25 years of democracy

Today it's been 25 years since the formal return of democracy in Argentina. On October 20, 1983 a democratically elected president, Raúl Alfonsín, took office after more than seven years of dictatorship and over half a century of erratic shifts between legal presidents and military usurpers.

My personal reckoning is that, although I was born exactly six months after the coup d'état, I have so far spent four fifths of my life under democratic rule. During that time I've voted quite a few times: three times for president (1999, 2003, 2007), four for governor (1995, 1999, 2003, 2007) and many more, at least once every two years to elect national and provincial legislators, and once every four years to elect city mayors and councilmembers, plus a couple of primaries. My generation is possibly the one that has voted the most times during the entire history of this country.

On the national level I've always either voted for the loser... or later regretted not voting for him. During all this time, this thing that gets called "the democratic process" hasn't offered me much satisfaction. But I don't want to despair. Never has Argentina experienced so many years (a quarter of a century!) of uninterrupted free elections on all the levels of government. We move on and crises hit us and sometimes we'd rather have everything blow apart, but in our heart of hearts we know and wish it will go on no matter what.

I have my reservations and my protests in store and readily available, but today I want to end this on a positive note. For 25 years now we've refused, as a people, to be deprived of our right to choose, and even when all our options look bad, we always have one more chance ahead of us. And that counts.

(El texto original de este post, en castellano, está disponible en Sin calma: 25 años de democracia.)

Shadows of the dictatorship

Argentina's last dictatorship ended in 1983, but for several reasons the criminals that took part in it were not punished appropriately. Now that the trials have been resumed, some cases have been re-opened, and new horrible deeds are unearthed every time. It's no wonder that the criminals resist.

Yesterday the guilty sentence was passed for four of five military defendants on a trial for crimes against humanity held in Corrientes. Cecilia Pando, an activist that defends the tactics of state terrorism employed by the dictatorship, was there with a group of supporters; as the sentence was read, she snapped and started yelling insults and threats all around, accusing Human Rights Secretary Luis Eduardo Duhalde of being a "terrorist", sliding her index finger across her neck (the throat-slitting gesture) and shouting "I'm going to kill you with my own hands".

Pando is the wife of a retired major, Rafael Mercado, and her group calls itself the "Association of Friends and Relatives of Political Prisoners of Argentina". They believe the military defended the country against terrorism and the prospect of a leftist dictatorship, and now they're treated as dirt because the current government is made up of former terrorists and their allies. This claim was echoed by the professional torturer and murderer Luciano Benjamín Menéndez — "the terrorists of the '70s are in power" — after his sentence (a life term) was dictated, last July.

There's a small but well-connected group of people who are convinced of the justice of the military cause — who believe the desaparecidos were only a few, that most of them actually fled to Europe and let their families play the victim, that everyone who has testified about the kidnappings, the gruesome torture sessions, the summary executions is lying or deluded or paid by the government that "persecutes" the country's "heroes".

They don't state this out loud all the time, of course. More often, they admit that crimes ("excesses") were committed fighting the terrorists, but justify it by saying "it was a war". They always speak of national reconciliation, unification and peace, which for them means forgetting the past and forgiving the criminals even as they unrepentantly walk down our streets — not incidentally, the usual line of the Catholic Church.

Another usual complaint is that of unfairness — placing themselves on one side of the "theory of the two demons" and claiming that, if the military must be punished, then so must the "subversives". In reality, of course, many who were tortured or killed by the dictatorship were just activists, and the actual terrorist organizations were never even close to subvert (i.e. overthrow) the government. They were used as a convenient argument for the military to seize power and "restore the order", and then as a scapegoat for the dictatorship's own failed policies.

Why am I giving so many details? Well, part of the public opinion has become more receptive of some of these claims because they don't like the Kirchners' idea of human rights. You know I don't like the Kirchners at all, and I don't believe they have the marvelous "human rights policy" they often congratulate themselves of. What they have is a desire for revenge. They were leftist militants in the 1970s; Néstor Kirchner has a background of closeness to the leftist-Catholic-Peronist terrorists of Montoneros, though he wasn't in the organization himself; there's plenty of evidence he views the world as a battleground, with him on the "good" side; his words when he speaks of the past show his deep (and broad, and therefore often misguided) resentment and intolerance against those who are not of his own ideological flavour. One can understand and sympathize with that up to a certain point, but a president or the leader of an influential majority should be above that, for the good of the people.

