Show of Force

Pinochet quashes a protest

Not in almost a decade had residents of Santiago seen anything like the show of government firepower mounted throughout their city last week. At dawn, long lines of green-and-brown troop-transport trucks began rolling along the Chilean capital's suburban avenues. Soldiers took up positions at traffic circles, machine guns at the ready. Armored cars growled to a halt at the edge of the slum areas in the southern part of the city. Along the dusty streets that honeycomb the shantytowns, rifle-toting soldiers were stationed every 100 yards. Meanwhile, helicopters clattered noisily overhead.

Thus did the regime of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte prepare for a planned two-day protest against the Chilean President's rule, which was toughened by a state of siege declared on Nov. 6. The display of weaponry exceeded the response to previous street demonstrations, which have cost the lives of at least 110 civilians in the past 18 months. Last week's show of muscle was preceded by a campaign of intimidation at nearly every civilian level. Police made scores of arrests of leftist political and labor leaders. A government spokesman informed foreign newsmen that their credentials had been canceled and that they would have to apply for new ones.

On the whole, the scare tactics proved highly effective. Most shops and schools in the capital's restive slums remained open, a change from previous protest demonstrations. University students held anti-Pinochet demonstrations on several campuses, but the crowds were small by past standards. Several leaders of the five-party Alianza Democratica, the main opposition group, did not endorse the protest for fear of running afoul of the siege order's ban on public gatherings; nonetheless, about ten Alianza leaders lined up in front of Santiago's cathedral and sang the national anthem. As they dispersed, a water cannon lumbered into view and began spraying. "The government can claim a 'military success,' " said Alianza President Ricardo Lagos, a socialist. "But the fact is that the army had to act as an enemy occupying a foreign country."

During the protest, police arrested about 160 people, including two Roman Catholic priests and a deacon. The clerics spent a night in jail before being released in response to pleas from Santiago Archbishop Juan Francisco Fresno Larrain. A British subject who worked as the United Press International correspondent in Santiago, Anthony Boadle, was summarily deported for filing a report that three deaths had occurred during rioting (in fact, none had). Pinochet, who has refused widespread demands that he relinquish power to a democratically elected government, spent the protest days away from the capital, touring the desert country in the north. Speaking to a crowd in Iquique, he said, "You have the fortune to live in an atmosphere of tranquillity, far from where politicking is centered and all that it signifies--insults, lies, violence, ambitions and egoisms." And, he might have added, a growing need to keep those inconveniences under control by pointing guns.