Reforms in Chile

Re “Forward Strides in Chile,” editorial, Oct. 26: Your suggestion that the Clinton Administration should find a way to convince Chile’s notorious Gen. Augusto Pinochet “that in every truly democratic country it is the civilian executive who is the supreme commander of the armed forces” is both naive and presumptuous. It is ingenuous to think that Pinochet cares one way or another if Chile is a truly democratic country. If he did, he would not have moved to protect his men from every move by the Chilean judicial system to prosecute human rights violators that did their dirty deeds under Pinochet’s approving eye.

It is presumptuous to say that the Clinton Administration should convince Pinochet of anything. It is the Chilean people and their democratically elected government that must do the convincing. Finally, your conclusion is puzzling. While it is true that the United States did play a role in bringing Gen. Manuel Contreras to justice, it played a much more important role in bringing about the coup in 1973 which brought Pinochet, hence, Contreras to power. How soon we forget.

SIBYLLA BRODZINSKY

Washington