DOCSLIB.ORG

Augusto Pinochet and International

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Augusto Pinochet and International Augusto Pinochetand InternationalLaw Ruth Wedgwood* This article explores the interplay between his- Uauteur, examinant ta dcisison de [a Chanbr des toricized law and normative standards of human rights Lords sur la question de 'immunitd du gdnr-al Pinochat. law by considering how the House of Lords dealt with attire l'attention sur l'interaction entre I droit dans son the question of General Pinochet's immunity. By se- contexte historique et les standards nomnaifs da droit lecting a normative account of state power, the law international humanitaire En adoptant une approeh- lords aligned themselves with evolving standards of normative du pouvoir dtatique. les lords se sent inscrits humanitarian law, articulated in, for example, the Con- dans la mouvance des nouveaux standards du droit hu- vention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhunman or manitaire international, tels qu'aticulds dans la Conven- Degrading Treament or Punislunent, the law of %var, tion sur la torture, le droit gdn&al de la guerre at les and the Geneva Conventions, and the recent interven- conventions de Gcnve, et tels qu'ils sc sent anifestos, tion in Kosovo. Although appealing, the normative po- par exemple, par 'intervention r.cente at Kosovo. Cette sition is far from unassailable, from both principled and position normative, blen quattirante, est toutefois loin pragmatic angles. The author questions, for example, d'Etre incontestable, autant sur le plan des prin-ipes qua whether a foreign court can support universal jurisdic- d'un point de vue pragmatiquc. Par exempie, on peut sa tion and limitations of official acts of immunity based demander si une cour dtrang&e peUt exer= unz com- on normative customary international law, or whether p tnce universelle et limiter les immunits statutaires this requires ex ante treaty assent by the state where the en se basant uniquement sur le droit couturnier interna- offence took place and by the state of the offendes tional, ou si cela requiert i'assentiment prt&lab!e da nationality. How to avoid destabilizing new democratic Itat o la violation a eu lieu at da l'ttat & nationalitd regimes is another problem that attends the use of na- du responsable. La nkcssiti d'dviter &-d2stabiliser das tional courts to try extraterritorial crimes under univer- rigimes damocratiques dmergents par l'utilis.tion &- la sal jurisdiction. Legal and diplomatic questions such as competence univcrselle pour amenar d2s crimes extra- this may be responsible for the hedged position the territoriatix devant lajustice constitue dgalemant un pro- British government finally adopted in the case against blame important. Des questions ldgales at dip!omatiquas Pinochet. Such questions also lend uncertainty to more de cette nature sont peut-re h I'originaz da la position recent cases, where governments have tried to enforce ambivalente finalement adopt6c par le gouvemrnznt normative international law to apprehend a foreign britannique dans 'affaire Pinachet. Elles soul'vent dga- state official for crimes against humanity. Despite the lement de 'incertitude dans des cas plus r&ents, ot d:s dangers of universal jurisdiction, however, the author gouverements ont tent d'appliquer le droit internatio- concludes that the ambiguity of the Pinodiet decision nal en apprahendant des responsables dtatiques Ctrangers permits a nuanced application of its principles. pour crimes contre l'humanit& ahlgr ls dangers da la comptence universella, l'autcur con-Jut toutefois, da manih-e optimiste, que cette ambig&fi ngnea 4tunz ap- plication nuancde des principesde lad&ision Piwdchrt. "Professor of Law, Yale Law School, and Senior Fellow for International Organizations and Laz Council on Foreign Relations. This paper is based upon a panel discussion on "War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, Genocide" at the international conference Hate, Genocide and Human Rights Fift, Years Later: Wiat Have W Learned? Wat Must e Do? (Faculty of Law, McGill University, 28 January 1999). © McGill Law Journal 2000 Revue de droit de McGill 2000 To be cited as: (2000) 46 McGill LJ. 241 Mode de rfdrence: (2000) 46 R.D. McGill 241 HeinOnline -- 46 McGill L. J. 241 2000-2001 242 MCGILL LAW JOURNAL / REVUE DE DROIT DE MCGILL [Vol. 46 Reading history through a legal lens has its dangers. The lawyer is trained to sift the past with a set of principles that often are hard to apply in situations of politics and strife. The lawyer reads from present to past perfect, arguing that even in war or civil collapse, some core of accountability and integrity of conduct must constrain the ac- tors-even when the triumph or survival of a preferred regime or polity is at stake. To gain confidence in the act of judging, the lawyer may suppose that the principle of ra- tionality, seeking "economy of force" in military conflict, assures that humane con- duct will never jeopardize victory. But at heart, the law's claim is more radical. It pur- ports that the stakes of a war or civil conflict can never be worth winning badly. The jurist, applying law to armed conflict, supposes that even a desperate competition to claim state power or preserve national independence cannot justify disregard for the peremptory demands of decency. Jus in bello-limits on how a conflict is fought, in- cluding due regard for the lives of civilians-retains its force no matter the purpose or fault of the war. The law makes a chiliastic demand, to observe human values even in the abyss of doubted survival. Many combatants have rejected this claim. In contests of left and right, and wars between nation states, engagement has often meant a willingness to indulge in in- strumental lapses. Some have counted on victory as absolution; stooping to conquer, they gamble that winners can rewrite history and mask