TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/88/88capchi.1

Text File | 1990-12-01 | 10KB | 187 lines

                rn                                                        Ç««CHILE

Fall of the Patriarch

October 17, 1988

Pinochet loses at the polls, but democracy is not the victor yet

"He fell!  He fell!"

For 15 years General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, 72, has held Chile in
his proud and dictatorial grasp--once even boasting that "there is
not a single leaf in this country that I do not move."  So why
shouldn't he have believed that Chileans would vote si last week in
an extraordinary plebiscite on whether to extend his presidential
term to 1997?  But shortly before 2 a.m. on Thursday, an ashen-faced
official stepped from La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago,
and headed for a nearby government building.  There he told TV
viewers that the public had said no to the extension.  The final
tally, with 7.2 million votes cast:  54/7% to 43%.  Despite the hour,
several hundred jubilant demonstrators sounded car horns in the
capital and howled delightedly, "He fell!  He fell!"

The vote was a turning point on Chile's long road back to a nearly
150-year old tradition of democracy, which was toppled in the 1973
coup that brought Pinochet to power.  Since ousting the elected, but
floundering, government of Marxist President Salvador Allende
Gossens, Pinochet has led a military junta that routinely uses terror
to enforce its will.  Deep scars remain from a 1973-76 antileftist
purge in which tens of thousands of Chileans were exiled, tortured or
executed.  Meanwhile, the politically explosive gulf between rich and
poor has steadily grown wider.  "We broke an authoritarian system,"
said Ricardo Lagos, president of the Party for Democracy, one of the
16 groups that made up the Command for the No, which led the campaign
to defeat Pinochet.  "Now our work is to reconstruct a democratic
system."

The vote will not transform Chile overnight.  If presidential
elections are held as scheduled in December 1989, Pinochet, who has
already headed the country longer than any other leader, would retain
power at least until March 1990.  He can also remain commander of the
army until 1995.  Whenever the voting does take place (opposition
leaders have pressed for an earlier date), Chile's traditionally
fractious parties will have to agree on a field that allows the
winner to emerge with enough support to govern.

For his part, Pinochet vowed not to go quietly.  Wearing a crisp
dress-white uniform, the general accepted "the verdict of the
majority" but pledged "to complete my mandate with a patriotic
sense."  He buttressed the point by refusing to accept the
resignation of his 16-member Cabinet, which then agreed to stay.

Pinochet's defiance produced a bizarre pattern of dancing and rioting
in the streets.  Police fired tear gas and water cannons at some
antigovernment protesters in two days of clashes that left dozens
wounded and two people dead.  More than 20 foreign journalists were
among the injured.  On Friday hundreds of thousands of Chileans
celebrated the no vote with a joyous rally in Santiago.  Singing and
swaying to music by popular groups, they called on Pinochet to step
down.

The dictator hardly expected to lose the plebiscite when, in 1980, he
pushed through a constitution that mandated the vote.  Eager to gain
democratic legitimacy, Pinochet expected a booming economy to buoy
his popularity throughout the decade.  But a 1982 crash ended that
hope, and the subsequent recovery benefited wealthy landowners,
bankers and multinational companies, while Chile's slums sank deeper
into squalor.  By the start of 1988, the failure of the country's
growing riches to spread to the middle and lower classes had festered
into a key campaign issue.  The divide had a further impact:  it
strengthened such radical factions as the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic
Front, a Communist splinter group that killed five of Pinochet's
bodyguards in a 1986 assassination attempt.  The army replied with a
wave of reprisals that further alienated many Chileans.

With the plebiscite approaching, Pinochet lifted a 15-year state of
emergency in August and allowed 500 exiles to return to the country.
They found a more subtle form of repression.  Instead of censoring
the press, for example, the regime responded to articles it did not
like by jailing reporters and publishers.  While labor unions are now
permitted, leaders who call for industry-wide strikes risk
banishment.  Last February a U.S. human-rights report noted at least
100 cases of torture in 1987 by Chilean security forces.

