Chapter 2 & 3

The second chapter of the book is called “Turning the Tide” and pertains to creating a timetable for transitioning Chile back to democracy. The chapter begins with the struggles of convincing Pinochet to commit to democracy. The trick was to use language that would appeal to Pinochet to respond. Many US agencies were at conflict because while Chile had a horrific human rights violations record, they were still the main anticommunist proponents in the south and the Security council wanted to maintain relationships. During this time Pinochet was reacting to US efforts and expanded an anti-terrorism law. The problem the US found was trying to push democracy while keeping the radical leftist away. To deal with this, the US used what they call quiet diplomacy in fear that pushing the regime too hard they would isolate themselves and leave them as fair game to the left. There was a split in the regime over transitioning to democracy as Pinochet wanted to remain in power while other were looking towards a democratic future. As things began to unravel, it was obvious that Pinochet’s regime was going to have to flexible or the leftist armed protest were going to succeed. With this fear, Reagan pushed for high level diplomacy and gave warning to the regime. Additionally the church under the leadership of Cardinal Silva criticized the government over the human rights abuses. With the development of moderate democratic groups in Chile, a new attitude by Reagan that directly criticized Chile and made public that new policy would be underway. Chapter three is titled “Dead End in Chile Policy.” Despite civil unrest in the years 1983 and 1984, Pinochet was no more inclined to change his policy or reduce the number of human rights violation in compromise. One US official stated that Pinochet “simply hasn’t a democratic bone in his body.” Not much progress was made and the US abstained a second loan by Chile. The growing frustration was found with a growing opposition that the communists could control. State Department representative met with the opposition leaders in an attempt to have them accept the 1980 constitution and adhere with democratic institutions. Meetings and accords went on and a new policy was proposed. This new policy would be based on economic openness. When Pinochet tried to eradicate the constitutional plebiscite, the rest of the junta rejected this as to do so would undermine the constitution which was their source of authority. This meant that Pinochet did not have the impunity he wished and that there was a proposed plebiscite in 1988. Most importantly the junta decided that Pinochet was not to be a candidate for the plebiscite with his waning popularity.