Thwarting democracy in Chile

THE THWARTING OF DEMOCRACY IN CHILE: THE U.S., PINOCHET, AND THE TRANSITION BACK INTRODUCTION On March 11th of this year, Ricardo Lagos was sworn in as Chile's third democratically elected president since the military coup that unseated democracy in 1973. Lagos, a center socialist, ironically was one of the untold numbers of people jailed by order of the coup leader, Augusto Pinochet, and of the same party as the overthrown president, Salvador Allende. Beginning in 1998, …

…some 4000 CIA, Defense and State Department documents exposing its role in the toppling of a democratically elected government in favor of Pinochet's dictatorship.2 It most likely will be years before the judicial aspects of the former regime are resolved, still longer for the wounds of Chile's people to heal. But the future of democracy in Chile is bright, and President Lagos assures Chileans that there is room for everyone, and that they must push on.