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An earlier state of siege, imposed after an outbreak of street demonstrations in late 1984, lasted for six months. It ended only when the U.S. threatened to block new multilateral loans to Chile. This time, the regime will have to consider what impact the state of siege may have on Pope John Paul II's planned visit in April. In predominantly Roman Catholic Chile, where even many Marxists declare themselves Christians, the papal trip is anticipated with uncommon fervor. But the Vatican has let it be known that a state of siege would not be an appropriate atmosphere for a papal visit.
Signs of the crackdown were soon evident. The feared units of army men, their faces daubed with black greasepaint, fanned out through Santiago's vast slums searching for Pinochet opponents. By week's end more than 40 people had been arrested. Among them: Ricardo Lagos, a moderate Socialist Party leader; German Correa, secretary-general of the Popular Democratic Front, an outlawed Marxist coalition; and Rafael Marroto, a spokesman for the Movement of the Revolutionary Left. Five Catholic priests, two Americans and three French, who worked with the poor were also detained. A few days later, the French clerics were put on a plane to Brazil.
Exiles, though, have become a source of embarrassment to Pinochet. All told, 3,717 Chileans have been banned from their country since 1973, but many of them continue fighting the regime from abroad. In an attempt to draw attention to last week's 13th anniversary of the Pinochet coup, a group of 29 exiles arrived by plane in Santiago from Argentina. They were not permitted to leave the aircraft, and after four hours were flown back to Buenos Aires. Later in the week Pinochet announced that a plan to permit about a third of the exiles to return to Chile had been postponed.
The press also came under attack as part of the state of siege. Six magazines were closed down indefinitely, including Hoy, the journal of the centrist Christian Democratic Party. The London-based Reuters wire service had to close its operations in Santiago after transmitting a profile of Pinochet that referred to the President as an "archvillain." The Italian news agency ANSA was also shut down for disseminating what the government called "tendentious and false information that has offended the armed forces."
The campaign of intimidation extended to murder, though no government involvement has so far been proved. Early one morning last week a white van pulled up outside the apartment building of Jose Carrasco Tapia, 43, foreign editor of the anti-Pinochet magazine Analisis. Two men, dressed in civilian clothes and carrying automatic weapons, dragged Carrasco away without his shoes. "You're not going to need them," his wife quoted them as saying.
Carrasco's body was found outside a cemetery later that day. He had been shot in the head 13 times. Two other men, a schoolteacher and an electrician with links to the left, met similar fates. A fourth man, an accountant who was not a known leftist, was also taken half-dressed from his home and killed. The government denied any role in the abduction-murders. About 600 people, many of them journalists, gathered in a cemetery in Santiago last Wednesday to accompany Carrasco's funeral cortege to his grave. Police dispersed them with tear gas and water cannon.