Office of the Historian

244. Telegram 8956 From the Embassy in Chile to the Department of State1

Santiago, September 13, 1976, 2200Z.

8956. Subject: Chile: Little Comfort in Pinochet’s Third Anniversary Speech.

1. On September 11, the third anniversary of the assumption of power by the Chilean junta, President Pinochet delivered a major address which provides an opportunity to assess the effect of your representations with the Chilean Government concerning the human rights question.

2. I regret to report that the President’s declaration contains little of encouragement to us. On the whole, as the Embassy is reporting in detail, the speech was a hard-line reaffirmation of existing policies and practices.

3. The President’s only reference to relations with the United States reads as follows: “As for our ties with the United States of North America, in spite of obstacles that some political elements of that country have persistently created, even to the point of breaching rules and principles of international law, our bilateral relations are on a good footing. The personal contact that the Chief of State who is speaking (i.e. Pinochet) had in Santiago with the Secretary of State Mr. Kissinger last June contributed importantly to this; so likewise did the positive view of our economic progress that Secretary of the Treasury Mr. Simon was able to recognize and divulge during his visit to Chile”.

4. Contrary to our hopes, the speech gives us no reason to expect any imminent liberalization of the GOC’s human rights practices. On the contrary, the tone is one of a need for continued and even increasing authoritarianism, together with an insistence that only military government over a prolonged period can create the conditions for a new democratic order in Chile. Not announced in the speech was a decision the same day to release 205 additional political prisoners held under the state of siege. This is welcome, but does not indicate that detentions and “disappearances” have ceased to occur in Chile. They still do occur.

5. The Constitutional Acts—sections of an as yet uncompleted new Constitution—which the President promised to promulgate in this speech are now on the record. One of them deals with constitutional [Page 661] rights and duties. While elaborate, it abounds in qualifications which vitiate much of its substance. Moreover, the exercise of rights continues to be subject to the restrictions imposed during periods of state of siege. These emergency powers are themselves recodified in a second Constitutional Act. Contrary to our hope, President Pinochet did not take advantage of the occasion to reduce the level and severity of the state of siege, as he has previously done on junta anniversaries.

6. The culminating point in the speech was a stern warning to the government’s democratic critics that it intended drastically to tighten up the current “political party recess in order to cut off efforts to revert to an earlier political system or to oppose the regime. In this context the speech must be read as an injunction against further criticism and political activity by democratic political figures, church leaders and independent trade unionists. A similar threat is directed to the press and media.

7. On the economic side, the speech generally maintains the current policy line, though there are indications that the Government’s austerity policy will be somewhat relaxed in 1977 and that social assistance activities will be intensified.

8. Related to all the foregoing, you may have noticed that the GOC has failed to reach an accommodation with the United Nations Human Rights Commission working group to end the controversy between them over the abrupt cancellation of the working group’s visit in July 1975. The working group report to be submitted to the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly will probably be at least as negative as previous reports. Pinochet gave no hint of flexibility on this subject.

9. Accordingly, while Chile’s human rights practices are generally no worse than those of other Southern Cone states, it is difficult to foresee any improvement in our problems with Chile over human rights matters in the immediate future.

Popper

  1. Summary: The Embassy reported that in a speech commemorating the third anniversary of the establishment of the Chilean junta, Pinochet failed to indicate that there would be any imminent liberalization of human rights practices.

    Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D760345–0603. Secret; Priority; Limdis.

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