of abuses to the point that the UDI is leading an initiative to close that chapter forever...
...The neoliberal economic uct of the model has been transformed into an infallible myth...
...national and national organisms show that economic designed and social inequity in Chile is the greatest in Latin tions that c America...
...The state has shed its assigned responsibil- ment mean ity for defending and protecting the so-called "common good...
...ry authority, previously the autonomy of the tor, will be ceded to the greater participaprivate sector...
...When dissatisfaction is expressed and these spaces are occupied, demonstrators are quickly swept away by the efficient, automated, repressive organisms of the state...
...But the discourse of the political elite denies a Supervisor crisis of democracy and initiates fabricated debates public sec about the virtues or defects of the transition to democ- tion of the racy and whether we are amid or beyond that transi- The corn tion...
...In short, the transition to democracy brought on by the political fight of the masses disappeared from high-level political practice...
...Translated from Spanish by NACLA...
...The inviolability of the 1980 Constitution and the subsequent pacts of 1989 have effectively eliminated expressions of popular sovereignty from the political stage...
...In many ways, Pinochet gained decisive ground in his legitimization...
...Television sets have replaced the street, the parliament, the commons and other public political stages...
...We must transcend the collective forgetting infecting Chile so that our political space can be recovered, and so that our national identity, which ultimately defines the structure of our social organization, can also be recovered...
...So national reconciliation was based on shared responsibility between victimizers and victims and torturers and the tortured, a process that initiated the impunity that haunts us to this day...
...The civil disobedience and the various forms of protest calling for the end of the dictatorship convinced the Reagan administration to pressure the dictatorship and the opposition Democratic Alliance to forge a transition agreement...
...and judicial norms that stymie democratic expression and handicap the electoral regime...
...The military regime maintained itself in power through systematic repression, and produced what has been referred to as a "degraded citizenry...
...This has precipitated the "judicialization" he of politics...
...Thirty years after the coup, the principle cause of today's national crisis is not only the negation of history, but also the existence of a unified, standardized political class without signs of differentiation...
...At the same time, of course, it attempted to take that institutional development a step further towards democratic socialism...
...Pinochet's strategy for legitimization had failed...
...in this political context it became possible to imagine a Chilean-style transition to socialism...
...The country and its success foreign investment and seducing this investis compromising official policies...
...It is no longer possible to make a distinction between the so-called "center-left" political class lumped together as the Concertaci6n and that which-under the leadership of the Pinochetista Independent Democratic Union (UDI)-calls itself the Alliance for Chile...
...It is the responsibility of the nation to create an authentic democratic response that is a true alternative to the present order...
...Over the course of 17 years, Pinochet's regime installed, developed and maintained a police state that systematically laid waste to the social and political fabric of the republic...
...Today it is clear that abandoning its original democratizing role was the price the Concertaci6n had to pay to the forces sustaining the dictatorship so it could come to power...
...Elections are widely perceived as a role of coi lost cause and the electorate is increasingly marginal- nimbly pi ized...
...This protection ensured the durability of Pinochet's power until 1997, nearly a decade after he left the presidency...
...Concertaci6n's pact with the dictatorship it lacking any fundamental ethical subce to later imagine any real project for a tion to democracy distinct from that imagnochet...
...Following its violent overthrow of the UP government, the dictatorship destroyed republican antecedents and produced new institutions devoid of popular sovereignty...
...The historic triumph of the institutions of the military dictatorship-obtained between 1987 and 1990-guaranteed impunity surrounding human rights violations...
...To do so it is essential to empower ourselves with our historical memory, understand the continuity of our history, recover our republican traditions and reconstruct our lost national identity...
...The course of political events between 1986 and 1989 marked a period of definitive success for the dictatorship's legitimization and its transition project...
...The impressive organization of Chile's working class and the presence of a self-aware middle class-some with ties to the world of the proletariat-obligated the state to address social demands...
...In this period the dictatorship gained the cultural and political base that sustains its legacy...
...The ruthless, experimental application of the neoliberal agenda in the context of a socially and politically repressed society allowed Pinochet to prolong his regime and guarantee the successful transition to a new form of democracy-what he described in his famous speech in Chacarillas, as "authoritarian, protective, integrative, technological and of authentic social participation...
...First, the dictatorship succeeded in validating the idea that the UP had governed illegitimately, thus undermining the republican institutionality that had developed in Chile since the 1920's...
...generated The signing of a Free Trade Agreement with the indicate th United States benefits the export industry, but com- tained, dev mon Chileans understand that they will finance the The unrr agreement through higher taxes and their diminished months sh capacity for consumption...
...In this way the dictatorship maintained the institutionality conceived in the 1970s without sub- stantive alterations...
...the now-perfected neoliberal model...
