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	Banishing the Myths.

The stereotypes that Pinochet generated after his coup still haunt the political future of Latin America.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte is not yet enjoying his golden years as Senator-for-life, which he so carefully wrote into the constitution. The dictatorship is being put on trial in Chile: for drowning the government of Salvador Allende Gossens in blood and steel, for the 3,197 people killed or disappeared, for the thousands who were exiled, for the routine use of torture and for smashing one of Latin America's most solid democratic traditions.

But unlike the many other dictatorships that have devastated Latin America--regimes that ended in the most absolute disrepute and are remembered now for what they really were, rule by outlaws and thieves--Pinochet still retains a considerable group of supporters, both inside and outside the country. And the myths and stereotypes he has generated still haunt the political future of Latin America.

One doesn't have to look far. Pinochet and his regime were a model for the Peruvian military in 1992, when it overthrew the government, shut down the Congress, and set up Alberto Fujimori ("Chinochet," his supporters dubbed him) to reconcile the international community to a system in which real power was held by the armed forces. The President of Guatemala, Jorge Serrano Elias, tried to do the same in May 1993 but was forced out by the vigorous opposition of civil society. Lieut. Colonel Hugo Chavez Frias' coup attempt in 1992 against the regime of Carlos Andres Perez in Venezuela was thwarted, but the colonel has retained a dangerously high level of popular support.

In Paraguay, General Lino Cesar Oviedo tried and failed to overthrow President Juan Carlos Wasmosy in 1996. Now Oviedo is running for President from jail and openly promotes his candidacy as the "Pinochet option." And in Bolivia a former dictator, General Hugo Banzer, is again in power after winning, it is true, a fair election. In Colombia too, one of the front runners in the presidential election, former Defense Minister Harold Bedoya, is praised by his supporters as the "Colombian Fujimori." The authoritarian tradition in Latin America is weaker than it was, but it is far from dead.

In the latest parliamentary elections in Chile, held in mid-December this past year, the Union for Chile (Pacto Union por Chile)--an alliance of two political parties that defend Pinochet's legacy--won 36% of the vote. Setting aside the large percentage of null and blank ballots, the results show that one-third of the Chilean electorate still holds a favorable view of a dictatorship condemned around the world for its crimes and human-rights abuses.

What explains this indecent popularity? Some still vividly remember the social anarchy (hyperinflation, expropriation, land invasions and violent confrontations) caused by the socialist and statist policies of Allende, which served as the justification for the military overthrow. The more important reason, however, is Chile's economic performance. Over the past 15 years, Chile has recorded the highest sustained rate of growth--between 6% and 7% annually--in the history of Latin America, and Chilean society and institutions have been transformed and modernized as a result. From this indisputable fact, many have drawn a false conclusion: that the most efficient way out of underdevelopment is to follow Pinochet's example.

If military dictatorship were the shortest path to development, Latin America, with its richly studded history of military despots, would be the most modern of continents. Truth is, with the sole exception of Pinochet, authoritarian regimes have been characterized by corruption, ineptitude and the barbaric impoverishment of their citizens--not to mention the brutalizing, killing and exiling of their opponents. A look at Argentina in the late 1970s and early '80s, when thousands disappeared while some of those in power made ill-gotten fortunes almost overnight, should dispel any notion that dictatorship is more efficient than democracy at solving economic or social problems.

This authoritarian tradition has been disastrous for Latin America. Not only has it caused impoverishment, corruption and suffering, but military dictatorships of the right have also given rise to antidemocratic movements of the far left, which were viewed, particularly among youth and intellectuals, as the only effective way to fight back. (And U.S. backing for such dictators as Fulgencio Batista in Cuba and Anastacio Somoza Debayle in Nicaragua became the best possible advertisements for Marxism and anti-Americanism in the hemisphere.) The polarization of society between military dictatorship and revolution, which has marked so much of Latin America's recent history, has prevented a real democratic culture from taking root. Why has democracy been more solid in Costa Rica than in any other Central American republic? Because Costa Rica has had fewer military dictators. As a result, neither the militaristic right nor the Marxist left attained the same level of influence it did in the neighboring countries.