scabrous behaviour. The forty-year contest between East and West, a Manichaean combat of right and left with the hazard of nuclear engagement, often seemed to dwarf ordinary judg- ments of morality and law. Surely we will not see the world in this light again, at least in our lifetimes. And yet alongside the new consensus of cyber-citizens in a free trade economy, conflict continues in autarkic communities, with violence deployed by na- tional groups that hope to gain historical standing or international personality. Men's homage to necessity continues. It is this quandary that marks the Pinochetcase in the frame of historicized law. In the course of the military regime that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, General Augu- sto Pinochet's supporters defiantly claimed that what happened was necessary to de- feat communism and save the state. Military review, like judicial review, was a proc- ess to defend a larger constitutionalism. Defeating a hostile mode of political thought required, in Pinochet's world view, a ruthless war upon the morale and survival of its proponents. Doubt about this argument, even among his supporters, is reflected in their alternative polite conceit that the general was unaware of the military violence against civilians in Chile. Perhaps it is only with the anxieties of the cold war laid to rest that both sides can now treat this claim soberly. We know how the cold war ended, with the victory of democracy and free market economies, and the relationship of Pinochet's terror to this triumph seems spurious indeed. With a greater clarity that the violence was superflu- ous, perhaps even its participants are willing to entertain the harder thought that in- strumental goals should never justify the torturous treatment of individuals. The renewed Pinochet controversy presented itself in an almost casual manner. A quarter century had passed since the 1973 Santiago coup d'dtat against socialist Sal- vador Allende that brought Pinochet to power. Pinochet's self-confident agreement in HeinOnline -- 46 McGill L. J. 242 2000-2001 2000] R. WEDGWOOD - PINOCHETAND INTERATIONAL LAW 243 1988 to hold a nationwide plebiscite on his rule was followed by unexpected defeat at the polls, and he stepped down from the presidency in 1990. Like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Pinochet was still to be reckoned with in Chilean politics, since he contin- ued as commander in chief of the armed forces. Only in March 1998 did he also leave his military post, and became a senator-for-life with claimed immunity from arrest. The Chilean general visited London several times, confident in his standing as a close ally of the United Kingdom in the Malvinas/Falkland Islands war with Argen- tina. He embarked for London again in September 1998, spurning the advice of a former member of the military junta who warned him that the environment was dif- ferent, and that Spanish magistrate Baltazar Garzon was headlong into an investiga- tion of the Chilean coup and the disappearances of Spanish civilians. It may be, in- deed, that Pinochet's personal sense of historical justification was enough to blind him to a different calculus. Pinochet reveals himself as a man of an archaic period, unable to fathom the development of a Europeanjus commune and international standards of human rights that might frame a different view of his rule. Pinochet was arrested by English police from a hospital bed in London after treatment for a bad back, and placed under house arrest. The warrant was based upon a Spanish extradition request, charging him with murder and genocide (the latter ac- cording to Spanish law's particular account). The warrant was then amended to sub- stitute the offences of hostage-taking and torture--crimes defined by international conventions' that embrace universal jurisdiction among treaty parties,' permitting any joining state to take jurisdiction of the case. From the start, Pinochet's defence against extradition was based on a claim of procedural fairness and historical exception. He was Chile's head of state at the time of the commission of the acts, Pinochet's lawyers noted, and international practice has traditionally respected an absolute immunity in sitting heads of state, barring any ex- ercise of the criminal legal process of foreign states.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The United States' Janus-Faced Approach to Operation Condor: Implications for the Southern Cone in 1976
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Supervised Undergraduate Student Research Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects and Creative Work Spring 5-2008 The United States' Janus-Faced Approach to Operation Condor: Implications for the Southern Cone in 1976 Emily R. Steffan University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj Recommended Citation Steffan, Emily R., "The United States' Janus-Faced Approach to Operation Condor: Implications for the Southern Cone in 1976" (2008). Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj/1235 This is brought to you for free and open access by the Supervised Undergraduate Student Research and Creative Work at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Emily Steffan The United States' Janus-Faced Approach To Operation Condor: Implications For The Southern Cone in 1976 Emily Steffan Honors Senior Project 5 May 2008 1 Martin Almada, a prominent educator and outspoken critic of the repressive regime of President Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, was arrested at his home in 1974 by the Paraguayan secret police and disappeared for the next three years. He was charged with being a "terrorist" and a communist sympathizer and was brutally tortured and imprisoned in a concentration camp.l During one of his most brutal torture sessions, his torturers telephoned his 33-year-old wife and made her listen to her husband's agonizing screams.
