2023-06-01 10:04:00
“Augusto Pinochet He was a dictator, essentially anti-democratic, whose government killed, tortured, exiled, and made those who thought differently disappear. He was also corrupt and a thief. Coward to the end he did everything in his power to evade justice.” president Gabriel Boric He not only reviewed Chilean history in a thoughtful intervention on Twitter. He has immersed himself in the dispute that will dominate the political scene from next week until September. On the one hand, the beginning of the work of the constitutional council responsible for drafting the new text, with majority of the extreme right. On the other, the proximity of the 50th birthday of the coup contra Salvador Allendein the midst of a revaluation of the figure of the man who ruled by blood and fire between 1973 and 1990.
Boric used his social networks in response to a complimentary comment from Louis Silva, who on May 7 turned out to be the most voted constitutional counselor. Known as ‘the professor’, Silva is numerario del Opus Dei and one of the rhetorical swords of the Republican Party that commands the pinochetista Jose Antonio Kast. In a recent television interview, the 45-year-old lawyer expressed his “admiration” for the general who joined the coup 48 hours before it was carried out to become the most savage expression of it.
“He was a man who knew how to lead the State, who knew how to rearm a State that was in tatters”, he defined it and introduced a nuance. “Unfortunately, during his time in charge of the Government of Chile, things happened that he could not ignore and that he would have justified and are atrocious. That stains what he did for Chile.” Nothing commented on other dark aspects of a Pinochet what simulated madness to avoid trials for crimes against humanity and to whom death saved him from being sentenced for the existence of million-dollar secret accounts in the United States.
Augusto Pinochet was a dictator, essentially anti-democratic, whose government killed, tortured, exiled, and made those who thought differently disappear. He was also corrupt and a thief. A coward to the end, he did everything in his power to evade justice.
Statesman ever.
— Gabriel Boric Font (@GabrielBoric) May 31, 2023
Not only Boric responded to Silva’s apology. “50 years after the civic-military coup d’état, we are concerned that there is denialismthat it is still intended to justify or validate a coup d’état, a dictatorship that violated human rights, that certainly massacred a large part of our people, that politically persecuted, tortured and caused injuries to this day,” he said. his spokesman, camila vallejo.
The constitutional background
The minister put the words of the constitutional counselor into context: the condition of majority force of Republicans in the body in charge of shaping the future Great Charter. “In our country there is a political force where several of its representatives have openly recognized themselves as Pinochetistas.”
Chile lives a kind of dual power. On one side, a weakened government by the bad electoral results, the economic problems and the crisis of the urban security. On the other, the extreme right and the right. Last September they changed the political map to overthrow the Constitution of progressive look in a referendum and with 62% of the votes. This reality deepened in the election of directors on May 7.
the exaltation of Pinochet by Silva coincided with the end of the work of the preliminary draft of the constitutional text by the commission of experts that will deliver its conclusions to the body that emerged from the popular vote and that will be in charge of its final drafting. Republicans will assert their hegemony together with the more moderate right against one without the power of veto. The draft has 14 chapters that will surely be reviewed by the councilors in light of the new relationship of forces.
Center-left lawyer Verónica Undurraga headed the commission of experts. She called “write the best possible text thinking about the Chile of the future. A Constitution that is not the Dream Constitution for any of us, but a Constitution under which we all feel that we can live together and that we feel as our own”.
The look on the coup of 1983
Changes in opinion in society are also reflected in the way past tragedies are viewed. According to the latest survey by the consultancy CERC-MORI, 36% of Chileans justify the role assumed by the military on September 11, 1973, while 41% indicated that “they are never right.” 19% of those interviewed remained silent. “It’s a giant cultural failure for the left,” said CERC-MORI director Marta Lagos.
It is not a problem of remembering, but of voting authoritatively. The electoral autocracy in Chile is. around the corner if a third of Chileans who justify the coup are maintained. https://t.co/aCYF5sloLp
See report “Chile in the shadow of Pinochet” https://t.co/obppBQydVo— Marta Lagos (@mmlagoscc) May 31, 2023
The change of opinion in part of society is eloquent. In 2003, 46% of Chileans considered that “there is never a reason to launch a coup.” Three years later, during the Government of Michelle Bachelet, a direct victim of repression, this criterion was shared by 65% of those consulted. In 2013, when he began his second term, the condemnation of the coup was 68%. This year he has dropped 17 points.
Related news
For Lagosa sociologist whose surveys are usually accepted as a kind of revealed truth, the volatility of considerations about September 11, 1973 leads her to think that there is still “no definitive position among respondents” on those tragic events. “The evaluation depends on when you ask about this topic,” she adds. And this is a time of resurgence of right-wing positions that will make themselves felt in the definition of the Magna Carta: “We have validated Pinochetism by validating its actors in democracy.”
#Boric #stop #renewed #cult #figure #Pinochet