Now, for the first time, the democratic roots are beginning to take hold. From Mexico to Chile there is a broad consensus in favor of democracy and against military authoritarianism and leftist extremism. There is also agreement, though less firmly entrenched, on market economies, privatization, globalization and private investment. If this holds, Latin America may finally put its abundant natural and human resources to good use and climb up from underdevelopment.

The greatest danger lies not with "Castroist" revolutionaries but with that vociferous and sometimes substantial minority that believes economic progress will be faster if cut loose from slow and inefficient democratic systems and harnessed, instead, to authoritarian ones like that of Pinochet or Fujimori.

Real progress cannot be measured just with statistics on economic growth. If growth is not accompanied by advances in education, health care, employment opportunities, access to property and respect for law, then it is fragile and false. Only a regime based on liberty and legality provides the necessary legitimacy for sustaining market-oriented policies while at the same time promoting social and cultural development. That is why the richest countries in the world are also the most solidly democratic.

Pinochet and his supporters, to be sure, do not compare his regime with the other primitive despotisms of Latin America, but with that of Franco in Spain. These two men have much in common, it is true, starting with the proclivity for militarized pomp and circumstance, which gave both regimes a kitschy and sinister edge. Another similarity is their mutual obsession with legitimating themselves through elaborate legalistic maneuvers and ad hoc constitutions. Both Franco and Pinochet boasted of being the saviors of Western and Christian traditions under siege by atheistic communism, a claim that has been amply disproved by subsequent events. Both Chile and Spain are, as liberal democracies, more firmly embedded today in Western culture--a culture of freedom, pluralism and tolerance--than at any point during the dictatorships. And the Roman Catholic Church, which initially supported both dictators, ended up siding with the democratic opposition and was a decisive factor, in Spain as in Chile, in bringing about the end of both regimes.

The nostalgia and apologias for Pinochet hide, in reality, a fundamentally disparaging view of the inhabitants of poor and backward countries. They are not able to govern themselves or better their condition, the thinking goes, through their own efforts. They need a handful of virile foremen or one superman--Caudillo, Jefe Maximo, Companero Jefe--armed with ideas and strong whips to drive them, by force if necessary, from their indolence and onto the road of progress. Democracy, here, is a luxury good, affordable only to rich and educated nations, or a transplant that will not bloom in the miasmic tropics of underdevelopment.

But those who think that way are wrong. History shows us exactly the contrary. Self-styled saviors who are backed by force and who have usurped the role of thinking and acting for their own people--Somoza, Trujillo, Perez Jimenez, Velasco, Peron, Castro et al.--are most responsible for the backwardness of their own countries and have succeeded only in multiplying the obstacles to modernization.

Although the regime headed by General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990 had undeniable economic success, it belongs to this same uncivil tradition, the shame of Latin America. And that is why the efforts by Chilean democrats to denounce the former dictator and hold him accountable are laudable.

Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel is The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto. Story translated by Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush.

SPRING, SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH

1973
Pinochet is appointed army commander in chief by Salvador Allende Gossens in August. (The duo is shown here in 1972.) The leftist leader believes his choice will remain neutral

1973
The coup gets under way: President Allende, in helmet, looks to establish defenses in the presidential Moneda palace as the armed forces move against him. The ensuing fire fight guts the building before it falls. By the time the victors move in, the beleaguered Allende is presumed to have committed suicide and a wave of terror has begun

1976
Former Chilean Ambassador to the U.S. Orlando Letelier, a critic of the Pinochet regime, is killed along with a young American by a car bomb in Washington's Dupont Circle

1980
Casting a vote in the Sept. 11 plebiscite that endorses his new constitution and paves the way for his 10-year presidency

1986
On Sept. 7, Pinochet survives an assassination attempt while returning from the countryside. The bazooka and machine-gun assault kills five security men. He suffers a wounded hand

1988
By a vote of 54.7% to 43%, voters reject an eight-year extension of Pinochet's term as President. The result allows him to remain in power until 1990 and stay on after that as commander of the army. An economic slowdown and the repression triggered by his near assassination in 1986 are cited as factors in the referendum result

1990
Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin waves in triumph after his March inauguration, as Pinochet stands by. Aylwin has defeated a candidate backed by the general the previous December

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