So the question of human rights was becoming more and more important. But at the same time, especially after ten years of dictatorship, social conditions and economic conditions were a huge…
Oil prices increased in ’82 and that was a very difficult question to tackle from the point of view of the dictatorship.
In fact, the gross domestic product of Chile in one year went down fourteen percent. Can you imagine an economy that goes down fourteen percent? Unemployment was about twenty or twenty five percent.
So the social conditions were extremely difficult and this was the beginning of the end of Pinochet because social protest emerged in ’82,’83. [Augusto Pinochet (1915 – 2006) was dictator of Chile between 1973 and 1990.]
And at the same time there was some kind of new movements around the old political parties. And here it is important what you mentioned in the sense that in the Socialist Party there was an internal discussion [about] what kind of reform had to be established in that party.
If they were going to be able to [stay] and to work together, particularly with the Christian Democrats, that was a very important party in Chile. Until what extent the idea was to restore democracy and in order to restore democracy you needed a very wide common front of all the democratic forces in Chile, no matter what you thought from the point of view of ideology.
And in fact, in 1993, the so called Alianza Democrática, Democratic Alliance, was the first formal political institution being formed and at that time I was rather involved in the internal politics of the Socialist Party. [The Democratic Alliance of Chile (Spanish: Alianza Democrática de Chile) was a coalition of left-wing parties from 1942 to 1946, which succeeded to the Popular Front headed by Pedro Aguirre Cerda´s government (1938-1941).]
It is funny, because politics were forbidden in Chile and political parties were forbidden in Chile. Therefore I couldn’t build anything in politics “openly”. It was a clandestine operation.
So no matter that I was working for the United Nations during the day, in the evening I was working in these kinds of things. In the end, the Democratic Alliance became public. Then the Socialist Party asked me to be its representative in that alliance. And that meant that I had to resign from my post in the United Nations.
That was a very… I would say… peculiar moment because I remember that my family was rather big at that time. I talked to my wife, my kids were already teenagers, and I talked to them and told them: “Look, I am going to resign, things are going to be a little more difficult. I am going to be involved [in] fighting against Pinochet”.
Among the socialists, I was one of the few living in Chile. Most of the leaders of the Socialist Party were living abroad, they couldn’t return to Chile or they had been killed.
So I was one of the few and we started working with some leaders of the Christian Democrats, like President Alwyn, like Gabriel Valdez and some others, members of the Radical Party. And during those days the Communist Party and some other part of the Socialists were very much, in a sense, linked to defeating Pinochet.
[Patricio Aylwin Azócar (1918- ) is a Chilean Christian Democrat politician, lawyer and former senator. He was the first president of Chile after democracy was restored in 1990.]
The usual slogan was: “all kinds of struggle is justified. All kinds of instruments can be used.” And we said: “Look, if you are going to use violent instruments, they are going to defeat us. This is a regular army; you cannot defeat a regular army with two or three cannons or things like that.”
So I think that was important in Chile. There was a huge discussion among the forces opposed to Pinochet [about] what kind of instruments we were going to use.
And I think that since [because of] Pinochet we knew. The Constitution of Pinochet was approved in 1980 and eight years later it was going to be necessary to have a plebiscite by which the Commanders of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and the Carabineros [Police] were going to propose somebody to continue the work of Pinochet.
[The Chilean national plebiscite was a national referendum held in October 1988 to determine whether de facto Chilean President, Gen. Augusto Pinochet should extend his rule for another eight years.]
For us it was told that the person they were going to choose was going to be Pinochet. So we knew in ’86 or in ’85 that in ’88, Pinochet would have to go through a plebiscite.
And that was the first time that we knew in advance that [that] was the road, the map that Pinochet had to walk in order to remain in power. Therefore, if we were able to prepare ourselves to defeat him in the plebiscite, we could make it.
During those days, I remember, there was a plebiscite in the Philippines with President Marcos and he was defeated. And then there was a coup, etc., etc.
[Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. (1917 –1989) was a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986.]
And the most difficult part was how we were going to convince the Chilean people that it was possible to defeat a dictator through a vote. By definition, if you are a dictator, you are not going to give up.
Otherwise you are not a dictator.
