Chile

(1973–1990)

   On 11 September 1973 the Chilean military overthrew Salvador Allende Gossens, a democratically elected Marxist president. Led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the military coup unleashed a reign of terror over the civilian population. The victims included Allende Gossens himself, who died (an apparent suicide, later confirmed) during the air and ground assault on the presidential palace, La Moneda. Pinochet Ugarte began a series of campaigns against leftists and other perceived subversives. War tribunals appeared—military courts that detained and executed prisoners without benefit of a trial. The two main sports arenas in the capital city of Santiago—Chile Stadium and National Stadium—became detention centers. Thousands of political prisoners were arrested and subjected to torture; many were killed. Immediately after the coup, a junta was formed consisting of Pinochet

   Ugarte, commander in chief of the army; Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro, commander in chief of the navy; General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, commander in chief of the air force; and General César Mendoza Durán, director general of the Carabineros (the national police force). The junta was led by Pinochet Ugarte, who declared Chile to be in a state of civil disorder and economic chaos caused by the proliferation of Marxist ideas. The junta had two main objectives: the first was to extirpate Marxism from Chilean society and ensure the return of civilian government; the second was to rescue the government from the economic chaos caused by Allende Gossen’s socialist reforms.

   To fulfill the first objective, the junta declared a state of siege and implemented a plan of organized repression. During the first few weeks after the coup, thousands of Chilean citizens, refugees from other countries of Latin America, and foreign nationals became the victims of raids, attacks, searches and seizures, arrests and detentions, torture and executions, forced disappearances, and exile. The junta assured the country that once all leftist elements had been eliminated, the military would return the country to civilian rule. Members of the once-powerful Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC, Christian Democratic Party), many of whom tacitly supported the coup, entertained hopes of leading a new government. Their expectations were cut short by what resulted—the one-man totalitarian regime of Pinochet Ugarte, who would rule for 17 years.

   To fulfill the second objective, that of stabilizing the economy, the junta sought the help of a group of economists called the Chicago Boys. Drawing on the monetarist ideas of University of Chicago economics professor Milton Friedman, the Chicago Boys believed that the chief impediment to economic growth in Chile was the welfare state. They envisioned replacing it with a model of unrestrained freemarket capitalism.

   BACKGROUND TO THE “DIRTY WAR”:

   For much of the 20th century, despite brief military interventions in 1924 and 1931, Chile was one of the most representative democracies in Latin America. From 1932 to 1973, political representation from the center, left, and right parties achieved a fairly even balance, and elections resulted in multiparty alliances.

   The government of Eduardo Frei Montalva, president from 1964 to 1970, represented an era of social and political advancement for many Chileans. His PDC, traditionally centrist, had aligned itself with the Chilean right in the previous election in order to defeat Salvador Allende Gossens, the candidate representing an alliance of leftist groups. Frei Montalva’s social reforms (in education, labor, and agriculture) expanded opportunities for the middle and working classes. His land-reform program, however, angered the wealthy, who saw their estates converted into farm cooperatives. In the presidential election of 4 September 1970, the right turned against the PDC, allowing Allende Gossens to win a narrow plurality over the two other candidates, the conservative former president Jorge Alessandri and the left-leaning PDC candidate Radomiro Tomic. Allende Gossens promised a peaceful transition to socialism and headed a coalition of leftists and moderates called Unidad Popular (UP, Popular Unity). Since Allende Gossens failed to win a majority, Congress was called on to decide between the two front-runners. In past elections, congressional confirmation had been a formality. This time, however, the leading candidate was a socialist, and conservative members of the PDC tried to block the confirmation.

   By early October the two sides had reached a compromise. In return for PDC votes necessary for confirmation, Allende Gossens agreed to sign a Statute of Guarantees, promising to respect democratic principles. Not all of Allende Gossens’s opponents, however, were willing to accept his impending confirmation. Two groups within the military were already planning to disrupt the process. On 22 October one of the groups attempted to kidnap General René Schneider, the commander in chief of the army and a strict defender of the constitution. The plan went awry, and Schneider was fatally wounded. Constitutionalists in the military were now in a stronger position to let the process continue. On 24 October Congress declared Allende Gossens president.

   Inaugurated on 3 November 1970, Allende Gossens became the first democratically elected Marxist president in the world. He continued implementing his predecessor’s reforms while introducing many of his own. He appropriated and redistributed land, purchased banks, and nationalized major industries. He completed the nationalization, begun under Frei Montalva, of Chile’s most important industry, copper mining.