Kirchner's desire for revenge turned out to be a catalyzer for better things: by fighting the conservative Supreme Court he was stuck with at the beginning of his term, he allowed for an independent Court to be assembled; by fighting the laws and pardons that kept the dictatorship's criminals from being investigated, he let justice work as it should. That removal of obstacles was about the extent of Néstor Kirchner's policy on human rights, and if he had stepped down as soon as his work was done (about three years into his term), he would've been remembered as a great president by most Argentinians, including myself. But because he showed his true colours, he gave the dictatorship's sympathizers a measure of credibility. Ah, I suppose it's too much to ask for a human being in such a high place to be OK on all accounts.

Justice being served

The long-unpunished murderers are finally getting what they deserve. Better late than never, as the saying goes, eight people who worked at the infamous Intelligence Battalion 601 during the dictatorship finally got their crimes and their sentences read aloud by a judge, after being granted the due process of law that their victims were denied. Seven military, one police officer and intelligence agent — including IB601's head, general Cristino Nicolaides, who got 25 years, the longest prison term in the lenient Argentine legal system, for kidnapping and torture.

In the early 1970s, the leftist Peronist guerrilla group Montoneros conducted bombings, kidnappings and assassinations. They (along with others) provided an excuse for the horrific dictatorship that came after them. In truth, the guerrillas were hardly a threat on the national level, and many were exterminated even before the military seized power in 1976. Montoneros was basically dead by 1977, their leaders in exile, but in 1980 they decided to return in secret for a "counteroffensive" on the military government. Somebody told on them. They were captured, taken to military facilities, tortured, then presumably killed.

Montoneros were terrorists, no discussion about that. There's no excuse for them. Yet they were citizens and human beings, and they should've been punished by the law. The dictatorship, however, didn't want legal punishment of crime; what they sought was suppressing opposition for good. They could've publicly displayed the captured terrorists as prizes, enacted a mock trial, executed them. But that wasn't the Argentine dictatorship's style: their leaders were torturers, sadistic killers, and yet also cowards. They kept little or no records (and they destroyed what they could); they denied everything; they justified themselves but refused to name what they were really doing for what it was; many have taken the secret of the location of their victims' bodies to their own graves.

This is the first trial involving a high military officer of the dictatorship after the repeal of the amnesty laws. Soon it will be one among many. The wounds are still fresh, and the criminals still walk among us.

Crimes of the Church

I wanted to write about something that was news only a week ago, and something that wasn't news anymore, though it should be. The former is the life sentence for Christian von Wernich; the latter is the lack of punishment of Edgardo Storni. They have in common the fact that they're both priests, that as such they've lived off the state (i.e. us) for decades, that they've both committed horrible crimes, and that the Church, being aware of that, has refused to condemn them in the strongest terms.

Von Wernich's crimes were far more horrible (complicity in multiple instances of kidnapping, torture and homicide), and justice has come to him at last, with a delay of thirty years. He was sentenced to a life term for his collaboration with the last dictatorship's murderers. He masqueraded as a faithful chaplain, trying to convince prisoners to confess, and providing theological support for the program of extermination carried out by the military. In his trial he expressed no regrets and he compared himself to Christ.

The top of the Catholic Church stalled long until he was sentenced, and then released a brief note saying "they were moved to pain" by von Wernich's deeds, committed "under his personal responsibility", and speaking against "hatred and resentment" (in Churchspeak, that means the victims' insistence on pursuing justice). The note didn't even hint at the well-oiled relation between the dictators and the Catholic hierarchy, and didn't show any pain for the victims, which included not only guerrilla members but also young activists and pregnant women. The bishop overseeing von Wernich didn't immediately do anything; he said he'll wait a bit — so von Wernich is still technically allowed to confess, celebrate mass, and serve as any good loyal priest.

Storni's crimes were of a wholly different nature and comparatively minor (he only sexually abused a young seminarist) but the rot runs as deep. Storni was the Archbishop of Santa Fe. When the scandal broke out, a priest called José Guntern, sent him a private letter where he told the archbishop he knew about two other instances of sexual abuse, urging Storni to confess and repent. Storni sent for 85-year-old Guntern and had his proxies sit him down before a recantation and a public notary. Guntern signed, but then filed an accusation against Storni. That came to nowhere.

