Anti-Pinochet Ruling Reopens Chile’s Fault Lines

The reaction here to Wednesday’s momentous decision of a British judicial panel against former dictator Augusto Pinochet demonstrated once again that there are two Chiles.

There is the powerful minority that defends him to the hilt. And there is the other Chile, the majority that wants him to come to justice, whether at home or abroad. Despite their bitter differences, however, both sides are beginning to realize that the crisis over Pinochet’s possible extradition to Spain to face murder charges could spark sustained political battles and sporadic street violence for months to come.

And, as incredible as it may seem for a nation accustomed to the onetime tyrant’s years of impunity, both sides recognize that Pinochet has moved a big step closer to an experience that was denied many victims of his 1973-90 regime: a trial.

“Today it was confirmed that Pinochet is an international criminal,” said Pedro Alejandro Matta, a former political prisoner who survived weeks of torture in two concentration camps and spent 15 years in exile in California. “I never wanted him to suffer what I suffered. We want him to have everything we didn’t have: a fair trial in a serious justice system. It’s a lot different to be in the hands of Scotland Yard than in the hands of the [Chilean secret police].”

Even if the former dictator goes free, his foes are celebrating a tremendous victory that has changed Chile’s political landscape forever.

“We were so used to losing,” one woman sobbed as she hugged Matta during festivities at the headquarters of the Organization of Relatives of the Disappeared here.

The vice president of the group, Viviana Diaz, recounted a conversation a few months ago with a Chilean Supreme Court judge who told her, politely but frankly, that her crusade for justice was hopeless.

“He told me, ‘Madam, you are a voice in the desert,’ ” Diaz said. “Everything looked bad for us. They were even changing the language here: Instead of a dictatorship, they talked about an authoritarian regime; instead of torture, they talked about ‘excesses.’ And then this happened.”

Like those fighting to put Pinochet behind bars, the unlikely allies seeking his freedom--the increasingly worried center-left government and indignant rightist leaders--will now concentrate their efforts on a political strategy. Pro- and anti-Pinochet forces will try to pressure British Home Secretary Jack Straw through personal appeals, the media and letter-writing campaigns.

Straw must decide by next month whether to initiate judicial hearings on the extradition request filed against Pinochet by a Spanish judge. Instead, the British minister could come up with a political solution, perhaps an expulsion on “humanitarian” grounds, that allows Pinochet to return home.

The British judicial panel’s ruling packed an enormous symbolic punch for human rights advocates here.

The judges’ denial of immunity amounts to a guilty verdict in the eyes of the world, said Andres Palma, a lawmaker in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house.

“Now there is no way he will come back to Chile as a victor,” said Palma, a Christian Democrat. “This was a court that tried Pinochet and condemned him, as far as I am concerned.”

The Chilean right reacted angrily. The most shrill voices called for action by the military and revenge against Spaniards, Britons and leftists.

The palpable anti-foreigner, anti-leftist sentiment in Santiago’s wealthy neighborhoods is likely to escalate. Already, Spanish citizens have been assaulted in public places, and the embassies of Spain and Britain have been besieged. Bomb threats have been phoned in to British and American schools, presumably by callers who don’t grasp the distinctions between the two English-speaking nations.

The potential for ugly incidents was on display Wednesday at the headquarters of the Pinochet Foundation, an organization that promotes the legacy of his regime. After the announcement of the British judges’ decision, a melee erupted when enraged Pinochet partisans attacked journalists, sending a cameraman to the hospital.

Hard-core Pinochet defenders see the media and foreigners as part of an international Marxist conspiracy against their hero. The potential for extremist attacks has led the government and leftist politicians to strengthen security precautions.

“Don’t forget that sectors of the right have justified torture,” said Marco Antonio de la Parra, a writer who published a book that takes the form of an open letter criticizing Pinochet. “It is horrible, but their hatred is entrenched. There is a powerful sector in Chile who feel that the dictatorship did a good job.”

On a more civilized front, President Eduardo Frei’s government will step up a diplomatic offensive on behalf of Pinochet--a leader whom a good portion of the current government privately dislikes--in the name of “national unity.”

Rightist leaders will also hurry to Britain to add their voice, according to Hernan Guiloff, vice president of the Pinochet Foundation.

“Hopefully, the government will overcome this tremendous crisis of the past 40 days,” Guiloff said. “People are very upset, as we have seen in recent days. . . . We are going to follow British laws and direct our efforts to Mr. Straw.”

If Straw decides that Pinochet must face extradition, this international drama will dominate the early months of an inevitably heated presidential election campaign. The divisions between the two Chiles--and internal rifts between moderates and militants on both sides--will grow.

“Ultimately, this is positive because it is cathartic,” De La Parra said. “It has put an end to this false consensus, this idea that we were all friends and there was nothing we needed to talk about.”