    [Show full text]
  • Power, Coercion, Legitimacy and the Press in Pinochet's Chile a Dissertation Presented to the Faculty Of
    Writing the Opposition: Power, Coercion, Legitimacy and the Press in Pinochet's Chile A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Brad T. Eidahl December 2017 © 2017 Brad T. Eidahl. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled Writing the Opposition: Power, Coercion, Legitimacy and the Press in Pinochet's Chile by BRAD T. EIDAHL has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Patrick M. Barr-Melej Professor of History Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT EIDAHL, BRAD T., Ph.D., December 2017, History Writing the Opposition: Power, Coercion, Legitimacy and the Press in Pinochet's Chile Director of Dissertation: Patrick M. Barr-Melej This dissertation examines the struggle between Chile’s opposition press and the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990). It argues that due to Chile’s tradition of a pluralistic press and other factors, and in bids to strengthen the regime’s legitimacy, Pinochet and his top officials periodically demonstrated considerable flexibility in terms of the opposition media’s ability to publish and distribute its products. However, the regime, when sensing that its grip on power was slipping, reverted to repressive measures in its dealings with opposition-media outlets. Meanwhile, opposition journalists challenged the very legitimacy Pinochet sought and further widened the scope of acceptable opposition under difficult circumstances. Ultimately, such resistance contributed to Pinochet’s defeat in the 1988 plebiscite, initiating the return of democracy.
    [Show full text]
  • The United States, Eduardo Frei's Revolution in Liberty and The
    The Gathering Storm: The United States, Eduardo Frei's Revolution in Liberty and the Polarization of Chilean Politics, 1964-1970 A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Sebastian Hurtado-Torres December 2016 © 2016 Sebastian Hurtado-Torres. All Rights Reserved. 2 This dissertation titled The Gathering Storm: The United States, Eduardo Frei's Revolution in Liberty, and the Polarization of Chilean Politics, 1964-1970 by SEBASTIAN HURTADO-TORRES has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Patrick Barr-Melej Associate Professor of History Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT HURTADO-TORRES, SEBASTIAN, Ph.D., December 2016, History The Gathering Storm: The United States, Eduardo Frei’s Revolution in Liberty, and the Polarization of Chilean Politics, 1964-1970 Director of Dissertation: Patrick Barr-Melej This dissertation explores the involvement of the United States in Chilean politics between the presidential campaign of 1964 and Salvador Allende’s accession to the presidency in 1970. The main argument of this work is that the partnership between the Christian Democratic Party of Chile (PDC) and the United States in this period played a significant role in shaping Chilean politics and thus contributed to its growing polarization. The alliance between the PDC and the United States was based as much on their common views on communism as on their shared ideas about modernization and economic development. Furthermore, the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, headed by men strongly committed to the success of the Christian Democratic project, involved itself heavily in the inner workings of Chilean politics as an informal actor, unable to dictate terms but capable of exerting influence on local actors whose interests converged with those of the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Waiting for Cincinnatus: the Role of Pinochet in Post-Authoritarian Chile
    Third WorldQuarterly, Vol21, No 5, pp 7 25 – 738, 2000 Waitingf orCincinnatus: the role o f Pinochetin post-authoritarian Chile GREGORYWEEKS ABSTRACT This article explains the persistent inuence of GeneralAugusto Pinochetin Chileanpolitics. After leavingthe presidency in 1990,hemanaged to fuse his personalposition with that notonly of the institution of the armybut of the armedforces as awhole,making Pinochet and the military almost indistinguishable.By doingso Pinochetsought to equateany attack onhimwith anattack onthe institution. Themilitary, in turn,accepted him as its spokesman anddefender. He viewed his role asthat of Cincinnatus,an emperortwice called to save ancientRome. Throughout the 1990sPinochetrepresented aserious obstacle to democratisation.With his intimate ties to the military institution, his inuence— perhaps even after death—can never bediscounted. InChile the transition frommilitary to civilian rule in March1990 did not erase the presenceof the armedforces in political life.The Commander in Chief of the