Supporters and Foes of Pinochet Display Contrasting Images : Nightly War of TV Ads Could Prove Decisive in Chilean Vote

For 30 minutes every evening, millions of Chileans ponder two contrasting visions of the past and the future, laden with symbols and imagery evoking a generation of hopes and fears.

With two weeks to go before Chile’s presidential plebiscite, supporters and opponents of the single candidate, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, have focused much of their imagination and energy on their alloted 15 minutes of nightly national television time. Both sides acknowledge that the TV war could prove decisive in swaying opinion before the Oct. 5 vote.

Paid campaign advertising is prohibited, so the free 15-minute segments--shown simultaneously on every TV station in the country--are the sole source of media propaganda. Neither side is relying on mass rallies, so the television programs have assumed even greater importance in a race generally considered too close to call.

The outcome will determine whether Pinochet, who seized power in a 1973 coup, will rule for eight more years. If the 72-year-old general is defeated, there will be multi-party elections in 1989.

Evoking Fear

After a tentative beginning on Sept. 5, when the formal monthlong campaign opened, the programs have become at once more sophisticated and less restrained. Pinochet’s TV campaign for a Yes victory, which at first was disjointed and wooden, is now slicker but still designed to evoke fear of a return to Marxist rule, violence and hardship. For its part, the opposition has shifted from a syrupy promise that democracy means happiness to a tougher message that dictatorship brings repression and suffering.

A sampling of Yes campaign images:

-- A rock thrower, highlighted by a circle, attacks police officers during a demonstration while a smooth-speaking announcer urges, “Vote Yes, so that this man will never govern this country.”

-- A gruesomely burned victim of a terrorist attack on a bus says he will vote Yes for peace.

-- An old woman finally reaches the head of a line to buy a bit of tea, but there is none--a reminder of the shortages under Marxist President Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973. The woman has no ration card. “I’m sorry,” the merchant says. Other women in the line are in tears. A voice reminds viewers that, in modern-day Chile, “We have plenty.”

The programs run from 10:45 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. One night the Yes program appears first, the next night the No.

More than 90% of Chileans have access to television, one of the highest percentages in Latin America. The No campaign has accused the government team of repeated dirty tricks, such as stealing footage from previous No programs and overlaying a new, ironic or mimicking sound track, which, according to Francisco Javier Celedon, a No campaign media consultant, violates copyright laws.

On Tuesday night, the Yes program appeared to sign off and the No program start, but it was a convincing fake by the Yes team. The No theme song began: “Chile, joy is coming,” and the rainbow colors of No appeared, but suddenly scenes of a riot flashed on the screen.

Celedon said the No campaign has intentionally avoided the Pinochet organization’s tactic of insulting the opposition’s messages.

“We do daily viewer evaluations,” he said, “and the result is that their approach is received very negatively by the public. We are not going to respond to them. We are going to continue our message that a No victory will bring joy and peace to the country.”

Some media critics have complained that the No programs lack punch and rely too heavily on smiling faces, that they offer neither specific criticism of the dictatorship nor concrete alternatives for the future. But Tuesday’s No program suggested a new willingness to tackle controversial themes.

It opened with mothers of the “disappeared” dancing by themselves in a bare hall, with photographs of their sons and daughters pinned to their blouses. The rock star Sting, shown at an Amnesty International concert in Barcelona, Spain, then sang his ode to the mothers, “They Dance Alone.” Sting told the crowd: “Chileans deserve a democratic life.”

In the most dramatic campaign message so far, a middle-age woman, Olga Garrido, calmly described the torture she had endured after the coup, and added: “I could erase the physical torture, but the moral torture is not so easy to forget. . . . For this I am going to vote No, so that tomorrow we can all live together in a free democracy, without hate, with love and happiness.”

Then the screen widened, and next to Garrido sat Carlos Caszely, Chile’s famous soccer star, saying: “This is why my vote is also No, because her sentiments are my sentiments . . . because this lovely woman is my mother.”

Suddenly Chileans understood why Caszely had refused to shake Pinochet’s hand at a public ceremony several years ago.