Chile Fall of the Patriarch

By John Greenwald

"He fell! He fell!"

For 15 years General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, 72, has held Chile in his proud and dictatorial grasp -- once even boasting that "there is not a single leaf in this country that I do not move." So why shouldn't he have believed that Chileans would vote si last week in an extraordinary plebiscite on whether to extend his presidential term to 1997? But shortly before 2 a.m. on Thursday, an ashen-faced official stepped from La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, and headed for a nearby government building. There he told TV viewers that the public had said no to the extension. The final tally, with 7.2 million votes cast: 54.7% to 43%. Despite the hour, several hundred jubilant demonstrators sounded car horns in the capital and howled delightedly, "He fell! He fell!"

The vote was a turning point on Chile's long road back to a nearly 150-year tradition of democracy, which was toppled in the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power. Since ousting the elected, but floundering, government of Marxist President Salvador Allende Gossens, Pinochet has led a military junta that routinely uses terror to enforce its will. Deep scars remain from a 1973-76 antileftist purge in which tens of thousands of Chileans were exiled, tortured or executed. Meanwhile, the politically explosive gulf between rich and poor has steadily grown wider. "We broke an authoritarian system," said Ricardo Lagos, president of the Party for Democracy, one of the 16 groups that made up the Command for the No, which led the campaign to defeat Pinochet. "Now our work is to reconstruct a democratic system."

The vote will not transform Chile overnight. If presidential elections are held as scheduled in December 1989, Pinochet, who has already headed the country longer than any other leader, would retain power at least until March 1990. He can also remain commander of the army until 1995. Whenever the voting does take place (opposition leaders have pressed for an earlier date), Chile's traditionally fractious parties will have to agree on a field that allows the winner to emerge with enough support to govern.

For his part, Pinochet vowed not to go quietly. Wearing a crisp dress-white uniform, the general accepted "the verdict of the majority" but pledged "to complete my mandate with a patriotic sense." He buttressed the point by refusing to accept the resignation of his 16-member Cabinet, which then agreed to stay.

Pinochet's defiance produced a bizarre pattern of dancing and rioting in the streets. Police fired tear gas and water cannons at some antigovernment protesters in two days of clashes that left dozens wounded and two people dead. More than 20 foreign journalists were among the injured. On Friday hundreds of thousands of Chileans celebrated the no vote with a joyous rally in Santiago. Singing and swaying to music by popular groups, they called on Pinochet to step down.

The dictator hardly expected to lose the plebiscite when, in 1980, he pushed through a constitution that mandated the vote. Eager to gain democratic legitimacy, Pinochet expected a booming economy to buoy his popularity throughout the decade. But a 1982 crash ended that hope, and the subsequent recovery benefited wealthy landowners, bankers and multinational companies, while Chile's slums sank deeper into squalor. By the start of 1988, the failure of the country's growing riches to spread to the middle and lower classes had festered into a key campaign issue. The divide had a further impact: it strengthened such radical factions as the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, a Communist splinter group that killed five of Pinochet's bodyguards in a 1986 assassination attempt. The army replied with a wave of reprisals that further alienated many Chileans.

With the plebiscite approaching, Pinochet lifted a 15-year state of emergency in August and allowed 500 exiles to return to the country. They found a more subtle form of repression. Instead of censoring the press, for example, the regime responded to articles it did not like by jailing reporters and publishers. While labor unions are now permitted, leaders who call for industry-wide strikes risk banishment. Last February a U.S. human-rights report noted at least 100 cases of torture in 1987 by Chilean security forces.

Pinochet also miscalculated the resolve of Chile's opposition parties. Though it had barely seemed possible, long-squabbling groups ranging from the right-wing National Party to the leftist Almeyda Socialists flocked together under the anti-Pinochet banner. They took the lead in registering an astounding 92% of Chile's eligible voters, though critics cautioned that some government sympathizers might have signed under different names to swell the si tally. Meantime, the no forces used newly granted access to TV studios to launch tuneful and compelling spots. The regime, by contrast, relied on stolid footage of factories and roads or warnings of a return to the chaos and violence of the Allende years.

Though he lagged in most of the polls, Pinochet still expected victory. But his eleventh-hour emergence as a baby kisser in civilian dress could not improve his chances. Nor could numerology sway the final outcome: deeply superstitious, Pinochet held the plebiscite on Oct. 5 apparently because five is his lucky number.

Within the government the vote immediately shifted the balance of power away from Pinochet. "I think the armed forces will treat Pinochet delicately for the moment," said a Western diplomat in Santiago. "They might gently insist on a more collegial relationship within the junta." But the military too was wounded by the vote. Known as "the last Prussian army" for its aloofness from the rest of society, the army considers the fall of its leader to be a personal defeat. That could make the armed forces sullen and defensive in coming months.

The opposition is clearly taking no chances on offending the army and triggering a possible coup. During the campaign, political leaders agreed to withdraw TV spots that showed carabinero security forces beating citizens. In return, police provided protection for opposition rallies and marches. Yet such fragile alliances could easily be shattered by embarrassing demands. For example, most opposition groups want to prosecute the military for human- rights violations. But moderate parties are willing to overlook old abuses in exchange for assurances that new ones will not occur.

Pinochet nevertheless emerged from last week's ballot in a relatively strong position. By winning 43% of the vote, he showed broader popular appeal than opposition polls had indicated -- a considerable achievement for a dictator after 15 years in power. Said Labor Minister Alfonso Marquez de la Plata: "The plebiscite was a personal triumph for the President and an electoral defeat for his collaborators. It's a clear demonstration that he enjoys a great deal of civilian support."

Perhaps. For now, the key issue remains the timing of presidential elections. A quick ballot could even help the government by allowing it to support a single candidate before the opposition can produce a strong field. A long delay, on the other hand, could unravel the opposition's recent unity. But such concerns seemed remote to exultant Chileans last week. In the fall of a ruthless patriarch, the country caught a happy glimpse of both its democratic past and its possible future.

With reporting by Laura Lopez/Santiago