Chile and the End of Pinochet (Page 6)

Santiago

Worse, there has been a generalized moral failure in the face of the Pinochet legacy. Ten years ago, the governing coalition made a bet that the Pinochet story and the human rights debate would quickly fade away and some sort of working agreement could be forged with the economic and military right. They were wrong. Consequently, said historian Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, the center-left government has no one to blame but itself for its inability to generate enthusiastic political support. "It is they who let Pinochet survive," he said. "They allowed him impunity. They are the ones who for a decade attached no political cost to having supported him. Why be surprised now that Pinochet's supporters bear no stigma?"

Even now, with Pinochet in the dock, the Lagos government is trying to appease the military elite. An agreement has been reached for Chile to purchase--at a cost of $600 million--about a dozen US F-16 fighter jets. The Clinton Administration's last-minute approval of this deal broke a longstanding US policy of not introducing sophisticated arms into the region. But how Salvador Allende must have rolled over in his grave as today's Chilean Socialists loudly complained that the United States would not let Chile have the high-tech Amraam missiles that can be fitted onto the planes. "I'm not on the left," said Jocelyn-Holt. "But the last ethical and moral leader Chile had was Salvador Allende, who decided to die for his principles on September 11, 1973."

Goodbye, Latin America--Hello, Honduras

Meanwhile, President Lagos's most ambitious gambit is on the economic trade front. He wants the United States to make good on a five-year-old promise to bring Chile into a free-trade pact. Bilateral negotiations on that front have already opened--with the AFL-CIO, it might be said, already promising a feisty fight.

Back last fall, Lagos toured Silicon Valley, met with Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, and made a pitch for Chile to become an overseas platform for microchip development and assembly. That plea was, in a way, a quiet confession that Chile was going to have to abandon yet one more set of self-delusions, along with the fiction that the human rights issue had been resolved: The much-vaunted Chilean "economic miracle" had historically closed out. Even with a two-year recession now over, Chile finds itself struggling to find buyers for its exports. Already-crass inequalities are growing, and wages remain painfully low. Structural, long-term unemployment is now 14 percent. The once-celebrated privatized social security system returned real gains last year of barely three-tenths of 1 percent. Chileans work more hours than anyone in the hemisphere, and they have the highest rates of depression and psychological problems.

Chile, after two decades, was forced to face its human rights history, thanks mostly to a crusading Spanish judge and a handful of dauntless Chilean activists and lawyers. Now, it seems, Chile might also have to come to terms with long-held fantasies about its economic position. A decade ago, as Chile feverishly exported its natural resources and the macroeconomy boomed, boosters from across the Chilean political spectrum were openly predicting that the country would soon be able to shout "Adios!" to Latin America and merge into the First World. But in light of the more gloomy current economic picture, it's more like "Hello, Honduras!"--Chile's future being staked on its becoming a cheap labor pool for high-tech foreign investors.

Chile, thanks to the Pinochet affair, is now finally well along the path of recovering a history that was on the verge of erasure only two years ago. Now Chile must also struggle to find its soul and identity in an uncaring and treacherous globalized economy.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.