prairie fire organizing committee

Chile and Pinochet

January 23, 1999

I am very happy to be with you tonight to talk about something which has had such a profound impact on much of my adult life: the struggle for human rights in Latin America (what we used to refer to as socialism) and against U.S. intervention (what many of us still refer to as imperialism).

Above all, the October 16, 1998, arrest of former dictator General Augusto Pinochet is an unprecedented victory for the Chilean people, the international human rights movement, and all progressive people around the world. His arrest is a testament to the tenacious, unceasing work carried out by those who suffered most directly and cruelly from the barbarism of his regime: the thousands and thousands of people the military imprisoned, tortured, and forced into exile and their family members along with the family members of the more than three thousand people he murdered and disappeared.

Over the years we have suffered many defeats. But Pinochet's arrest is a victory - it is our victory! - and we must build on it and work to secure the release of all political prisoners and an end to impunity.

Defenders of Pinochet have said that his arrest and possible extradition to Spain to stand trial on charges of murder, terrorism, and genocide threaten Chile's fragile democracy. But how can there be democracy and what kind of democracy is it that allows torturers to roam freely and permits the dictator to become a Senator for life in the very Congress that he shut down in 1973?

I arrived in Chile on December 8, intending to do research for my book on right-wing women. Because much of my research has examined the right, and because the other speakers tonight spoke about the left and the human rights movement, I will focus on the right.

I found the country more polarized and tense than when I had last visited it in 1994. I spent three and a half weeks there, much of the time trying to figure out what was happening and what it all meant. One clear impression I came away with is that in times of crisis, when it feels threatened, the right drops its pretense of moderation and its claims of being "center-right." Instead it circles the wagons, marshals its weapons and its resources - of which it has many - and lashes out at those who challenge it. Also, when threatened, the more extreme sectors of the right dominate. Patria y Libertad, the neo-fascist terrorist group that first emerged during the Popular Unity years, has reemerged. Wearing masks to hide their faces, members of Patria y Libertad held a press conference to express their support for Pinochet and promised that if he were extradited to Spain then those who were responsible for this would suffer the consequences. They have appeared at demonstrations, proclaimed their loyalty to Pinochet, and given the Nazi salute. (Although they stopped doing that. Assuredly more astute sectors of the right informed them that this is not the image that should be projected of the pro-Pinochet forces.) UDI, the more pro-Pinochet of the two rightist parties exerts itself to prove that it is the more Pinochetista, while RN, which had attempted to portray itself as the more moderate and more modern party of the right, scrambles to demonstrate its loyalty to Pinochet. In reality, as many people commented to me, it is likely that Pinochet's arrest is one of the best things that has happened to the right since Pinochet lost the 1988 plebiscite since it offers the right a unifying point and a possible martyr. At the same time, I suspect the right would be thrilled if Pinochet did die in England, as Pinochet repeatedly and, I believe hypocritically, says he is resigned to doing, since that would remove this major albatross from around their necks. Pinochet both provides the right with its razon d'etre, but at the same time binds them to the past and links them to the regime that committed the worst abuse of human rights in Chile's entire history.

On December 10, International Human Rights Day, the English Law Lords ruled that Pinochet did not have diplomatic immunity and therefore he could indeed be extradited to Spain to stand trial. Upon hearing the decision, I went to the metro stop at Alcantara and Apoquindo in the upper-class neighborhood of Las Condes. The metro stop is located between the Spanish and British embassies and has become a favorite gathering place of the Chilean right. When England first arrested Pinochet, Joaquin Lavin, the mayor of Las Condes, an active member of Opus Dei (the extremely conservative Catholic organization) and UDI's presidential hopeful, ordered that the garbage collectors not pick up the garbage from the Spanish and English embassies. When the garbage continued to pile up, the mayor of Pudahuel, a working-class neighborhood, sent his community's garbage trucks to remove the waste, a gesture of support for these two nations that I believe was widely appreciated.

The crowd that congregated at the metro stop, mainly composed of middle-aged and elderly women and young, even teen age men, was irate at England and vociferous in its defense of Pinochet. During the Popular Unity government, conservative women had been some of Allende's most strident opponents and, after the March of the Empty Pots and Pans, emerged as the symbol of opposition to Allende. During Pinochet's seventeen-year dictatorship, many of these conservative women were the dictator's most fervent supporters, the most fanatic and public face of the right's defense of its privilege and position within Chilean society. In my discussions with them, their chants, and their declarations to the press several themes emerged which, I believe, constitute key elements of the right's defense of Pinochet.