army,General Augusto Pinochet, who had quickly taken control of the military junta installed on11 September 1973 ,becamethe self-proclaimed President ofthe Republicthe followingyear and remained in that position until hehanded the presidential sash to newlyelected Patricio Aylwin.Pinochet remainedthe headof the army,a position grantedhim foreight moreyears by laws passed in the last daysof the dictatorship. Whenhis retirement fromthe armedforces nally came to pass on10March 1998 Pinochet’ s national role still didnot end. He becamea ‘senator forli fe’( senadorvitalicio )in accordwith the 1980Constitution. Article 45provided any ex-president who had served for at least six years the right to alifetime seat in the senate. Pinochet’s presenceas armychief hada tremendousimpact oncivil – military relations in the 1990s, as at times heresorted to showsof force to extract concessions fromcivilian policymakers andto protect ‘his men’f romjudgment onhumanrights abuses.
    [Show full text]
  • Truth Without Reconciliation in Chile: Testimonies of The
    TRUTH WITHOUT RECONCILIATION IN CHILE: TESTIMONIES OF THE TORTURED AND THE CASE AGAINST AUGUSTO PINOCHET Temma Kaplan The State University of New York at Stony Brook "Fear" and "terror" are the words that are used most often to describe the 17-year-long military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. There between 1C73 and 1990 and elsewhere where people have been brutalized by the use of torture for defending themselves and their communities against the arbitrary use of power, shaming rituals, designed to cleanse the body politic in order to achieve something akin to justice, have become an essential part of creating the possibility for a lasting democracy. The movements to overcome fear and shame and to enable former enemies to live together in peace remains a subject of some urgency for the governments that succeed states which ruled by fear. And nothing terrifies people more than the seemingly arbitrary use of power. When Cesare Beccaria and other figures of the Enlightenment in Europe argued for natural law and a system of inalienable rights, they castigated the use of torture as atavistic and barbaric. The reformers attacked monarchies and religious authorities who employed brute force, the antithesis of reason, to create political authority through terror. Although Michel Foucault and his followers have made important strides in showing how subsequent systems have depended upon discipline and subtle forms of power that permeate all relationships, most would agree that this form of domination represents an advance over the use of torture. Beginning with the French Revolution countries all over the world banned the use of torture as a means of exacting information or of punishing prisoners.
    [Show full text]
  • Deaths and Disappearances in the Pinochet Regime: a New Dataset∗
    Deaths and Disappearances in the Pinochet Regime: A New Dataset∗ Danilo Freire† John Meadowcroft‡ David Skarbek§ Eugenia Guerrero¶ 30 May 2019 Abstract This article presents a georeferenced dataset on human rights violations in the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. We coded the personal details of 2,398 victims named in the Chilean Truth Commission Report and added geographical coordinates for all identiable atrocity locations. The dataset comprises 59 variables from 1973 to 1990 and is available as a stand-alone spreadsheet or as the pinochet package for R. As examples, we describe the major temporal and spatial patterns of the human rights abuses. We also discuss our coding procedures, show descriptive statistics, and conclude with suggestions for potential applications of the dataset. Keywords: Chile, georeferenced event data, human rights, Pinochet, truth commission ∗We thank Umberto Mignozzetti, Lucas Mingardi and Robert Myles McDonnell for their helpful comments. Replication materials and R source code are available at http://github.com/danilofreire/pinochet. †Postdoctoral Research Fellow, the Political Theory Project, Brown University, 8 Fones Alley, Providence, RI 02912, [email protected], http://danilofreire.github.io. Corresponding author. ‡Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, [email protected], http://johnmeadowcroft.net. §Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and the Political Theory Project, Brown University, [email protected], http://davidskarbek.com. ¶Software Developer, Attest, UK. 1 1 Introduction On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet led a coup against Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende. The coup marked the beginning of a seventeen-year military dictatorship which combined rapid economic liberalisation with large-scale political repression (Valdés 1995).
