According to ex-president Lozada," My departure was the product of a conspiracy, of sedition by armed groups, 'narco-syndicalist' groups, terrorist groups and cartels who created a confrontational situation, leaving me no way out but to resign."***
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The one thing that makes Chile different from the rest of South America is Chile had Pinochet.
I recognize that. It seems counterintuitive to some people, who see Pinochet as a simple dictator, to say that a dictator preserved liberty in Chile.
That is because many people, perhaps most people, confuse democracy with freedom. But of course Democracy is not freedom, only freedom is freedom.
There is a vast difference between a dictator like Pinochet, and the great totalitarians of the 20th century, and that is that Pinochet was not totalitarian. Fascism, Stalinism, all consecrate the individual to the state. Under a Pinochet, even under a Franco, the state did not enter into private affairs. It intervened to keep totalitarians out of power. The sad thing is that a lot of nice people, articulate people, charming people, favor totalitarian solutions. The day you declare war on totalitarians, these are the people who are going to be on the other side of the line, and these are the people that are going to write your story afterward. And these are the people who are going to decide what history says about you.
Franco and Pinochet were famously brutal in chasing down their political enemies, but it is a fact that their enemies were no less brutal. Franco kept his men busy shooting Communists and Anarchists, but any good account of the Spanish civil war will make your hair stand up with accounts of anarchists and communists lining each other up against the wall. Had they devoted as much attention to fighting Franco as they did executing each other, Franco might not have won. And Stalin would have had his first win in Western Europe.
Similarly, Allende was on his way to building the same kind of regime in Chile that we have seen where ever the extreme left has taken power, and only a man like Pinochet could have stopped him. Venezuela is dying for want of a Pinochet, and Cuba died because there was no opposition of sufficient moral authority, or of sufficient moral courage to face Castro down and fight him.
The Venezuelan institutions, when "fired" by Chavez, lacked the fortitude to stand their ground, and they simply went home. The Batista Cubans ran for the tall grass when faced with an opponent who would shoot back. But in Chile, and in Spain, the institutions held firm, and did not cede power to totalitarians. The result was bloody in Chile, and very bloody in Spain, but given the alternative, there was no alternative except surrender.
There is a similar story in Peru. We all know that Fujimori was a flawed man. He was also the only man willing to stand in the gap, at a time when Peru was dying, and fight back. The Sendero movement was one of the bloodiest guerrilla forces on the planet, and were responsible for massacre after massacre. By the time Fujimori took office they were confident enough to come down out of the hills into the cities, and the entire country was in a panic.
The most unlikely man in the world, a Japanese immigrant possibly not even born in the country, stepped forward and took power, and fought back, and chased them and killed them. They have been reduced to a remnant hiding in the jungles. He brought Peru back from the brink.
Now that the country is safe, and secure, and climbing back down from its death bed we have the luxury of examining Fuj's flaws, and he has been forced from power. But Peru's current crop of politicians only have this luxury because Fuj did what they were unable to do. Fight back.
7 posted on 10/31/2003 1:23 PM EST by marron
On Thursday, election authorities said observers from the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center would be invited for the Nov. 28-Dec. 1 opposition signature drive. Those organizations have endorsed the presidential recall referendum as a peaceful and democratic way to break a political deadlock that triggered the coup and a two-month strike earlier this year.
Opponents of Chávez, a former army lieutenant colonel who was reelected in 2000, aim to gather 2.4 million signatures required to hold the presidential recall vote. The referendum would likely be held in March or April if the signature drive is successful.
Zambrano said the presence of foreign observers would help avert possible violence and increase transparency during the four-day signature drive. ''Obviously, this will create confidence among citizens so they participate massively in the signature drive,'' Zambrano said.
Government foes say that Chavistas, as the president's backers are called, are planning to disrupt the petition drive with acts of violence. ***