Patricio Aylwin and reconstruction of the truth

The death, aged 97, of Patricio Aylwin, the first Chilean president to be democratically elected after almost 17 years of dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet, may resonate with some Guyanese because of a few traits Mr Aylwin shared with the late Dr Cheddi Jagan.

Both became president relatively late in life – Mr Aylwin was 71 when he assumed office; Dr Jagan was 74 – after the restoration of democracy in their countries. Both men were famous for their simplicity and both eschewed luxury. Mr Aylwin liked home cooking and, when elected, resisted moving from the house he had lived in since 1956 and did not want to change his car. Both men, moreover, were old-fashioned patriots and were two of the most relevant statesmen of the recent past in their respective countries.

Once asked about the key to a happier Chile, Mr Aylwin had two suggestions: “Defeat extreme poverty so that we Chileans might have a life of dignity” and “Learn to respect each other’s ideological differences. Thinking differently does not mean being enemies.”

Both men also lived and breathed politics, with the Chilean describing himself as a “political animal”. But the comparison should probably stop at this point lest it become odious. Indeed, for having taken his country through one of the most successful transitions from dictatorship to democracy in South America, Mr Aylwin’s significance transcends this somewhat facile comparison.

Mr Aylwin, a Christian Democrat, was difficult to pigeonhole and was, to some extent, a paradoxical politician. At the beginning of the 1970s, as the leader of his party, he was an enemy of the left and totally opposed to Salvador Allende’s socialist government of Popular Unity, so much so that, in September 1973, he signed a congressional act asking the military to “help re-establish the rule of law” which was used by the military to justify their coup d’état a week later.

His role in facilitating the coup is still debated today in Chile but Mr Aylwin seemed genuinely not to have foreseen the awful, bloody consequences of his action. Years later, in an interview in 2012, he would say of Mr Allende, “He proved that he was not a good politician. Had he been one, what happened to him would not have happened.” A damning judgment perhaps but, in September 1990, when as president he officiated at Mr Allende’s belated state funeral, he was honest enough to admit, “I must say, frankly, if the same circumstances were to be repeated, I would again be a resolute opponent, but the horrors and afflictions of the drama lived by Chile since then have taught us that those circumstances should not nor cannot be repeated for any reason whatsoever.”

To Mr Aylwin’s credit, during the dark years of the Pinochet regime, he became one of its principal enemies and was one of the facilitators of the alliance between centrist and leftist parties, which defeated the dictator’s bid for another eight years as president, in a 1988 plebiscite, paving the way for free and fair elections in December 1989.

That he himself was then elected president, assuming office in March 1990 and entrusted with the complicated task of consolidating Chile’s tenuous hold on democracy was testament to the high regard people held for his intellect and integrity. He did not let them down.

President Aylwin proved to be the supreme pragmatist, firmly trusting in politics as the art of the possible and forging consensus across different sectors and political party lines, all under the malevolent gaze of the former dictator who still commanded the armed forces.

But seeking consensus did not mean not taking bold decisions. His administration strived to redress the balance of power in the country, to reduce the pernicious influence of the military and to rebuild democratic institutions, including the initiation of local government elections in 1992, with a view to creating a more open and just society. On the socioeconomic front, his government also introduced innovative programmes aimed at reducing poverty and inequality, with the UN estimating that between 1989 and 1993, the percentage of Chileans living in poverty fell from 40 percent to 33 percent.

Perhaps his greatest single achievement, however, was the establishment, against the advice of his inner circle, of a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission charged with investigating the violation of human rights during the dictatorship. After nine months of hearings, the Commission concluded in February 1991 that some 2,296 persons had been killed or disappeared for political reasons during the Pinochet years. President Aylwin duly apologised in the name of the State, with a breaking voice, in a televised speech that is part of Chile’s collective memory. As he explained some years later, “A successful transition is not possible without a reconstruction of the truth.”

It is instructive that his political pragmatism did not take him along the path of least resistance. He sought to have the sordid and sanguinary facts of the dictatorship exposed in the interest of healing a divided nation. Perhaps it was also his way of atoning for his part in bringing about the coup. Arguably, though, Patricio Aylwin’s willingness to confront the past and its hidden truths is his greatest legacy to Chile and the continent.