TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/88/88capchi.1

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                                                                                October 17, 1988

CHILE 

Fall of the Patriarch


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


--------------------------------------------------------- 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."


--------------------------------------------------------- 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.