Across South America, military dictatorship and police corruption has been challenged by civic democratic order. Gamil Mattar* hears firs-thand how We spent the morning touring Valparaiso, Chile's key port city. After lunch we took a train that clung to the steep slopes of the mountain on top of which Pablo Neruda once lived. I stood in the house of the man who has been among my most favourite poets since I was young. I entered his bedroom and stood by his desk as I contemplated a comfortable looking couch. I imagined the Chilean poet sitting there, staring out across the vast Pacific as his mind explored the labyrinth of a love story or the tragedy of injustice or poverty. The ocean was too far away for the noise of its crashing waves or the blasts of ship horns to impinge on his stream of thought. Our downward trip was by car. One could not help but admire the skill of the drivers, not to mention the courage of passengers, as they braved their way around hairpin turns and through stealthy tendrils of cloud. At the foot of the mountain it was pouring rain as we made our way to Vina del Mar, Chile's premiere seaside resort for the old and nouveaux riches who had ridden the crest of the "Chilean economic miracle". From there we headed back to Santiago. I knew the return trip to the Chilean capital would take longer than the journey to Valparaiso. It was now night and a thick layer of fog lay over the road. We felt trapped in that car, which itself seemed caught between soaring mountains. The only way for us to overcome claustrophobia was to talk about a controversial subject. I came up with the perfect topic; something that was very much on my mind during that trip in which I was gathering information on Latin American experiences of political reform. In fact, my question that evening was more a request for explanation than a challenge to debate. Throughout that day, and the day before, I had a feeling that people in Chile were content. I had sensed this contentment everywhere I went. I felt it among the people of the villages I visited and among the owners of large ranches. I felt it in people's reactions to each other in the capital, in the interaction between salespeople and customers, and in the behaviour of drivers and pedestrians. I even detected it in television programmes; in the way an anchorman reported the news, or in the dialogue of a soap opera, or in the substance of a debate between politicians. As I had expected, my question sparked the interest of my fellow passengers. Most of them were security specialists and were of the opinion that once a nation's security services are reconciled with that nation's citizenry everyone can relax and that in the absence of such a concord division and misery prevail. Over the next two hours, on that nighttime journey through the Andes on the way back to Santiago, I acquired a wealth of new information about the saga of South American political reform. One of my fellow passengers was a former senior security officer who had resigned in order to devote himself to the study of the relationship between the citizen and domestic security and the connection between that relationship and democratisation. He said that in Chile internal security had been one of the greatest obstacles to political reform and he proceeded to cite four reasons for this. First, the Chilean police had been a politicised agency. In other words, it had reserved itself the right to declare its opinion on the domestic and foreign affairs of the state and on selections and appointments to leadership positions in the government administration. Generally, too, the police took little pains to conceal their "ideological" biases. Second, politicians of all stripes as well as members of civil society organisations and advocates of reform had shied away from establishing any relationship whatsoever with domestic security forces. Mostly, they were afraid of being accused of working for the police, which was far from politically neutral, and the insults and harassment this would lead to. Third, the Chilean police, unlike most other domestic security agencies in Latin America, enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. It was an independent, centrally controlled agency that was not even subject to the Ministry of Interior or any other supreme government agency. As a mere example of its power, the president who took over when Pinochet was deposed could not remove the head of the Chilean police in spite of the criminal indictment brought against him. It took years, several governments and an array of innovative methods in order to purge the police forces of corruption and to bring that agency under civilian control. Finally, in many Latin American countries, domestic security agencies used to create civil militias in order to intimidate and obstruct the political opposition. They were also used to hunt down criminals, break up drug smuggling gangs and, in some extremely brutal cases, to eliminate street children on the grounds that these children spread venereal diseases, were in the employ of drug and prostitution rings, and were simply a blight on the city streets and a disgrace to the national image. About halfway to the Chilean capital we stopped for refreshments. Our discussion shifted to the ways in which Chile and other Latin American nations tried to improve the image of their police forces, a step that was regarded as indispensable to the reform process. Thus, for example, police equipment was upgraded, salaries were increased and a general inspector was appointed. They also created a special monitoring agency that was directly responsible to the office of the prime minister and whose periodic reports were submitted to the legislature. In addition, the government organised numerous in-service training and awareness-raising programmes, which availed themselves of experts from the UN and other international agencies as well as Chilean lawyers, teachers, doctors and other specialists. The purpose of these sessions was to narrow the gap between the police and the people. Nevertheless, reformists did their best not to give the impression that the government was intent on clipping the wings of the police. The civilian government that took over after Pinochet was determined to strengthen the police so as to eliminate the usual pretext that Latin American militaries always seized upon in order to intervene and assume power. Of course I was curious about political reform processes in other Latin American countries, especially since the tendency of people far away is to take the experiences of a single country as representative of the whole. After all, as considerable the similarities among South American countries are, there are important differences also. In Columbia, for example, the police act as a domestic army, especially in rural areas. In Venezuela, the police have acquired a higher standing than the national army, which perhaps is only natural in a country whose president is set upon offsetting the threat that had traditionally come from a powerful military establishment. In all events, Chavez has placed his faith in the Venezuelan people as the source of legitimacy of his rule and the guarantee of the perpetuation of the civilian order. It therefore makes sense that he would seek to strengthen that agency that is primarily responsible for ensuring public safety and peace of mind. Over the past few years, Latin American governments have made enormous strides towards keeping their armies out of politics. One of my fellow passengers that evening observed, for example, that the Peruvian opposition did not resort to the armed forces to oust former President Toledo, in spite of the fact that his popularity had sunk to below 10 per cent. This, alone, was indicative of the considerable change that had taken place in Latin America, where the natural tendency had always been to call in the army against an elected president and where the army would willingly lend its services on the grounds of protecting national security from the foibles of a weak or incompetent president. Peru was one of the first Latin American countries to organise intensive awareness-raising training courses for its security forces. In addition, human rights activists were appointed to the Ministry of Interior and charged with the task of improving relations between the police and the public and checking the abuse of police powers. One of their landmark accomplishments was the creation of the Police Defence Society, whose job it is to receive complaints from the public regarding police behaviour and pass these on to a general inspector who is appointed by the prime minister from candidates outside the police force. Not all Latin American countries can claim the same degree of progress. In Nicaragua, Panama and Guatemala, the armed forces continue to hold virtually absolute power over the civilian police and other domestic security forces. Brazil still follows the decades-long convention that security is the concern of a close and tightly coordinated alliance between the military establishment and domestic security agencies. The narrative of experiences and opinions continued uninterrupted until we reached the outskirts of the Chilean capital. As though sensing the need to round up the proceedings of our journey, one of my companions hastened to stress two important points. Bear in mind, he said, that political reform in South America would never have gotten as far as it has, especially where the police agencies are concerned, had the people of Chile and other countries not relied on outside help. Remember, too, he said, that the people of South America are not sufficiently aware of the consequences of increasing the influence of domestic security forces at the expense of the influence of the military establishment. Before parting ways we promised one another to arrange an excursion for another day so that we could discuss these two points at length. I silently promised myself to continue my explorations of the momentous changes that have taken place in that dynamic and fast-paced continent. * The writer is the director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