   Although Allende Gossens enjoyed wide popular support, Congress and members of the right and center parties thought he was going too far with his socialist reforms. Many of his younger supporters, meanwhile, thought he was not going far enough. Some encouraged peasants to seize land illegally; others called for armed struggle. The urban guerrilla group Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR, Movement of the Revolutionary Left) and a wing of the Partido Socialista (PS, Socialist Party) both advocated revolution as opposed to reform. Allende Gossens tolerated their militant stance in the hope of preserving the UP coalition, though he did denounce the June 1971 murder of the PDC leader Edmundo Pérez Zújovic by the Vanguardia Organizada del Pueblo (VOP, People’s Organized Vanguard), a splinter group of the MIR.

   Left-wing extremism met with right-wing extremism, especially from the vigilante group Patria y Libertad (PL, Fatherland and Liberty). While leftists sought to create the conditions for revolution, PL sought to provoke a military coup. The right found an ally in the United States. The administration of President Richard Nixon was openly antagonistic toward Allende Gossens, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked covertly in an attempt to sabotage the Chilean economy and destabilize the government.

   During Allende Gossens’s first year in office, the economy grew, and both unemployment and inflation declined. Wage increases, coupled with a freeze on prices, stimulated consumer demand. In the municipal elections of April 1971, the UP was rewarded with more than 50 percent of the vote. But the UP’s economic policies also had a downside, leading to decreased production, government deficits, capital flight, and (following another wage increase) high inflation. Between 1971 and 1973, inflation would rise from 22 to 600 percent. By 1972 food and other consumer goods were in short supply. Shortages became more acute in October 1972, when the gremio (trade association) representing independent truck owners staged a strike to protest an attempt at bringing the transportation industry under state control. The strike ended when Allende Gossens asked the military for support, inviting three commanders into his cabinet. More strikes—by bus owners and copper miners—took place in 1973. In the May 1973 congressional elections, the PDC and the conservative National party won 55.7 percent of the vote; the UP, 43.9 percent. The results left Congress deadlocked. On the one hand, the UP lacked the majority necessary to legislate additional reforms; on the other hand, the opposition lacked the two-thirds majority necessary to remove Allende Gossens from office.

   The country moved close to civil war. In June young military officers mounted an armored tank rebellion, or tancazo. This attempt at a coup, quickly put down by General Carlos Prats González, commander in chief of the army, revealed growing public support for military intervention as a possible solution to the economic crisis. More rebellion followed in July, when truck owners, merchants, and white-collar workers organized strikes. Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, the Archbishop of Santiago, tried to help Allende Gossens and the PDC reach an agreement, but negotiations broke off in August. In the opinion of high-ranking members of the military, such civil disorder warranted military intervention.

   THE “DIRTY WAR” AND THE REGIME OF AUGUSTO PINOCHET UGARTE:

   Within the first few days of the 11 September coup, international human-rights groups such as Amnesty International and the Red Cross began to arrive. As the violence became more systematic (for example, abductions and disappearances under the cover of a dusk-to-dawn curfew), local human-rights organizations were formed not only to provide assistance but also to document and denounce the repression. One was the Comité de la Paz (Committee for Peace), which later became the Vicaría de la Solidaridad (Vicariate of Solidarity). Both provided medical, legal, and social services despite protest and harassment from the government. Foreign embassies, with the exception of the embassy of the United States, provided refuge and assistance to foreign nationals and Chileans who wanted to leave the country. Although at first Pinochet Ugarte refused attempts by the United Nations (UN) to investigate reports of state terror, the UN would eventually observe and document human-rights abuses in Chile.

