Letter from Latin America

To travel from Lima, Peru to Santiago de Chile is to move from a relatively recent military dictatorship to an “ancient democracy”—ancient by Latin American standards, that is. You have to go far back into Chilean history to find traces of a tyrannical establishment. The reasons for this are the relative racial homogeneity of the country as well as the strong North European, especially the German, military tradition which holds that the army should not be political.

Chile, like Uruguay, has long been Exhibit A of orderly democratic progress in a restless continent, but how long will this stability last? The Christian Democratic Party (PDC)—more democratic than Christian—has made a poor job of running the country economically. The great benefits expected from the agrarian reform have not materialized. There is much unemployment. Inflation continues unchecked and the escudo has declined in comparison with the dollar. In some aspects the masses are better off than before President Eduardo Frei took over, but the PDC gets surprisingly little credit for the economic reforms it has succeeded in carrying out.

EK

About the Author

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

To travel from Lima, Peru to Santiago de Chile is to move from a relatively recent military dictatorship to an “ancient democracy”—ancient by Latin American standards, that is. You have to go far back into Chilean history to find traces of a tyrannical establishment. The reasons for this are the relative racial homogeneity of the country as well as the strong North European, especially the German, military tradition which holds that the army should not be political.

Chile, like Uruguay, has long been Exhibit A of orderly democratic progress in a restless continent, but how long will this stability last? The Christian Democratic Party (PDC)—more democratic than Christian—has made a poor job of running the country economically. The great benefits expected from the agrarian reform have not materialized. There is much unemployment. Inflation continues unchecked and the escudo has declined in comparison with the dollar. In some aspects the masses are better off than before President Eduardo Frei took over, but the PDC gets surprisingly little credit for the economic reforms it has succeeded in carrying out.