A Strange Return to Normalcy

By military courts.

"We are not going to stay in power indefinitely. We only want to leave the country structured so the people of Chile can have the government they deserve."

So said Air Force General Gustavo Leigh Guzman, a member of Chile's four-man ruling junta, at a press conference last week. It was not true, Leigh insisted, that he and his fellow generals were fascists, as their enemies had charged. Instead, he claimed, the junta was merely taking temporary measures to rid the country of the Marxist disease spread by the late President Salvador Allende Gossens. The military's goal was to achieve "reconstruction" and "normalcy." Once these were reached, said Leigh, the generals would return to barracks.

Possibly yes, possibly no. But certainly not for some time. Last week the junta stepped up its campaign against Marxism into a virtual holy war aimed at destroying anyone and anything vaguely connected with Allende. Thousands of people were jailed without hearings. Soldiers beat people and burned books. Ten people were shot by firing squads after summary courts-martial for hostile acts against the new government. Man hunts were still being conducted for some of Allende's major political collaborators, and long-haired youths were still being subjected to instant haircuts.

Mass Prison. Reported TIME Correspondent Rudolph Rauch from Santiago: "It is clear that we are not seeing a caretaker government. The most optimistic person I have talked to does not expect the country to be ruled again by civilians before 1977 at the earliest."

In pursuit of its concept of normalcy, the military herded 7,000 suspects into Santiago's soccer stadium for lack of a better mass prison elsewhere. Among the prisoners were several Americans, including Adam Garrett-Schesch, 31, a University of Wisconsin history researcher, and his wife Patricia, 30, a sociologist. Released and allowed to leave Chile, the couple contended that between 400 and 500 captives had been shot during the time they were held in the stadium.

Correspondent Rauch, who was allowed to inspect the interior of the stadium last week, found no signs of any mass-execution sites. Some prisoners were lounging in the bleachers. But, Rauch noted, "there was not more than one-tenth of the people we had been told were in the stadium. When asked where the others were, the stadium commandant replied, 'Some prefer the sun, while others prefer the shade. Those you do not see prefer the shade.' "

At Santiago's General Cemetery where he awaited the cortege of Poet Pablo Neruda (see following story), Rauch noticed on the wall of an adjacent morgue a list of 300 people whose bodies were to be claimed by relatives.

Next day the list was gone, along with a later list of 120 names, which had been tacked up and then hurriedly pulled down at army order. According to an official of the morgue, it normally handled about twelve corpses a week.

Street Fires. Government Spokesman Federico Willoughby told newsmen that "book burning is totally contrary to the policy of this government."

If so, the policy was not being well enforced. Last week soldiers on a house-to-house search of Santiago's San Borja district--a fashionable leftist stronghold --broke through locked doors and tossed thousands of books and papers out of apartment windows. Among the works consumed in impromptu street bonfires were Mao's Little Red Book, novels by Mark Twain, economic studies by John Kenneth Galbraith--and old copies of TIME.

Despite an early announcement that it would welcome the return of outside investors, the military government appeared to be infected with an irrational xenophobia. One reason was the junta's conviction that Chile's chaos had been largely brought about by the Latin American radicals who had been granted asylum by Allende. TIME'S Rauch was picked up by carabineros merely for walking past the burned-out shell of the Socialist Party headquarters in Santiago.

He was held for an hour, some of the time lying face down on the floor of a police van with an armed guard over him.

After three weeks of heavyhanded military rule, some Chileans who at first supported the coup were beginning to have second thoughts. Leaders of the moderate Christian Democrat Party, stung because they had been unexpectedly suppressed when the Socialists and Communists were banned, advised their members to serve the junta only as "technicians." The new government, however, appeared to have general support from the middle and upper classes. The truckers, whose 45-day strike was partly responsible for instigating the coup, were on the road again. "Those trucks started up out of pure joy," said one trucker. Copper mines, plagued by work stoppages under Allende, were generally operating smoothly as the junta gave priority to economic recovery.

Once calm is restored, the junta plans to give Chile a new constitution that will prevent any Marxist returning to power. As General Leigh put it, "we want a constitution that gives participation to a11 Chileans, one that embraces the workers, the peasants, the gremios and women. We want national participation." Chances are the kind of constitution the junta members have in mind is similar to the one introduced by the military dictators of Brazil. It vests vast power in a President, who in recent years has been appointed by the general staff rather than elected. When "national security" is in danger, the Brazilian code allows for suspension of such democratic rights as arrest warrants and habeas corpus and provides for censorship and trial by military courts.

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