Cracking Heads Again

A brutal display of truncheons replaces conciliation

The sit-in at Santiago's Plaza Italia was peaceful, orderly and well organized by five of the nation's leading opposition groups. All that did not prevent the government of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte from launching one of its most vivid displays of brutality since Chileans began staging monthly "days of national protest" against the Pinochet regime four months ago. As some 3,000 demonstrators chanted, "He's going to fall, he's going to fall," riot police armed with truncheons, tear gas and water cannons fell upon the demonstrators and beat them savagely. "This is madness, madness!" objected Christian Democratic Party Vice President Patricio Aylwin, only moments before he was arrested by police. When it was over, an estimated 600 people had been taken into custody and scores had been injured, among them some of the nation's leading opposition politicians. Said a police colonel: "We received orders to obliterate everything, to wipe them all off."

Pinochet no doubt wishes that the widespread opposition to his ten-year reign could be obliterated. Instead, the movement has been steadily gaining in strength, fueled by the government's inept management of the economy (15% inflation, 34.6% unemployment) and its indifference to civil and human rights. Especially troubling to Pinochet is the growing cohesiveness of the Democratic Alliance, a loose federation of the nation's five major opposition parties. The most recent demonstration was part of a protest organized by the Democratic Alliance to mark the tenth anniversary last Sunday of the military coup that ousted the elected government of Salvador Allende Gossens and brought Pinochet to power.

The government had clearly been braced for violence. A day before the demonstration, police killed two men and a woman in a shootout in Santiago. The victims were identified as suspects in last month's assassination of the military governor of the Santiago metropolitan region, a crime the government blames on leftists--and many Chileans blame on rightists. Even though Interior Minister Sergio Onofre Jarpa called for the formation of "neighborhood defense committees" to disrupt the demonstrations, thousands took part in the protests. At least five people were killed.

The violence ended a promising attempt by Jarpa to deal with the opposition on a more conciliatory basis. A former senator of the right-wing National Party, he was appointed by Pinochet last month in a Cabinet shakeup. Jarpa met twice with Democratic Alliance leaders to discuss such demands as changing the regime's ruinously monetarist economic policies and allowing elections well in advance of 1989, when Pinochet's term is scheduled to end. Jarpa agreed to suspend a 1973 emergency state law that imposed a nationwide curfew and to begin inviting over 1,000 leading political figures to return from exile. Two of the exiles flew into Santiago last week and were greeted by more than 5,000 supporters chanting anti-Pinochet slogans, an event that only months earlier would have brought a brutal response from police. Jarpa also discussed relaxing the six-year-old ban on political parties. Though no promises were made, many Chileans expect that political activity will soon be permitted.

While some members of the Democratic Alliance believe that Jarpa is committed to reform, others have charged that his real aim is to divide the opposition. Indeed, Pinochet has begun to show signs of hardening his attitude toward resigning. "I do not think of leaving the presidency before 1989," he said defiantly last week. Ominously comparing this year's unrest with the last days of Allende, Pinochet added: "I am in a more cautious position, but if they [the opposition] push me, be sure we will get the state of siege. And harsher than before." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.