Storni was first sent to Rome, he resigned as Archbishop, and then the Church gave him a nice private home in a secluded spot in Córdoba for his trouble. He's still waiting for his sentence on the abuse case, but in the meantime, the Church arranged for him to receive the retirement pension that bishops are entitled to by a law dictated during the dictatorship — over 7,000 pesos per month. The arrangement was illegal, since it's for disabled bishops over the customary retirement age of 75, and Storni is a healthy 71-year-old. The money comes from the 16.6 million pesos that the state pays the Catholic Church each year, a relic from colonial times that somehow slipped into the Constitution and that nobody has ever challenged.

Soldiers at school

The Ministry of Defense hasn't been looking all that well lately, with what military-supervised airplanes being always late and/or missing each other by inches, and Minister Nilda Garré unsuccessfully trying to bend reality with her mind to negate the problem... but here's a good one for her. Also late, but you can't have everything. The MoD is changing the curricula of military education, and more: not only will there be humanistic subjects, but also new teachers and instructors coming from (civilian) universities. The pupils will learn about human rights, international law and Latin American integration, as well as a more current version of Argentine history.

If this doesn't make many a dead general spin in his grave (deservedly), I don't know what will. The notion of human rights has never been popular with any military force, ever, anywhere, but in Argentina just speaking aloud in favour of human rights has literally taken people to the bottom of the sea. Latin American integration, too, sounds positively misplaced in this context, where the usual teaching has been patriotism = nationalism = xenophobia... no matter how much our national heroes supported such an integration; today that sounds dangerously close to the "Bolivarian alternative" sponsored by Hugo Chávez or, if we're thinking of the religious side, the typical discourse of those irresponsible lefties of the Liberation Theology movement, which our most Catholic generals have always abhorred and our Holy (and Conservative) Father has so rightly condemned.

Above: The head of the future generation
of Argentine military instructors.

A few months ago, in one of those K-style spasmic bursts of decission-making that we've come to love and dread, there was a government idea of closing down all the military lyceums, which are colleges that give military instruction along with the common curricula and produce reserve officers. The plan was scrapped, and they came up with this, more sensible and less drastic measure, which will be implemented starting in August.

Thus far, the main report in La Nación, and a good one it was. Yet if you were starting to wonder whatever happened to the venerable paper's hypocritically ambiguous pro-dictatorship slant, a sub-article linked from this one will clear your doubts. It's called "A fractured ministry", it's written by María Elena Polack, and it comments on the internal conflicts of the MoD, where Minister Garré is (allegedly) trying to solve the structural problems of the military while the human rights department (the one in charge of the education curricula) is actually planning on "dismantling the very heart of the spirit of military education" by selecting instructors (committed to human rights, one guesses) that will teach the future officers, instead of letting the military themselves transmit the "values" they've been receiving from the previous generations.

Above: Benevolent dictator Rafael Videla speaks
about the moral value of sports (and how you
mustn't pay other teams to lose in the World Cup).

The rhetorical question near the end of the article cannot pass as innocuous to anyone with a mild grasp of Argentine political discourse: "Has anybody measured the impact of re-introducing in the military quarters the political debate that has caused so many pains for the country?". To my knowledge, the military have never debated whether violating the Constitution they swore to defend, start a programme of ideologically-motivated extermination of dissidence and state terrorism, and plunder the country's coffers for personal gain, was right or wrong or even justifiable; they've only made up excuses for not cleansing their own ranks in time. Moreover, this debate is not political, in the sense that it's not a matter of whose politics is popular or what politicians want — it's an ethical debate (what do we want our soldiers to believe in?) and it's a debate about justice (who deserves to be punished for the organized criminal group that called itself a government back in 1976?) and many other things.

The "forgive and forget" camp, the supporters of "reconciliation", have always been the same people: the right (not really the extreme right), the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and the dictators and their accomplices; claiming that this uncomfortable debate is a pain for the country is like saying that speaking of cancer surgery is a pain for the patient... or, we can infer, that ignoring the cancer is actually better than removing it.

Kirchner vs. the judges

Prompted by an anonymous comment in my post about the 31st anniversary of the last coup d'état, I'll do my best to expound what I know and think about the manner in which things are developing.

