Chile
In 1996 Chile continued to be governed by a centre-left coalition, led
by President Eduardo Frei Ruíz Tagle (Partido Demócrata Cristiano,
PDC, Christian Democratic Party), which was voted into power in December
1993. Frei's coalition government is the heir to that of President Patricio
Aylwin Azócar, which in 1990 brought the seventeen-year right-wing
military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to an end.
Tensions between the coalition partners continued to be concerned with the
implementation of legislation to speed up trials for human rights violations
committed under the military dictatorship. (The cases of more than 2,000
victims of the military who were assassinated or "disappeared"
between 1973 and 1978 have yet to be cleared.) In 1996, Enrique Lautaro
Arancibia Clavel, a former agent of the DINA, Chile's secret police, was
charged with the murders of General Carlos Prats González, a former
army chief, and his wife while they were in exile in Argentina in 1974.
As evidence emerged of other assassinations carried out by DINA agents during
the 1970s, civil-military relations were exacerbated further. The Chilean
regime was also shaken by charges of corruption in government-owned mining
companies and in the police. Nonetheless, Chile remained stable in 1996.
The Chilean economy continued to perform better than most Latin American
countries. The annual rate of inflation continued to fall, from 8 per cent
in 1995 to 6.6 per cent at the end of 1996. Unemployment remained very low
and the economy continued to grow at a rate of 7.6 per cent.
Although Chile's "economic miracle" has benefited the more privileged
sectors of society, and the gap between poor and rich remains wide, the
government has attempted to increase public spending in order to alleviate
poverty and improve education.
Although Jews have been present in Chile since the time of the Spanish
conquest, in the sixteenth century, Jewish immigration to Chile increased
significantly from the beginning of the twentieth century. The first wave
came from Russia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Although immigration was
restricted, Jews from Germany and Austria arrived before and during the
Second World War. The last wave of Jewish immigrants came to Chile from
Hungary after the 1956 uprising.
There are also many Chileans of German origin. In the 1930s and 1940s many
of them expressed sympathy for Nazism in public statements and meetings,
and lobbied the government to support the Nazi-Fascist Axis. In 1932, a
group of Chilean nationalists, some of German origin, founded the Movimiento
Nacional Socialista de Chile (MNS, National Socialist Movement of Chile)
under the leadership of Jorge González von Marees. This group was
responsible for an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government on 5
September 1938. Most of the participants were massacred by the police in
front of the presidential palace of La Moneda in Santiago (see PARTIES,
ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS).
According to the 1992 census there are nearly 1 million indigenous Chileans,
most of them Mapuche from the southern part of Chile. They suffer widespread
discrimination because, as elsewhere in Latin America, darker-skinned members
of the population are generally among the most disadvantaged. Despite a
1993 law recognizing the ethnic diversity of the indigenous population and
providing resources for cultural and educational development, most indigenous
Chileans remain socially and politically marginalized.
Chile assimilated substantial numbers of immigrants from Europe in the nineteenth
century and from the Middle East (mainly Christian Arabs) in the early part
of this century. In recent years smaller groups of Asian immigrants, principally
Koreans, have experienced some intolerance.
Far-right parties are almost non-existent in Chile. Those that do exist
are mostly ultra-nationalistic rather than neo-Nazi or antisemitic.
One of the oldest neo-fascist groups in Chile is the Movimiento Nacional
Sindicalista (National Syndicalist Movement) or Movimiento Revolucionario
Nacional Sindicalista (Revolutionary National Syndicalist Movement), which
was founded in 1947 by Ramón Callís. This group, now led by
Misael Galleguillos, supported the military dictatorship between 1973 and
1990. It has historical ties with the ultra-nationalist group Patria y Libertad
(Fatherland and Freedom), active in the 1970s against the government of
Salvador Allende, and also with Miguel Serrano and his followers.
Former MNS members together with representatives of the different neo-Nazi
groups constitute the 5 September Committee, led by Galvarino Sepúlveda,
which organizes the annual commemoration of the Nazi putsch of 1938 (see
HISTORICAL LEGACY). As in previous years, a group of more than 100 neo-Nazi
activists took part in a commemoration rally in the general cemetery in
Santiago on 5 September. The main speaker was Hugo Lara, an ex-communist
who converted to neo-Nazism. Lara also addressed a gathering of Chilean
neo-Nazis on the anniversary of Hitler's birthday in April.
The Movimiento Nazi Chileno (Chilean Nazi Movement), also known as the Eugenio
Lutz Group, is led by Eugenio Lutz, a Nazi veteran. Founded in 1991, it
has both an adult and a youth section and membership of the adult section
is said to include a number of other veteran Nazis.
