Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
There are a number of ways of defending the Pinochet regime. You can say that it was necessary to deal with the turmoil of the Allende years. You can say that Pinochet ran the economy well and so on. What this book does is seek to destroy all these kinds of justifications for the Pinochet regime. It's extraordinarily well documented and impeccable academically.
Tell me about your first book, The Pinochet Regime, by Carlos Huneeus.
Basically, there are a number of ways of defending the Pinochet regime. You can say that it was necessary to deal with the turmoil of the Allende years. You can say that Pinochet ran the economy well and so on. What this book does is seek to destroy all these kinds of justifications.
Running through the whole book is a sustained attack on the legitimacy of Pinochet’s regime and its attempts to portray itself as a genuine reformer in Chile. There is a lot on the human rights episodes. So it is a very effective demolition of any kind of attempt to justify what went on in those years.
It is extraordinary well documented and impeccable academically. And it is also very good on how clever Pinochet was at managing to stay in power during all those years. He was the commander-in-chief of the army and nothing happened without his say-so. He could have vetoed the whole operation if he had wanted to.
One of his main opponents was General Lee, the air force general. He was very important in the whole regime. He wanted to maintain a nationalist stance and was very unhappy when Pinochet began to adopt the free market economic model. But Pinochet was able to get rid of him without much difficulty and that removed the one person in the junta who might have been able to be a focal point of opposition to Pinochet.
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Alan Angell is Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford and was formerly University Lecturer in Latin American Politics and Director of the Latin American Centre. His first published work was a study of the union movement in Chile published during the Allende government. He was made a Gran Oficial of the Order of Bernardo O’Higgins in 2007 for academic work on the country and for support for human rights during the Pinochet dictatorship. He has published widely, not only on Chilean politics but on the left in Latin America and aspects of social policy.
