Pinochet overthrew an elected Government and imposed brutal military rule on his people. At the time, western democracies covertly supported him.
Thus, when Pinochet plotted his coup against what he understood to be such forces he was merely doing Western democracy's dirty work. His innumerable crimes may be laid at the West's door - and the hysterical enthusiasm that First World politicians and magistrates are now showing for his belated arrest should not wipe out this basic reality.
We, proud citizens of the first world, take stability for granted. Our countries work smoothly; and our ruling classes are firmly in the saddle - masters and managers of an economic system that channels enough crumbs to the working classes to keep them quiet, and of a sophisticated propaganda machine cleverly designed to prevent the majority from challenging the legitimacy of the owners.
Third world countries are not so lucky. For some reason (Imperialism? Colonialism? Bretton Woods and the IMF? - fact is, no one knows for sure) they fell behind in the economic race. Their political situations are therefore very unstable, and the ruling classes much weaker than in the west - therefore prone to acts of savage violence whenever they feel their "natural" right to rule is threatened by the restless lower classes (a "threat" that has basically disappeared from the west since the aftermath of the second world war).
Of course, many - in some cases, most - members of third world ruling classes are decent, civilised people. Particularly in countries were the influence of European civilisation is strong (e.g., Latin America) the more enlightened leaders of local establishments admire the workings of western type democracy - elections, rule of law, etc. - which they in many cases tried to apply to their nations as genuinely as possible.
Unfortunately, they soon discovered that, under conditions of free speech and association coexisting alongside impoverished economies, the masses had the unpleasant tendency to organise, fight for their rights, and ultimately challenge the unequal distribution of wealth on which the system rested. The ruling class soon coined a name to describe the horrible perspective of losing privileges and power in favour of the majority: they called it "communism", and they decided (quite wisely, from their point of view) that, if democracy might lead to the "barbarism" of communism, then it would (regrettably) have to be momentarily scrapped and replaced by a more muscular alternative. Later, once the restless majority had been properly terrorised into obedience, one could think of reinstating a "democracy", this time however with a bonus guarantee against any thought of rebellion by the masses (terror having the striking tendency to generate reflexes of fear on actual or putative victims long after it has formally ceased).
Take or add a few details, and this is, basically, what happened in Chile from 1970 (Allende) to the present (Frei). Please note that the facts just described do NOT imply that the leaders of the 1973 coup had anti-democratic ideals. Quite the contrary: a cold, objective assessment would lead any unbiased observer to conclude that the Chilean military (and the ruling classes in the Chilean Congress who asked for their intervention in a formal vote) took power only because they feared "communism" would prevail in their country if they just stood by and did nothing. In their eyes, democracy was leading to "communism"; communism was unacceptable (an "inhuman aberration", in their words); therefore democracy had to be suspended. Once the threat of communism was over for good, democracy (always the preferred regime, circumstances permitting) was of course reinstated - and Pinochet could safely step down after losing a popular vote in 1988.
This reasoning - that lay behind the decision to carry out a coup - would certainly be understood by the present leaders of the West. Of course, Clinton, Blair, etc. do not engage in internal violence - but that is because the situation does not require it (no threat of "communism" or any other challenge to business rule on the horizon). Democracy can thus be given free rein. In the international arena, of course, realities are starker, regrettably forcing First world leaders to condone and encourage anti-democratic situations (as they did in Chile, BTW). Let us now examine an example which is close, very close, to Pinochet's.
You guessed it, I'm referring to Algeria.
Act one: following - admittedly, a little late - the example of the first world, the ruling party allows free elections, of course with the unstated proviso that a victory of "barbarism" wouldn't be allowed. Act two: the "barbarians" (Islamists in this case, communism having meanwhile disappeared from the scene) overwhelmingly win the first round. Act three: the military annul the election and take power (with western support, as was to be expected). Act four (still to be played, hopefully in the near future): the situation stabilised through terror, free elections are allowed again. Almost step by step, it's a Chilean re-run.
One might object: it's not so simple, you cannot compare the situations like that, since Allende was a true democrat, whereas the Islamists are really barbarians - they persecute women and infidels, they promote medieval codes of behaviour, etc.
Quite true, but also irrelevant for our purposes. For what we are discussing here is a different matter - it is not about Allende being "good" and the islamists "bad", it is about the intrinsic limits of the western concept of democracy. For the sake of logic and objective reasoning we should thus NOT allow the introduction of subjective value judgements about the respective merits of people who, IN BOTH CASES, were prevented by brutal force from carrying out a mandate from the electorate. The Chilean and Algerian elites decided that a victory by opponents considered to be (with good reason or not should not concern us here) outside the boundaries of "civilised behaviour" would be unacceptable. They therefore suppressed it violently. The same thing could happen, I believe, if western elites were one day faced with a real electoral threat to their position of dominance.
THEORETICAL MODEL:
1. Western Democrats respect and admire free elections, but only within certain limits;
2. They usually control the levers of economic and ideological power, which guarantee that results don't go too much against the interests of the ruling classes;
3. When, despite such controls, parties outside the normal acceptable boundaries of political discourse (as defined by the above mentioned ruling classes) win, western democrats may be "forced" - perhaps against their will - to consider using violence against such "barbarians";
4. Once "barbarians" are reduced to irrelevance thanks to adequate use of violence (intelligent democrats will avoid any excessive terror and prefer legal sounding methods) democracy will be reinstated.
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT CHILE:
A) Pinochet seems to fit description number one; after all, he never tried a coup against the Christian-democratic Governments that preceded Allende;
B) The Chilean elites did control the levers mentioned in number two - only in a weaker, imperfect way, when compared to first world elites;
C) Pinochet did act as stated in numbers three and four (except for the "intelligent" part);
D) Therefore we are forced to conclude - admittedly, against the better part of our instincts - that Pinochet's morally repugnant actions are insufficient to prove he is not a democrat, for the (usually unstated) limits of that concept in the West do allow for the possibility of annuling - by force, if necessary - electoral choices, whenever that may be required in order to protect society (i.e. the ruling strata of society) against the threat of takeover by "barbarians".
Pinochet's crimes are thus the logical and practical consequence of a deeply flawed concept of "democracy" - professed and imposed by the elites of the first world.
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