By Manuel Cabieses Donoso on February 26, 2020
The brutality of the Pinochet dictatorship
The signs are very clear: the right-wing are preparing the ground for a massacre that will impose public order.
There are more than twenty massacres in our history that enshrine multiple murder as a brutal corrective method when people go beyond their historical attempts to shake off exploitation.
Massacre does not mean any moral trauma for the oligarchy and its political partners. Spilling defenseless blood is the task of the Armed Forces and the Carabineros, who act as the system’s hitmen. The political caste washes its hands of it. Mowing down the people to impose public order takes on the contours of a sacred duty for the governments of this country. That order is the cornerstone of society. The role of the Armed Forces and the Carabinieri is there to enforce it at all costs.
That’s how it was yesterday. Is this how it’s going to be today? The continuity of this sinister tradition is something to be feared. There is no precedent for assuming that there has been a democratic renewal in the doctrine of the armed forces.
Massacre sores cover the plebeian body of Chile from north to south. Some were massive like the Santa Maria School in Iquique in 1907. The assassin General Roberto Silva Renard, ordered the machine-gunning of more than three thousand workers, women and children. Also in the last century records the massacres of the Seguro Obrero in 1938 during the government of the liberal Arturo Alessandri. Then the massacre in the streets of Santiago on April 2 and 3, 1957, by the government of General Carlos Ibáñez; the José María Caro, 1962, in the government of “los gerentes” of Jorge Alessandri; El Salvador, 1966, and Pampa Irigoin (Puerto Montt), 1969, in the government of the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei and the worst of all the permanent 17-year massacre by the murdering, thieving general Augusto Pinochet.
The rule of law and order is now the subject of the political class and the media. Both carry water for their mill with some violent acts of suspicious inspiration and bill. The government, aware that it is headed for more bloodshed, has created a political toll to share responsibility. It demands that the parties condemn the violence and call for the restoration of public order. The “opposition” accepts this but demands that the government use its powers and enforce law and order. In good Spanish and without euphemisms: there is a coincidence between government and “opposition”. Both want the Armed Forces and the Carabineros to make an example of them. The objective is to stop in its tracks the insurrectionary process generated by the greed and abuses of those who maneuver to impose public order with the aid of the military.
The political caste – and the oligarchy that supports it – fears that the plebiscite of 26 April will slip out of their hands. A landslide victory for the “approval” and for the Constitutional Convention of 155 members elected by the people could break down the barriers that condemn the Constituent to sterility. In that case, the heart of the institutionality would be threatened: the neoliberal economic model. This is the real danger that anguishes the owners and masters of the country.
Chile must prepare for the eventuality of a massacre under the pretext of restoring public order. Mobilization and popular demands must be strengthened. Also self-defense against police repression. We must recover the unitary and democratic spirit of the great march of October 25. March 8, International Women’s Day, is an opportunity to do this. Young people, women and workers are the vanguards of social protest.
Imposing the will of the people requires a very broad and democratic coalition. Exclusions and dogmatisms are the cancer of the unity required by the people’s victories. The current process of rebellion for dignity involves the majority of the population.
The objective of this historic liberating process is democratic and multiclass. It requires a Constituent Assembly to draw up a new Constitution legitimized by the verdict of the people. This is undoubtedly the way to build a new social order in a country that has been torn apart by inequality.
Source: Punto Final, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau