Pinochet Funeral Held in Santiago

Former Chilean Dictator's Death Sparked Celebrations, Violence

Washington Post staff writer Pamela Constable was online Tuesday, Dec. 12 at noon ET to discuss the death of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet and look back on his brutal 17-year rule. His government allegedly killed more than 3,000 and tortured an estimated 29,000, many in 1973 after he seized power in a coup. After leaving the presidency in 1990, he was head of the army until 1997 and senator until 2002. At the time of his death from complications of a heart attack, Pinochet was facing legal action for crimes that took place during is rule.

Chile's Gen. Pinochet, the Strongman Who Tore Apart His Country, ( Post, Dec. 12, 2006)

The transcript follows.

Pamela Constable is a deputy foreign editor at The Post and was a foreign correspondent covering Central and South America for the Boston Globe during the 1980s. She is co-author (with Arturo Valenzuela) of "A Nation of Enemies: Chile under Pinochet."

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Arlington, Va.: Count me as one of those who broke out into a happy dance when I heard that Pinochet is dead. And when Bush was trying to push through Social Security reform, he pointed to Chile's changes in their Social Security system, which turn out to be not as wonderful as the administration says (in other words, a total disaster). So count me as skeptical when reporters talk glowingly of Chile's economic miracle. So, what are the prospects of the Chilean government seizing the cash Pinochet hid here at Riggs Bank, and the gold in Hong Kong?

Pamela Constable: Chile's continued economic growth has been undeniable, but it has come at a cost for many individuals who suffered the severe dislocations of economic adjustment. I do not know if the current government would be able to recover the money that was stashed in foreign accounts.

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Maryland: No doubt that Pinochet was a brutal and oppressive dictator, but why does the left continue to single him out for scorn and continue to give a free pass to Fidel Castro, who has behaved essentially the same way over the course of his reign, to include the squirreling away of riches in overseas banks (estimates run as high as $1 Billion!)? And as The Post correctly points out today, which nation is better poised to face the future? Ronald Reagan was correct when he said that Communism belonged in the ashbin of history!

Pamela Constable: I would say that both Pinochet and Castro have been the recipients of sustained international opprobrium over the years, especially because of the human rights abuses that have occurred in both countries under very different types of government. in terms of ability to face the future, Chile's economy is definitely on much sounder footing but inequality, social services and distribution of wealth are much worse there than in Cuba.

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Washington, D.C.: How many people were killed by the Army after the initial suppression by the army in 1973? Compared to the rest of the region, how well off are the people in Chile?

Pamela Constable: I believe about 3,000 people were killed by the army in the first year after the 1973 coup. generally speaking, Chileans are much better off today than they were then. there remains great difference of opinion, though, about whether the excesses of military rule were necessary to turn the economy around or whether this could have happened if democracy had been restored.

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Washington, D.C.: The 2 most notorious Latin American dictators of the second half of the 20th century are Castro and Pinochet.

Pinochet's regime killed thousands; so has Castro's. Pinochet was a brutal dictator; so is Castro. Pinochet's economic policies led the path for Chile to be the most dynamic and solid economy in Latin America; Castro leaves his country as one of the most racist and poorest in the region. The former allows democracy to return to Chile, while the latter clings to his 50-year dictatorship from his deathbed. Pinochet is universally vilified yet Castro is not.

Who do you think history will be more kind to in the long term: Castro or Pinochet?

Pamela Constable: la historia no absuelva; solo dios lo puede hacer. in any case, I think both Castro and Pinochet will be viewed forever through the very different prisms of those who benefited and those who suffered from their rules. castro was a genuine revolutionary who grew entrenched in power. pinochet was a reluctant coupist who came to believe he was the exclusive savior of his country. he only left power because he failed to manipulate a referendum on his continued rule, and then he created a new constitution that gave him continued powers even after he left office.

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Washington, D.C.: Do you think Fidel Castro is as ruthless a dictator as Augusto Pinochet?

Pamela Constable: yes, but with very different aims. castro sought to transform his society through ideological revolution and class war; pinochet quashed a budding socialist movement that was trying to do the same thing.

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Burke, Va.:"why does the left continue to single him out for scorn"

Because the U.S. government helped put him in power which involved overthrowing a democratic government, and once in power we continued supporting him, no matter how brutal he was. Cuba's government went from being a dictatorship to another form of dictatorship, and was never supported by the U.S. government. We (the U.S.) are not responsible for what happened in Cuba.

Pamela Constable: i would say that to the extent the us government and us business interests (sugar, gambling) had close ties with the Batista government in Cuba, which was widely hated at home, then yes, the united states does bear some responsibility for what happened there.

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Chicago, Ill.: Given that Chile never fully came to terms with the brutality of the dictatorship of Pinochet, some have argued that their transition to a consolidated democracy was never fully completed. Although the death of Pinochet in a sense closes a brutal chapter in Chile's history, has Chile missed its opportunity to confront its past and legitimize its current democracy?

