Pinochet and the Jews
Pinochet and the Jews
1. PREAMBLE
Judge Baltasar Garzón accuses Augusto Pinochet Ugarte of genocide in one of the most important parts of his complaint. According to her, his government would have persecuted the Jews as part of a campaign to eliminate the differences in the conceptions of life, religion and national tradition that the Military Regime applied. As Madrid's "Tiempo" magazine says, it is assumed that this element - ethnic persecution - would have been decisive. For example, it is said:
"Among the victims of Calama is the journalist and lawyer Carlos Berger Guralnik. Berger was a Chilean citizen of Jewish descent. The Jews were subjected to special cruelty in torture because they were, according to Judge Baltasar Garzón in the order in which he asks for the extradition of General Pinochet.
To believe in this persecution, it would be necessary to prove that the Jews were considered guilty of Popular Unity and that they were therefore victimized. Or subsidiarily, that the Jews represented an element contrary to military intervention. Two assertions that seem to be denied by historical evidence, since at no time is the Jews individualized within the Marxists-Leninists as responsible for Unity. In the shipwreck of democracy in Chile, the Jews had no special role.( 2)
This insistence is explained by the argumentative emptiness of Judge Garzón to justify the "universal jurisdiction" from Spanish legislation. Well, including genocide is a forced maneuver when it is remembered that this is the systematic persecution for ethnic and identity reasons of a group other than the persecutor. That is, there should be a relationship of the same type as between Hitler's Germany and the Jews. As Baltasar Garzón himself said in a seminar in El Escorial in 1999, to continue with the trial it was necessary to use an "expanded" concept of genocide that covered political repression (autogenocide) and allowed the respective Spanish body to give it jurisdiction.
Now, it is necessary to dwell on this concept for the Chilean case, since the accusation of genocide seems taken from the hat of the magician to found a trial that, clearly, has become a general cause, in an operation of legal political prosecution "however it comes out".
The meaning of this article is none other than to restore historical truth, since part of Garzón's arguments emanate from a unilateral reading of the historical process before and after Salvador Allende. But, in addition, we can suggest a contrary thesis, which is a marked sympathy with Judaism (perhaps more relatively with the State of Israel) on the part of Pinochet's Government.
The second purpose is to emphasize that the concept of genocide cannot be included in the accusations that have been made against the senator, and even less because of a hypothetical anti-Semitism. In fact, the only thesis expressly discarded by Minister Straw was the one referring to genocide in his extrajudicial interventions on the relevance of the process in London. Genocide can only be characterized by the conscious policy of persecution and elimination of one group other than another, due to racial, ethnic or religious reasons.
At the beginning of 1970, there were 16,359 Jews residing in Chile according to the National Institute of Statistics. This data is contrasted with another of 30,000, if the Jewish-Chileans incorporated by Mario S. are included. Sznajder Since the data of the Jewish religion has not been recorded statistically (introducing others such as indigenous ethnic condition or Protestant religion) these data cannot be compared although it is believed that there were between 25,000 and 42,000 Jews in Chile between 1981 and 1982. A necessary argument to prove a "genocide" would be precisely a radical decrease in the number of Jews, which did not happen.
Perhaps, it would have been enough for Judge Garzón to read the official version published by Folio Editores, Barcelona, in 1989, translated from the Atlas of the Jewish World, Oxford, according to which,
"In the 1930s there was a significant influx of German and Hungarian refugees. Anti-Semitism found fertile ground in Chile, divided by intemes conflicts, and attracted Nazi and Arab immigrants. In the prevailing social and economic chaos under the Marxist government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973), many Jews left the country, and some returned to the establishment of the more stable regime of General Pinochet, whose censorship silenced the anti-Semitic newspapers, (3) until then legal. The assimilation has been strong; mixed marriage reaches 30%. Despite everything, there are a large number of Jewish organizations, especially in the capital, where 90% of Chilean Jews reside."( 4)
The study Chilean Judaism and the Government of Popular Unity (1970-1973) by Professor Mario S. Sznajder, (5) sponsored by the World Union of Jewish Studies and printed by the Magnes University Publishing House of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says: "The Jewish community of Chile, being an integral part of that society, suffers the conscoces that affect the country, but in a particular way, which reflects its socio-economic composition, its collective memory and its organizational structure." (6)
Undoubtedly, the political polarization also affected the Jews in Chile, dividing them according to their position in society, especially in the face of the widespread expropriation of the large industries and distributors of products that entrepreneurs of that origin owned, and also because of their political preferences, there being a group of activists strongly committed to the Allende Government that they constituted on the eve of the presidential campaign, the FIS (Frente de Izquierda Sio).
