Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

of the universities a fortnight after the coup. By doing this, they risked losing the support of the anti-Marxist sÍlJdent groups who had played a leading part in the movement against Allende; and the way that Edgardo Boeninger, the brave and outspoken Christian Democra– tic rector of the University of Chile, was driven to resign was scarcely likely to reassure his fellow-Christian-Democrats-nor, indeed, those who believed that, by backing the coup, they were helping to preserve the possibility of a pluralistic society in Chile. Whatever the personal qLJalities of aman like General César Ruiz Danyau, the retired Air Force chíef who was appointed to replace Boeninger, he simply did not possess the intellect or the vision usually required in a university rector. The appearance 01 retired generals on the campuses is more alarming for Chilean society than isolated incidents like the burning 01 Marxist literature in Santiago. Obviously a great deal will depend on whether the junta can rebuild the economy. On the day of Allende's death; 10reign reserves were down to $3%m; the foreign debt had mounted to some $4 billion; and inflatión was running at an annuaJ rate ot 350.% . The junta's attempt to restore realistic prices and exchange rates wiJl mean some temporary hardship; but it is possibly the only way 01 restoring incentives 10r local manulacturers and toreign investors. Similarly, the reorganisation 01 state-run firms will mean an end to the featherbedding of political favourites and, therefore, more unemployment; but it is also one of the ways to curb the deficits 01 the public corporations which were one 01 the prime sources of inflation. The junta will have to contend with an attempt to isolate it, both internally and externa– .!Iy. It is ironic that many 01 those who attacked the Americans tor limiting credit I¡nes to the Allende government are now calling for an economic blockade of the "fascists" who have replaced him. Such a campaign mayfail, but if it sllcceeds it might helpto make the régime still more repressive. Ifthe generals cannot sort out the economy, they will be compelled to fall back on force as the means of keeping themselves in power. What kind of political system will eventually emerge from the Chilean imbroglio is still obscure. It will obviously be hard to restore the former system now that the left-wing partíes that represented some 40 % of the electorate have been outlawed. There are a certain number of "cC'rporatists", both within the high command and among the team of juri.sts who have been working on a draft constitution, who are fundamentally out 01 sympathy with the democratic system in any case. They are probably in a minority, but it is an influential one. The problem is that the system broke down under the stress imposed on it by Allende and his fellow-Marxists, and cannot be reconstructed overnight. To say that Allende was primarily responsible for destroying Chile's democratic system is not an attémpt to cover up the violet:lce and blunders 01 his successors, but to show where the tragedy began. Those who compare the fashionable mythology that has been woven around Allende with his actions may be reminded of Burke's words about the revolutionaries in France in a different epoch: "They are the same men and the same·designs that they were from the first, though varied in their appearance. It was the very same animal that at first crawled about in the shape ot a caterpillar, that you now see rise into the air and expand his wings into the sun... "(9) Allende and his friends cannot be absolved by what has happened since the coup. The men now painted as martyrs tor democracy are the same men that smuggled in machine-guns, camouflaged as mango ice-cream, and mean! to use them. (9lEdmund Burke. "Lelter to a Member 01 the Natíonal Assembly in answer to sorne Objectíons to hís Book on Foreign Alfaírs" (1791 l. 56