Chile’s Impending Choice

After a year in Chile I came to one firm conclusion: It is a surprisingly agreeable country to live in. In Colombia I was herded off buses while soldiers looking for terrorists stuck bayonets through the roof and the cargo. In Ecuador armored jeeps full of rifle-toting soldiers were everywhere. In Peru I spoke to three people who had been tortured. I was in Lima when the army massacred the Sendero Luminoso prisoners, during the Socialist Countries for Peace convention. It was in Peru, too, in September 1986, that I read horrific accounts of Pinochet’s crackdown following an alleged assassination attempt, with the Peruvian press full of that righteous complacency reserved for the transgressions of one’s neighbors.

Yet, crossing the frontier into Chile was curiously like coming home, to a charming, highly literate people, to civil civil servants, and to a capital city whose theaters were full of plays and revues, many of them sophisticated anti-government satires. Despite continued violations of civil and political rights, and acute economic problems, including severe unemployment, the bizarre truth is that Chile during a State of Siege is, at least superficially, a great deal pleasanter than Peru or Ecuador under normal conditions.

VH

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Vanessa Horne

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After a year in Chile I came to one firm conclusion: It is a surprisingly agreeable country to live in. In Colombia I was herded off buses while soldiers looking for terrorists stuck bayonets through the roof and the cargo. In Ecuador armored jeeps full of rifle-toting soldiers were everywhere. In Peru I spoke to three people who had been tortured. I was in Lima when the army massacred the Sendero Luminoso prisoners, during the Socialist Countries for Peace convention. It was in Peru, too, in September 1986, that I read horrific accounts of Pinochet’s crackdown following an alleged assassination attempt, with the Peruvian press full of that righteous complacency reserved for the transgressions of one’s neighbors.

Yet, crossing the frontier into Chile was curiously like coming home, to a charming, highly literate people, to civil civil servants, and to a capital city whose theaters were full of plays and revues, many of them sophisticated anti-government satires. Despite continued violations of civil and political rights, and acute economic problems, including severe unemployment, the bizarre truth is that Chile during a State of Siege is, at least superficially, a great deal pleasanter than Peru or Ecuador under normal conditions.