During the 1980s, after the end of the military government, it was not at all clear that Argentina had left behind any possibility of falling under their boots. The last junta left the Casa Rosada with a promise that they wouldn't be called to answer for their crimes in the trials to be held soon after. The Trial of the Juntas in 1984 was a major achievement for the new democratic government and they should be considered a source of national pride; Argentina is the only country in the world to have tried and jailed its own dictators almost immediately after they left power, when there could still be a backlash from the military. Then came the embarrassment, the humiliating laws called Punto Final (Full Stop) and Obediencia Debida (Due Obedience), which forced the ongoing investigations to stop.

These laws (some call them the Pardon Laws, others the Impunity Laws) were a terrible blow to the human rights cause. President Alfonsín, who propelled them, was and is still criticized for them. My opinion is mixed. Alfonsín himself has stated that he regrets bowing to the pressure of the military, and acknowledges that the laws were passed basically at gunpoint, He could've been braver. And he could've been overthrown. The former dictators and their minions were invited to conservative TV programmes and defended their hideous acts in magazine interviews. It was still rather acceptable for anyone to ponder on the military as an alternative to a democratic government which was, admittedly, failing. Alfonsín resigned in July 1989; inflation reached a monthly 200% and in Rosario people were rioting and looting for food.

Carlos Menem campaigned on a populist discourse and promised a new beginning, and boy did he deliver. After two years, Domingo Cavallo took up the Ministry of Economy, and Menem started implementing the policies that would change Argentina into a "modern" country. National companies became more productive, exports grew, and everybody was possessed by a consumerist fever. Unemployment started going up, as local industries were brought down by unchecked, and often disloyal, foreign competition. The middle class got indebted in dollars. Economic stagnation and political conformism were celebrated as part of a magical "stability". Nobody wanted to hear about the horrors of the past. When in 1990 Menem pardoned the military leaders of the dictatorship, only a few organizations complained. There were no massive demonstrations protesting the pardon, and nobody in the judiciary coming out forcefully to question the legality of the measure or the ethics of the presidential faculty of pardon itself.

When the illusion of stability vanished in December 2001, something broke. Argentina saw itself as a divided country. The government against the people, the poor against the rich, the politicians and the police against the public. The government ended up led by a strong Peronist leader, Eduardo Duhalde, a man of questionable practices but with a pragmatic vision. Like Alfonsín, he might have done better, and he might have failed disastrously. As it was, he left Argentina in the hands of another president in a better condition that he had found it. He managed the social unrest with appeasement, losing a lot of political capital in the eyes of many who wanted old-style repression. The claim for respect of dissidence and human rights was out in the street.

It was Néstor Kirchner who finally brought a revolutionary change. From the very beginning, he set himself at the fore of the public fight for the punishment of the crimes of the dictatorship. Even his own party companions was surprised. Kirchner was impolite, messy, unashamedly populist, excessively candid regarding certain sacred cows, disrespectful of basic principles of realpolitik.

Note I said "public". Many people have been quietly working for human rights for a longer time, people with much more to lose and much less influence, often trying fruitlessly to be heard. And here we come to the crux of the matter. Many in the human rights camp were delighted to count on the support of no less than the president, who dragged along a lot of legislators and other influential figures who'd never done anything for human rights but had enough cunning to smell the political profit of embracing a popular cause. A few, especially in the far left of the human rights movement, reacted as if human rights were their exclusive property and paradoxically reacted by demanding more and more of the president. The president, of course, cannot and will not cleanse Congress, the judiciary, his own party, and the local institutions of the whole country of all people suspected of not being extra-pure left-wing nutjobs. (The practise of making continuous demands for more extreme ideologically-motivated measures is known as "correr por izquierda" or "correr por derecha", depending on the direction.)

A third camp, represented typically by mildly conformist right-wing people and by critics of Kirchner, like the one that writes that article in La Nación, pretends to be horrified about Kirchner's abuse of power. It's a scandal to hear the president complain that the judges are being slow — the executive asking more of the judiciary is against the constitutionally mandated republican separation of powers. Clarín quotes several other reactions — from the (unfortunately pathetic) opposition and from well-known conservative law experts. Of course, the real reason is they dislike Kirchner and disagree with his ideology.

Not that Kirchner doesn't have a lot of things to dislike. Half the time he's speaking, he should be shutting up. He doesn't tolerate dissent near him, and seems to thrive on adulation. Some of his closest allies should be in jail. Yet if it weren't for him, the investigation of the crimes of the dictatorship may still be paralyzed. One has to have priorities.

