Dear Mr Daniels,

I was pleased to see that in your review of Andrew Beckett's book about Gen. Pinochet, you tried to correct some of the more absurd things that Beckett says. The trouble with any discussion about Chile is that very few people in the West know the actual facts. This is partly because Chile is a very small country (a population the size of London), because it is very far away, and because the Left-wing has made strenuous efforts to conceal the real facts. Perhaps you will permit me to give you a brief résumé of what actually happened.

Chile was always a Christian Democratic country, and in 1970 when the story begins, the Christian Democrats held two-thirds of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Unfortunately, there was a rift in the Christian Democrat Party that year, and in the presidential elections of 1970 there were two Christian Democrat candidates, which split the Christian Democrat vote. The third candidate was Salvador Allende, who was head of the Chilean Communist Party, but was backed in the election by all of the Left-wing parties (which is why the Western press continues to refer to him as "a Socialist"). In fact Allende made no effort to conceal, either in his speeches, or in his writings that he was in favour of violent revolution. The results of the election was that Allende won 36% of the vote, the official Christian Democrat candidate won 35% of the vote, and the other Christian Democrat candidate won 29%. Now, under the Chilean Constitution, the Chamber of Deputies had three options. First, they could have a run-off between the two leading candidates. This is the most normal solution and this is what happens in France today, for example. If they had done so, the Christian Democrat candidate would have won in a landslide. The second option would be to ignore the results of the election, and for the Chamber to elect a President themselves. This too, would have resulted in a Christian Democrat President. The third option was to declare the winner of the most votes as President, even though he had not won anything like a majority. That meant Allende. Furthermore, under the Chilean Constitution there was a pause of six weeks after the election before a decision is made, during which time the Chamber of Deputies consider which option to choose. Naturally, during this six-week period the Americans tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Chileans not to choose Allende, while the Russians succeeded in persuading them to choose Allende. Some years after these events, it came out in the U.S. press that the CIA had spent six million dollars trying to persuade the Chileans not to choose Allende, and there was a mini scandal about this with left-wing people outraged that the CIA had dared to "interfere in the democratic process of another country." What did not come out in the U.S. at the time, and only came out later in Europe, was that the Russians had spent six hundred million dollars making sure that Allende was chosen.

The fact that, the Chamber of Deputies did choose Allende as President is an amazing fact, which people gloss over. If the UK had a President, and he was chosen by the House of Commons, what are the chances that the Labour majority would choose a Conservative? The Chamber of Deputies did make the special condition that Allende should take an oath to always uphold the provisions of the Chilean Constitution, an unprecedented demand. Allende had no hesitation in making the oath, nor had he any hesitation in breaking it very quickly.

It is important to visualise what life in Chile was like under Allende. Armed gangs of Communist thugs were sent around the country, murdering people, setting fire to houses, and "expropriating" land. People were in fear for their lives. Some years ago in the U.S. I met a Chilean who had lived in Chile under Allende, and I asked him what it had been like. He said he had had a small estate outside Santiago, which was run by a cousin of his. When the Communist thugs arrived, they wrapped his cousin in barbed wire and then rolled him along the ground. I wonder if Mr Beckett would approve. At the same time, in order to prepare Chile for armed revolution, Allende printed money and drove the inflation rate to 600% per year. It is very difficult for people who live in the West to imagine what it is like to live under 600% inflation. During that period, many Chilean Communists had been sent to Eastern Europe to be trained as soldiers for the revolution. They were easily distinguished by their uniforms, and were heartily disliked by the Eastern Europeans because they were arrogant, and had special privileges in the government shops. Later, after the Communists were defeated in Chile, a lot of them came back to live in Eastern Europe. Everyone in Eastern Europe knew about the Chilean soldiers, but not surprisingly, it has never been mentioned in the West. Of course, all of Allende's opponents were murdered, jailed and tortured. In 1973, three years of Allende's four-year term had passed. He knew very well that he had no chance of re-election, and that he only had one year left for his "armed revolution."

