Next October 16, Chile will make known its vote for the Latin American candidate to occupy one of the non-permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has announced that Chile will make its candidate known on or just before the day of the vote. President Bachelet says her government will vote for the candidate that best represents the region’s views. Argentina and Brazil have given their support behind Venezuela, while the United States has propped up the candidacy of Guatemala.
President Bachelet says Chile’s vote will be for the country that represents the region the best, but that position has raised a wave of hysteria among political and media circles against voting for Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.
This past Sunday, the conservative daily and most influential daily, El Mercurio, published a story detailing a military accord between Venezuela and Bolivia. The agreement according to the paper, the Venezuelan military will train and build up to 24 military border posts for the Bolivian military. Bolivia borders with Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Peru.
Soon after the story broke right-wing opposition political circles demanded the government seeks and explanation and refrain from voting against Venezuela for the region’s seat in the UN Security Council. The opposition charges the Chávez administration is meddling in the internal politics of neighbouring countries; that it seeks an expansionist military policy; that it has an erratic foreign policy that courts the friendships authoritarian regimes; and Chávez wants to follow in Cuba’s Fidel Castro footsteps.
That apprehension is shared within the ruling centre-left Concertacion coalition. The Christian Democratic party is staunchly opposed at a vote in favour of Chávez for the Security Council. They demand Chile seeks a third alternative or vote for Washington’s candidate Guatemala.
That prompted Venezuela’s ambassador Victor Delgado to sway into the fray defending his government but accusing the Christian Democrats of supporting the April 2002 coup attempt against Chávez and for supporting the 1973 Pinochet military coup.
Delgado’s comments outraged Christian Democrats demanding his removal from Chile. Delgado was promptly removed, but the stench lingers. Recent political events point to the fact Chile’s Christian Democrats supported even advised the anti Chávez forces to stage a civilian and military coup.
The America’s wing regional organization of the Christian Democratic parties ODCA was until recently by Chilean lead by Gutenberg Martínez who is the husband of now party president Senator Soledad Alvear, and in 2002 was Chile’s Foreign Minister.
Moments after the coup attempt, Chile’s Foreign Ministry within hours issued an statement in support of the new government, and Santiago’s former ambassador Carlos Álvarez called coup leaders friends of Chile.
Delgado’s allegations does have legs, including his assertion that in 1973 the Christian Democratic party. This post 1973 military coup television interview by Christian Democrat party president Patricio Aylwin, he outlines his party’s support for the Pinochet coup. However, 20 years later he recanted those comments when the Christian Democrats formed with the Socialist Party the Concertacion alliance that led to Aylwin’s presidency in 1990.
Returning to Chile’s vote in the UN, it appears Santiago will support Venezuela, particularly after the Iraq war and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that profoundly angered President Bachelet.