Under Kirchner the laws that protected the military from legal persecution were repealed, and the trials began again. Menem's pardons were struck down as well. The Supreme Court, with a majority of new justices appointed by the president, has stated that the heinous deeds of the military, the police forces and their collaborators during the dictatorship are crimes against humanity and do not, therefore, prescribe — that is, they will not be extinguished by the passing of time and can continue to be investigated indefinitely. It's true that the general social and political climate brought these amazing changes to the human rights landscape; but it's also true that much of it has to do with having a strong, vociferous, ill-mannered, meddling president in command. It shouldn't be like that.

The article in La Nación complains about Kirchner's criticism of certain judges that are, it seems, purposefully delaying the processes of investigation and trial of human rights abuses. Four of these judges are now facing the possibility of impeachment. They have well-known personal and ideological connections to members and defenders of the dictatorship. It's terrible to see the president being disrespectful of the Constitution, but I submit that the sight of judges protecting horrible criminals is disgusting and much more a violation of republican principles than a presidential speech. As I said to the anonymous poster that started me thinking on this, never let perfect stand in the way of very good.


By the way, dear Anonymous, if you want to contribute, use a name (any name, as long as it's always the same name) and do it on topic. I'm trying to do serious work and you're dumping Noticias here.



PS: More about Kirchner's speech and the reaction: La Nación, La Nación, Página/12, La Capital, La Capital.

Remembering the coup: 31 years

Today is the 31st anniversary of the coup d'état that brought to power the bloodiest dictatorship Argentina has lived in its history. It lasted from 1976 to 1983, four military juntas succeeding each other, taking advantage of the fear, the conformism, and the shallow patriotism of many Argentinians.

I don't remember much about those times. I was born 6 months after the coup. My early childhood was spent under the repressive rule of these monsters, but I was too little to understand anything. This was not a topic you spoke about during the family dinner. Even after it formally ended, it was not taught in schools, and it was not critically analyzed in the news. In 1990, Carlos Menem pardoned the leaders of the juntas, as if all wounds were healed, for the benefit of "national reconciliation". Yet once the "forgive and forget" camp had to face the atrocities unearthed by deeper and deeper investigation, change began. In 2002, Congress declared March 24 a date of commemoration for the victims of the dictatorship. In 2005, the laws protecting the military from being judged were overturned — "I was following orders" was no longer an excuse. In 2006, March 24 was declared a national public holiday.

The picture that begins this article is just one of the many official acknowledgements of the brutal repression of the juntas. The poster's central title reads Oíd el ruido de las cadenas, "Hear the sound of the chains", based on the third verse of the Argentine national anthem, Oíd el ruido de rotas cadenas ("Hear the sound of broken chains"). On the left, in smaller print, there's the list of the dictatorship's crimes: "they kidnapped, tortured, raped, murdered, stole babies, humiliated mothers and grandmothers, mortgaged the country, took us to war".

The secrets of Isabel Perón

If you've been following the news, you'll undoubtedly know that judicial proceedings are being started (or resumed) to investigate and punish criminals of the Dirty War, particularly a number of military and police officers that did such nice things as running illegal detention centers, overseeing and conducting torture sessions of political prisoners, and the like. The first of these was Julio Simón, aka "El Turco Julián"; the second was Miguel Etchecolatz. The trial of Cristian Von Wernich, a torturer priest and chaplain, is another example, as well as the arrest of the former Navy officer Alfredo Astiz, "the Blond Angel of Death".

The Dirty War, however, did not only include the crimes committed under the dictatorship that began in 1976. Its preliminaries can be located already under the third term of Juan Domingo Perón, which began in 1973 after his return from exile and was interrupted by his death in 1974. Peronism had a populist-corporatist ideology that could and did host extremely diverse factions, ranging from the far-right to the leftist-Catholic Montoneros. Perón played the political game with these factions more-or-less easily, even as he became old and physically weak. When he died, however, government was left in the hands of his wife Isabel Martínez, a spineless idiot who was easily manipulated by the dark characters in Perón's inner circle.