Pinochet also miscalculated the resolve of Chile's opposition
parties.  Though it had barely seemed possible, long-squabbling
groups ranging from the right-wing National Party to the leftist
Almeyda Socialists flocked together under the anti-Pinochet banner.
They took the lead in registering an astounding 92% of Chile's
eligible voters, though critics cautioned that some government
sympathizers might have signed under different names to swell the si
tally.  Meanwhile, the no forces used newly granted access to TV
studios to launch tuneful and compelling spots.  The regime, by
contrast, relied on stolid footage of factories and roads or warnings
of a return to the chaos and violence of the Allende years.

Though he lagged in most of the polls, Pinochet still expected
victory.  But his eleventh-hour emergence as a baby kisser in
civilian dress could not improve his chances.  Nor could numerology
sway the final outcome:  deeply superstitious, Pinochet held the
plebiscite on Oct. 5 apparently because five is his lucky number.

Within the government the vote immediately shifted the balance of
power away from Pinochet.  "I think the armed forces will treat
Pinochet delicately for the moment," said a Western diplomat in
Santiago.  "They might gently insist on a more collegial relationship
within the junta."  But the military too was wounded by the vote.
Known as "the last Prussian army" for its aloofness from the rest of
society, the army considers the fall of its leader to be a personal
defeat.  That could make the armed forces sullen and defensive in
coming months.

The opposition is clearly taking no chances on offending the army and
triggering a possible coup.  During the campaign, political leaders
agreed to withdraw TV spots that showed carabinero security forces
beating citizens.  In return, police provided protection for
opposition rallies and marches.  Yet such fragile alliances could
easily be shattered by embarrassing demands.  For example, most
opposition groups want to prosecute the military for human-rights
violations.  But moderate parties are willing to overlook old abuses
in exchange for assurances that new ones will not occur.

Pinochet nevertheless emerged from last week's ballot in a relatively
strong position.  By winning 43% of the vote, he showed broader
popular appeal than opposition polls had indicated--a considerable
achievement for a dictator after 15 years in power.  Said Labor
Minister Alfonso Marquez de la Plata:  "The plebiscite was a personal
triumph for the President and an electoral defeat for his
collaborators.  It's a clear demonstration that he enjoys a great
deal of civilian support."

Perhaps.  For now, the key issue remains the timing of presidential
elections.  A quick ballot could even help the government by allowing
it to support a single candidate before the opposition can produce a
strong field.  A long delay, on the other hand, could unravel the
opposition's recent unity.  But such concerns seemed remote to
exultant Chileans last week.  In the fall of a ruthless patriarch,
the country caught a happy glimpse of both its democratic past and
its possible future.

--By John Greenwald.
  Reported by Laura Lopez/Santiago


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How Much Did the U.S. Help?

The CIA helped put Augusto Pinochet Ugarte into power by playing a
pivotal role in the 1973 military coup that toppled the country's
democratically elected Marxist government.  So it seems only fitting
that the U.S. used its leverage to help topple Pinochet at the ballot
box.  The Reagan Administration initially downplayed Pinochet's
human-rights violations in hopes of persuading the junta to ease
repression.  The arrival of U.S. Ambassador Harry Barnes in 1985
signaled a change in tactics:  Barnes repeatedly called for a return
to democracy and instructed the embassy to monitor all human-rights
violations.

Meanwhile, Washington sponsored a U.N. Human Rights Commission
denunciation of Chile in 1986.  The Administration also funneled more
than $1 million to opposition groups to register plebiscite voters.
Four days before the vote, Washington learned that the junta might
delay the ballot.  U.S. officials warned Chilean authorities against
the plan, going so far as to summon Chile's Ambassador to the U.S. to
an unusual Sunday-morning meeting.  Said a U.S. diplomat:  "Our
message was that if they went ahead with the operation to postpone
the election, we would publicly reveal in detail what we knew."


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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

PRESIDENCY:

The constitution keeps Pinochet in power until elections in December
1989.  The opposition wants to speed up the vote.

LEGISLATURE:

Elected at the same time.  Pinochet will keep a seat; the government
can name ten out of 36 Senators.  The opposition wants all seats
elected.

MILITARY:

Pinochet still in command.  The opposition wants him out, civilian
control thereafter.