Forward Strides in Chile : President Frei, after jailing notorious general, is pushing for reforms

Not long ago, Gen. Manuel Contreras was such a powerful man in Chile that he could kill or torture people in the name of law and order--or make them disappear--without fear that he would be brought to justice. That power is gone: Contreras is now in jail.

Chile’s supreme court affirmed a seven-year prison sentence against Contreras for ordering the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean official exiled in Washington, D.C. Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, an American woman who was his assistant, were killed in a car bombing.

Contreras had insisted he would never go to jail. The armed forces chief and former Chilean dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, agreed and let it be known that he considered the judicial action against Contreras unfair. The clout of Pinochet and Contreras made this case a most difficult one to pursue. President Eduardo Frei had to fight an uphill battle full of confrontations, and eventually negotiations, with Pinochet, who was voted out of the presidency in 1989.

As a result of a deal with the ex-dictator, Frei closed an investigation into a scandal involving Pinochet’s son and the purchase of weapons for the army, raised the pay of soldiers and set time limits for trials against former officials accused of human rights violations. This was the price Frei had to pay to realpolitik .

On the other hand, Frei made a series of proposals to the Parliament that, if they go through, will strengthen democracy in Chile, which once upon a time was a model democracy. Frei wants to restore to the civilian government the right to remove high-ranking officers. This was a prerogative of past presidents but was abrogated when Pinochet overthrew the legitimate government of Salvador Allende in 1973.

Only Chile’s extreme right wing and the military oppose Frei’s initiative. The Clinton Administration should find a way to convincingly communicate to Pinochet that in every truly democratic country it is the civilian executive who is the supreme commander of the armed forces. The United States played an important role in bringing Contreras to justice. It is time to move again in support of the forces of democracy in Chile.