The last straw occurred when Allende brought 15,000-armed Cuban troops into Chile. This was, of course, treason, and a direct threat to the future of Chile, and the Chilean armed forces under the command of the Junta attacked the Communists and the Presidential Palace. Of course Allende had not brought the Cubans into the country in uniform, and with bands playing. They were dressed in nondescript clothes and mixed in with civilian people so as not to be noticed. It is not surprising that the arrival of the Cuban troops is little known in the West. There were few foreign correspondents in Chile, most of them Left-wing, and all of them closely muzzled. Even a newspaper as distinguished as the Times (when I spoke to them about the matter a couple of years ago) were unaware that Allende ("the principled democrat") had brought armed Cuban troops to Chile. Discussing Chile without knowing that fact is rather like talking about the Second World War without knowing that Hitler invaded Poland.

Fortunately for Chile, the Junta prevailed and the Communists (Cuban and Chilean) were defeated. Now invariably after every Civil War, the winners execute the leaders of the traitors, and imprison the rest. Thus, after the English Civil War, Charles I was beheaded and the Royalist leaders were sent to the Tower. In Chile, a thousand Communists were executed, and approximately 3,000 were jailed. It is important to understand that the only people who were jailed are those who were actually fighting, and who were defeated. There is no reason to take innocent people, who were not involved, out of their houses and throw them into jail. All the people jailed by the Junta were all Communists who had fought against the Chilean army - in short, traitors.

Finally, we come to the question of "torture". As I mentioned above, torture was very common under Allende, although this fact is never mentioned in the West. Furthermore, it is standard practice for the Communists to allege torture every time they are defeated and put into jail - they did the same thing in Greece after the Greek Civil War. The very convenient thing about allegations of torture (from the Communist point of view) is that they can never be disproved - one can never prove a negative. Thus, although in Greece there was no evidence of torture (apart from Communist allegations), many people in England were left with the impression that there had been torture in Greek prisons.

But the crucial point is that, whatever allegations the Communists made, there was never any evidence to connect any tortures in Chilean prisons with Pinochet personally. If two jailers in Wormwood Scrubs tortured one of the prisoners, no one would suggest that Tony Blair was responsible. Yet, during Pinochet's stay in England, it was clear that almost everyone, even those who sympathised with him, assumed that he was guilty of torture. When he left, the headline in the Evening Standard, which is not a Left-wing paper, was "Torturer Escapes." Even the decisions of the High Court, although they had not been asked to rule on his guilt or innocence, but only on jurisdiction, made it clear that they were assuming that he was guilty. This is unprecedented. Not only had there been no trial, but there was no evidence at all of Pinochet's involvement. The warrant for Pinochet's arrest was issued by the Spanish Judge Garzon, who is a self-acknowledge Communist. Most of its content was written by a man called Juan Garces, a Communist who had fought with Allende, while the people alleging torture were Communists. It also illustrates the fact that, because the English and Americans have never lived under Communist rule, or have been exposed to Communism, they are somewhat naïve about it. If one person alleges something, the English may or may not believe it, but if fifty people allege the same thing, they accept it as truth, because they cannot believe that fifty people would deliberately tell the same lie. Those of us who have been unfortunate enough to have had some contact with Communism know that the more Communists allege something, the more certain it is to be a lie. Indeed, one of the basic tenets of Socialism (and Communism) has always been, "There is no truth."

The other interesting point is why the Left has focused all its hatred and virulence on Pinochet when there have been, and still are, other right-wing dictators in the world. The answer, of course, is because he was so unbelievably successful. The Communists intended to infiltrate all of South America via Chile, a small country with a small army, which they did not expect would give much resistance. To their dismay, not only were they soundly defeated by Pinochet, but Pinochet took a country that had an inflation rate of 600%, and turned it around to be the most prosperous and stable South American country, and a model to the other South American countries. In contrast, when Castro took over Cuba it had the highest per capita income in Latin America, while now it has the lowest, so low that the Cubans are starving and have to eat cats and dogs. This is what the Left cannot stand, and why Pinochet is such a hated figure by the Left.

It is also interesting to note that when Pinochet allowed the first free elections after fifteen years in power, he, himself, ran for President. Despite the fact that he asked for an eight-year term instead of four years (against the advice of hi supporters), although he lost he still received 43% of the vote. That is more than Mrs Thatcher ever received.

Yours sincerely,
D P Marchessini