في تقييم جدوى الدكتاتورية

The passing of a tyrant

Dec 13th 2006
From The Economist print edition

No ifs or buts. Whatever the general did for the economy, he was a bad man

HIS was not the bloodiest of the military dictatorships that afflicted South America in the 1970s. That accolade belonged to the Argentine junta. Nor was it the longest-lasting: Alfredo Stroessner misgoverned Paraguay for 35 years and Brazil’s collegial military regime lasted for 21. But General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 and who died last weekend, was the most brutally successful of the dictators. He presided over a viciously effective police state and came to personify a whole era of bloody despotism during the latter stages of the cold war (see article).

The left abhorred him not only because of his brutality but because he overthrew the elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende. The coup in 1973, which had the backing of the United States, ended a democratic tradition in Chile that stretched back to the 1930s. For his defenders both at home and abroad—who not long ago were numerous—he was the saviour of his country. They argue that he rescued Chile from communism and went on to turn it into the fastest-growing economy in Latin America by applying free-market policies that would be imitated in eastern Europe and Asia. General Pinochet hoped that a record of economic success, not just intimidation, would enable him to win a referendum in 1988 and remain in power. Chileans voted instead to restore democracy, by 56% to 43%. The general stayed on as army commander, casting an overbearing shadow. He was finally brought to book, if not quite to trial, thanks to a Spanish judge, Britain’s House of Lords and the courts in Chile.

The Pinochet story raises two uncomfortable questions for liberals. If the coup did indeed rescue Chile from an elected government that was Marxist-dominated—and thus anti-democratic—was it justified? The answer is no. The Allende government generated economic chaos and extreme political tension and would probably have imploded. But the intention of the junta was to crush democracy, not just communism.

The second uncomfortable question is whether Chile’s subsequent economic success was possible only because of dictatorship. Like most Latin American dictators, General Pinochet was instinctively an economic nationalist. But he saw the “Chicago Boys”, a group of free-market economists, as a means to consolidate his personal dictatorship. The radical shrinking of Allende’s bloated state was a way to avoid sharing patronage, and thus power, with the armed forces.

With Chileans cowed, the Chicago Boys could work as if in a laboratory, with no regard for social costs. They made mistakes: a fixed exchange rate and unregulated bank privatisations triggered a massive recession and financial collapse in 1982-83. More pragmatic policies and a renewal of growth followed. But it took the return of democracy in 1990, with its ability to bestow legitimacy, to create an investment-led boom and a large fall in poverty. Elsewhere in Latin America, free-market reforms were enacted by democracies.
When economic and political liberty are divorced

Most dictators are economic bunglers. A few get the economy right, as Spain’s Franco did after 1958. But in the long run (as China is likely to discover) economic liberty seldom thrives in the absence of political liberty. And General Pinochet’s claim to have stood selflessly for the former was tarnished when it emerged that he had amassed a fortune incommensurate with his salary. Even if history bothers to remember that he privatised the pension system, that should not wipe away the memory of the torture, the “disappeared” and the bodies dumped at sea. His defenders—who include Britain’s Lady Thatcher—really should know better

After Pinochet

Dec 13th 2006 | SANTIAGO
From The Economist print edition

The dictator’s funeral may presage political change. His trials have already changed international law (see article)

HAD it occurred a decade ago when he was still army commander, Augusto Pinochet’s death might have divided Chileans much as he did when he was their dictator. Yet in the event his funeral showed how much Chile has changed. And it may cause it to change even faster.

To be sure, news of his death from a heart attack on December 10th prompted familiar, polarised images. Several thousand of his opponents gathered in Santiago’s Plaza Italia. They popped bottles of sparkling wine and a few went on to trash bank branches and clash with police. The next day some 60,000 supporters of the man they called “My General” queued for up to seven hours to file past his coffin as it lay in Santiago’s military academy.

The centre-left Concertación coalition, which has governed since the return of democracy in 1990, had ceased to be intimidated by General Pinochet or the army. The president, Michelle Bachelet, ruled out a state funeral and any official mourning. Her father, an air-force general opposed to the dictatorship, died after being arrested after the coup; she was briefly detained and roughed up. She argued that a man indicted for murder and tax evasion deserved no special honours

The government was represented at the military funeral by Vivianne Blanlot, the defence minister. She was heckled. But in a symbolic gesture, the four commanders of the armed services sat with Ms Blanlot rather than with the dead man’s family. The body was then flown by helicopter to a cemetery near the port of Valparaíso, his birthplace, for cremation. There will be no tomb to be desecrated.

Until his arrest in London in 1998, and subsequent legal cases against him in Chile, some 40% of his fellow-countrymen supported the former dictator. Most conservative politicians have since taken their distance, especially after hard evidence emerged of his secret bank accounts abroad, opened using false passports. Neither of the two defeated conservative candidates in last year’s presidential election attended the funeral.

Will General Pinochet’s death change Chile’s political landscape? It could help the right finally to win the majority that has eluded it since the 1950s by freeing it from association with the dictator. But that may require a new crop of politicians with no ties to the past. Oddly, the impact on the ruling Concertación might be as great. Created to defeat the dictatorship in a 1988 referendum, it has suffered recent allegations of corruption. It may now be forced to redefine itself, says Eugenio Tironi, a sociologist. But many Chileans will merely breathe a sigh of relief