Themes

I. The right believes, or at least claims to believe, that England's arrest of Pinochet is a clear-cut example of neocolonialism and, as a result, a direct and flagrant violation of Chile's national sovereignty. The right has relied on this argument because it is the only one available to them. They know and we know that there is no way Pinochet will be tried in Chile. Their goal is not the defense of national sovereignty, but to prevent Pinochet being put on trial. Two factors must be taken into consideration in order to understand why this defense has some appeal: ---Neocolonialism is a reality. The right hopes to manipulate Chileans' patriotic feelings and abhorrence of colonialism into a rejection of England's/Europe's efforts to being Pinochet to trial. What is particularly ironic about this is that it was precisely the right and the Pinochet dictatorship that opened the Chilean economy to foreign investment and led the destruction of national industry. In the name of modernity, they have heightened Chile's integration into and dependency on neoliberalism and led the conversion of Chile into a consumer society, where many people's aspirations are defined by the latest in foreign imports and whose idea of a good time is to go hang out at the mall and run up their credit cards.

--At the same time, the right hopes to portray itself as the true defenders of the Chilean nation, just as it has attempted to do throughout much of the twentieth century. They are the patriots. Those who oppose Pinochet are part of the international socialist conspiracy. (They no longer say communist for two reasons: (1) they realize that with the demise of the USSR such a statement is hardly credible (2) they want to disparage the Chilean Socialist Party and, most particularly Ricardo Lagos, its presidential candidate and the most popular political figure in Chile. (For reasons which I do not completely understand, they seem fearful that a Lagos presidency would signify a fundamental change in Chile's economic model. And they hope to raise the specter of the past for their own political ends. )

II. These women in particular, and the right in general, express a profound sense of gratitude and loyalty to Pinochet for having saved them and Chile from the communists. "Jamás, jamás, te olvideremos libertador de Chile." We will never, never forget you, the liberator of Chile," a title that is more typically reserved for Bernardo O'Higgins, the Chilean who led Chile's fight for independence from Spain in the 1820s.

3. A defiant and unrepentant affirmation of Pinochet's rule and a dismissal of any and all accusations of wrongdoing on his part. When I was in Chile in 1993-1994 I interviewed roughly fifty right-wing women. Of this representative sample, only one ever expressed any regret at the human rights abuses committed during the military dictatorship. At best, some members of RN and, perhaps, of UDI, will refer to some "excesses" committed during the regime. Although his loyal female supporters stress that if they were committed, which is pretty hard to deny as the mass graves of his victims continue to be uncovered, they were done without "mi general's" knowledge.

4. The defense of Pinochet not only rests on concepts of national sovereignty, but on these women's definition of masculinity. Pinochet, who defended and protected them, is a real man. Those who attack him are not. They are, using their language maricones or fags (and in general, I found these right-wing women really foul-mouthed, the richer they were, the worse!). According to these women, Pinochet, the real man, was arrested because, and I quote, "the British cabinet is made up of a bunch of homosexuals." Just as during the Popular Unity years the right attempted to dismiss its opponents by questioning their masculinity -- the right-wing newspaper La Tribuna repeatedly referred to member of the MIR as Miricones, thus conflating Mir and maricon - in December 1998, these women chanted "Comunistas, maricones, coma mierda, coma mierda, por huevones," which I translate, again literally, as "Communists, Fags, eat shit, eat shit, you assholes."

As part of their efforts both to garner public support and to generate the image that widespread popular support exists for Pinochet, the right has defined Pinochet as an illegally seized hostage. In an attempt to reinforce this patently false image of Pinochet, the right has taken to wearing yellow ribbons, as in "tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree" an action that appeared to resonate with sectors of the American public after Iranians seized Americans and held them as hostages. In December, the right launched a national campaign to collect Christmas cards to send to Pinochet in London, and set up large yellow barrels into which people could deposit them. In one of the right's few honest acknowledgments of mass popular opinion, they asked people not to seal the envelopes since they planned to read them all before they delivered them, to spare Pinochet any disagreeable messages.

