Volume 35, Number 9 · June 2, 1988
The Last Days of Pinochet?
By Alfred Stepan
I came to Chile on a grim mission, to report on the human rights situation for Americas Watch. The friend who met me at the airport took me to have a drink at a bar on the roof of the Hotel Carrera. It was a clear January day, and in the summer heat of Santiago the snow-whitened Andes seemed very close. I looked down on Santiago's famous Plaza de la Constitución, where citizens historically gathered to praise or protest the actions of their government. At first the expanse of grass in the plaza was pleasing, it was so green and neat. Then I remembered that it was Pinochet's poorly paid minimum-work program for Chile's large unemployed population that kept the parks so clean, indeed among the cleanest in the world. Pinochet had changed the layout of the plaza. More than two thirds of the traditional cobblestone public space was now subdivided into a series of well-kept elevated grassy sections. Citizens could walk along the guarded pathways but not congregate in the plaza—discouraging to protest.
Feature, 5882 words
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