Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–11, Part 2, Documents on South America, 1973–1976

252. Airgram A–155 From the Embassy in Chile to the Department of State¹

Santiago, October 19, 1976.

SUBJECT

• Ambassador’s Discussion with Foreign Minister Carvajal

Summary: Queried as to the possibility of beginning a gradual relaxation of human rights restrictions in order to improve Chilean-U.S. relations, Foreign Minister Carvajal showed rock-hard resistance to any changes in Chile which would, as he put it, weaken its resistance to the onslaught of international communism. Carvajal maintained in essence that democracies had failed in Chile and elsewhere, and that Chile was content to wait until the rest of the world realized that it had chosen the right course. END SUMMARY.

I visited the Chilean Foreign Minister, Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal, October 15 for a tour d’horizon on the occasion of his return from the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, and prior to my departure for Washington. The more immediately topical aspects of the conversation are reported in a number of cables.

Following 45 minutes of official discussion, after the notetakers had put away their notebooks and before departing, I said I would like to add a more personal word. I said I was going to Washington greatly disappointed by the evident deterioration of the relations between our two countries. I did not want to argue with him once again the rights and wrongs of our respective positions, but I would be interested to know whether he saw any prospect for an evolutionary change in Chile which might reverse the current trend in our relationships.

It seemed to me that the Chileans must realize that the American preoccupation with the maintenance of human rights standards in other countries, and very notably Chile, was increasing rather than decreasing. I did not foresee any immediate change in this regard.

Even compared to its neighbors, Chile remained an outstanding example of a government which followed a highly restrictive policy in the human rights area. The junta had been in power for more than three years. It had wiped out or decimated the known Marxist opposition. Ever since the first few months of its incumbency, terrorism had been almost entirely absent. The domestic tranquility which prevailed in Chile today was probably unequalled anywhere in South America. There was no immediate threat to the stability or tenure of the Government.

In these circumstances, I remarked, it was difficult for Americans to understand how the Government could justify the maintenance, without any relaxation, of the state of siege. Under it, Chileans continued to be deprived of those individual procedural rights and safeguards to which Secretary Kissinger had referred in his June 8 speech before the OAS General Assembly. It was not for me to tell the Chileans what they should do to solve their problems, but I had to say that the conclusion seemed to me inescapable: If Chile really wished to avoid continued isolation from the countries of the advanced Western world, it could with no appreciable risk begin an evolutionary process of restoring individual rights.

I asked Carvajal what he thought the prospects were for developments along this line.

The Minister replied with a vigorous “No”, followed by a series of spirited monologues in effect justifying the maintenance of all current restrictions. Much of this covered all too familiar ground. The basic argument was that Chile had been a target of “communist” attacks. The Allende Government had destroyed democracy in Chile, and the forces of world communism were inflexibly determined to overcome the government which had destroyed Allende and restored freedom to the Chilean people.

The political warfare of the communists was evident in many ways, Carvajal asserted. It could be seen in the unbalanced treatment given to Chile in the columns of the New York Times and the Washington Post. It could be heard over the air through broadcasts of the 26 Russian transmitters which every night carried “Escuche Chile”, a daily half-hour Spanish language news and propaganda program. It was evident in the extreme bias of the UN Human Rights Commission Working Group and especially its Chairman, Mr. Allana of Pakistan. Chile could not get a fair hearing in any international organization. It was only necessary to see what had happened in UNESCO, where discriminatory attacks on Chile were interjected in public sessions, while a proposal that UNESCO hear Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik was thwarted.

Carvajal’s conclusion was that the GOC simply could not afford to relax. The present policy line was a necessity if Chileans were to be free to live and work in tranquility. France had frequently strayed from a liberal democratic system, sometimes with vast internal disorder, but nobody condemned the inconstant French for their autocratic governments. For almost the first time in 140 years, Chile had found it necessary to do so, for compelling reasons. The Chilean Government did not intend to permit in Chile the kind of political chaos now existing in Southern Europe.

Moreover, the Minister volunteered, the junta had no intention of coming to terms with the Christian Democratic Party. The Christian Democrats had been responsible for the accession of Allende, he stated bitterly. President Frei had been a weak man, and under him the Christian Democrats had been demagogic, immoral and arrogant. Chile did not intend to go back to that situation.

