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Augusto Pinochet |
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On December 10th, at the Santiago Military Hospital, Augusto Pinochet died of heart complications. The story of Mr. Pinochet, and the story of his native Chile, is not given much attention in US textbooks, but the life and death of this perpetrator of crimes against humanity raise pertinent political questions for all nations and peoples.
The Chileans were the first to democratically elect a Communist leader; Salvador Allende in 1970. He served as President from that time until his presidency and life were taken on September 11th 1973. The junta that staged the coup was a quartet, Jose Toribio Merino, Cesar Mendoza, Gstavo Leigh and the next leader of Chile; General Augusto Pinochet. His appointment to General had been the work of Allende himself.
The subsequent government he lead was ruthless, and acted quickly to quell all opposition and dissent. The Chilean parliament was closed down and all political activity was banned. This was not the sort of Socialist Latin American revolution that is often romanticized. This was quite the opposite. The aim, General Pinochet had said, was to “make Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs.â€
Fifteen economists trained at the University of Chicago, nicknamed the Chicago Boys, began a transformation of the economy that lead to extensive privatization and deregulation. With such economics it is no wonder the US government looked kindly upon the coup, perhaps even taking part in it.
This potential, some would say probable, US involvement in the coup is controversial. Most of the documents that would either prove or refute the allegation remain classified. One document that is known, however, is a cable from CIA Director of Operations, Thomas Karamessines, which read “it is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup….it is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and the American hand be well hidden.†This, coupled with the knowledge of Project FUBELT, a CIA run covert campaign against Allende in the elections of ’64, which he lost, and his successful bid in ’70, seem to serve as circumstantial proof of American Involvement. In any case, his government, which lasted until ’90, filled those years with tortures, exiles, assassination, but also with huge economic gains. The result is a nation that today is the economic darling of the continent, offering opportunities for not only native Chileans but also foreign investors and workers. Enter your correspondent;
After my graduation in the summer of 2005 I took a position teaching English at a private institute in Chile. Arrangements were made for me to share the apartment of a 55 year old Chilean man. My ward, Oscar Valdivia, shared most of the above information with me during one of our quiet dinners together. One particular conversation was prompted by a student protest in the street. It was the anniversary of the overthrow of Allende by Pinochet. What follows is that story, told in heavily accented Spanish, reconstructed from a translation I scribbled in my room afterwards. I tried to be as faithful to his words as possible.
“After the coup I sat in class in Antofogasta, my home, a town built around a copper mine in the Northern desert of Chile, and watched five men in uniforms enter. They read from a list; all students who had been active in socialist groups. These students were lead out and never seen again. This happened many times, in many places during those years. Pinochet was a very bad man, and so the students outside, they demonstrate for Allende, against Pinochet, but they do not know what it was like. Things were very hard before the coup. The dogs that roam the streets now [ubiquitous in Chilean cities]; that was people back then, looking for anything they could eat or sell. People had nothing to fill their bellies and they had no home.
My mother would wait in lines that stretched for blocks, all night sometimes, to receive a breast of chicken from the government. That’s what she would use to feed herself, my father and my three brothers. She would cry in the kitchen as she cooked…
After the coup things got better. People had food. People had jobs. You had to be careful what you said or what you did but there was more joy in the days under Pinochet. The youth of today get to live a comfortable life, relatively, and that is all they have known. That’s why they demonstrate for Allende. It is easy to romanticize the past if you did not live it. But they didn’t see the death in the streets. They only know the progress. They have politics of national pride, and of common humanity, but they do not know what that brought us in the past. It is ironic that such good was brought in such an evil manner. I suppose that is often the case.â€
At that point Oscar put his fork down and changed topics, but for me the conversation has not ended. The questions it raised are ones of politics, morality, economics, democracy, ends and means. The death of Pinochet brings a period to his own story, but as with any controversial figure, his life and works bring only question marks.
General Augusto Jose Ramon Pinochet Ugarte, 1915-2006.
this is bullshit