Chile’s Democrats Pray for Pope’s Moral Support

Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visit to Chile this week will put him in the middle of a volatile political situation.

Many see Chile as a country with only two camps: the repressive and violent military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and the Cuban-linked communist opposition, which has been arming itself through smuggling and last September attempted to assassinate Pinochet.

But between those extremes is a very large segment of the population, the moderate opposition. The Roman Catholic Church, its human-rights organization (Vicaria de la Solidaridad), other human-rights groups and the Democratic Alliance all reject violence and seek a peaceful transition to democracy.

Originally those groups hoped that the Pope would speak against the human-rights violations of the Pinochet regime and the dirt-level poverty in which so many Chileans suffer. The Vatican had hinted that the visit would include challenges to the dictatorship, which tortures and kills opponents at home and has had them assassinated abroad. After the burning death last summer of Roberto Rojas de Negri, a U.S. resident on a home visit to Chile, momentum seemed to shift in favor of the nonviolent opposition. For a while U.S. officials were publicly critical of Pinochet--a departure from the earlier Reagan Administration support.

But then conservatives in the Vatican and in Washington began to express new concerns that if Pinochet is abandoned the radical left will be encouraged and, in the ensuing civil chaos, Marxism will triumph. As a result, there is now only silence concerning torture and the lack of democracy in Chile. But torture has not stopped, and democracy has not begun. Instead, fear has grown and hope has waned.

Pinochet has always claimed that he is the only protection against Marxism. Yet peaceful demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of Chileans and proposals for a transition to democracy put forward by the Democratic Alliance and other groups put the lie to that contention. The democratic forces are already numerous enough to fill the void between the regime and whatever violent opposition exists.

It serves Pinochet’s interests to argue that communism is the only alternative to his rule. He knows that such a position will sell in Washington and that it will temper whatever human-rights criticism might otherwise come from a fiercely anti-communist Pope. It also serves the interests of the communists; the more that those on the right say that communism is the only alternative to dictatorship, the more it is so.

The Pope is in a position to speak out against the two extremes by encouraging those in the middle. Anything less will increase the polarization that grips Chile.

Too often support for oppressive rulers has strengthened the hand of a violent opposition, which itself then continues the cycle of dictatorship. Pinochet and the terrorists give each other strength. As they attempt to divide their country, it is their peaceful countrymen who suffer.

The Pope must not miss this opportunity to call for democracy in Chile by condemning violence--whether it be torture of opponents or bombs in bus stations--and by supporting those who, justifiably, oppose Pinochet but seek democracy through peaceful means. If comfort and encouragement are not given to these groups now to strengthen them, it may soon be too late.