The Opposition Grows Bolder

The first national protest, held May 11, 1983, was the result of a long process of growing resistance against the regime. Beginning in 1978, former members of Congress - organized since 1974 in the "Circulo de Ex Parlamentarios" and the broad-based political coalition National Development Project (Proden) began to meet, in a series of late-night meetings held with extreme caution, to map out a plan to defeat the regime.

In March 1983, the political coalition Democratic Alliance (Alianza Democratica) was created with the signing of the Democratic Manifesto (Manifesto Democratico), which set Pinochet's departure as the cornerstone for a national agreement. At the same time, unions had slowly begun to re-emerge, particularly in the copper mines, the mainstay of Chile's economy.

In 1982, every sector of Chilean society - from the large industrialist to the public housing dweller - was affected by economic collapse. Inflation was running over 20 percent, unemployment at 24 percent nationwide and as high as 40 percent in some regions of the country, and the peso drastically devalued. The year 1983 found Junta members negotiating with 40 insolvent banks to shore up the country.

The regime's opponents decided that the time was right to go public.

The first national protest, organized primarily by the Confederation of Copper Workers (CTC) with backing from political opposition groups, took the government and even protest organizers by surprise because of its magnitude and diversity. To ensure the broadest appeal possible, the convocation had made no specific demands, declaring only: "The time has come to stand up and say: enough."

May 11, 1983 started out much like any other day, perhaps with less traffic on the streets of Santiago. Many parents kept their children home, while workers engaged in slowdowns or suspended work altogether. By mid-day, sporadic protests erupted at university campuses and outside the courthouse downtown.

But at precisely 8:00 p.m., the city began to shake with the clanging of pots and pans, not only in low-income neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city but in upper middle class sectors as well. Hundreds of cars, especially in the wealthier parts of town, created massive traffic jams, with horns blasting. With a blaze of barricades, caravans of cars, and small marches, protesters re-took the city for the first time in nearly ten years.

Repression First, Then Dialogue

Taken off guard, police initially responded by smashing windshields of the cars clogging the streets of the east-side communities of Providencia and Las Condes. In these well-to-do districts, squadrons attempted to quiet the cacophony with tear gas and by shooting machine gun rounds into the air. In working class neighborhoods, particularly in southern Santiago, violent confrontations resulted in two deaths, countless injuries and 350 arrests.

The regime responded to the protest by ordering the most massive raids experienced since the time of the coup. Three days after the first protest, hundreds of police, military and civilian personnel descended upon the poblaciones, the low-income neighborhoods that ring Santiago. In La Victoria, La Castrina, Yungay, and Joao Goulart more than 5,000 households were raided. Men over 14 years of age were awakened in the middle of the night and forced out of their homes at gun point.

The protests continued, with mounting repression, on a nearly monthly basis during the next two years. The fourth protest, on August 11 and 12, 1983, was met with particular violence, resulting in 100 deaths.

Although the national protest days were initially called by the CTC and political leaders, youth organizations and neighborhood groups in poblaciones, where the Communist Party had a strong presence, gradually took the lead in the protest movement. In these areas where unemployment was high, the organizational experience of neighborhood-organized soup kitchens, committees of homeless people, cooperative buying and human rights defense groups was now channeled into the protests. While mainstream political parties saw the protests as an anvil to exert bargaining power, younger, more militant groups began to call for confronting the dictatorship on the same plane on which it had brought democracy down in 1973.

After the third protest, held July 12, 1983 the military government was forced to make some concessions. On September 25, 1983, Archbishop Fresno moderated the first dialogue between the government, represented by Interior Minister Sergio Onofre Jarpa, and the opposition, represented by the Democratic Alliance. The Alliance's demands included an end to the state of emergency, the return of exiles, and the recognition of political parties. On the following day, the regime lifted the state of emergency, but only in theory: Alliance members themselves were subjected to harassment and the repression hardened as the regime sought to regain control.