Although the Representative Committee of Jewish Entities, which brought together other organizations, declared itself apolitical since the 1940s, the truth is that since the beginning of Allende there were upheavors. Although Allende was friendly with the colony, (7) the mere mention of communism terrified the Jews from the East, who from September 4, 1970 left the country, remembering the horrors and misfortunes to which they were exposed. It is estimated that 8,000 Jews left Chile due to political distrust. First about 5,000 and then 3,000, after Fidel Castro's flaming visit to Chile, in November 1971, when he urged him to take up arms.
Those who stayed were victims of the confiscations of industries, services and shops, the most prominent was the expropriation of the Israelite Bank, which inclined Jewish businessmen to favor opposition to the Allende government and to support the establishment of the new military regime after September 11, 1973.
In summary, one can agree with Sznajder when he states: "The conflict in Chile was not ethnic but political-social. The Jews could not subtract themselves from it and were absorbed, within the framework of a model that was acquiring, month by month, more centrifugal characteristics, based on their social and non-ethnic extraction."( 8)
3. THE MILITARY REGIME
The military intervention could not be indifferent to the Jews and was alluded to in a greeting from the Grand Rabbi to the new authorities to "fulfill their noble purposes of channeling the country on a path of peace, progress and social justice." ( 9)
A few days later, the Israelite Community goes to the Government Board to donate 7.5 million shields for the National Reconstruction campaign. While Rabbi Kreiman managed safe conduct for some leftist Jews, Jewish leaders visited the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, General Gustavo Leigh, to whom they expressed their support for the reconstruction work, while he promised them that there would be no anti-Semitism. 10)
The external ties of the Military Regime were close to Israel. Thus, for example, an Israeli expert, Professor Dror, was brought in to configure a territorial development program called Regionalization, by which the country was divided into 12 Regions and the Metropolitan Region, according to the former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Lieutenant General Julio Canessa Robert, (11) former director in 1975 of the National Commission for Administrative Reform (CONARA), a body then of a ministerial nature.
But the most important relations of the Chilean State with that of Israel took place in the military field. These increased after 1978 with the United States arms embargo, which forced the acquisition of war supplies in countries other than the usual ones. Thus Israel became one of the most favored nations for the renewal of armored equipment, purchases of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, protective elements, police equipment, etc.
In addition, the Israeli armored vehicle tactic was introduced, which became part of the doctrine of the Chilean Army. Numerous Chilean officers were trained in their tactical and strategic budgets. Moreover, it was argued that Chile shared a similar geostrategic situation of military siege with Israel. According to this thesis - difficult times were being lived with Argentina - officers were sent to train in armored vehicles, commando and countersubversion techniques. Later, the programs were extended to the modernization of aircraft and the purchase of missiles.
The Jews and Pinochet
Pinochet's relationship with the Jews was structured around religion in an ecumenical framework. In addition, the presence of numerous observant Jews is noticed, even in unslached posts. There were ambassadors, generals, and ministers, such as Sergio Melnick, Minister of National Planning. There was also an active relationship with the Jewish colony, however, some differences with Israel in international matters. (12).
