Soldiers in a Narrow Land: The Pinochet Regime in Chile, Updated Edition

It is difficult, if not impossible, to write an account of a political upheaval without taking sides to some extent. Despite Ms. Spooner's obvious sympathies with those associated with the Allende regime, she presents a reasonably factual and non-polemical chronology and analysis of events. True, as the above reviewer points out, Ms. Spooner gives a very light treatment of the events that precipitated the coup: the severe economic hardship endured by the population, the financial bankruptcy of the government, militant left-wing and trade union activities that frightened the middle class, and Allende's politically naive decision to ally himself with Fidel Castro. Given this background, the coup and its violence are more explicable as the result of a total breakdown in civil society and the "contract" between the government and the governed. In this light, the Armed Forces could indeed be seen as the guarantors of the Constitution and the restorers of law and order. However, they lost all claim to this noble role by virtue of the bloodbath they perpetrated on the civilian population in the wake of the coup. With a total disregard for the law and order they claimed to restore via the coup, the Chilean military embarked on a crusade of kidnapping, torture and summary execution. Due process was completely ignored, and thousands died arbitrarily at the hands of the military and the secret police, the DINA. Such repression could not be justified: there was no evidence that the "left" had the means to pose a significant threat to the new military regime. Leftists and left-leaning individuals, or those just suspected of holding such views, were hunted down, imprisoned, tortured and frequently murdered. If the Chilean military embarked on the coup with some sort of noble motive in mind to rescue the Constitution, civil government, and the rule of law, they completely lost any credibility as a result of the bloody rampage that followed. I don't see how the above reviewers can justify this behavior. In addtion, as an American, I was outraged by the brutal assassination ordered by the DINA of Orlando Letelier and his American aide, Roni Moffitt in the city and country of my birth. Totally outraged.

Unlike the reader above who clearly thinks that there is a case of bad P.R against Pinochet on the part of Spooner, I can only argue in favour of the idea that the general was a difficult little despot who resented the US and was little more than a terrorist and a murderer who sanctioned the disappearance of thousands of Chilean nationals and foreigners who dared to protest against him. Allende was democratically elected while Pinochet thrust himself and the army into power. His junta were a pack of miserable cowards who used brutal torture tactics to dismantle democracy. If Pinochet is only remembered as having instituted a free-market economy in Chile and been an 'anti-communist hero', then the words 'the disappeared" would have no resonance anywhere. As this is not the case, he has reason to sweat on a decision by the English courts as to whether he can be tried by Spanish law for conspiracy to murder and murder. He might be a frail old man with friends like the loopy 'Baroness' Thatcher but his alliances will not serve him in the end. May he swing on the long end of the rope for all he has done.