The General’s Slow Retreat: Chile after Pinochet

Introduction

1 The Chilean presidential palace, La Moneda, began life as a Spanish colonial mint in 1805, five years before the country was even a republic. During Chile’s brutal 1973 coup, the palace survived a military bombardment , which destroyed the beams supporting the upper floors and reduced much of the Italian-designed edifice to a shell. For several years afterward La Moneda was boarded up, until General Augusto Pinochet, having won a dubious referendum extending his rule for another nine years, moved his headquarters into the palace in 1981. La Moneda continued to project a grim image: the previous occupant, socialist president Salvador Allende, had committed suicide there during the coup, shooting himself after instructing his most loyal staffers to leave the building. His corpse was removed by soldiers and firefighters through a side door, which had been the private entrance for Chilean Introduction 2 I n t r o d u c t i o n presidents. The military regime repaired much of the internal damage to the palace and added an underground bunker, where Pinochet conducted business. But the presidential side entrance remained blocked up with concrete, an architectural eyesore and sad reminder of the country’s once-proud democratic tradition. Chile returned to democracy in 1990, and today entire sections of La Moneda are open to the public. The palace’s exterior has been brightened, with the once-grayish outer walls now painted white. A replica of the original carved pine door has been installed in the restored presidential side entrance. Casual visitors may walk up to the main entrance of the palace and, after submitting to a brief security check, wander through two exquisite courtyards filled with fruit trees and outdoor sculptures. La Moneda also hosts concerts and guided tours, and the former dictator ’s bunker has been transformed into a new museum and cultural center, which opened in January 2006. But shortly after the cultural center was inaugurated, a controversy erupted over souvenirs sold in the gift shop. A series of postcards, “Presidentes 1970–2010,” included the ill-fated Salvador Allende, three civilian presidents who served after military rule ended, and the newly elected Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president . Conspicuous by his absence was Pinochet, and when some visitors to La Moneda complained, sale of the postcards was quickly suspended. Chilean officials offered mixed explanations: some said that the postcards were the work of a private company offering what it thought visitors would buy, while others explained that the postcard series was limited to democratically elected presidents. The culture minister suggested that it might be more appropriate to have a set of postcards featuring all heads of state dating from the nineteenth century. It was a mistake to exclude Pinochet, he said, for Pinochet had been president of Chile for seventeen years, “whether we like it or not.”1 Had it been up to Pinochet and his most determined supporters, his regime would have lasted a quarter of a century. The one-man presidential plebiscite on October 5, 1988, to extend his rule for another eight years was one he fully expected to win. His defeat at the polls paved the way to free elections and Chile’s readmission into an international community that had held the country at arm’s length during the military regime. But Pinochet continued to cast a long and intimidating shadow as army I n t r o d u c t i o n 3 commander until 1998, and he had begun an indefinite term as “senator for life” when his arrest in London shattered his indestructible image. He returned to Chile a weakened figure, or as one congressman put it, “politically dead.”2 And yet he still managed to dodge a series of judicial investigations into some of the worst crimes of his regime as well as an inquiry into an illicit fortune he had built up during his rule and hidden in bank accounts abroad. Pinochet may have left office, but the remnants of his power and his authoritarian legacy would take decades to dismantle. “Now that he is gone, I feel I can finally write my memoir,” a former cabinet minister who had worked with Pinochet as army commander told me.3 He shook his head, as if to convince himself that the coast was finally clear. But the Pinochet legacy was still not dismantled, and the former official had reason to...