   In the months following the coup, the junta consolidated its power. The courts, including the Supreme Court, generally stood behind the junta and allowed the rulings of military tribunals to take precedence. The junta issued a series of decree laws aimed at bringing the government under military control and replaced officials who had been appointed by Allende Gossens. It authorized the infamous caravan of death, a cross-country helicopter tour led by General Arellano Stark, which led to the deaths of 75 political prisoners. The junta closed Congress and burned the official election registries. It suspended political activity and outlawed leftist parties. The military and police then instituted a plan intended to eliminate all members of leftist opposition groups through the detention, interrogation, and execution of political prisoners. In 1974 a secret-police organization appeared, the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA, Directorate of National Intelligence), followed in 1975 by the Comando Conjunto (CC, Joint Command), a rival death squad created by the air force. Both were recruited from the right-wing vigilante group Patria y Libertad. Their initial targets were members of the MIR, the Partido Socialista, and the Partido Comunista de Chile (PC, Communist Party of Chile). In December 1977 the UN condemned Chile for human-rights violations. Furious, Pinochet Ugarte called a referendum seeking national support for his policies in the “defense of the dignity of Chile.” In January 1978, 75 percent voted their approval, though the referendum was conducted without electoral safeguards. Pinochet Ugarte interpreted the results as a mandate and reduced the state of siege (in effect since 1973) to a state of emergency. He also pressured the junta into signing the amnesty law of 1978. Promulgated on 19 April 1978, the law absolved the military and the police of human-rights abuses committed from 11 September 1973, the day of the coup, to 10 March 1978. (The amnesty would be partly struck down by the Supreme Court in November 2004.) In September 1980 voters were called to the polls again, this time to endorse a new constitution written by Pinochet Ugarte and scheduled to take effect in March 1981. Approved by 67 percent of the vote in a plebiscite widely considered fraudulent, the constitution of 1981 provided for President Pinochet Ugarte to remain in office until 1989. In addition to extirpating Marxism, the junta had a second objective: to transform the economy. The subject stirred much debate. The Chicago Boys argued passionately for a free-market model; in contrast, the junta’s early economic ministers were influenced by PDC members and business interests who wanted the economy to remain under state management. In the end, the Chicago Boys prevailed and in 1975 took charge of policy. The “shock treatment” they administered caused immediate hardship. Those who escaped unemployment saw their wages drastically reduced. By the end of the decade, however, the treatment began to show positive results— significantly lower inflation and substantial growth. Hailed by many as a “miracle,” the economic boom brought many Chileans into the middle class. It also made those who were well off even wealthier. According to theory, this wealth would eventually “trickle down” to the poor. Nevertheless, in 1982 world recession ended the boom, and by the mid-1980s, anywhere from 14 percent (the government’s figure) to 45 percent of the population remained in poverty. By 1983 economic recession was taking its toll in bankruptcies and unemployment. Antigovernment sentiment began to build, taking the form of organized demonstrations and protest marches. Political parties revived, and in June 1983 the PDC formed a coalition of moderate parties, the Alianza Democrática (AD, Democratic Alliance), which called for the resignation of Pinochet Ugarte and a return to democratic rule. The PC and the militant wing of the PS were excluded from the AD because of their refusal to rule out armed struggle as a means of ending the dictatorship. The PC responded by creating a left-wing coalition called the Movimiento Democrático Popular (MDP, Popular Democratic Movement).

   Pinochet Ugarte refused to step down, and protests continued into 1984 and 1985, many of them violent confrontations with security forces. By then a new guerrilla organization had formed, the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR, Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front), which carried out thousands of operations, including a failed attempt in September 1986 to assassinate Pinochet Ugarte. The incident provoked another state of siege and renewed death-squad activity, especially from the Centro Nacional de Información (CNI, National Information Center), an intelligence agency that had replaced DINA in 1977.

   The government announced in mid-1987 that Pinochet Ugarte would be the candidate in a plebiscite scheduled for 1988. A “yes” vote would give him eight more years as president. A “no” vote would mean a general election with a choice of candidates. By mid-1988 the opposition had begun to rally around the Comando por el No (Command for the No), an alliance of some 16 political parties established in February to campaign against Pinochet Ugarte and guard against electoral fraud. That the country was moving toward democracy was evident in the plebiscite of 1988, which took place on 5 October. A majority of voters (54.7 percent) rejected another term in office for Pinochet Ugarte and opened the way for national elections the following year. On 14 December 1989 Patricio Aylwin Azócar, representing a center-left coalition, was elected president with 55.2 percent of the vote. Hernán Büchi, the government candidate and a former minister of finance under Pinochet Ugarte, came in second with 29.4 percent.