Professor Erwin Robertson, a prominent Holocaust-denier at the Universidad
Metropolitana in Santiago, is head of the Centro de Estudios por una Alternativa
Iberoamericana (Study Centre for an Ibero-American Alternative). At the
end of August, the centre organized an international meeting in Viña
del Mar in which Robertson, Lara, Serrano and other neo-Nazi Chilean leaders
met representatives of similar movements from Argentina, France and Italy.
The Guardián de los Andes (Guardian of the Andes) is a small neo-Nazi
paramilitary youth group that was founded in 1994. It is led by Rafael Núñez,
a former philosophy student at Santiago's Catholic University. Robertson
is the group's ideological mentor and a regular participant in its meetings.
Tercera Posición (Third Position), founded in 1984 by Marcelo Saavedra,
a student at the University of Concepción, became the Movimiento
Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement), which
supports the Islamic revolution in Iran.
Skinhead groups have appeared in Chile in recent years. As in Europe and
North America, they have adopted Nazi symbols and profess violence and hatred
towards hippies, punks, homosexuals, drug addicts, Jews and foreigners in
general. These groups are quite small and have little influence on Chile's
po-litical and social life, but they are potentially violent.
At the beginning of November the daily newspaper La Segunda reported
a rumour that senior government figures had expressed concern over perceived
Jewish influence in Chile's government. A television journalist, Fernando
Paulsen, identified these figures as the minister of defence, Edmundo Pérez
Yoma, and Guil-lermo Pickering, sub-secretary of public works, both of whom
had close family and political ties to President Frei. Pérez Yoma
had reportedly referred in public to a "Jewish Troika" surrounding
President Frei.
Pickering allegedly made several antisemitic remarks at a meeting of high-ranking
members of the PDC, providing a list of Jews in government positions and
referring to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Although the incident received widespread media coverage and leaders of
the Jewish community met President Frei, no serious measures were taken
against Pérez Yoma and Pickering. Jorge Rosenblut, sub-secretary
of the Ministerio de la Presidencia (presidential staff) resigned. Rosenblut's
resignation was attributed by some observers to internal tensions within
the government, but the controversy evidently contributed to his decision.
The other two Jews close to President Frei, namely Pablo Halpern, the director
of the government press office, and Eduardo Bitrán, manager of the
government's economic and infrastructure development agency, refused to
comment. President Frei and other public figures responded to the scandal
by denying the existence of any kind of racism or antisemitism either in
the government or in Chile as a whole. The president agreed to meet members
of the Jewish community to make amends, but the meeting was delayed until
the end of 1996 (see COUNTERING ANTISEMITISM).
The Instituto Hebreo (the main Hebrew school in Santiago) received a hoax bomb threat.
Antisemitic texts such as translations of Hitler's Mein Kampf
and of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion can be found in bookshops
in the centres of the main towns. Chilean neo-Nazis also occasionally publish
letters in leading newspapers. The works of David Irving are widely available
(see United Kingdom), as are a number of local neo-Nazi publications. The
most important is Ciudad de los Césares (City of Caesars),
a quarterly edited by Erwin Robertson since 1990. This publication quotes
extensively from Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Ernst Junger and Carl Schmitt.
It is linked to far-right publications such as Memoria (Memory) in Argentina,
Orion in Italy (see Italy), Lutte du Peuple and Lectures
Françaises in France and MD-World Report in Ireland. It
also relies on Iranian sources (and perhaps financial support) for issues
related to Islam and to Israel.
Pendragón is a neo-Nazi publication, produced since 1995 by
Editorial Excalibur, the Centro de Estudios Graálicos (Graalic Studies
Centre) and the Centro de Estudios Culturales Arcania (Arcania Cultural
Studies Centre).
The Eugenio Lutz Group (see PARTIES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS) publishes
Hoja Informativa (Information Leaflet) irregularly. It often includes
antisemitic and anti-Zionist articles.
Jorge Schaulsohn, president of the mainstream Partido por la Democracia (PPD, Party for Democracy) strongly denounced the antisemitic remarks of two senior politicians that were reported in November (see MAINSTREAM POLITICS).
Chilean Jews are well integrated into Chilean society and occupy important
positions in finance, economics, the professions, and intellectual and artistic
areas, as well as in politics. The political scandal involving reports of
antisemitism among government officials demonstrated, however, that latent
antisemitism exists in Chile (see MAINSTREAM POLITICS).
Co-operation between the small neo-Nazi groups has increased in recent years.
This may be due to their small numbers and to the presence of dynamic leaders
and ideologues such as Erwin Robertson and Hugo Lara. Ideological and financial
links with far-right and neo-Nazi groups elsewhere in Latin America and
Europe may also help explain this. Growing evidence of links between some
far-right groups and Islamist elements is a cause of concern.
© JPR 1997