Crisis in Chile

On May 11, civil disturbances all over Chile evoked “the worst crisis atmosphere in ten years.” A full-fledged general strike did not materialize, but work-stoppages, school absences, tooting horns, and a sustained clanging of pots and pans in many streets awakened ominous memories of the Allende years. At least two persons died at police hands.

Six days earlier I had spent a week in Chile, sufficient to gain a strong sense that an almost universal pressure for democracy is welling up within that long, slim nation of 11 million. From the right and from the left, few hesitate to voice dissatisfaction with the current pace of the announced “transition to democracy” — and with the silent, steady abuses of human rights which continue.

Those in the U.S. government who are being torn by arguments whether or not to certify Chile for military and other aid must recognize that the forces of democracy in Chile are broad and deep. Unlike some other Latin American nations, Chile has a long and established culture of democracy. The hunger for its steady, step-by-step return is palpable.

Chile, indeed, may be an early test case of various U.S. programs on democracy. There is an urgent need to keep a steady flow of labor leaders, jurists, journalists, scholars, and other Americans coming to Chile during the next crucial months and years — each trying to shed light on how, in practice, democracy may be rebuilt and a wounded economy brought back to growth and opportunity.

By all accounts, the prosperity of Santiago and other cities during the past ten years has visibly grown — until recently — by long strides. The 2.5 million households now own 800,000 autos; television sets and refrigerators have multiplied by several times. The subway in Santiago is one of the clearest, quietest and handsomest in the world.

Yet the government’s stubborn insistence on fixed exchange rates and low single-standard tariffs — which flooded Chile with unprecedentedly cheap foreign imports, encouraged huge flights of domestic capital for investment abroad, and prompted unrestrained private borrowing — has led to a sudden and ominously serious economic collapse. Unemployment of various sorts totals more than a third of the work force. A great many small businesses have gone bankrupt. Huge pyramided conglomerates in banking and industry — which should never have been permitted to develop — have come apart at the seams.

Chile has known even harsher economic times, so the crisis seems to be less economic than political. The infamous “Article 24” of the new Constitution, which gives the President totally arbitrary, unlimited, and irresponsible power is deeply resented even on the right.

Many who are passionately anti-marxist and contemptuous of socialism in economics are highly critical of General Pinochet for not moving the country back more swiftly into genuinely constitutional, regular, stable government. All eyes focus on this transition. Most doubt that it can wait until the scheduled election of 1989.

General Augusto Pinochet is variously described, on right and left alike, as a “rational dictator,” as “the Western world’s most convinced anti-democrat,” and as “determined to hold onto absolute power as long as life lasts.” Those who stress his “rational” side stress that he is often moved by “political facts,” and argue that his “stubborn bravery,” which bristles at any direct threat to his power, can nevertheless lead him to bow to the virtually universal will of all factions. To others, this seems utopian.

A certain broad area of consensus does seem to be emerging from Chilean experience during the past fifteen years. The horrible inflation, shortages, long lines, and immense discontent of the Allende years have turned many on the left away from extremes in that direction. Human rights abuses and “Article 24” have turned many on the right away from confidence in authoritarian rule. Between these extremes, there is a groping, uncertain consensus.

All sides seem to be searching (a) for a workable, stable, reliable system of democratic governance and (b) for a set of economic policies, suited to Chilean circumstances, which promise a renewal of local commercial and industrial growth.

The Catholic church in Chile, led until May 7 by Cardinal Raul Enrique Silva, now retired and shortly to be replaced by Archbishop Fresno, has become a major force for democracy. On the left, old Marxist taunts about democracy as a merely “bourgeois formality” seem empty, measured against the authoritarian abuses of Pinochet; those “bourgeois formalities,” it turns out, mean a great deal. Many on the right agree.

Chileans of all persuasions express weariness at being experimented upon by a succession of powerful twentieth- century ideologies — from the Alliance for Progress through Allende’s Marxism to Pinochet’s authoritarian rule. Many mock Pinochet’s “Chilean way to socialism” — over fifty percent of economic activity is now in the state sector — as bitterly as they mocked Allende’s “Chilean way to socialism.”

Finally, doctrines being taught in the War Colleges of Argentina — just across a rugged border more than 4000 kilometers long — about “Argentina’s new destiny in the sun” also make Chileans uneasy. If Argentina, more than twice Chile’s size in population, does intend to gain hegemony over the southern passage around the Cape, and over access to Anarctica, then the threats to Chile from internal political and economic turmoil are matched by a triple threat: potential war.

The population of Chile is 97 percent European. More than most, it is predominantly middle class, although the rural poor combined with the urban unemployed are generating a vast body of newly disappointed poor, their relatively recent expectations dashed.

Chile is farther away from Central America than Washington is. It is, however, in the same time zone as Washington. In May, it is autumn in Santiago; the leaves are falling. Soon it will be winter. Chile needs and deserves democracy. It is the season to begin to care enough to help — urgently.

Author

  • Michael Novak

    Michael Novak (1933-2017) founded Crisis Magazine with Ralph McInerny in 1982. He held the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute and was a trustee and visiting professor at Ave Maria University. In 1994, he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He was also an emissary to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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