   AFTERMATH OF THE “DIRTY WAR”:

   On 24 April 1990, one month after taking office, President Aylwin Azócar established the Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación (National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation), which documented deaths and disappearances (but not torture) committed during the dictatorship. Chaired by the judge Raúl Rettig and given nine months to complete its work, the commission issued its report in 1991, having documented almost 3,200 cases of human-rights abuse involving death, more than 1,000 of them missing (desaparecidos). The commission’s charge, however, did not extend to naming those responsible, nor was the commission allowed enough time to identify the victims and find their bodies. Some remains had already been recovered through the efforts of the Vicariate of Solidarity: 15 were found in 1978 in an abandoned lime kiln in Lonquén; 126 were found in 1991 in a Santiago cemetery— many in graves marked NN (ningún nombre, no name) and some two to a coffin. The task of completing the commission’s work fell to its successor, the Corporación Nacional por la Reconciliación y la Reparación (National Corporation for Reconciliation and Reparation). The corporation was originally established in January 1992 for two years, though Congress would grant it additional time. When it was phased out in 1995, about 1,000 cases remained to be cleared up. It did, however, implement a reparations program recommended by the commission. More than 4,800 survivors of the victims listed in the commission’s final report were awarded a monthly payment of a little more than the monthly minimum wage; more than 27,000 others have received education and health care benefits.

   An important reason for the lack of progress in clearing up cases was the military’s refusal to cooperate. Members of the armed forces and carabineros saw no advantage to getting involved, having been granted amnesty in 1978. Moreover, the administration was careful not to threaten the military for fear of provoking a coup—Pinochet Ugarte remained a force to be reckoned with. After stepping down as president in 1990, he continued to lead the army, and after his retirement in 1998, he took office as senator-for-life, a position provided for him by the constitution of 1981. It seemed as if he were well situated to thwart any attempt at assigning responsibility for the “dirty war” to specific members of the military, including himself. Yet his immunity from prosecution would be challenged when he went abroad.

   On 16 October 1998, while in London for back surgery, Pinochet Ugarte was placed under house arrest by British authorities at the request of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who sought his extradition to Spain to face charges of gross human-rights violations. On 28 October the British High Court rejected the request, ruling that Pinochet Ugarte was immune from prosecution for crimes committed while he was head of state. In November, however, a committee of the House of Lords voted 3–2 to reverse that ruling. Extradition proceedings began the following month but were discontinued when it became known that one of the law lords who had ruled against Pinochet Ugarte had failed to disclose a possible conflict of interest—a link to the human-rights group Amnesty International. A new House of Lords committee was formed in January 1999 to appeal the initial High Court ruling. On 24 March the law lords voted 6–1 to reject the claim of immunity. Extradition proceedings resumed in September, and a court ruled on 8 October that the extradition of Pinochet Ugarte to Spain could proceed. Pinochet Ugarte, however, would be spared a second time. Independent doctors reported that he was medically unfit to stand trial, and in March 2000 he was allowed to return to Chile.

   Pinochet Ugarte’s detention in Britain had divided Chilean society, prompting demonstrations for and against a trial. Yet even some of his opponents argued that he should be tried not in Spain but in Chile. The likelihood of bringing him to trial increased as a new generation of judges appeared, replacing the old guard as it retired from the bench. The courts began challenging his immunity on a case-by-case basis. In August 2000 the Supreme Court divested Pinochet Ugarte of his immunity, and Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, known for his independence, pursued a new case against him. On 1 December Pinochet Ugarte was placed under house arrest, indicted on charges of kidnapping and murder in connection with the caravan of death. The Court of Appeals overturned the case on a technicality. The Supreme Court upheld that decision, but ordered Guzmán Tapia to question Pinochet Ugarte. First, however, Pinochet Ugarte was required to undergo a medical examination—required by Chilean law for citizens over 70 years old—to see if he was mentally competent. A medical report suggested he had mild dementia. On 9 July 2001 the Court of Appeals ruled that he was mentally unfit to stand trial, and the effort to bring him to justice appeared to come to an end. In 2002, though, he was forced to step down as senator-for-life when the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the appeals court.

   By December 2003 human-rights advocates were asking the courts to reconsider the decision that Pinochet Ugarte was mentally unfit. They cited an interview that he had recently granted to WDLP–22, an anti-Castro television station in Miami, an interview in which he spoke lucidly and at length. On 28 May 2004 the Court of Appeals, by 14–9, again voted to strip Pinochet Ugarte of his immunity from prosecution, this time in connection with the murder of political opponents in Operation Condor. His lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that their client, who was 88 years old, was both physically and mentally unfit to stand trial. Pinochet Ugarte did have health problems—in addition to using a pacemaker and having diabetes and arthritis, he had suffered a series of mild strokes since 1998. Yet on 26 August 2004 the Supreme Court upheld the appeals court decision, opening the way for prosecution. On 2 December 2004 the Court of Appeals stripped him of his immunity for a third time. He was being sued in connection with the assassination in 1974 of his political rival General Prats González.