Carvajal returned repeatedly to the theme that, under communist influence, Chile’s opponents were attacking it in an unbalanced and discriminatory way. Nobody had attacked the British for their behavior in Northern Ireland over a period of years, although it was far worse than what the Chileans had had to do. The Argentine Government had been unable to prevent several thousands of violent political killings for years, but Argentina was not in the dock as Chile is. The Chilean Government had had no connection whatever with the murder of Orlando Letelier, but American senators assumed immediately that it must have been responsible. The Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA) was not such a super force as to be able to have disposed of General Prats in Buenos Aires, Bernardo Leighton (almost) in Rome, and Letelier in Washington at almost precise annual intervals. Carvajal was sorry that Letelier had died, but it was a mistake to regard him as an idealist. Carvajal knew from his own experience in the GOC Defense Ministry that Letelier had been involved in an incredible plot designed to land an airplane carrying arms in Chile in circumstances that appeared to implicate the CIA. (This was not fully explained.)

At various points in the course of Carvajal’s remarks, I interjected the obvious observations and corrections. I sought to bring him back to the original area of discussion, noting that whatever might have been the case in the past, the concern with international human rights in the United States no longer focussed so narrowly on Chile. Chile had after all been a leader in the political and social evolution of the Western world. Its present status was all the more striking to humanitarians who by no stretch of the imagination could be said to be communists.

Carvajal responded by stating his conviction that no action which Chile could realistically take would satisfy the opposition. It would only weaken Chile and lead to pressures for further relaxation. Of what use would it be, he asked, to shorten or abolish the curfew, or to release Luis Corvalan, the Chilean Communist Party leader. This would only feed the fires.

I said it did not seem to me that these were the things Chile could best do to set the stage for an improvement in our relations. Rather, the Chileans should look at the arbitrary detentions which were still taking place, the “disappearances”, the lack of any civilian tribunals to adjudicate internal security cases, the many allegations of torture and the like. I repeated that I personally thought a start could be made in these areas with no risk whatever to Chilean security.

By this time more than 45 minutes had gone by since the start of the discussion. I again expressed my disappointment that, in the circumstances, there seemed to be no prospect for improving our relations. Carvajal said he was sure the junta was on the right track. Chile would wait, even if it suffered. As time went on the rest of the world would come to understand the real situation and would join Chile in its campaign against international communism.

COMMENT: Interestingly, Carvajal did not attempt to maintain, as Chilean spokesmen in the United Nations often do, that human rights violations were not being committed in Chile. He did not once refer to the constitutional acts promulgated after President Pinochet’s September 11 address—acts which inter alia purport to establish the basis for an updated human rights regime for Chile. Only at the very end of the discussion did he make a short reference to the desirability of instituting a new and purified democracy at some vague and indefinite time in the future.

From the beginning both of us emphasized that we were speaking personally, and it would therefore be unfair to regard Carvajal’s adamant stand as an official policy line. Nevertheless, his view is typical of the thesis propounded by Pinochet’s right wing advisers and espoused by the hard-line armed forces leaders. It is worth noting that Carvajal did not always talk this way. In my many contacts with him between February 1971 and July 1975 he was relatively moderate and reasonable, reflecting the thought that in due course the junta would be prepared to relax its emergency arrangements and move back toward political normality. Carvajal’s conversion began with the uproar created by Pinochet’s abrupt, last-minute refusal to allow the UNHRC Working Group to enter Chile in 1975. His posture has if anything toughened in the last year.

Popper

1. Summary: Popper reported on an October 15 conversation in which he asked Carvajal about the possibility of a gradual relaxation of human rights restrictions in order to improve U.S.-Chilean relations. According to the Ambassador, the Foreign Minister showed rock-hard resistance, claiming that the threat of international communism justified Chile’s measures.

   Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P760166–0456. Confidential; Limdis. Drafted and approved by Popper. In telegram 10130 from Santiago, October 20, the Embassy reported on a statement by Pinochet that the Chilean Government would not accept foreign loans that stipulated that the recipient take particular political action. (Ibid., D760393–1060)