Probably one of the most puzzling and troubling aspects of the Pinochet affair is the Chilean's government's defense of him. Since some, perhaps many, of those who are supporting him suffered as a result of his regime, I wonder, why are they doing this? Do they truly believe what they are saying? Is this the compromise they believe they must make - or have already made - to retain power? Are they scared that their failure to defend Pinochet will unleash the military? I believe that the Chileans gathered here tonight can answer these questions better than I can and I hope we can touch on them in the discussion that follows my presentation.

The government's efforts to appease the right were also reflected in their policies towards the left and the human rights movement and an activity that had been planned at Villa Grimaldi. Under the military regime, Villa Grimaldi was a torture and murder center - and I am very sorry to say that several people here tonight were subjected to it. Now Villa Grimaldi has become el Parque por la Paz, Peace Park. On December 13, the human rights movement had planned to inaugurate a wall in the park with the names of those who had been disappeared from Villa Grimaldi. In order not to antagonize the right, the government suspended the event and postponed it for a week. This was outrageous! In response, the committee of former prisoners from Villa Grimaldi requested that no government officials show up for the inauguration that was held on December 20. None did - but over 700 people, many of them the family members of those murdered and disappeared by the military dictatorship, did show up.

On December 17 the Lords set aside the earlier decision that Pinochet did not have immunity because one of the judges, Lord Hoffman had ties to Amnesty International - as if that were something to be ashamed of! This, to me, is a specious argument. What about those lords who are members of the Conservative Party? Are they more objective than a Lord who has links to a human rights organization? Margaret Thatcher is one of Pinochet's most ardent defenders in England. Dr. Robin Harris, one of her senior aides, recently declared that "Senator Pinochet is the closest thing Britain has to a political prisoner." What a ludicrous statement! He must have forgotten that there are over 100 Irish political prisoners in British jails. In any case, dictators who are brought to trial for their criminal actions are not political prisoners, they are criminals.

I would also like to touch on the role of the U.S. government, which I believe has been shameful, but totally in keeping with its past relations with Chile. Not only did the U.S. government materially and politically support the 1973 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende, it supported the Pinochet dictatorship until it was no longer in its interests to do so. Thus, it is no surprise that, unlike most of Western Europe, the U.S. government has not issued a request for Pinochet's extradition to the U.S. In fact, according to reports in the European press, the U.S. government has been exerting pressure on England not to extradite Pinochet to Spain because it does not want any of its dirty laundry washed in public. For the same reason, the U.S. government has not opened its files on Chile, despite countless requests to do so. These files would reveal the extent of U.S. government involvement in the coup and its support for the Pinochet dictatorship. They need to be released and widely distributed. The U.S. government has never fully and formally acknowledged its role in the 1973 coup nor its support for Pinochet; it has not extended reparations to the thousands and thousands of Chileans whose lives it so cruelly damaged or destroyed. And unless we demand that it do so, we can be sure that it won't.

For that reason, I am ending my presentation with several requests. We must build on this victory and demand the release of all the political prisoners in the continent and an end to impunity. Six months ago few, perhaps none of us would have thought that the arrest of Pinochet was imminent. It only happened because many people refused to give up their desire for justice. His arrest is not an end, it is a new beginning. We must redouble our efforts to see that Mumia Abu Jamal, a former Black Panther, now a political prisoner in Pennsylvania, does not die on death row. Keeping in mind that the last political prisoners the U.S. government executed were the Rosenbergs, we must work to see that such an outrage not happen again. We need to work to obtain the release of the Puerto Rican political prisoners, who this April will have been in jail for nineteen years. Sometimes I think about what I have done with the last nineteen years of my life, and then I think that during all those years these compañeros have been in jail and it helps me to think how unfair their time in jail has been. We must demand that all the political prisoners in U.S. jails are given amnesty.

We need to call, write, fax, and/or email Janet Reno and Madeleine Albright and demand that Pinochet be extradited to the U.S. and that the U.S. files on Chile be opened. And we need to keep up the pressure on England. Here in Chicago we can all the British consulate. What we do has made a difference and it will continue to do so. 1999 has started off well. Together we can see that it continues on a good course.

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