For Chile, No Clean Break From Painful, Bloody Past : Latin America: Conflicting passions are reignited on 20th anniversary of coup. Unhealed wounds still fester.

Salvador Allende has been gone for 20 years, but the late Chilean president was back in the public spotlight here Saturday as a symbol of political passions that refuse to die.

Gen. Augusto Pinochet is no longer the Chilean dictator, but he too was in the news as commander of the army and a reminder of the brutal excesses that political passions once bred.

Both men were honored and vilified as Chileans marked the 20th anniversary of a bloody coup that excited conflicting passions not only here but around the world.

At the climax of the Vietnam War, Chile was a symbol of ideological struggle that divided the globe. By overthrowing Allende’s elected government Sept. 11, 1973, Pinochet cut short a turbulent Marxist experiment in peaceful revolution--and launched one of the most notorious right-wing dictatorships in Latin American history.

“They accused us of being dictatorial, but everything we did was aimed at recuperating democracy,” Pinochet told Santiago’s Rotary Club at a luncheon Tuesday.

The recuperation took 16 1/2 years.

In 1990, as the Cold War fizzled, so did Pinochet’s regime. He peacefully relinquished power to an elected civilian government that remarkably includes Allende’s Socialist Party. And Socialists who once were vehement Marxists now support free-enterprise policies that were imposed by Pinochet.

In a changed world, this is a new Chile. Old political enemies have found peaceful coexistence, and economic progress reinforces political stability.

But with presidential elections approaching again, old political passions are back in season. Memories of Marxist fervor under Allende and military excesses under Pinochet loom like unforgiven sins, unsettling a nation in search of redemption.

The most delicate issue in the campaign is what to do about hundreds of judicial investigations that implicate military officers in disappearances and killings under the Pinochet regime. Families of people who disappeared demand that the cases be openly aired and solved. Pinochet and his army want them quietly closed.

Although much has changed in Chile, there obviously is no clean break from the past and its enduring symbols. Unhealed wounds continue to fester, unresolved conflicts keep cropping up, old and new symbols mingle and clash. Among the symbols that link the old and new Chile are these:

Salvador Allende

Elected in 1970 with 36% of the popular vote, Allende promised to “open the door to socialism” in Chile. He and his Communist allies did not hide their admiration for Fidel Castro and his Cuban regime.

Under Allende, workers seized hundreds of farms and factories, which were then taken over by the Popular Unity government. The government also raised salaries and expanded government payrolls. The cost of the economic policy was plummeting production, widespread shortages and uncontrolled inflation.

Today, many Chileans bitterly recall long lines to buy scarce cooking oil or sugar, a nightmare of economic and political chaos with ominous reports that Marxists were arming a workers militia. Others fondly remember Allende as a Robin Hood who hurt the rich to help the poor.

But while Allende is still the symbol of Chile’s renovated Socialist Party, it now advocates market rather than Marxist policies.

“It isn’t the party we helped to form, nor the party that Salvador Allende led,” grumbled Mario Palestro, 71, an un-renovated Socialist congressman. “Allende would feel like a foreigner in his party.”

Palestro and some other old Socialists who refuse to renounce Marxism have joined die-hard Communists in a new political alliance--named for Allende. The Allendista Democratic Left Movement’s candidate for December’s presidential election is Eugenio Pizarro, a Catholic priest.

Sept. 11

On Sept. 11, 1973, tanks spread through Santiago’s streets and Hawker-Hunter warplanes rocketed the presidential palace. Inside, Allende resisted with an automatic rifle and then used it to commit suicide, according to historical evidence.

In the following weeks, Allende supporters fought running skirmishes with security forces, which rounded up thousands of leftists. Thousands went into hiding and exile. Many who didn’t were imprisoned, tortured and killed.

While Sept. 11 means tragedy for some, for others it symbolizes Chile’s rebirth. “There was a sensation of relief, of change, that the nightmare of the Popular Unity had ended,” said conservative presidential candidate Arturo Alessandri.

Sept. 11 is a national holiday, decreed when Pinochet was still in power.

Saturday, Pinochet attended a commemorative Mass at the military academy in Santiago. Crowds of supporters applauded and cheered him there and at his home.

At La Moneda presidential palace, where Allende died 20 years earlier, his widow and other relatives joined government officials for a ceremony in the late president’s honor.

Later, disturbances and clashes broke out between pro-Allende demonstrators and police in streets near the palace and the General Cemetery, where Allende’s body is entombed. Demonstrators threw rocks and firebombs, and police used water cannon and tear gas.

A police vehicle accidentally hit and killed a passerby, a man in his 60s. Near the cemetery, a gunshot of unknown origin killed a 19-year-old. Radio stations reported at least 15 other people injured in sporadic disturbances.

Augusto Pinochet

In the eyes of his supporters, Pinochet stands for stability. Under the 1980 constitution, written to his specifications, he can stay as army commander until 1997.

The constitution gives the president no authority to promote or remove military officers. Civilian President Patricio Aylwin tried to get that provision and others changed but was blocked by nine senators who were “designated” by Pinochet’s constitution.

The constitution was part of Pinochet’s grand design for “protecting” Chilean democracy. Aylwin’s coalition agreed to accept it as a condition for ending the dictatorship.

Although few Chileans argue that Chile is still run by the crusty, 77-year-old general, Pinochet’s continued presence at the head of the army symbolizes the limitations he imposed on the civilian government.

