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

that pointed out in detail the violations of the Constitution and of the laws, the rejections of the Legislative Power, and the violations of Judicial orders committed by the Allende government. That Declaration, calling the President to account, and ordering him to restore the rule of law, was circulated throughout the country, and communicated specificallyto the Armed Forces, in orderto emphasize the illegality ofthe Allende regime ín the eventthat the government failed to heed the admonitions of the Congress. Allende responded to this historie denunciation with complete superficiality, ignoring entirely the mandatory obligations imposed on the Executive Branch by the Constitution. Allende ignored the accusation of the House that showed clearly his use of loopholes to by-pass Legislative Branch, and he resisted the mandatory rule to promulgate an amendment to the Constitution which had been approved by Congress. Nevertheless, on learning of his attitude, the Senate did not itself convene, nor did it convoke a joint session of Congress, to agree on a formula for terminating the Presidenlial mandate, as an overw– helming majority of Chileans were demanding, including countless citizens who had voled for Allende. Although the Constitution offered various approaches, no attempt was made lo impeach the President. It was precisely at this moment -and not after lhe change of government- that the Congress, for all practical purposes, ceased to be. A Branch govern– ment that fails to comply with its obligations, tha! in alife or death emergency does not make use of all its faculties, is one tha! not only loses its authority, bu! its jus!ification for existence. CHILE'S MORAL REACTION From 1972 it was evident that the Allende government had incurred in "illegitimacy of exercise" by its persistent and deliberate violations of the Constitution and the laws. While this circumstance made the action, or inaction, of the poi itical mechan isms, and especially of the polítical parties, marginal, it also generated new moral forces of surprising power in all sectors of the population. This notable struggle for freedom raised hopes among the citizens and was the determining factor in wrecking the plans of the Unidad Popular. Democr::'H::;y now depended on the decisive actions of citizens taken without regard to parties, as such, and activated outside the Congress. I base this proposition on the following two facts: F.irst, the Congress and the parties showed a lack of capacity to express the popular will and halt the drive toward Marxism. Second, there existed vigorous moral forces capable of coping with that drive in very widespread sectors of the population and, also, as was soon to be demonstrated, within the Armed Forces. Women from every social group led the rebellion. Students, traditionally leftists, turned anti-Marxist and stood in violent oppositiol'l to the government. Teamsters and truck and bus drivers started an indefinite strike. Cooper miners unions -former strongholds of the Communist and Socialist parties- kept a hurting strike, and the miners' wives marched a hundred miles to Congress to demonstrate against the Marxist senators they had elected. Medical doctors, nurses and hospital employees as well as bank clerks, workers, shop keepers and their assistants stopped working and participa!ed in huge demonstrations to ask Allende to resigno The Armed Forces found themselves under public pressure from all sides, demanding that they immediately termínate the illegal government. The national securíty was threate– ned by an increasingly powerful foreign intervention, and the Armed Forces, in turn, found their own survival menaced by an extremist conspiracy, planning the assassination of their officers. They had no other alternative than to depose President Allende, as they did on September 11, 1973. 69