Chris, thanks for the link.

I visited Chile 5 years after coup and I was shocked by the grinding poverty and fear. The infrastructure was being rapidly run down and 80% of the population hated the military and their families guts. A police bus was blown up outside the hotel I was staying in and all the hotel inhabitants, except me, were taken away for questioning. On every bus journey, all bus passengers were hauled off the bus, questioned and searched each time we entered and left a town. When I got to Bolivia I met Chileans who had been exiled.

Peru wasn't much better at that time, I remember seeing an Indian peasant shoving a log in the railway track to derail the train I was about to catch. Shining Path gained a lot of popular support because once again the military shopped at PXs and the rest of the populace had to survive on limited overpriced food and goods.

I'll never forget flying back to Australia. When we stopped in Tahiti and were on a bus the people on the bus started singing songs - beautiful sounding songs of loss, freedom, and longing and every one was crying. The songs were clearly banned in Chile.

David Flint seems to be suggesting that Chile would have been a lot better off in 1973 if they had a monarch, a queen. I would suggest that if he wants to stave off any future armed coups against elected governments in Chile that he "hot foots" it there immediately.

Liam,

I must be very slow, but I don't understand why you term John Kerr's actions as a coup. Could you explain? Perhaps you think that just because a party has a majority in the House of Representatives they are entitled to govern. If so, please tell me where it says that in the Constitution.
Similarly, it was alleged that a government was entitled to enjoy a term of three years, providing they maintained their majority in the House of Reps. Is this what you think? If so, please point to the section of the Constitution that provides this.

What about Governor Game? His situation with Jack Lang was close to Allende, as Lang refused to withdraw regulations that the High Court had ruled to be illegal.
What I simply can't understand is that it is fair enough for someone to say that the Senate shouldn't have the power to defer supply, or even exist, but to say that they don't have this power is directly contrary to the plain words in section 53 of the Constitution.

Perhaps the use of the term "coup" is more for effect.

I showed David Flint's article to some friends, former refugees from Chile, who fell about laughing. When their hysteria subsided, they got angry - a dilettante has the gall to re-write Chilean history in such a partisan and ignorant manner.

They told me that if there has been any economic change it had come very late and at huge human cost. Pinochet abolished civil liberties, dissolved parliament, abolished the socially-progressive economic reforms brought in by Allende, banned unions, and outlawed strikes and collective bargaining (shades of Howard's IR laws!). He did away with all political parties. Dissenters including clergymen just disappeared overnight. My friends were tearful when they reminded me that Pinochet's junta jailed, tortured, and executed thousands of Chileans including members of their own families. The junta maintained itself by repression through the army and secret police - and was backed by a self-interested ruling elite, huge foreign corporations and foreign financiers.

My friends were there in September 1980 when a constitution was approved in a phoney national plebiscite. It established that in 1988 Chile would have another plebiscite in which the voters would accept or reject a single candidate proposed by the Military Junta. Surprise! Pinochet was that sole candidate but, much to his suprise, 54.5% of voters denied him a second 8 year term. Only after that was there a gradual return to democracy.

Flint outlines allegations against the deposed President Allende but says this is "neither to justify Pinochet’s coup, nor the brutal methods he used". But he does not condemn Pinochet. Rather he cites the ultra-conservative Rettig Commission finding that at least 3,000 people were killed (or “disappeared”) between 1973 and 1990 and Flint concludes, "By Latin American standards, some say that this is restrained". Moreover, Castro was allegedly worse. Flint's argument then degenerates - the Chilean economy improved so the ends justify the means.

Flint believes that "Most commentators in the Western media seem to come down against Pinochet..." (Does he ever wonder why?), yet the only contemporary sources he cites are those who are pro-Pinochet. What's your point Flint?

Flint is wrong on a number of points here:

1) Coups or more generally, illegal regime change do no always bring economic chaos. The russian and german economies were pumping along in the 30s while the market economies languished in the depression. Less recently the french revolution restructured the economy in such a way that it took all of Europe 20 years and an industrial revolution to stem it.

2) Pinochet's human rights record was shocking. Sure there were worse dictators but that is no excuse. In the absence of Abu Graihb style photos we have been bombarded in the last week with pics of Pinochet in his darth vader style cape and supporters giving Nazi salutes over his open coffin.

3) To suggest that Chilean situations could happen here if we change the constitution is frankly preposterous. Laws including the constitution are a living entity that change from time to time as our values change. If they were set in stone we wouldn't need politicians.

Thank god our ancestors had more wisdom when the magna carta was introduced in the 13th century.

4) Whether coups and revolutions are likely to succeed in a country has much more to do with national character than a chance occurrence of a political crisis. Our national ethos is build around the individual stoically fighting on against the odds at Gallipoli or the pioneer clearing his field. Contrast this against France and the US nations born in revolution and whose citizens take to the streets very quickly. In the Philippines where people tasted "People Power" a generation ago we have seen this tactic employed several times since.

Democracy and market economies are a fragile combination but once they are well established they gain a degree of robustness.

I can't think of any situation in which the ADF would remove the government.

SMALL COUP IN CHILE. NOT MANY DEAD

In the 1920s Claud Cockburn won an unofficial contest among the sub-editors on The Times for the most boring headline they could get published. He won with "Small earthquake in Chile. Not many dead" It seems David Flint wants to rewrite this as "Small coup in Chile. Not many dead".

3,000 (or more) dead, civil rights trampled, secret police, a reign of terror, but as far as Prof. Flint is concerned, its all about the constitution. What absolute tosh, Pinochet and his droogs would have marched right through any constitution. As we've just seen in Fiji "constitutional crisis" is often simply code for "the government's getting in the way of my coup".

Flint downplays the horrors of Pinochet's regime and exaggerates what might have happened instead. According to James Whelan Pinochet "averted civil war and saved millions from the destruction of socialism". Ah now I see, the noble Pinochet brought down a democratically elected government and ruthlessly crushed oppostion to save Chile from the horrors of socialism. George Orwell would be proud.

Which brings us to the tawdry denoument of Prof. Flint's article. The Australian system "should be honoured and treasured" and preserved from harm because it protects us from ruthless despots like Pinochet. Yes, THE QUEEN, God bless her, is our champion against the forces of evil.