The Freis

The Frei name symbolizes a middle ground between the old left and right in Chile. With copious U.S. aid and support, the late President Eduardo Frei carried out moderate reforms during his Christian Democratic administration from 1964 to 1970.

Now Frei’s son, also Eduardo, is the Christian Democratic candidate for president. With the support of Chile’s main center-left parties, including the Socialists, he is the overwhelming favorite.

Frei, 51, has spent most of his career working as an engineer. He won election to the Senate in 1989, the year fellow Christian Democrat Aylwin won the presidency.

As a senator, Frei has not made much of a splash. Critics call him passive, colorless and uncreative. But he has the powerful symbolism of his name--”like a trademark, like Coca-Cola,” conservative Sen. Miguel Otero observed.

Arturo Alessandri

Another political trademark with strong symbolic value in Chile is Alessandri, Frei’s only serious rival for the presidential election.

Alessandri’s grandfather, also Arturo Alessandri, was one of the most important presidents in Chilean history (1920-1925 and 1932-1938). The current candidate’s uncle, Jorge Alessandri, also was a president (1958-1964).

Arturo Alessandri, 69, is a corporate lawyer who served briefly in the lower house of Congress before Pinochet’s coup. Like Frei, Alessandri won election to the Senate in 1989. Alessandri is running as an independent with the support of the country’s main conservative parties.

The highest hope of conservatives is that Alessandri can force Frei into a runoff by denying him an absolute majority in the Dec. 11 vote.

A ‘Tiger’ Economy?

Some economic commentators have called Chile a “Latin American tiger,” comparing this country to the booming “Asian tigers” of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. Chilean economic growth has averaged 6% a year for the last nine years, and last year it soared to 10%.

While the “tiger” designation overlooks some of Chile’s economic shortcomings, including widespread stains of poverty, it is used as shorthand for conservative pride in Pinochet’s market policies and as recognition by others that they have worked. Most analysts agree that the healthy economy has helped smooth the way for Chile’s political transition.

“It’s true that it’s easier to bring off a transition like this when national income is growing and there’s a little more to distribute,” said Gert Rosenthal, executive secretary of the Santiago-based U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America.

Rosenthal added that, although Chile’s reforms were begun under a dictatorship, the Aylwin administration also deserves credit for maintaining economic discipline.

Sola Sierra

Sola Sierra’s husband, a Communist labor organizer, has been missing since plainclothes agents abducted him in 1976.

She is the president of a group called the Relatives of the Missing, and she embodies an issue that will not go away--in large part because of her group.

A total of 1,200 people disappeared after detention under the military government. Most of them are said to have been abducted by a secret police agency known as DINA, which was run by army officers.

Sierra said 87 bodies of missing people have been found, but no one is on trial for their murders. When bodies are found, she said, judges apply a 1978 amnesty law and the cases are closed.

Sierra, 58, took a visitor from her office to an upstairs room where 11 young people were fasting to protest a government bill they said was designed to bury the “missing” issue in secrecy. Roberto Portilla warned that if the courts cannot bring the cases to justice, “We will have to make our own justice. . . . And this necessarily means a new confrontation between civilian society and the military.”

The Boinazo

On May 28, the army’s generals wore combat fatigues to a meeting with Pinochet in their downtown headquarters. Special troops with black berets and combat gear guarded the building, and other army units went on alert.

The event has come to be called the boinazo, a reference to the black berets, or boinas . It alarmed many Chileans, who saw an implied threat of a military uprising.

“There is no possibility of a coup,” said retired Col. Cristian Labbe, 44, who served as Pinochet’s minister of government. “When the cat moves around, the mice are frightened. But the cat just wanted to make himself a little more comfortable, is all.”

The boinazo still serves as a symbol for an uncomfortable civilian-military relationship. One of the main causes of discomfort has been a revival this year of the issue of human rights violations under the military regime.

“The fact that it is an election year has meant that confrontational banners are being raised,” Labbe said in his Santiago apartment.

He complained that the media have been harassing the army by unduly publicizing army officers’ being called to testify in human rights cases. And he said the government and media constantly portray human rights violations as a one-sided issue, overlooking subversion and terrorism during military rule.

“Here there was a very violent state of confrontation underground,” he said. “In those circumstances of underground violence, it is probable that excesses were committed. . . . It is all right that they be investigated, but with objectivity.”

The Aylwin Bill

The latest symbol of frustration in Chile’s efforts to purge the past was a bill presented by the president to deal with the human rights cases. Dubbed the Aylwin Bill, it would have provided special investigative judges, allowing them to take testimony in secret.

Aylwin said the secrecy would help the judges find out what happened to missing people while avoiding irritating publicity and bringing the drawn-out legal proceedings to a conclusion. Sierra and other leftists protested that the bill was aimed at applying the amnesty law without publicly exposing human rights violators.

Aylwin’s Socialist allies balked, and the president recently withdrew his support for the bill, allowing it to die. It was the most serious split in the government alliance since Aylwin took office in 1990.

Conservative presidential candidate Alessandri said the Aylwin Bill was on the right track. “My solution,” Alessandri said, “is to apply the amnesty law, but seek a system, as President Aylwin was seeking, to do some kind of investigation to see if it can be determined where these people ended up.”

Candidate Frei also supported the president’s effort but cautioned that there can be no easy solution.

“This is an unhealed wound in Chilean society,” Frei said in a short interview on a campaign visit to Santiago’s central produce market.

“It is an unresolved issue, an issue not for the president or for the congressmen but for Chilean society to resolve,” he said. “As long as there are people, any Chilean with someone detained and missing, he will continue struggling to find that person.”