To cut a long story short, as the rule of Isabel unfolded, right-wing death squads (beginning with the AAA or Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) took their conflict with left-wing movements and their fight with politically subversive elements to the streets. The result was (from both sides) bombings, kidnappings, and a general sense that the country was going nowhere — since Isabel was incapable of handling it. Thus, the solution: a coup d'état, led by the military, supported by the upper classes, the right-wing nationalist Catholic establishment, and the forces in Argentina and abroad that feared Socialist/Communist expansion, such as the local landowners and the U.S. government. The lower classes were persuaded by the threat of increasing violence, and later distracted using the circus of the 1978 FIFA World Cup, among other things.

After the restoration of democracy, the military have often demanded that "the others" be judged as well. In truth, the misleading word "war" in "Dirty War" was coined by them, implying that the military and the police (the forces of order) were conducting a war against a formally defined enemy, the subversives (the forces of anarchy and lawlessness). The term has stuck, even though it's incorrect, and even as the left has often directed its verbal attacks toward supporters of the so-called "theory of the two demons". It's clear that this wasn't a war, but a systematic plan of extermination of dissidence and a scheme of state terrorism to subdue the masses (getting to that "officially", out of the mouth of a judge in a formal sentence, took no less than 30 years). "The others", the leftist insurgents that blew up buildings, kidnapped, tortured and assassinated people, had been in some cases tried by justice.

The news here is that a recent investigation has been directed at the role of Isabel Martínez de Perón in the beginning of the "war" against insurgency. Not long after Perón's death, Isabel and her cabinet signed a decree ordering Argentina's security forces to "annihilate" subversion. In view of some, this was a thinly veiled authorization (and certainly a clear post facto legitimation) of the illegal repression that ensued. The decree did not mention the AAA, of course, though its ties with the Peronist establishment were notorious. However, it's interesting that the military who overthrew Isabel pretended to do so not for ideological reasons (anti-Peronism, as in 1955) but under the guise of bringing back order that Isabel was "unfortunately" unable to maintain; that's why they dubbed their dictatorial rule "National Reorganization Process".

Since Isabel signed the decree and it was José López Rega, one of Isabel's ministers who organized the AAA, judges are now investigating her responsibility. In Argentina, the Constitution expressly forbids using the Armed Forces to repress breaches of law and civil unrest; the military exist to provide defense against external threats. Isabel's decree, besides violating that principle, in a way equalized internal violent dissidence (which it was) with a threat to the state (which it definitely wasn't).

Isabel Perón lives in Madrid, Spain, since she chose to exile there. Two different judges are investigating her, on a forced disappearance case that took place before the coup and in connection with the Triple A. One of the judges has required that she be extradited to Argentina. As an interesting (if pathetic and depressing) display of Argentine political culture, signs with the inscription NO JODAN CON PERÓN ("DON'T MESS WITH PERÓN") have appeared in Buenos Aires; they're attributed to a certain Peronist labour union, whose leaders are offended by the idea that anything related to their unofficial saint patron, Juan Domingo Perón, could be tainted by association (or proof of involvment) with the extremists of the beginning of the Dirty War.

Quite tellingly, the national government, led by a leftist-populist Peronist who has consciously rejected the liturgy of Peronism (big posters with the faces of Perón and Evita, constant quotations of Perón's sayings, untuous expressions of loyalty to Perón's mythical figure), has stayed almost silent on the matter. This is an executive branch that has an opinion about everything, even if it means notoriously intruding in the turf of other branches of government, but it's understandable. With the re-opening of old, unhealed wounds of Argentine history, Kirchner's administration has also re-kindled political debate inside its own party; better wait and see what that can of worms holds.


PS: An interesting article by Héctor Olivera in La Nación, 2 Feb 2007: En los años de plomo, no hubo dos demonios ni santos inocentes. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's worth a read.

As I said before about Pinochet...

... good grief, old man!

Everybody's writing about the death of Augusto Pinochet, so I can only add a few things of my own, nothing especially original. Pinochet, in short, was the following (in rough order):

• a submissive soldier and a mediocre but obedient officer (that's how he earned the trust of his superiors and climbed up the hierarchy)
  
• a traitor of his lawful commander, president Salvador Allende, who appointed him Commander in Chief of the Army
  
• a traitor of his country, which he promised freedom and gave political terror and enduring economic inequality, by allying with the CIA and delivering Chile to the neoliberal fundamentalism of the Chicago Boys
  
• a traitor of his superior, general Carlos Prats, who recommended him to Allende, and whom Pinochet had killed in Buenos Aires
• a murderer, directly and by proxy, of thousands of his compatriots
  