    [Show full text]
  • The Perfect Dictatorship? Comparing Authoritarian Rule in South Korea and in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico1
    The Perfect Dictatorship? Comparing Authoritarian Rule in South Korea and in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico1 Jorge I. Domínguez Harvard University Abstract The Perfect Dictatorship: Comparing Authoritarian Rule in South Korea and in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico What is a “perfect dictatorship”? Such a regime provokes little societal resistance at installation. Its leaders act jointly to consolidate the regime and to broaden the support coalition by agreeing upon succession rules to rotate the presidency within the authoritarian regime. They delegate policy-making authority to civilians in areas of their competence. They emphasize consultation, not open contestation, prefer cooptation to repression, eschew ideological appeals, compel social actors into regime-licensed organizations, and deactivate civil society. South Korea under Park Chung Hee is compared on these dimensions to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, all at a time when authoritarian regimes governed them. Prepared for delivery at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 29-September 1, 2002, Boston. Panel 11-25. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. Authoritarian rule established through an act of force, such as a military coup, poses several distinct challenges to the authoritarian ruler. The first is how to install the regime, that is, how to survive past the initial moments of the overthrow of the old regime in order to establish a pattern of rule that will last. This requires reducing the need for initial repression, consolidating unity within the coup leadership group, and arranging for succession rules in order to stabilize and broaden the support coalition for the new dictator.
    [Show full text]
  • Family of Ex-President Frei Files Homicide Complaint 25 Years After His Death LADB Staff
    University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository NotiSur Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) 2-2-2007 Family of Ex-President Frei Files Homicide Complaint 25 Years After His Death LADB Staff Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/notisur Recommended Citation LADB Staff. "Family of Ex-President Frei Files Homicide Complaint 25 Years After His Death." (2007). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/notisur/13558 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in NotiSur by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LADB Article Id: 51513 ISSN: 1060-4189 Family of Ex-President Frei Files Homicide Complaint 25 Years After His Death by LADB Staff Category/Department: Chile Published: 2007-02-02 Two days after the 25th anniversary of his death, the family of former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964-1970) filed a court complaint alleging that he had been assassinated by poisoning. The family based its accusations on a Belgian university investigation that found mustard gas in the body of the former leader of the Partido Democrata Cristiano (PDC). Frei Montalva opposed the government of Socialist President Salvador Allende (1970-1973), but he also became a leading critic of the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). Belgian lab finds mustard-gas traces in body The family filed the complaint on Jan. 24, naming unspecified "groups of individuals related to military intelligence" under the Pinochet regime. Frei Montalva died at the age of 71 on Jan.
    [Show full text]
  • Portrayals of Pinochet: Historical Narratives in Chilean Schools
    University of Mississippi eGrove Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Theses Honors College) 2016 Portrayals of Pinochet: Historical Narratives in Chilean Schools Katie J. Wright University of Mississippi. Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Wright, Katie J., "Portrayals of Pinochet: Historical Narratives in Chilean Schools" (2016). Honors Theses. 526. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/526 This Undergraduate Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Portrayals of Pinochet: Historical Narratives in Chilean Schools by Katie Wright A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of Mississippi in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Oxford May 2016 Approved by ___________________________________ Advisor: Dr. Marcos Mendoza ___________________________________ Reader: Dr. Kees Gispen ___________________________________ Reader: Dr. Luanne Buchanan ABSTRACT How is the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship represented historically in contemporary Chilean society? To answer this question, this thesis examines the education system, with a focus on high schools and universities in Valparaíso, Chile. I argue that there are two competing discourses about the Pinochet administration - a majority, anti-dictatorship perspective and a minority, pro-regime position - which selectively emphasize differing aspects of the regime. The anti position focuses on human rights violations while the pro perspective puts greater weight on economic achievements. This maps onto Chilean high school institutions, with a majority of upper and upper-middle class students attending private schools and a majority of lower class students attending public schools.
