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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
After the 1965 elections gave them a majority of
deputies in
Congress, the Christian Democrats enacted ambitious
reforms on many
fronts. However, as a single-party government, they were
often
loath to enter into bargains, compromises, or coalitions.
Consequently, rightists and leftists often opposed their
congressional initiatives, especially in the Senate.
One of the major achievements of Eduardo Frei Montalva
(president, 1964-70) was the "Chileanization" of copper.
The
government took 51 percent ownership of the mines
controlled by
United States companies, principally those of Anaconda and
Kennecott. Critics complained that the companies received
overly
generous terms, invested too little in Chile, and retained
too much
ownership. Nevertheless, copper production rose, and Chile
received
a higher return from the enterprises.
Frei believed that agrarian reform was necessary to
raise the
standard of living of rural workers, to boost agricultural
production, to expand his party's electoral base, and to
defuse
revolutionary potential in the countryside. Consequently,
in 1967
his government promoted the right of peasants to unionize
and
strike. The administration also expropriated land with the
intention of dividing it between collective and family
farms.
However, actual redistribution of land fell far short of
promises
and expectations. Conflict arose in the countryside
between
peasants eager for land and landowners frightened of
losing their
rights and their property.
During the tenure of the Christian Democrats, economic
growth
remained sluggish and inflation stayed high. Nevertheless,
Frei's
government improved income distribution and access to
education, as
enrollments rose at all levels of schooling. Under the
aegis of
"Popular Promotion," the Frei government organized many
squatter
communities and helped them build houses. This aided the
PDC in its
competition with the Marxists for political support in the
burgeoning callampas. At the same time, Frei
enacted tax
reforms that made tax collection more efficient than ever
before.
The Christian Democrats also pushed through constitutional
changes
to strengthen the presidency; these changes later would be
used to
advantage by Allende. The PDC also revised electoral
regulations,
lowering the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen and
giving the
franchise to people who could not read (about 10 percent
of the
population was illiterate).
Although friendly to United States investors and
government
officials, the Frei administration took an independent
stance in
foreign affairs--more collegial with the developing
nations and
less hostile to the Communist bloc nations. For instance,
Frei
restored diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and
most of its
allies. Chile also gave strong backing to multilateral
organizations, including the Latin American Free Trade
Association
(
LAFTA--see Glossary), the
Andean Group (see
Glossary),
the
Organization of American States (
OAS--see Glossary),
and
the United
Nations. Meanwhile, aid and investment from the United
States
multiplied. Under Frei, Chile received more aid per capita
from the
United States than did any other country in Latin America.
After the two governments that followed the Christian
Democrats, Chileans would look back with nostalgia on the
Frei
administration and its accomplishments. At the time,
however, it
was hounded by the right for being too reformist and by
the left
for being too conservative. While some on the right began
forming
paramilitary units to defend their property, some on the
left began
encouraging illegal seizures of farms, housing plots, and
factories. Among the masses, the Christian Democrats
raised
expectations higher than they intended.
As the next presidential election approached, Frei
remained
personally popular, but his party's strength ebbed. With
no clear
winner apparent, the 1970 campaign shaped up as a rerun of
1958,
with the right, center, and left all fielding their own
candidates.
The right hoped to recapture power and brake the pace of
reform
with former president Jorge Alessandri as the candidate of
the
National Party (Partido Nacional--PN), established in 1965
by
Conservatives and Liberals. In the center, the Christian
Democrats
promised to accelerate reform with a progressive
candidate,
Radomiro Tomic Romero. The left vowed to head down the
road toward
socialism with Salvador Allende as its nominee for the
fourth time.
Under the leadership of the Socialist Party and the
PCCh, the
leftist coalition of 1970 called itself Popular Unity
(Unidad
Popular--UP). Joining the alliance were four minor
parties,
including the shrunken Radical Party and defectors from
the
Christian Democrats, most notably the United Popular
Action
Movement (Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario--MAPU).
The
coalition was reminiscent of the Popular Front of 1936-41,
except
that it was led by the Marxist parties and a Marxist
candidate.
Further to the left, the Movement of the Revolutionary
Left
(Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria--MIR), a small
organization headed by radicalized students, scoffed at
the
electoral route, called for armed struggle, and undertook
direct
assaults on the system, such as bank robberies
(see Terrorism
, ch.
5).
To the surprise of most pollsters and prognosticators,
Allende
nosed out Alessandri 36.2 percent to 35 percent in the
September 4,
1973, elections; Tomic trailed with 27.8 percent of the
vote. In
the cold war context of the times, the democratic election
of a
Marxist president sent a shock wave around the globe. The
seven
weeks between the counting of the ballots and the
certification of
the winner by Congress crackled with tension. Attempts by
the
United States and by right-wing groups in Chile to
convince
Congress to choose the runner-up Alessandri or to coax the
military
into staging a coup d'état failed. A botched kidnapping
planned by
right-wing military officers resulted in the assassination
of the
army commander in chief, General René Schneider Chereau,
on October
22, 1970, the first major political killing in Chile since
the
death of Portales in 1837. That plot backfired by ensuring
the
armed forces' support of a constitutional assumption of
power by
Allende.
After extracting guarantees of adherence to democratic
procedures from Allende, the Christian Democrats in
Congress
followed tradition and provided the votes to make the
front-runner
Chile's new president. Although a minority president was
not
unusual, one with such a drastic plan to revolutionize the
nation
was unique. Allende was inaugurated on November 3, 1970.
Data as of March 1994
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