One Year in the Life of Augusto Pinochet

As usual the new year was ushered in by the words of the President, broadcast to the nation via radio and television . They were the same words Chileans had heard for the past decade. The regime would not give way in its campaign to create a new Chile, to bar forever a resurgence of the left, to purify democracy of its inherent weaknesses, to structure the government so that politiquería never again would menace Chileans, to strengthen the economy. And on the president went, calling on all Chileans to make sacrifices, for the international recession had caused problems for them all. His own economic planners, Los Chicago Boys and their recent variants, were innocent victims of a situation beyond their control. The fact that unemployment pushed 25% (a conservative figure), that Chile was $25 billion in debt, (with interest on the debt consuming 80% of export earnings), that there had been 1600 bankruptcies since 1980—that Chile's boom was over—did not mean the government would radically change its plans for the future. The president sounded steadfast

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