Pamela Constable: i think Chile is very much undergoing a process of confronting its past and coming to terms with it. i think that process will take a long time to come, but that with every new elected government that takes office and passes it democratically to the next one, that process will take another major step forward. the fact that pinochet himself will now never face prosecution for abuses is a blow for justice and healing in the long run, but not an absolute obstacle. these are generational issues, just as they are in cuba. the pain of suffering and humiliation fades with time and distance and are replaced with other, more immediate concerns.

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Seattle, Wash.: One thing I'd like to understand about Chile: How Marxist WAS Allende, anyway? I mean, on a scale from Mitterand to Stalin, where did he fall? Was he going to be a democratically elected dictator a la Hugo Chavez before his overthrow?

What was the situation that first prompted Pinochet's coup?

Pamela Constable: that question needs a very long answer. to be brief, Allende was a socialist but not an extreme one. in fact, there were far more radical forces to HIS left at work in Chilean society, and they helped undermine him and create a chaotic situation in the country. at the same time, an array of conservative groups with US support was also trying to destabilize his rule. when the coup took place, the entire society was in a state of extreme tension, with street protests and factory takeovers and trucking strikes and a pervasive sense of crisis that the armed forces chiefs (more the navy and air force than pinochet and his army) finally felt they needed to stop.

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Santiago, Chile: I guess the opinions of people from CHILE don't count, I have not seen any, yet I know they have been submitted

Pamela Constable: i have not seen any. what would you like to say or ask?

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Anonymous: Glad to see you note that America's support of the dictator Batista helped pave the way for the dictator Castro. Not the first or last time this has happened. When the CIA helped overthrow the government of Iran and put the Shah into power, his repressive government eventually led to such popular resentment that it helped the mullahs take power. We also helped Mobuto take power illegally in Zaire. It is amazing that our actions haven't led to even more repressive governments. Those in Chile don't seem to harbor as much ill will towards the U.S. as I would expect.

Pamela Constable: there remains a great deal of ill-will among many Chileans toward Nixon and Kissinger. but that was a long time ago, and many US administrations ago, and chileans never had any ill-will toward Americans in general.

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San Francisco, Calif.: There is a certain irony in both Pinochet and Milton Friedman dying with weeks of each other. The Chicago boys, as Pinochet referred to them, were, of course, students of Friedman's at U Chicago who re-engineered Chile's economy. Are there prodigies of any of those economists still guiding the Chilean economic policy?

Pamela Constable: i am not sure who the current chilean economic officials are, but i would say the current policies are a modified and humanized version of some of the free-market policies pinochet and the Chicago boys instituted. since his left power chile has had a series of Christian democratic and socialist presidents, including an economist (Ricardo Lagos).

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New York, N.Y.: I have trouble understanding why Pinochet still has so many fervent supporters within Chile. Here in the U.S., it seems to be self-evident that he was a dictator, led a coup, killed a lot of civilians, dismantled democracy, all sorts of nasty stuff. The only defense I've seen was a one-sentence quote where someone said he "saved us from Marxism," which seems a little hyperbolic considering Allende was a European-style socialist who was democratically elected. What endeared this murdering control freak to Chileans, or was he in fact not a murdering control freak?

Pamela Constable: i was not in chile in 1973, but people who lived there at the time describe a situation of real emotional hysteria on the part of the upper class; a sense that the poor hordes were about to leap over the walls and start raping and looting. chile was a democracy but also a very classist society. the "momios" lived in terror that the "rotos" were about to rise up and take power. much of that fear was inaccurate and much of the revolutionary rhetoric was whipped up by either the extreme leftists or extreme rightists trying to make it worse. Allende, as you point out, was caught in the middle, trying to bring social change to a society that was increasingly, bitterly divided.

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Ex-Washingtonian: We were living in the D.C. area when Orlando Letellier and Ronni Moffitt were assassinated by car-bomb -- doubly horrifying for being both a local and international news story. My memory's rusty: was there another passenger in the car, who survived, and if so, what became of him/her? How close to Pinochet did the blame for this act of terrorism fall?

Pamela Constable: i am not sure if there was a third person in the car, but only Orlando and Ronni died. the crime was ultimately traced to several agents working with the chilean secret police. the former head of that secret police and his deputy ultimately went to prison. pinochet escaped all prosecutions for human rights abuses by various legal maneuvers up until his death.

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Austin, Tex.: Despite the tensions of the last few days, Chile has made a remarkable transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Who are some of the heroes of that process?

Pamela Constable: great question, Austin. there are many heroes. my personal heroes are the chileans who worked tirelessly and patiently to restore democracy in a peaceful and legal way, especially during the months leading up to the referendum in 1988 that pinochet was absolutely sure he would win. he lost, and as a result he really had no choice but to leave power. any violent overthrow of his rule would have only perpetuated the cycle of suffering, instability and extremism.

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New York, N.Y.: I posit that Pinochet saved his country. in 1973, Chileans were greatly divided and fighting among themselves. The country was so weak, it was being manipulated by foreign powers, of course the U.S. - and even more so by the Soviet Union and especially Cuba. How would have that turned out? 15 years of civil war as cold-war proxy? Say what you like - ALL of that ended when Pinochet took charge.