• a torturer of tens of thousands
• a pioneer in the road that would lead to Argentina's Dirty War and other dictatorships in our poor Latin America
  
• a thief, to the point that even today what he stole is resurfacing by bits
• a scheming old son of a bitch, who gave himself political immunity after the end of his rule, and feigned illness and senility when it was removed, every time he was about to be investigated by justice
• a dreadful shadow looming over Chile, even as he's about to become ashes, who'll probably divide his country for generations

As appropriate to such a monster, the government of Chile didn't give him a state funeral; but president Michelle Bachelet, who was herself tortured and had her father killed by the dictatorship, consented to a military funeral with honours, as if a commander that rebels against his legitimate ruler and turns the military into a despicable band of murderers deserves any honour. Bachelet has also said that Chile must look for reconciliation and unity. Reconciliation with violent fascists? With supporters of ideological persecution, state terrorism, illegal detentions, suppression of liberties? With people who were for submission, censorship, forced exile? Politics is politics, but how can it be? The military funeral of Pinochet was marked by a defense of the coup d'état given by her own daughter, with the applause of several thousand attendants including military personnel, and even three young supporters of Pinochet giving his coffin the Nazi salutation.

President Bachelet's lack of commitment showed that she is (like the Scripture says) neither hot nor cold, and if God existed, It would certainly spit her out of Its mouth. You can't have your cake and eat it. For all the hysterical and confrontational attitude of the Argentine government on every issue, with regards to our last dictatorship we've at least been shown a morally and politically clear position: if you were there with the murderers, and if you're here now still with them, you don't have an excuse, you don't deserve any honours, and you won't receive any sort of forgiveness. Chile might come to this in a few years, maybe, but today's opportunity is already lost.

Chile and Argentina

This is my reaction to a post by miss cupcake in her blog, about Chile's cleanliness (in every sense) compared to Argentina. Two caveats apply for the rest of this post: one, I've never been to Chile; and two, this is not intended as criticism but as a complement to what miss cupcake said.

Chile is indeed more orderly, more efficient, less corrupt, and more modern (in some important specific aspects) than Argentina, or most of Latin America for that matter. When Roberto Lavagna, the former Argentine Minister of Economy, saw the return of foreign financial investment to Argentina as an unstabilizing force (due to short-term speculative operations that unbalanced the markets), he looked to Chile for well-tested regulations to deal with that. Chile is also an example of governability and of stable state policies.

Chile is also one of the countries with the most pronounced income inequality on Earth. People who've been there also tell me that social/class inequality is also marked. The same is true in Argentina, of course, but the Chilean disadvantaged classes have never been very organized or combative. Chile was a dictatorship between 1973 and 1990; I guess that the revolutionaries and radicals were either killed or forced to exile, so the Chileans lost their popular leaders and ideologues that could've fought for change. This is also true of Argentina, but then our dictatorship was a series of committees made up of inefficient murderers, it lasted only 6 years, and the dictators ended up discredited and in jail soon enough. In Chile, it was only Pinochet, and he remained in charge of the Army after permitting a democratic government to be elected.

The lower classes in Chile don't seem accustomed to fight for their rights. If you think you saw that in the news, it was students asking for free entrance exams to university; they are part of the minority of the Chilean population who have access to quality education. More education means higher income everywhere, but this is especially true of Chile; and in Chile, you pay to get into school, and you pay to stay there. If you're poor, you can't go to school. This is a direct consequence of the "modernization" policies started by Pinochet, presented as the "Miracle of Chile" (Milton Friedman dixit), and continued up to this day.

Argentina, for all its faults, recognized as early as 1884 that a united country requires free education. The upheavals of economic and political history have never changed that, even as some governments (often, and not coincidentally, the military ones) have tried to make education a privilege for the rich. Despite the lack of funding, the teachers' strikes and the multiple half-thought education programmes sponsored by different rulers, and despite the "modernization" carried out by Carlos Menem, Argentine professionals continue to excel in their fields.

This all goes to say that I prefer to live in Argentina... I've been through rough times and I know for sure I wouldn't be even a struggling middle-class citizen by now if I'd had to pay for my education.

This also goes to say that Chile and Argentina can learn from each other. There's no necessary causal link between free education and corruption, or between clean streets and a military dictatorship in power.