Chile
I chose Chile as I find Latin America very interesting and because I know people from Chile that fled from Pinochet and the junta. I am also going there on my APU and therefore it feels very appropriate to know a little about the country and its history. I had already read some literature about the country, but not about the Coup d'etat. I have therefore chosen to concentrate on it and also too produce a (relatively) detailed background, describing the time before the Coup d'etat, when Salvador Allende was the president of the country.
Background:
I would like to start with the time before the leftwing Salvador Allende came to power in 1970. Traditionally the country had been divided into three political blocks, the left and right wings and the centre, containing the middle parties. In the elections a coalition of six leftwing parties won a small victory and Allende came to power. This with a hesitant support from the biggest of the middle party, The Christian democrats. However, their condition for this was that the military structure of the country would be kept intact, making a military coup d'etat possible.
The military had always been on the right side politically, and though there were supporters of Allende in the military they heavily outnumbered among the officers. Right extremist had assassinated the earlier Commander of the army and that might have been a contributing factor in the decision from the Christian party to support Allende. However, soon it proved that the politics of the Christian democrats was one of the major reasons that the overthrowing of Allende and his government became possible.
Their first action, preventing Allende from changing the hierarchy of the military, sure was just the beginning. Now that Allende came to power the support of the Christian democrats quickly disappeared. Instead they stood on the rightwing parties side in almost every question. With their help, the rightwing, with the National party leading the way, could effectively sabotage every attempt from the government to make reforms. Soon the economy came out of balance. The rightwing got support from foreign multinational companies, Economical foundations and also from United States government, represented by CIA.
In 1973 the economical situation could be described as chaotic (de Vylder.) Strikes, Lockouts and similar events broke out everyday. The Christian democrats and its leader Eduardo Frei actively supported the preparations for a Coup d'‚tat (de Vylder.) The time before the military went into action was hopeless. The situation had divided the Leftwing coalition into several fractions fighting internally (verbally). The visions that Allende had when he got into power, with Social reforms, nationalisation's of important natural resources, banks and industries, social justice and a lot of other things, had been impossible to carry out because of the opposition, the socialist dream had already been crushed in its cradle.
Coup d'etat:
11th of September -73, the Coup d'etat is a fact. About a month earlier the Commander of the army, General Prats, who were loyal to Allende, had been forced to resign by the Rightwing power within the military high command. Other loyal officers in he army had been outmanoeuvred and on the morning the 11th all internal remaining resistance was terminated, everyone opposing Coup d'etat became executed or sometimes imprisoned. At the time, Augusto Pinochet had been commander of the army for about a month (replacing the resigned General Prats.) Every thing went fast and the course of events was fierce. The Parliament was defended with nothing much more than handguns against bombers and heavily armoured tanks. In a couple of hours the united military power of Chile were in possession of power in the country. Allende and many of his closest associates were dead, having tried to defend the parliament.
Suspicions from the Christian democrat side that the leftwing should have secret stocks of weapons hidden in the country proved wrong. The military leaders had not underestimated their opponents. By the end of the week the majority of the Leftwing leaders were dead, imprisoned or in relative safety at some foreign embassy. The number of imprisoned people were tens of thousands. Prisons, newly built concentration camps, torture facilities and temporary prisoner camps were filled to the limit with opponents to the new order of the military. In the first couple of months the number of people killed on the streets and in camps is estimated to bee at least a couple of thousands (de Vylder).
The rule of the junta:
The junta imposed immediate changes to the country. Unlike other similar situations when military has taken the power in countries, Pinochet had a vision of a new way to rule a country. Pinochet had gathered a group of National-economists, educated in United States. Later they have been called the Chicago-boys, as they were educated there (one of their teacher been Nobel-prize winner Milton Friedman). The new leaders of Chile saw themselves as pioneers of a new conservative crusade (de Vylder).
The economic model that very consistently was imposed on Chile was after a relatively new theoretic model, characterised as neo liberal or neo conservative. This theory had been created by rightwing powers in the western world one of the leading figures being 1986 years Noble-prize winner James Buchanan and Nobelprize winner Milton Friedman. The country was to be Unpoliticised. Everything should be replaced by economy. Economy was to give answers on all questions in society. The market has solutions to every problem. United States and the international economic market were delighted. All political parties, or any other kind of organisations, as bigger labour unions was disliked by the junta and their new order, their ideal type of society being one without civil organisations. Foreign investors were offered great privileges. An extensive privatisation's of the public sector began. The junta went further with this than any other country has ever done. Facilities such as cemeteries, healthcare and day-care centres, were privatised. From the beginning Pinochet got an big economical support from USA but after during Carters presidency USA had to cut their funding as the extensive violation of human-rights were so exposed in media. Although condemnations from several countries and the UN, Chile has always been able to get economical support from friendly economical powers such as big foreign banks and the International monetary foundation (IMF). The unemployment went up drastically when the new economic model was imposed. Also the Foreign debt increased with over 600% in ten years. And it would have been even bigger if Chile would not have practised a form of debt reduction called "debt of equity". This meaning that foreign investors -too a price far below normal market price - is allowed to take over resources in the country, owned by the state, such as land, forests and shares,' in exchange for a lowered debt thus further reducing the economical independence of Chile.
It is a fact that foreign investments did actually not increase much in the country, as a big part of the juntas economical system was made dependent on. The only thing happening being that all businesses has been privatised (and even though this, only increasing the foreign debt to international market interests.) The unemployment increased, misery in the working class has become widespread with a lot of people living in so called poblaciones, ghettos outside the bigger towns. During all the time the junta has been in power the opposition has had a very difficult time organising any opposition to the junta. In the beginning the leftwing parties argued within themselves about whose fault everything was and how to act.
The bad economical situation has resulted in that people with work is afraid of protesting as they can loose their jobs. Also, the leftwing parties have lost their credibility, as they have been unable to organise people and unite the different fractions. When protests actually has arose it has mostly been the labour unions that has managed to organise it. The most powerful demonstrations occurred in March 1983 when the union leader appealed to the people to make passive resistance, paralysing Chile one day every month. These protests actually succeeded and became more powerful for every month (March, April, May and June) in July the military responded, they attacked the residential-areas where the protests where strongest, shooting straight into the areas and killing over a hundred people, of which many were children sleeping in their beds. After this Pinochet invited to negotiations. By doing this and not allowing the Leftwing parties to attend he managed to - once again - divide the opposition into different fractions.
The leftwing carried on with the protests while the centre, once again with the Christian democrats as the leading party, told people to abort the protests. In October the negotiations had stranded.
Bibliography:
Chile -femton år av diktatur, Stefan de Vylder Kalmar 1988.
Bra böckers lexikon, Bra böcker 1983.
Jord och makt i Sydamerika, Sven Lindqvist, Stockholm 1974
Microsoft Encarta, 1995 (computer lexicon)
Comment: My main source has been the book by Stefan de Vylder, it came out before Pinochet had resigned (88). It is given out by The Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Which speaks for it to be quite reliable. My other sources are even older except Encarta 95 that I used to get up to date information. Encarta is an United States source but i found it surprisingly objective. However, I have also taken facts from a number of sources that I have studied of private interest earlier, for example, Chile - på vilken sida drömmarna? Written by Stefan Strömberg. However i consider this source indirect as it treats the time after these happening and it was about a half ear ago that I read it, I can recommend it strongly to anyone that wants to get a view of Chile today and a brief historical walkthrough.