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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 March 2000 Issue No. 473 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 March 2000 Issue No. 473
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Logic of compromise
By Sameh NaguibRicardo Lagos was sworn in Saturday as Chile's first socialist president in nearly three decades. This rupture is also a continuity, however: Lagos' presidency continues the decade-long rule of the Concertacion, a centre-left coalition that has been in power since the return to limited democracy in 1990.
The new president paraded through the streets of Conception in a convertible, before returning to Santiago in the evening for similar celebrations, culminating in his address to the nation from the balcony of the presidential palace, La Moneda. During the address, his voice was drowned out several times by shouts from the crowd, many of whom were screaming: "Put Pinochet on trial!"
General Augusto Pinochet, whose forces bombed La Moneda on the day he ousted the country's last democratically-elected socialist President Salvador Allende, ruled Chile with an iron fist for 17 years. More than 3000 people died or disappeared between 1973 and 1990, while tens of thousands -- amongst them Lagos himself -- fled into exile.
Chile's prosecutors are now facing increased pressure to put the general on trial after the heads of the armed forces received the ex-dictator like a returning hero on his arrival in Santiago two weeks ago.
According to the latest polls, about 50 per cent of Chileans want to see him tried, although most believe it will never happen. "The images of Pinochet, surrounded by elite troops, have just one point," said leading human rights lawyer, Hector Salazar. "The army is saying that this man is untouchable. That is the message from the armed forces."
The general returned to Chile after more than 16 months under house arrest in Britain, where he was held on warrant for extradition to Spain to face charges related to human rights abuses during his 17-year rule. The sudden, and somewhat curious recovery in the general's health immediately on setting foot in his native land has caused an uproar throughout the country. "He boarded the aeroplane a destroyed man, and with the passing hours he began to recover," Pinochet's daughter explained, with no apparent sense of irony. This miraculous cure-by-transatlantic-flight came just hours after British Home Secretary Jack Straw had said Pinochet was unfit to stand trial and "that no significant improvement could be expected." Yet it took just eight hours in a Santiago military hospital for the general to be pronounced well enough to leave for one of his posh private homes.
Isabel Allende, a governing coalition deputy and daughter of the former President Salvador Allende, said she could not help noticing that Pinochet looked provocatively robust upon his arrival in Santiago. "I feel this was a trick. I think really there was a secret agreement between the governments of England, Spain and Chile, and I feel really upset by that."
Indeed, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook struck a deal as long ago as June with his counterpart in the Spanish government, Abel Matutes. Cook reportedly said, "I will not let him [Pinochet] die in Britain." To which Matutes replied, "I will not let him come to Spain."
The return of the general and the nature of his reception have called into question the ability -- and indeed the willingness -- of the ruling centre-left coalition to seriously challenge the army.
The armed forces continues to wield significant power in Chile. Military representatives still sit in the senate. They also exercise partial censorship over the media. The Defence Ministry, meanwhile, has very little say in the day-to-day management of the armed forces, which are funded almost entirely from the sale of copper by the state-owned firm Codelco.
The ruling coalition also faces a more direct political challenge. In recent months, a confident right-wing opposition has emerged, and during the election campaign successfully distanced itself from the Pinochet issue. With Joaquin Lavin, the youthful presidential runner-up as its leader, the new right will be a serious challenge in municipal elections this year, and could threaten the centre-left's majority in congressional elections next year.
Lagos for his part is committed to neo-liberal economic policies, and has declared no intention whatsoever of upsetting the powerful, ultra-conservative capitalist class. Eugenio Tironi, a sociologist and spin doctor for the Lagos campaign, has made clear the policy of the new administration clear: "The government, for the first time, has to confront serious opposition from a well-organised modern opposition, and this means it will have to stick to the centre and be moderate itself."
The reconstructed socialists have explained their new politics as the product of objective conditions: the emergence of "new social movements," the "disappearance of the working class," the "crisis of socialist ideas." The themes and the language are familiar; they are also just as questionable in Chile as they are elsewhere.
'Historical compromise' is the leading slogan of Chile's 'new' socialists. This programme embraces both compromise with the army and compromise with business. Their strategy means defending a politics of collaboration with Christian Democracy in order to attain shared power. Their models now are the right-wing social democracy represented in Europe by Tony Blair's "third way" and Gerhard Schroeders' "new middle."
Whether this road will be able to achieve democracy, let alone socialism, in Chile is highly doubtful. The smile on Pinochet's face on his return, the confidence and arrogance of the army generals who greeted him and the ambivalence of big business to the election of a socialist president, all suggest that the expectations of the people who voted Lagos into office will not have to wait long for their disappointment.
