Chile Bearer of Unwelcome Tidings

By Wayne Svoboda

Even before Pope John Paul II arrived, the rhythmic chant thundered through the packed stadium in Santiago. "Chi-Chi-Chi, le-le-le!" shouted 80,000 exuberant teenagers, stomping their feet and shaking the arena. Then they began to chant "Pin-o-chet, go away!," conscious that they were on the site where scores of Chileans were killed and hundreds tortured after the 1973 coup in which General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte toppled elected Marxist President Salvador Allende Gossens. His voice trembling, the Pope acknowledged the "sadness" of the place and urged his audience "not to remain indifferent in the face of injustice" but cautioned them to avoid being "seduced by violence and the thousands of reasons that seem to justify it."

All across the country, from the presidential palace to the tiniest hovel, Chileans watched and listened to what the Pontiff said and how he said it. While the visit was only one stop in a two-week South American tour that also included Uruguay and Argentina, the six-day Chilean stay was the centerpiece. The question on everyone's lips: What would the activist Pope tell his authoritarian host and oppressed flock? Pinochet, 71, is one of South America's two remaining military dictators.* A practicing Roman Catholic, as are 10 million of Chile's 12 million people, he has ruled with an iron hand, claiming that the threat of Communism justified his repressive regime. Opponents accuse the government of imprisoning, torturing and killing thousands of ordinary citizens. Americas Watch, the U.S. human rights group, recently called Chile a "model of the national-security state."

Chileans received their answer from the Pope even before he set foot on Chilean soil. En route from Rome to Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital and the first stop on his tour, he was asked by reporters whether he planned to press human rights issues in Chile. "That is my task this time," John Paul replied. "People would want to tell us to 'stay in the sacristy, do nothing else.' They say it is politics, but it is not politics -- this is what we are." In answer to another question, he described the country's system of government as "currently dictatorial." Indeed, activist Chilean Catholic bishops and priests, along with a coalition of centrist and leftist political parties, want Chile to follow the examples of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay, whose military governments have given way to civilian rule since 1980.

Hours before the Santiago rally, the Pontiff visited Santiago's La Bandera slum, where Luisa Rivera, one of 600,000 people who gathered for the occasion, told him, "We want a dignified life without dictatorship." Replied John Paul: "Today has deeply affected my spirit." Earlier in the day the Pontiff had paid a 42-minute visit to Pinochet at La Moneda, the 182-year-old presidential palace. Details of the conversation were sparse, but a Vatican source said the Pope planned to urge Pinochet to forsake violence and allow democratic elections.

John Paul declined to celebrate a private Mass hoped for by the Pinochets, but prayed with them briefly in the palace chapel, an event that was broadcast on the government-owned television channel. Pinochet is eager to show he is not a pariah and hopes the goodwill extended to John Paul by ordinary Chileans will rub off on him. Chile's bishops had initially invited the Pope to come and celebrate the peaceful resolution of a territorial dispute between Chile and Argentina that nearly led to war before a Vatican- brokered peace agreement was signed in 1984. John Paul, who is no stranger to powerful military rulers -- from former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to Poland's Wojciech Jaruzelski and Haiti's former President-for-Life Jean- Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier -- was not about to allow Pinochet to use the papal visit for his own purposes.

After the meeting at La Bandera, the Pope visited Santiago's archdiocesan headquarters, where he met behind closed doors with church bishops and repeated his hope for free elections "in the not too distant future." At present the government has scheduled a plebiscite for 1989 to approve a presidential candidate chosen by the military. Those seeking a clue to the Pope's strategy found it during his meeting with the bishops. In a quiet dig at Pinochet's rule, he told them that "every nation has the right of self- determination" but noted that "it is also necessary that respect for human rights is assured." That restraint contrasted with his tough talk aboard the papal jet en route to Uruguay but typified the Pope's comments in Chile. The Polish-born Pontiff is keenly aware that authoritarian and dictatorial governments are not easily budged.

At week's end John Paul celebrated a Mass before 600,000 people in Santiago's Parque O'Higgins. While his previous appearances had been mostly peaceful, this one was marked by perhaps the ugliest violence the Pope has witnessed during all his foreign travels. As protesters unfurled anti-Pinochet banners, threw stones and set fires not far from the papal platform, police opened up with tear gas and water cannons. Some heard gunshots ring out. At least 161 people were injured. The Pontiff continued to speak but at times held his head in sorrow, and later declared, "Love is stronger than hate." After leaving Santiago, John Paul visited six other Chilean cities before departing for Argentina, where church and state are at odds over government efforts to legalize divorce and rein in trade unions.

Throughout, the Pope's emphasis on reconciliation between Chile's disaffected masses and their rulers came through clearly. It was certain that when John Paul departed Chile, he would leave behind a country subtly different from the one he arrived in only days before. As a member of the Vatican entourage explained, "The Pope's visits are like putting fuel in a nuclear reactor. Things happen."

FOOTNOTE: *The other: General Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay.

With reporting by Cathy Booth with the Pope and Gavin Scott/Santiago