Pinochet Arrest Forces Chile to Revisit Past

Little more than a week ago, Chileans were concerned about a teachers’ strike, next year’s presidential campaign and the impact of the Asian crisis on their economy, a model of prosperity that is nonetheless vulnerable to international turbulence.

Now they are worried about one of the worst crises in their eight-year transition to democracy. They are worried about outbreaks of street violence, such as last week’s attacks on the Spanish and British embassies by young rightists and on police by young leftists. They are worried that the extraordinary arrest in London of former dictator Augusto Pinochet has shaken their fragile democracy and exposed the contradictions on which it is founded.

Although he is 82 years old, momentarily powerless and bedridden in a guarded hospital room across the Atlantic, Pinochet has once again placed Chile under siege.

“Chile’s democratic transition had been recognized around the world as exemplary,” said retired Gen. Ernesto Videla, a former high-ranking diplomat in the Pinochet regime. “And now a giant bomb has been dropped on the transition. . . . I am not saying democracy is going to fall here; there is no possibility of a military uprising, but the democracy is still in development. We will go backward.”

Videla’s view of the transition as exemplary is debatable: The atrocities of the dictatorship have gone largely unpunished. Pinochet is a senator for life, just one of the authoritarian institutions imposed on the democracy that ensure the disproportionate power of the military and political right.

But there is no doubt that the resurgence of the divisions of the 1970s during the past week has suddenly reshaped politics and threatened the slow rapprochement of a polarized society described by one scholar as “a nation of enemies.”

And Chileans have been forced to realize that globalization means more than their avid embrace of foreign investment and free markets, an area in which Chile has led South America. It also means accepting the political and ethical rules of the international community of democracies, leaders here and human rights advocates say.

The complex deal that Chile worked out shielding Pinochet from justice and incorporating his forces into the government has collided head-on with the changing realities of the outside world. The Oct. 17 arrest by British police acting on the request of a Spanish judge was a landmark victory for the rule of law, said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch/Americas.

“This is groundbreaking,” Vivanco said. “Globalization is more than economic integration. This is part of being part of the world, of playing by the rules. The message is simple: There is no safe haven for human rights violators.”

In London, the ex-dictator’s British and Chilean lawyers are preparing for a court hearing Monday on their motion to block the Spanish investigation of the murders of its citizens during Pinochet’s regime. Their writ of habeas corpus seeks Pinochet’s immediate release from custody on the grounds that his diplomatic passport confers immunity from prosecution.

In addition, the British government has announced that it would consider “compassionate reasons” in its evaluation of an expected extradition request from Spain. Chilean leaders cite Pinochet’s delicate health in demanding his release, asserting that the psychological impact of the arrest has complicated his recovery from minor back surgery.

President Eduardo Frei says his attempt to win Pinochet’s freedom is a defense of Chilean law and sovereignty, not of the individual. But Frei’s position has aligned his centrist Christian Democrats with the most extreme leaders of the right, who venerate Pinochet as a saint and blame his detention on an “international socialist conspiracy” that allegedly involved leftists in Chile, Spain and Britain.

That vociferous rhetoric disturbs leaders such as Jaime Estevez of the Socialist Party of Chile, who is a former president of the Chamber of Deputies. He points out that Judge Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish magistrate responsible for Pinochet’s arrest, is no friend of Spain’s Socialist party because he has locked up high-ranking Socialist officials accused of wrongdoing.

“This right wing in Chile is so troglodytic and out of touch with reality,” Estevez said. “We are going to confront tense and difficult political moments. Because of the impotence [of Pinochet allies] about the situation, it is possible that this could degenerate into violence against the left.”

Trouble During Transition Period

Pinochet stepped down as leader in 1990 but remained commander of the army until March. During that period, the transition to democracy also ran into trouble. Troops took ominously to the streets when there was talk in 1990 of investigating human rights abuses during his regime, and in 1993 when the government tried to investigate a corruption case involving Pinochet’s son.

But during those episodes, the ruling center-left coalition known as the Concertacion, which has governed since democracy’s return in 1990, stuck together. Now the Concertacion is split over Pinochet’s arrest. The Socialist party, the Christian Democrats’ most important partner, says Chile should not intervene in Pinochet’s problems with foreign courts.

“This threatens the very essence of our coalition,” Estevez said. “Pinochet is not the fatherland. He is not Chile. This is not a problem of state.”

Estevez is a top advisor to former Minister of Public Works Ricardo Lagos, a European-style social democrat and the leading candidate in next year’s presidential elections. Lagos’ popularity reflects the changes in a nation whose last Socialist government ushered in chaos and the 1973 coup led by Pinochet.

Lagos’ differences with Frei on the Pinochet crisis have brought withering attacks by the right, who note that Pinochet recently made conciliatory gestures to the Christian Democrats and even praised their presidential candidate.

Not only have the Spanish and British judges damaged Chile’s hard-earned and delicate democratic progress, they have also set a dangerous legal precedent, according to Pinochet’s defenders.

“What if we decided to prosecute [former Spanish Prime Minister] Felipe Gonzalez for the crimes committed in the fight against terrorism?” Sen. Hernan Larrain asked. “I am a great enemy of [Cuban President] Fidel Castro, but I wouldn’t think of prosecuting him. . . . We are going to end up with the law of the strongest, the law of the jungle.”

Argentine Support for Chilean Stance

The Chilean government’s response has the support of neighboring Argentina, whose leaders are loud critics of Garzon. In addition to Pinochet, the judge is investigating at least 150 Argentine military officers accused of crimes against Spanish citizens during Argentina’s dictatorship and has issued international warrants exposing the suspects to arrest if they travel.

But Argentine officials say Garzon’s probe is meaningless because of amnesty laws and presidential pardons of the former commanders. The judge’s insistence on prosecuting beyond Spain’s borders could lead to an international free-for-all among justice systems, according to critics in Argentina and Chile.

Human rights advocates retort that the South American military regimes committed well-documented crimes against humanity and are therefore subject to prosecution anywhere in the world. Chile’s rejection of basic international norms contrasts sharply with its eager integration into the world economy, such as its efforts to join the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to Vivanco.

“The neoliberal model of economic development requires political integration as well,” Vivanco said. “Modern democracies have certain codes that must be shared.”

Sebastian Rotella, The Times’ Buenos Aires bureau chief, was recently on assignment in Santiago, Chile.