Pamela Constable: i think the important question to ask here is whether the documented excesses of pinochet's rule, especially the torture, killings and disappearances of thousands of people, were NECESSARY EVILS in a well-intentioned campaign to save chile, or something else entirely; a kind of gratuitously cruel punishment against an entire class of people. if the latter is the case, then we are talking about something very perverse and arguably as evil as the disease it was intended to cure.

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Santiago, Chile: I was in Chile in 1973...and we banged on pots and pans because we wanted a change from Allende...desperately.

Pamela Constable: i know. so did many people. i think i understand how scared they were. but i also think some of this was deliberately provoked. why were there bread lines? because the truckers would not enter Santiago, not just because of inflation.

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Which is it? I hear reporters say both:: Pino-shay or pino-chet?

Pamela Constable: it is French so i would say SHAY, but i too have heard both.

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Santiago, Chile: Hi there. While there are very vocal minorities on both sides, I don't think most people have very strong feelings for either side... at least young people. Sure, everyone has an opinion, mostly negative, about Pinochet, but not that strong. In a city of 5,6 million, 7000 protesting against Pinochet and 3000 going to his funeral, is not really that much.

The hatred is but for a few, a thing of the past.

Pamela Constable: exactly. and in another 20 years in Miami, it will be the same. it takes a lot of work to keep hatred alive.

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New York, N.Y.: Following up on Seattle - if Allende was just a moderate socialist, why did the U.S. feel he needed to be overthrown? It's not like we overthrew the governments in France or Sweden or Canada when they elected their socialist parties.

Pamela Constable: France and Sweden and Canada are large middle class countries with diverse political currents. chile was a poor Latin American country that was taking a leaf from Fidel's cuba and represented an entirely new and defiant model of change in the back yard of the US. remember Arbenz and united fruit.

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Castro / Pinochet: Castro is not worthy of defense, but for purposes of accuracy, please point out that he has not committed atrocities against humanity on a par with Pinochet's

Pamela Constable: castro executed a lot of people in the beginning, then gradually shifted to imprisonment, ostracism and peer harassment to control his adversaries. pinochet's secret police and military commandos used torture and death to punish and eliminate ideological opponents on a wide scale, especially between 1973 and 1978. it is had to compare the two, but i believe the infliction of physical and mental torment to be the most heinous and dehumanizing act of all.

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Madison: Ms. Constable: What similarities to you see between the dictatorship of Gen. Pinochet and that of Spain's Gen. Franco?

Both were ruthless in seizing and consolidating their power, and both -- Franco perhaps more than Pinochet -- later presided over a period of political stagnation that dealt with their respective countries' internal divisions by suppressing or ignoring them. Yet both made possible their countries' later evolution into more normal polities.

This is not an endorsement of either man's rule, but as The Post's editorial page pointed out yesterday these are two examples that seem to support the arguments made by the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick about the capacity for evolution in right-wing autocracies.

Pamela Constable: pinochet was an admirer of franco and many aspects of his rule bore a strong resemblance to Franco's Spain. as for the kirkpatrick argument, i am still not sure pinochet would have given up power if the chilean army, a professional institution, had indicated willingness to support his subversion of the 1988 public referendum that resoundingly opposed his continued rule. my own view is that the tendency to cling to power has more to do with individual leaders than with ideology, but i may be wrong.

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Miami, Fla.: How do you explain that Pinochet is seen as the devil incarnate while Castro still enjoys popularity in Latin America? After all, a case can be made that Castro has violated human rights even more than Pinochet, has refused to allow any democratic transition after 48 years in power, and leaves behind not a prosperous but a chronically dysfunctional economy?

Pamela Constable: i would say that castro remains a popular figure in Latin America for much the same reasons that the late Che Guevara does. he is an icon of resistance to imperialism, a phrase that still resonates with millions of poor people in that region. the current popularity of Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, Lula da Silva in brazil and Lopez Obrador in Mexico also speak to the power of that paradigm even today.

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Miami, Fla.: Did Allende have a mandate to impose a Marxist-Leninist revolution, or a "budding socialist movement," as you call it, on his then democratic country when he only had received 36% of the popular votes?

Pamela Constable: as i have suggested in previous answers, allende did not seek to impose a Marxist Leninist revolution. there were political groups in chile that were far to the left of him, and which espoused radical means including violence to bring about that end. i think allende was as much a victim of his times as a shaper of them.

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Santiago, Chile: Dear Pamela, I live in Chile, and was eating lunch at the local mall when Pinochet's death was made public, .... nobody cared, least not visibly. Everyone was business as usual. I think that while many people have an opinion about him, most don't really care much.

Also, do you think the press coverage has been balanced? I've seen a lot of comments in the world media that isn¿t very accurate to say the least.

Pamela Constable: i used to eat lunch in a cafe beside the Cerro Santa Lucia, la plaza de la pergola. i miss those days so much. palta! lucuma! te de manzanilla! i doubt i would recognize Santiago now. if people are indifferent, i think that in a way is a healthy sign that chile is moving on. there is more to life than keeping hate alive, even when great wrongs have been done.

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washingtonpost.com: Thank you all for joining us today.

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