   Pinochet Ugarte’s legal troubles were not limited to human rights. In 2004 investigators discovered that Pinochet Ugarte held secret overseas bank accounts, most of them in the United States—a discovery that embarrassed his supporters, who had argued that his regime, though tough on subversion, was free of corruption. It would later be found that these accounts numbered over 100 and held as much as $28 million. On 23 November 2005, two days before his 90th birthday, he was placed under house arrest and indicted on charges that he had failed to pay $2.4 million in taxes, used false passports to open accounts, and falsely reported his assets. Again, his lawyers argued he was too ill to stand trial, though many in Chile, including courtappointed doctors, alleged that he made his health problems appear more serious than they were.

   While the Pinochet Ugarte drama was unfolding, Chile confronted its past in other ways. On 8 November 2004 General Juan Emilio Cheyre, the army commander, published a statement, “The End of a Vision,” in the newspaper La tercera, saying that the army accepted responsibility for human-rights violations committed during the dictatorship. He called the acts “punishable” and “morally unacceptable.” The statement came in anticipation of a report, issued a week later, by the Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (National Commission on Political Prisoners and Torture). Covering the period from 11 September 1973 to 1989 and based on testimony from 35,000 victims from 40 countries, the 1,200-page report concluded that the dictatorship used torture as a matter of policy to repress and terrorize its opponents. It identified 1,200 torture centers (including the navy’s training ship the Esmeralda) and 14 methods of torture, both physical and psychological. The commission recommended compensation for each of the 27,255 torture victims whose testimonies could be verified. President Ricardo Lagos accepted the recommendation, and in mid-December 2004 Congress approved a lifetime pension of 112,000 Chilean pesos a month, about half the minimum monthly salary. Lagos admitted that the amount was “austere” and “symbolic,” calling it a reconocimiento moral (a moral recognition).

   Although victims welcomed the truth and recognition, many also clamored for justice. Standing in the way, however, was the 1978 amnesty law, which shielded officers from prosecution for abuses committed between 1973 and 1978, the worst years of the repression. On 17 November 2004 this obstacle was partly removed—at least for cases of kidnapping and disappearance—when the Supreme Court ruled that such cases were no longer covered by the amnesty. The court argued that when bodies were never recovered, there was no proof of death, and therefore the crimes were still in progress—well beyond 1978. The ruling upheld the conviction, a year earlier, of five DINA officers for the 1975 kidnapping and disappearance of Miguel Angel Sandoval, a leftist guerrilla. One of the convicted was Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, a retired general and DINA’s former director. In January 2005 the officers began serving their sentences, which ranged from five to 12 years. The ruling also allowed over 300 existing court cases to proceed and opened the way for hundreds of others.

   Judge Guzmán Tapia made another attempt to bring Pinochet Ugarte to trial. On 13 December 2004 he placed him under house arrest and charged him with nine kidnappings and one homicide in connection with Operation Condor. But once again Pinochet Ugarte’s lawyers managed to block a trial on the grounds of ill health. On 25 November 2006, his 91st birthday, in a statement read by his wife, Pinochet Ugarte took “political responsibility” for what happened during his rule, saying that he had acted in Chile’s best interests. He died shortly after, on 10 December 2006, neither convicted nor cleared of any of the charges.

   Hundreds of other cases have been prosecuted, and though hindered by the lack of cooperation from the military, some have progressed through the courts. On 28 August 2007, for example, the Supreme Court handed a life sentence to Hugo Salas Wenzel, a retired army general, for participating in the murder of 12 youths in 1987. In April 2008 Judge Eliana Quezada indicted five retired navy officers for the abduction, torture, and killing of Father Michael Woodward, a British priest. He and other suspected leftists were allegedly detained on two navy ships that functioned as torture centers. On 27 May 2008 Judge Víctor Montiglio ordered the arrest of 98 former soldiers and DINA agents in connection with Operation Colombo, in which 42 people were kidnapped and killed. And in July 2008 Judge Alejandro Solís sentenced Contreras Sepúlveda to two life terms for the 1974 murder of General Prats González and his wife, Sofía. By July 2008, 256 former military personnel and civilian collaborators had been convicted, 83 had seen their convictions upheld, and 38 were serving time in prison.

   The 1978 amnesty continues to hinder prosecution. President Michelle Bachelet, herself a torture victim, has proposed a bill excluding human-rights crimes from amnesties or statutes of limitation, but it remains stalled in Congress.