    [Show full text]
  • Democracy, Dictatorship and Economic Performance in Chile
    Democracy, Dictatorship and Economic Performance in Chile William R. Keech Department of Social and Decision Sciences Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 [email protected] Paper presented at the Latin American Meeting of the Econometric Society Santiago, Chile July 28-30, 2004 The political and economic experience of Chile between 1932 and the present provides a natural experiment for a comparison of democracy and dictatorship with respect to their impact on economic performance. Democracy existed in Chile between 1932 and 1973, and was associated with a very wide range of efforts at economic reform, though without lasting success in any of them. This period also shows that democratic politics can provide economically perverse incentives, and can legitimately elect a president who carries out disastrous economic policies. In the period between 1973 and 1990, Chile had a dictatorship that, with a long lagtime, successfully reformed economic institutions, and brought about constructive changes in economic performance. This regime made some mistakes that may have prolonged the recovery, but the notable thing was the fact that the economy not only recovered, but achieved a new level of prosperity. My argument is that the neoliberal economic policies were central to economic success. Since 1990, democratic governments have maintained the institutions and policies that brought about improved economic performance under the dictatorship, and have continued to enjoy the resulting prosperity. The democratic governments have been more sensitive to equity issues, but not at the expense of economic performance. Chile’s experience is not typical, but it is instructive about the relationship between political institutions and economic performance.
    [Show full text]
  • An Historical-Materialist Critique of Neoliberalism in Chile
    Marcus Taylor Success for Whom? An Historical-Materialist Critique of Neoliberalism in Chile I. Introduction1 Aftertheproblematicdecadeofthe1990s,thatsaw majorénancialcrisesravagetheeconomiesofEast Asia,MexicoandRussia,Chile hasbecome arare commodityfortheinstitutionscommittedtouphold- ing neoliberalism onaglobal scale.Whilstformer favouriteshavebecometarnishedbycrisis,Chileis stillcelebrated asamodel ofsuccessful neoliberal developmenttobeadmiredandemulatedbyother countriesinLatinAmericaandbeyond.Thisassess- mentisbasedonChile’seconomicperformancein the 1990sthat,asunderlined byEduardoAninat, formerlyChileanMinisterof Finance(1994–9)and nowdeputy managingdirectorof theIMF,wasa periodof vigorousandunprecedented expansion withanaverageannualGDP growthof6.5%.2 Fur- thermore,thesameauthorclaimsthat,despitethe 1 TheauthorwouldliketothankDanielChernilo,SimonClarke,Susanne Soederberg,Alejandro Colás,Adam David Morton,and the HM editorial board forconstructivecriticismofanearlierdraft.Researchforthispaperwasaidedbya grant from the University ofCambridge thatenabled interviews tobecarried out withlabourorganisationsandsocialmovementsinSantiago,June2000.Theauthor acknowledgesthekindhelpofJoseBengoa. 2 Aninat2000,p.2. HistoricalMaterialism,volume10:2(45–75) © KoninklijkeBrillNV,Leiden,2002 Alsoavailableonline–www.brill.nl 46 ï Marcus Taylor recessioncausedbythefalloutfromtheAsiancrisisinthelate1990s,Chile isonceagainsettolead the wayforLatinAmericannationsby resuming healthygrowthinthenewmillennium. Chile hasreceived allthemoreaccoladesfromthemouthpieces
    [Show full text]
  • Terrorism and Political Violence During the Pinochet Years: Chile, 1973–1989
    REFLECTIONS AND REPORTS Terrorism and Political Violence during the Pinochet Years: Chile, 1973–1989 Verónica Valdivia Ortiz de Zárate Chile has historically viewed itself as atypical compared to other Latin American countries, especially because of the political stability achieved following indepen- dence and the marginality of the military from explicit involvement in politics. Con- vinced of this particularity, the country was shocked by the violence exhibited by the armed forces on the morning of September 11, 1973, and during the days and months that followed the unseating of the constitutional president, Salvador Allende. Seventeen years of one of the most cruel dictatorships in the memory of Latin Amer- ica brutally replaced Chile’s long history of civilian rule. Terror took control of a large part of the population, incapable of understanding and, least of all, responding to the violence that hovered systematically over it. As Norbert Lechner has put it to so well, Chilean society “was dying with fear.”1 The level of political and social polarization in Chilean society during the months and days leading to the military coup constituted one of the factors that, from the beginning, allowed the Pinochet regime to justify the violence it employed against the population at large. The high degree of concentration of power and social control in military hands also facilitated a hegemonic discourse about the causes of, and those responsible for, the final crisis: the Marxist left that made up the over- thrown Unidad Popular (Popular Unity). For seventeen years Chilean society had ample opportunity to internalize the messages emitted by the dictatorship.
    [Show full text]