Worldwide with Wee-Cheng #7: Moneda Palace & Thoughts about Pinochet – Chile

#6: Chile
Moneda Palace & Thoughts about Pinochet

21 Jan 2002

Chile. It’s an amazingly long country, stretching 4300 km from north to south. It is also a country with an amazing diversity of landscape and climatic regions, including the driest desert in the world – the Atacama Desert, the Swiss-like Lake District, the sea passage in the south resembling the Inner Passage of Alaska, the icy cold gateway to the Antarctic – Punta Arenas and Tierra del Fuego, and Easter Island, a strange place more akin to the South Pacific than Latin America.

This is my second visit to Chile. My first was 2 years ago, when I did a short foray into Chilean Patagonia, while I was travelling around Argentina. The friendly Chileans, excellent seafood, amazing scenery and, most of all, a sense of good governance, have amazed me. This is the Switzerland of Latin America. Chile has always been known for having a well-governed economy, a bureaucracy free of corruption and a high level of literacy that would identify the country closer to the developed world than the developing world.

The moment one arrives in Chile, one realises how well things are run: the efficiency of the subway system, the clean streets, the ease of getting things done, etc. Santiago, with its skyscrapers and shopping malls, look more like a North American city than a South American one. However, it is important to realise that it has never always been as such. Politically, Chile has a controversial past that still affects it today.

Shortly upon arrival, I visited the Presidential Palace, known as La Moneda. Today the bright star and blue-and-red flags of Chile fluttered in the Plaza of the Palace. The smartly dressed presidential guards greet the visitor with the warm hospitality one finds so prevalent in this country. It is difficult for one to imagine the horrific events that took place here in 1973.

The Chile of 1973 was in deep political and economic crisis. Three years before, the Communist-led coalition headed by Salvador Allende won the general elections and came to power – one of the few genuine electoral successes of any communist party worldwide. The country, affected by the oil crisis, low copper prices and mismanagement, was in deep political and economic crisis. The Communist-led government began the nationalisation of the copper industry, which was partially American-owned, sparking protests from US government and business interest groups. All these led to the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on 11th September 1973, some say, with CIA involvement.

Early in the morning of 11th September 1973, President Allende, accompanied by some of his ministers, advisers and guards, arrived at the Palace of La Moneda which was surrounded by the Army. During the morning tanks fired continuously at the building, and the Air Force dropped more than 20 bombs in about 14 minutes at noontime.

The Palace burned furiously. The bombs destroyed the President’s enclosed glass courtyard, offices of various governmental departments, the Red Room and the Toesca Room of this historic building. As the military forces entered the complex, President Allende died in mysterious circumstances. Some said he committed suicide, while others said he was murdered. The Palace burned until midnight.

Pinochet’s military junta ruled Chile till 1989, during which hundreds, if not thousands were murdered in the early days. Hundreds of thousands of Chileans were forced into exile. The brutality of the regime inspired the famous 1982 Cannes Festival award-winning movie Missing about the disappearance of a young American journalist during the Chilean coup, and how his father and wife desperately went searching for him, only to realise that he was one of the victims.

However, Pinochet wasn’t your average bloodthirsty dictator. To many he is a patriot who rescued Chile from the communists. His most endearing legacy was the revolutionary transformation of Chile from an average, corrupt South American country, into an economic powerhouse. He implemented tough market-oriented economic reforms. He instilled discipline in workers, crushed the ever-striking labour unions, curtailed corruption, made sure the trains ran on-time, etc. His team of Ivy League-educated advisers literally managed a complete turnaround of the country’s economy and work ethics. Today, as I have mentioned above, the success of his reforms are evident.

In 1988, a plebiscite was held in which Pinochet was defeated on a narrow vote. He stepped down voluntarily, and Chile began a democratic country. The legacy of his rule continues to divide the country. There are many who see his rule as a positive landmark for Chile, whilst an equal number sees that as a dark chapter in which many lives were lost.

In 1998, Pinochet was suddenly detained in London, where he was undergoing medical treatment, on the basis of a warrant on torture charges against Spanish and Chilean citizens issued by a Spanish judge. This revived the deep divisions within the country, as well as a series of lawsuits in the UK. In 2000 Pinochet was allowed to return to Chile, where new lawsuits were launched against him and his legal immunity was stripped by the courts. Many of these remain unresolved as of now, and his rule will remain controversial for years to come.

Over the years I have followed Chile closely, and my views have changed many times as well. I remember a university professor praising Pinochet during an economics lecture years ago, when I was doing my undergraduate degree. Then, as a young idealistic student fresh from military service, I wrote an essay expressing my unhappiness that Pinochet’s darker side wasn’t mentioned at all. I didn’t receive any reply from the lecturer, and was for a short while wondering about the potential impact of that essay on my economic grades.

Over the years, as I travelled more, and after spending some years in the financial industry, I began to be skeptical about the benefits of political democracy for its own sake to the ordinary man-on-the-street in developing countries. I have come to realise the importance of economic and political stability in achieving prosperity for all.

Democracy per se will not do the job. Neither will authoritarian rule, which often leads to massive corruption and political instability as well.

The people of India and (up till recently) Pakistan may possess what the press calls democracy, but does the ordinary man benefit from it? The feudal landlords continue to make choices for the masses, who continue to be fooled as they have been for centuries. Do they really have a real choice of leadership? How does that fare when compared to the brutal communist rule in China, where tough but unpopular economic reforms have transformed the economy and brought untold improvements in the standard of living of the masses?

What I am trying to say is that, democracy per se does not solve the most important concerns of the people, i.e., a better life for all. Neither will authoritarian rule, which may well bring economic disasters as well, e.g., North Korea. The issue is not a matter of black and white, but shades of gray.

OK, I shall not bore you on my thoughts about developmental economics. I am leaving for Calama in the Atacama Desert, North Chile, in a few hours time. It’s a 24-hour bus journey through a few thousand kilometers. I shall write more then.

Did you like this article?

    

 

Share it

 

Place a comment