Edgardo Boeninger

Chile today faces a familiar situation: a government attempting to rule the country and implement its program with the support of only a minority of the population. But the present case is different from the country's minority governments of 1964 and 1970, and far more serious. First, General Augusto Pinochet has much less popular support now than was enjoyed by either previous government. Second, Pinochet's authoritarian government, armed with a monopoly of force, is seeking to extend his rule to 1997, and to ensure military control over future governments. The 1980 constitution, rejected by opponents and widely criticized by independents as undemocratic in substance and virtually unamendable, is invoked as the legal foundation and source of legitimacy of this official scheme to cripple Chilean democracy permanently.