Test of Wills

Unions launch a bitter protest

An acrid haze drifted through the streets of the Chilean capital of Santiago last week as student demonstrators burned makeshift barricades and fought pitched battles with the national police. Along the bustling commercial street of Calle Providencia, middle-class women darkened their apartments and stood on their balconies at 8 p.m. to stage a one-hour cacerolazo, a rhythmic thumping of pots and pans. On the street below, motorists blew their horns and demonstrators hurled orange crates into a gigantic traffic jam that extended for some 20 blocks. The police, outnumbered, retaliated with tear gas, water cannons and dogs.

Similar scenes occurred throughout Chile last Tuesday, when a peaceful "Day Of Protest" suddenly turned ugly. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to express their unhappiness with the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. The government cracked down amid scenes of violence that were the worst in almost ten years. When it was over, three people were dead, including a 14-year-old boy, hundreds were injured, and more than 1,300 had been arrested in ten cities.

The protest was not the first of its kind. In May, Chileans engaged in similar demonstrations that left two dead and 150 injured. But last week's outbreak was far bigger and confirmed a growing, broad-based impatience with Pinochet. The demonstrators demanded an end to Chile's worsening economic crisis: inflation is running at about 35%, unemployment is at 21.9%, and real income has dropped 27% in the past two years. More significantly, the protesters also demanded an end to Chile's five-year-old state of emergency and a speedy return to democracy.

Spearheaded by the activist 23,000-member Copper Workers Confederation, Chile's largest union, the protest movement has attracted support from a broad range of Chilean opinion: labor leaders, conservative and leftist politicians, business leaders and farmers. Its leading figure is Rodolfo Seguel, a 29-year-old cashier at a grimy mining center, who rose from obscurity five months ago to become the chief of the Copper Workers Confederation and is sometimes called the Chilean Lech Walesa. Said he: "We are pacifist in attitude and active in behavior. If they hit us with clubs, we will endure. We will speak with them only of a serious return to democracy. Of myself, there is nothing special. I am committed to my roots, representing nothing else."

Pinochet denounced the demonstrations as a Communist plot and vowed not to tolerate further opposition. "We will send the politicians back to their caves," he declared. "If it is necessary to harden the government, I'm going to harden it, push by push." The first push came the day after the demonstrations, when police arrested Seguel, who was taken from a friend's home and jailed for jeopardizing national security. Copper workers staged strikes at week's end to protest Seguel's arrest, halting production at three major mines. In an unusual television appearance, Pinochet adopted a somewhat more conciliatory tone but pledged to keep a tight grip on political activity.

Opposition leaders have vowed to continue their protests until Pinochet yields to their demands, something the general has shown no signs of doing. The contest of wills in Chile is far from over. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.