This closeness of the Jewish community to Pinochet is not new. His daughter, Lucía Pinochet Hiriart, in her book "Augusto Pinochet. Pioneer of tomorrow", published in 1996, illustrates it with the photograph of the affectionate greeting of the Head of State to the leaders of the Jewish community.( 13)
When do these contacts start? They are immediate to September 11, when several religious leaders, including the International President of the Baptist Churches, the Evangelical Association, the Bishops of the Orthodox Church, Freemasonry (considered as religion) and even epistolary the Archbishop of Canterbury, make contact with the military government. On October 30, 1974, Pinochet received a visit from the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Angel Kreiman Brill, "with whom," says the historian Gonzalo Rojas, "the President has a very friendly relationship" that includes "weekly interviews from October 1973 to the end of 1974". 14)
Rojas himself, who has reviewed the Pinochet Archive, also mentions the curious incident, by which Pinochet tries to ban "The violinist on the roof" (which was finally exhibited) because "someone" has told him that it is harmful to the image of the Jews. 15)
This relationship is never interrupted. Although it also hides a particularly important disagreement: the participation of the Grand Rabbi in the multi-ecclesial letter of August 29, 1974 that criticizes the policy of Human Rights. The letter, managed by Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, also summons Catholic Bishop Carlos Camus, Lutheran Bishop Helmuth Frenz, Pentecostal Pastor Vásquez. Although "private", its content spreads and Pinochet gives explanations of his answer, in successive meetings, one of the most important is dedicated to Kreiman. (l6)
Likewise, the colony had detractors of the Military Government, such as the writer Ariel Dorfmann, one of the sources considered by Garzón, or the former deputy Jorge Schaulsohn. 17)
The second part of our hypothesis is related to the Jewish element in the Military Government. It is evident that Pinochet had a tendency to surround himself - among others - with Jews in all positions and positions of government. Although I have not studied in depth the policy in relation to the Middle East (see note 12), military and economic relations overcame the political-ideological coldness with the Israeli governments.
In addition, there was a search for support in the Jewish colony and a consequent support of this to General Pinochet. At the beginning of the Military Regime, many authorities were of Jewish religion and descent. But it is surprising that there were also Israeli advisers. A certain sector spoke of these as the "Jewish face" of the Regime, according to the spokesmen of Creole National Socialism.
We must value the testimony of former Minister Sergio Melnick, who in a letter addressed to El Mercurio recalled: "In 1987, five Presidents of the world, including that of the United States and none other than General Pinochet, signed a world document sponsored by a Jewish Orthodox movement (Jabad), on the seven universal commandments of Noah for men and society. If only five Presidents in the world did it, it could hardly be said that any of them would be an anti-Semite''.(l8)
Finally, it is significant that in the environment of Pinochet's legal defense there are numerous Jews. From the start, of his two former Ministers of Foreign Affairs who accompany him in London, Miguel Alex Schweitzer and Hernán Felipe Errázuriz, the first is Jewish and son of another Minister, Miguel Schweitzer Spesky, who served the portfolio of Justice of Pinochet. Michael Caplan, head of the British defense legal office, is also an observant Jewish and in such condition he appeared before the Jewish colony at the Israeli Stadium at the express request of Pinochet. A personal message from Pinochet was sent to Chile expressing the pain caused by the persecution of Jews in Spain.
Pinochet's favorable attitude towards the Jews is close to that of Franco, (19) the one that saved thousands of lives. Let a Chilean Sephardic Jew, born in Turkey, say: "I did not suffer the horrors of the German occupation of France ... Instead, my sister had to take refuge in a convent for several months. At that time, the government of Spain, despite being fascist, received thousands of Jews in its embassy in France [sic]. People climbed through the roofs to get into the embassy, and they went out with a Spanish passport that prevented them from being arrested."( 20)
Garzón's accusation was fed by his vision of the Argentine process, in which it is asserted that a significant number of Jews were repressed in relation to the country's population. Garzón began to investigate the issue to originally prove that the Argentine Military Regime was anti-Semitic. To this end, he received a 200-page report from Human Rights activists who supported the thesis of a "planned anti-Semitic repression". The report "Nunca Más" also states that Argentine Jews were victims of "special political cruelty." According to Edward Kaufman, executive director of the Institute for the Progress of Peace of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the 1,900 Jewish victims during the repression would constitute the largest massacre of Jews since World War II. According to the report "The violation of the human rights of Argentine Jews under the military regime", 12.5% of the disappeared were Jews and 15.6% of those executed, which contrasts with the 0.98% represented by the Jewish colony in Argentina.
Lawyer Raúl Castro told El Clarín de Buenos Aires that "There is numerous evidence that many people were kidnapped, tortured and disappeared exclusively because of their condition as Jews." 21) Argument that was also presented at the hearing before the House of Lords in London. Precisely for that reason, Senator Pinochet asked his Jewish-British lawyer Michael Caplan to visit Chile and form his own opinion by attending a meeting with the Jewish colony in the Israeli State, where he was surprised by the defense that was made of the figure of the general. The Mercury of Santiago recorded the moment:
"Why did he meet with the Jewish community?
