Chile and Liberty Reconciled

The following is excerpted from an editorial in La Epoca, a major daily newspaper in Chile. The translation is by Times correspondent James F. Smith.

A nightmare will soon be left behind. Long years in which we Chileans treated each other like enemies. Some of us were good, others were bad; some had truth and reason; others, lies and violence. Some had power, others asked for pity. Since the enemy had to be destroyed, he was jailed, he was tortured, he was humiliated, he was obliged to live in fear. He was exiled and banished and killed. To the shame of our history, and to the pain of so many millions, hatred prevailed over love for so long; unjustifiable events came to be nothing more than censored news. A profound scar runs through the soul of Chile.

We Chileans will vote (today) so that we do not repeat the past two decades. So that dogmatism never again prevails over tolerance. So that the rights of man are as sacred as a mother’s love.

Things will be different in the future because the world has changed and we ourselves have changed. There is a piece of us in many nations of the world; there are those who left out of fear and do not return today because of their love for the land that welcomed them. But they will know, at least, after this vote they have awaited for 16 years, that they are wanted, that there is, once again, a political road that makes room for all Chileans.

Every man of this land, every woman, the young and the old know how this election was brought about. They know that it flowed from a struggle for freedom by those who did not acknowledge past defeats.

Chileans now want . . . accords that unite and put an end to the victories that divide.

The pains of yesterday demand from politicians the talent to offer bridges and not the ability to raise walls. Chile wants to embrace the cause of concord. A very few want to practice violence; other fools want to prolong the oppression. They are the ones who fear peace, who invested in and profited by encouraging hatred. But all the rest will depend on this peace for everything from civil tranquility to the healthy march of the economy.

The changes in Chile coincide with what is happening in many parts of the world. Curtains, walls and barbed wire are falling. The symbols and the leaders of ideologies that frustrate liberties are falling. It is the end of a century in which anguish is being traded for hope.

(Today) we will vote for liberty. A people will walk free who refused to break their chains by force, for love of the human being who was their jailer. They will ask the jailer not to look back, either.

And after the vote will come the reconciliation of Chile.