Şili Güzü: 1973 Pinochet Darbesi.pdf

Radical History Review, 2003

Chile has historically viewed itself as atypical compared to other Latin American countries, especially because of the political stability achieved following independence and the marginality of the military from explicit involvement in politics. Convinced of this particularity, the country was shocked by the violence exhibited by the armed forces on the morning of September 11, 1973, and during the days and months that followed the unseating of the constitutional president, Salvador Allende. Seventeen years of one of the most cruel dictatorships in the memory of Latin America brutally replaced Chile's long history of civilian rule. Terror took control of a large part of the population, incapable of understanding and, least of all, responding to the violence that hovered systematically over it. As Norbert Lechner has put it to so well, Chilean society "was dying with fear." 1 The level of political and social polarization in Chilean society during the months and days leading to the military coup constituted one of the factors that, from the beginning, allowed the Pinochet regime to justify the violence it employed against the population at large. The high degree of concentration of power and social control in military hands also facilitated a hegemonic discourse about the causes of, and those responsible for, the final crisis: the Marxist left that made up the overthrown Unidad Popular (Popular Unity). For seventeen years Chilean society had ample opportunity to internalize the messages emitted by the dictatorship. This rendered the regime's repeated refusal to recognize its systematic use of repression intelligible. During the entire period, General Pinochet and his followers rejected

The military dictatorship in Chile was built after Salvador Allende’s overthrown by a coup d'état in 1973 who was the democratically-elected socialist government leader of Chile (Miliband, 1973). This 1973 coup led by General Pinochet. The 1973 coup is an important example of bureaucratic authoritarianism in the politics of Latin America, aiming to solve problems of any country by the hands of army forces. During the military power from 1973 to the 1989, general elections were characterized by the systematic suppression of political parties, the persecution of opposition groups; and significant change in the foreign relations of Chile. With regards to these repressions and exclusion, there emerged some opposition actions, especially about human rights. All of the actions that are made against the press of bureaucratic authoritarianism are kind of social or political movements or at least organizations, whether small or broad, global or national. The question of why social movements are born, and grow has been the research area of the scientists for years. Especially under the authoritarian regimes, because of the fearful atmosphere and pressure, it is not expected to have any social movement. In the case of Chile, however, despite all the pressure, torture, exile; there were some pro-democracy and human rights movements against them, gradually. With this article it is intended to focus on the reasons of why people react against these severe repressions, although it is too risky by examining the specific case of 1973 coup of Chile. The issue of the reasons of social movements and organizations, of what triggers people to raise their voice, especially under authoritarianism, is important because it helps us to understand the possibilities we can face with in the process of transition to democracy or from democracy. It also helps us to understand how a movement can be successful. In this article, I will firstly mention about the historical context of the 1973 coup and its onwards in Chile. Then I will explain the social consequences which can be seen as movements via grounding to the theoretical framework for each. The theories I will use to explain the Chilean social movements case are the deprivation theory, political process theory, resource mobilization theory and structural strain theory. The fundamental theory of this article will be the structural strain theory, I will create my explanations on this theory. However, for the theoretical framework and for examining other literatures, I will give brief information and implications of the other theories, before the structural strain theory.

A summary of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship rule over Chile and overthrow of the former elected communist government. Included: Relevance to approaching societies post-dictatorship and rehabilitating a nation after human rights crimes.

EIAL, 2022

For the past forty-two years Chile has been governed according to the infamous 1980 Constitution. Bequeathed to the country by its military dictator Augusto Pinochet, this text was originally designed to sustain an infinite de facto dictatorship in Chile. While this did not happen, and despite having been repeatedly amended since 1989, the 1980 Constitution is still considered an illegitimate text by most Chileans, as the 2020 Chilean national plebiscite has illustrated. The introduction provides a genealogy of the 1980 Constitution, explains the right-wing ideology underpinning it, and explores the scholarly debates over its supposed merits and the feasibility of its replacement with a new constitution.

2000

Deleted Journal, 2023

For the past forty-two years Chile has been governed according to the infamous 1980 Constitution. Bequeathed to the country by its military dictator Augusto Pinochet, this text was originally designed to sustain an infinite de facto dictatorship in Chile. While this did not happen, and despite having been repeatedly amended since 1989, the 1980 Constitution is still considered an illegitimate text by most Chileans, as the 2020 Chilean national plebiscite has illustrated. The introduction provides a genealogy of the 1980 Constitution, explains the right-wing ideology underpinning it, and explores the scholarly debates over its supposed merits and the feasibility of its replacement with a new constitution.

International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, 2009

Following General Augusto Pinochet's 1973 accession to power in a bloody military coup, a movement in opposition to the dictatorship gained momentum over the next 15 years despite assassinations, torture, and the" disappearance" of over 3,000 political opponents and officials of the previous democratic government. In order to legitimize his regime, Pinochet staged a plebiscite in 1980 that created a new constitution and consolidated power in the presidency but also mandated another plebiscite in 1988 to reconfirm his tenure in office.

It is now over a quarter of a century since the fall of the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship and the return of democracy in Chile. Yet the impact of this period remains profoundly felt in contemporary Chilean life. This is not only a result of the now well-known heinous crimes committed by the dictatorship: the more than 3000 Chileans murdered, the widespread use of brutal torture, the quarter of a million arbitrary arrests and the massive campaign of internal and external exile of political opponents. It is also a result of the ongoing damage inflicted by a series of radical economic, political and constitutional measures imposed during the dictatorship, many of which have proven almost impossible to unravel. These measures implemented in the late 1970s and early 1980s included the mass privatisation of public assets, the slashing of all state expenditure (aside from that of the military), outlawing of organised labour and the sudden removal of price controls and trade restrictions. As a consequence, Chile today has the highest level of income inequity and the lowest public investment in education in the OECD, as well as being one of the most privatised economies in the world. Significantly, these outcomes are a testament to the extreme free-market theories of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, who—under the benign tutelage of dictatorship—were able to undertake their first 'real life' experimentation without fear of social consequences. And now in Chile, we are able to clearly observe the profound social and economic implications of four decades of neo-liberalist economic policy. So how did this disastrous social experiment emerge and what implications has it had for a generation of Chileans? As is the case with so much of the recent history of Latin America, what happened in Chile has deep roots in the obsessive desire of the United States to maintain its political and economic hegemony in the region. We know from declassified documents from the Nixon-era White House that the real prospect of the election of socialist Salvador Allende in the 1970 Chilean Presidential election was something the US refused to accept. Indeed, the now infamous Henry Kissinger (who was Nixon's Secretary of State at the time) argued to that 'the election of Allende as president of Chile poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere'. The threat (and inspiration) of a democratic socialist who may threaten the interests of US capital was too much for the White House to bear. This was the catalyst for the commencement of a CIA-led covert campaign in Chile, which was to involve the funding of Allende's opponents and increased contact with the Chilean military forces. However, despite their best efforts—including an attempt to stop Allende's inauguration through the assassination of the Chilean Chief of the Armed Forces days before—the covert campaign failed and Allende became president in November 1970. Refusing to accept the democratic outcome and enraged by Allende's popular early moves to nationalise foreign capital and moves toward agrarian reform, the Nixon administration further stepped up its covert operations to bring the Allende government down. This involved 'making the economy scream' through an economic blockade and such things as funding truck drivers to strike and encouraging the stockpiling of goods to create shortages. More insidiously, the