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STAYING THE COURSE IN CHILE Martin Andersen O'NCE AGAIN, NEWS FROM CHILE HAS ERUPTED onto the front pages of America's newspapers, sparking earnest editorial comment, tugging at consciences, and sorely testing New York Times columnist James Reston's once-reliable dictum that "Americans will do just about anything for Latin America — except read about it." Unfortunately, what is holding readers' interest these days is a steady flow of discouraging reports emanating from one of the two exceptions (the other is Paraguay) to a continent-wide trend toward democratization that has swept South America since the late 1970s. The immolation of Rodrigo Rojas, a young Washington, D.C. resident, by Chilean security forces in July tragically highlighted the generational succession of the victims of General Augusto Pinochet's regime and underscored his government 's longevity. A few weeks after Rojas's death, Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) visited Santiago. Helms's effusive praise for Pinochet undoubtedly reassured the dictator, whose heavy-handed repression of opposition groups had finally begun to attract criticism from the Reagan State Department. A little over a month after Helms left Chile, Pinochet's motorcade was attacked by leftist guerrillas. The death of Rojas, Helms's paean to Pinochet, and the assassination attempt are but different manifestations of Chile's current crisis. Pinochet has enjoyed nearly absolute power since leading a bloody 1973 coup in which he overthrew democratically elected Marxist president Salvador Allende. More than thirteen years later, he shows little enthusiasm for relinquishing the presidency in the near future. Although Martin Andersen, a 1981 SAIS graduate, is a special correspondent for Newsweek and The Washington Post, based in Buenos Aires. He is currently writing a book about the Argentine "dirty war." 169 170 SAIS REVIEW Chile's six-year old constitution contains the possibility of a change in the country's leadership in 1989, Pinochet has hinted that he will seek the support of the armed forces to stay on beyond then. Meanwhile, despite broad-based and growing opposition to Pinochet, Chile's political class appears weak and ineffective. Divisions within the parties as well as among them suggest that civilian political leaders are unable to come together on an alternative attractive enough to entice the military into jettisoning their increasingly burdensome commander in chief. AGAINST THIS BACKGROUND OF TURMOIL it is questionable whether current U.S. policy is fully consistent with the Reagan administration's stated purpose of aiding a peaceful and lasting transition to civilian rule. Recently there have been positive signs from Washington that the administration has rethought its earlier policy of thinly disguised clientelism towards the Pinochet regime. The change and the admirable admission that, in the Chilean case, the so-called "quiet diplomacy" associated with former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick had failed, moved the United States toward a more public identification with efforts for redemocratization. Many Chileans, however, are unconvinced by the administration's change of heart and continue to view it with suspicion. Few have forgotten that the Reagan team came to power criticizing the activist human rights policies of the Carter administration— that sea change in U.S. diplomacy that won the United States praise from the same democrats who today are essential to a successful transition to civilian rule. Like many of their Latin counterparts, some Chileans suspect that the new receptiveness to their problems in Washington is the result of their nation having been placed in the role of being the "other half of Reagan's policy on Nicaragua. The State Department's newfound willingness to criticize the Pinochet regime, this line of thinking runs, is merely window dressing meant to give credibility to administration attacks on the Sandinistas and support for the Contra rebels. They feel that the new U.S. receptiveness to the Chilean opposition is meant for internal consumption — particularly within the U.S. Congress, which has been reluctant to support the administration's Central America policy. Explaining the U.S. policy shift, U.S. officials say it stems from a heightened concern about political polarization in Chile and a desire to avoid a swing to extremes— as happened in post-shah Iran and post-Somoza Nicaragua— should Pinochet suddenly...

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