...The situation seems to at Pinochet's institutions have been main'eloped and they "work...
...The parties that in the end dominated the democratization process abandoned the social content of their political project and compromised with the dictatorship...
...been impli tical elite are unanimously and quickly priie state not only in terms of public patrialso in terms of its administration...
...Carlos A. Molina Bustos is a doctor and surgeon at the University of Chile...
...never endi Chile is a society with marked class differences that ability, stal denies the representation of diverse interests in social depend on struggles...
...Vol XXXVII, No 1 JULYIAUGUST 200315 Vol XXXVII, No 1 JuvLY/AUGUST 2003 15CHILE: THIRTY YEARS LATER Today, positions of popular representation are essen- The poli tially designated by political groups that benefit from vatizing tt the two-party system...
...But th ling the management of the state and public issues...
...The situation demands the construction of a new transition...
...large numbers of Chileans suffering from the disman mental disorders...
...despite the violence and repression, mass struggle reemerged in 1983 with clear destabilizing effects culminating in the dictatorship's crisis...
...The social prestige of political activism-despite the constant repression of popular movements-was also increasingly incorporated into the mentality of the majority of the population until the early 1970s...
...Citizens have lost control of the right to demand truth and justice in human rights...
...The Pinochet constitution-guaranteed by the armed forces-ensured the installation of an authoritarian democracy protected from popular sovereignty...
...the national security policies and institutions enforced by the armed forces to maintain the status quo...
...Electoral districts are specially mony, but drawn up to this effect by the authors of the perfected modern g( institutionality...
...Social indicators are worrisome: increasing working...
...Third, the dictatorship shed the blame for its atrocious human rights violations to the point where Chileans spoke of "co-responsibility...
...The concessions of the agreement assured the persistence of the military's project: the judicial-institutional framework...
...edition of public universities is emblematic of zation of the state...
...The media--controlled by those in power- the privatir remains silent on the political crisis, demonstrating demned to what common Chileans with common sense already backs or ei know: Freedom of information does not exist in direct cons Chile...
...Therein lies the basis of today's moral and political crisis: the loss of sovereignty as an expression of diversity, the bankrupting of formal democratic activities and processes, and the indifference and disillusionment of the citizenry...
...illiteracy, malnutrition and abandonment of the democracy elderly...
...basking of widespread corruption in recent )uld be understood as an inevitable byprodrules of the game imposed by the instituel of the dictatorship--developed and perthe last 13 years...
...It even formalized the final protection of Pinochet and others primarily responsible for the brutalities of the dictatorship...
...But what is important today is that the dictatorship of Pinochet constructed Chile's transition to democracy with the hope of giving historical permanence to the institutional structure devised by the military regime...
...tional mod Economic policy decisions are carried out as if under fected in t the direction of an indisputable manual that describes state, coni a series of uniform technical steps and procedures...
...The government's project for creating a new institutionality and a new economic order failed in its first ten years...
...So far, ex-ministers of gressmen and high public officials have cated in massive bribery and fraud scandals...
...The eventual agreement guaranteed the political role of the armed forces, the inviolability of Pinochet, impunity under an amnesty law, the neoliberal model and the exclusion of the Communist Party from any potential governing coalition...
...Chileans are beginning to understand that the only transition that occurred was the one envisioned and achieved by the dictatorship...
...Pinochet began by constructing a new institutional order, a strategy NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14CHILE: THIRTY YEARS LATER made clear in his speech in Chacarillas in 1977, and perfected in the Constitution of 1980...
...The new )vernment will strip itself of its regulatory ntrolling the economy and social issues by providing greater facility to corporations...
...The crisis stems from the 6n's abandonment of its original project as an effective democratizing force...
...the hegemony of power at the margins of, and protected from, popular sovereignty...
...The dictatorship failed to gain any legitimacy in its first ten years...
...The UP had political space to develop and consolidate its power because it was a product of Chile's institutional development...
...The current political crisis of the 6n is profound...
...it implies the abandonment of any r strengthening of our national cultural iden[e political discourse expresses an image of ng progress based on the ideas of govembility and peace...
...total impunity in cases of human rights abuses...
...This is a equence of the state's inability to implement project...
...In 1983, the masses were demanding Pinochet's resignation, a convention to write a new constitution, changes to the imposition of the neoliberal economic model, truth and justice in human rights, the interruption of Pinochet's itinerary for transition and immediate free elections...
...On the 30th anniversary of the military coup that toppled the Popular Unity (UP) government of Salvador Allende, we have both a political and a moral obligation to uncover the historical origin of the great political and ethical crisis that currently convulses our country...
...Second, the military coup was presented as the salvation of a country under siege by an irresponsible social order...
...In the republican past, formal democracy allowed the election of deputies, senators and other officials...
Vol. 37 • July 2003 • No. 1
