Fears In Chile That Pinochet's Allies Making A Comeback

by Gustavo Gonzolez

(IPS) SANTIAGO -- On the 31st anniversary of the Sept. 11, 1973 coup d'etat in Chile, the centre-left governing coalition is growing increasingly worried that the civilians who backed the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet will return to power in the December 2005 presidential elections.

Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear of the Christian Democracy Party (PDC), one of the possible presidential hopefuls, agreed Friday with Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza, a Socialist, that the alliance that has governed the country since 1990 should decide on its candidate not long after the Oct. 31 municipal elections.

"We will not let the 'other' continue to race alone," said Insulza, alluding to Santiago Mayor Joaqu'n Lav'n, the only contender for the presidential nomination of the right-wing opposition Alliance for Chile made up of his party, the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), and the National Renovation Party (PRN).

The minister spoke shortly before heading a ceremony in homage to Salvador Allende, the socialist president (1970-1973) who died in the presidential palace of La Moneda during the U.S.- directed coup, while resisting the military's air and land attacks.

After toppling Allende's Popular Unity -- a coalition of socialists, communists, social democrats and dissident Christian Democrats -- government, Pinochet's rule from 1973 to 1990 was marked by the murders and disappearances of thousands of leftisis and liberals.

Thirty-one years later, the elderly former dictator is facing prosecution for these human rights crimes as well as illicit enrichment of himself.

On Saturday "it will be 31 years since the death of Salvador Allende, and I am very happy that people recognise his sacrifice and his struggle for freedom, democracy and human rights more and more with each day that goes by," said his widow, Hortensia Bussi, after Friday's ceremony, which was held in La Moneda.

Recognition of the legacy of Allende is growing "because people used to be afraid to talk, and now they have lost that fear," said Bussi.

"The historic stature of Allende was rescued in all of its magnitude last year, on the 30th year of the coup, and continues to grow proportionally to the loss of prestige of Pinochet, who is no longer seen as only a human rights violator, but as a corrupt former leader as well," Leonardo Salas, a high school history teacher, commented to IPS.

Pinochet, 88, was stripped of his immunity from prosecution on Aug. 24 in connection with the investigation of Operation Condor, a CIA-founded strategy by which the dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay coordinated the persecution and elimination of leftists and other dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.

The former dictator, who was army chief from 1973 to 1998, is also being investigated for his secret accounts in the Washington-based Riggs Bank, which held between four and eight million dollars, according to a report issued by a U.S. Senate commission.

Pinochet did not attend an act of homage held by the Pinochet Foundation Thursday night in the Manquehue Club in Santiago.

But what drew more attention than his somewhat predictable absence was the fact that Lav'n and his unofficial campaign team were not there.

Minister Insulza said Lav'n was right to distance himself from Pinochet, under whose regime the mayor served as a senior official in the Planning Ministry.

"I cannot criticize a person who was 'Pinochetista' and has ceased to be so. The less 'Pinochetismo' we have, the better," said Insulza. "There has been a lot of water under the bridge, and being a 'Pinochetista' is no longer in fashion," he added.

The minister echoed President Ricardo Lagos's earlier calls for moderation, which were prompted by public disputes between the ruling coalition's aspirants for next year's presidential elections.

But he also stressed that it is necessary to reach a decision on the alliance's nomination "between Oct. 31 and Mar. 31, 2005."

The 'Concertaciun por la Democracia' alliance, made up of the PDC, the Socialist Party (PS), the Party for Democracy (PPD), and the Radical Social Democratic Party (PRSD), has governed since 1990 under PDC presidents Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994) and Eduardo Frei (1994-2000), and is now led by Lagos, the head of both the PS and the PPD.

The leading contenders are Alvear and Defense Minister Michelle Bachelet, a member of the PS and the only one who leads Lav'n in some of the opinion polls.

Another contestant is PPD Senator Fernando Flores, a businessman. And in the past few weeks former president Frei, Housing Minister Jaime Ravinet, and Marcelo Trivelli, mayor of the Santiago metropolitan region -- all members of the PDC -- have expressed their own aspirations.

Lagos warned the leaders of the co-governing parties that the proliferation of possible candidates works in favor of Lavin, whom the president himself defeated only narrowly in the January 2000 runoff election, after a "technical tie" in the first round in December 1999.

But he also said that moving the coalition's primary elections forward would not be a good idea, because of the negative effect that would have on the campaign for the October municipal elections, in which the rightist alliance could push aside the governing coalition as the strongest political force in Chile.

In that context of growing expectations and concern over the strength of the right, and the crisis of 'Pinochetismo', the 31st anniversary of the coup will once again be marked by homages to Allende and to the de facto regime's victims.

On Saturday, the Human Rights Assembly will hold its traditional massive march from downtown Santiago to Allende's tomb and the memorial to the victims of human rights abuses in the General Cemetery.

Insulza expressed his hope that this year's anniversary will be free of violent incidents, although he admitted that as in previous years, excesses may occur at nightfall in the slum neighborhoods that ring Santiago and other cities.