Ricardo Lagos served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. While in office Lagos was known for pursuing free-trade agreements, improving health care and education, and addressing the crimes of General Augusto Pinochet’s military regime.
Lagos was born in 1938 in Santiago, Chile. He earned a law degree from the University of Chile in 1960 and then attended Duke University, where he received a doctorate in economics in 1966. He returned to Chile and served as director of the University of Chile’s School of Political and Administrative Sciences and was subsequently appointed secretary general of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences.
Lagos was nominated by President Salvador Allende to be Chilean ambassador to the Soviet Union. But in 1973, Allende was overthrown in a military coup d’état led by Pinochet, and Lagos was never confirmed in that position.
Like many in the democratic opposition to the dictatorship, Lagos left Chile. While in exile in the United States and Argentina, he served at the United Nations as a consultant and economist at UNESCO and the International Labor Organization.
In 1978, he returned to Chile, where he became president of the Democratic Alliance, a coalition of parties opposed to Pinochet. In 1987, Lagos founded the Party for Democracy (Partido por la Democracia). During the historic 1988 national referendum to end the Pinochet dictatorship, Lagos was a key leader in the grassroots efforts to register voters and encourage them to vote against prolonging the military regime.
After democracy was restored, Lagos served as minister of education in the government of President Patricio Aylwin and as minister of public works under President Eduardo Frei before being elected president in his own right in January 2000.
Since leaving the presidency, Lagos founded the Fundación Democracia y Desarrollo (Foundation for Democracy and Development) in 2006 and currently serves as its president. He is also vice-chair of the Inter-American Dialogue and was UN special envoy for climate change from 2007 to 2010.
Twitter: @RicardoLagos
Spanish conquistadors led by Pedro de Valdivia conquered Chile in 1541. The country’s capital, Santiago, was founded in the same year. Throughout the 277 years of Spanish rule, there was resistance by indigenous groups, such as the Mapuche.
In the early 19th century, an independence movement began in Chile with the establishment of a national front. The front maintained power from 1810 until 1814, when Spain reestablished control of the colony. Many leaders of the pro-independence movement reorganized in Argentina. In 1817, the exiled rebel independence leaders regained control of Chile and formally declared independence on February 12, 1818.
While initially under the leadership of authoritarian General Bernardo O’Higgins, Chile later established a tradition of democratic rule that largely continued until the 1970s. In 1970, prominent Marxist leader Salvador Allende won power in democratic elections. While the economy initially boomed under Allende, domestic opposition and international pressure, especially from the United States, led to increasing difficulties for the government.
On September 11, 1973, a military coup overthrew Allende and installed General Augusto Pinochet as president. Allende committed suicide as troops advanced on the presidential palace.
The sixteen years of Pinochet’s military dictatorship were marked by significant human rights violations and the abolishment of civil liberties. The dictatorship jailed dissidents, prohibited strikes, and dissolved the national congress and political parties. Thousands were tortured and killed; many more were forced into political exile.
In 1980, the Pinochet regime promulgated a new constitution. It included a provision calling a referendum in 1988, allowing voters a yes or no vote on whether to prolong Pinochet’s tenure as president. The referendum campaign saw massive opposition efforts to encourage voter turnout, with nearly the entire democratic opposition united against the military government. While the Pinochet regime belatedly began making reforms, 56 percent of the population voted “no” to continuing the dictatorship, setting the stage for a return to civilian rule.
In 1989, Chilean democracy was fully restored by a democratic election to choose a new president, the first free election in nearly twenty years.
Since the return to democracy, Chile has implemented significant economic and political reforms, including a free trade agreement with the United States. Although there have been major strides in promoting equality and human freedoms, the human rights violations of Pinochet’s dictatorship still haunt many people. The Rettig and Valech Reports investigated and documented the human rights violations and torture under Pinochet’s government, but many Chileans continue to demand greater accountability for those responsible.
Freedom House’s 2014 Freedom in the World report categorized Chile as “free” with an overall freedom rating of one, with one being the freest and seven being the least. The country also received ratings of one in political rights and civil liberties. However, in the 2014
Freedom of the Press report, the nation was categorized as “party free” due to a lack of diversity in the media.