"-I joined them because Senator Pinochet was very upset with the accusation, which is in the Spanish requirement, that during the military government there was anti-Semitism in Chile. And the senator asked me to collect his impression for myself and they assured me that not only were they not persecuted, but they received their help, giving me examples."( 22)
Examination of the facts gives certainty that the Pinochet regime did not persecute the Jews as such. In the cases mentioned of political repression, there was no ethnic, racial, or religious motivation. Their inclusion among the victims of repression does not follow a pattern, as well as among their supporters or in the center-right parties (23)
The Spanish judge starts from the fiction of denouncing an "ideology" that does not exist and that had no viability if the leader was rather pro-Jewish. For this reason, for the Representative Committee of Jewish Entities of Chile (CREJ) the facts are so clear that on November 19, 1998 it sent the following statement on behalf of the Chilean Jews, addressed to Garzón:
"In my opinion: "In the Chilean press, his statements have recently been published that assert that in Chile, during the military regime, anti-Semitism existed". "The CREJ of Chile, an organization that brings together the Jewish communities and institutions of the country, emphatically expresses to you that in the period in question Chilean Judaism was not affected by anti-Semitic manifestations, being able to develop its religious, cultural and educational work without setbacks. "Elimat Y. Jason, President of the Representative Committee of the Jewish Entities of Chile. 24)
What explains the use of the genocide argument in Garzón? First, to manufacture an imputation out of nowhere. But, beyond that, proceed with a mythification, because the military dictatorships of the Southern Cone have been demonized so much, it seems credible - from a distance - that Pinochet can be Hitler, and his internal policy derived from it. All valid to judge Pinochet and read him his Spanish "constitutional rights". That is, for a former Head of State and national of another country to comply with a Spanish Constitution that he has not sworn, which is part of the contradictions of the alleged universal jurisdiction of national legislation.
Mr. Director: I was born in Poland. In the war, the German Nazis took us out of the houses and apartments and transferred us to the worst neighborhood of the city, which became a ghetto. Half a year later, on one night the SS soldiers went house to house and as animal hunters they acted brutally, taming and pushing us on cargo trains.
The train arrived at the Auschwitz camp. There in a selection, the famous murderer and sadist Dr. Menguele took me out along with about a hundred men and women, and they ran took us to some nearby cabins. All the rest was transferred to a low construction, where in a large room with showers, which was in fact a gas chamber, they drowned. Then the bodies were burned in four crematoria and their ashes were thrown into the river once a week.
My 40-year-old mother, my 43-year-old father, my 12-year-old brother and my whole family have ended their lives in the same way.
After months of terrible suffering, I managed to jump off the train when we were transferred to another camp. Thank God I was able to get to Israel where I formed a happy family with children and grandchildren.
In the early 1980s, I was nominated as a member of Israel's diplomatic delegation in Chile for more than three years. Since then, my family and I have very strong feelings for this beautiful Chile and its warm people. Until today, we are in frequent contact with our friends.
I am telling all this so that it is understood that I am very sensitive to anti-Semitism and all ideas or facts similar to those of the Nazis.
Now I think it is my duty to say clearly and with my clear conscience, that in my contacts with General Pinochet, I have met a man not only far from anti-Semitic ideas, but the opposite, a sympathizer of the Jewish people, for their historical sufferings. Especially he was deeply shocked by the holocaust, where our people have lost six million innocents.
Where has there been a President in the world who has attended a Synagogue on the Holy Day of Yon Kippur to express his feelings for the Jewish community? Which President in the world sent known and active Jews in the community as ambassadors to Israel (Gleiser, Berdichevsky, Benadava)?
Consequently, Judge Garzón's accusations against General Pinochet that he acted as a Hitlerist are unfounded. I am convinced that the few Jews who suffered in the first phase of the government of the FF.AA, in no case was the factor their religion or because they were Jews.
Benjamin Zeev L.
Cristian Garay Vera
(1) Revista Tiempo, Madrid, N. 863, 16-XI-1998, pp. 44 and 46. It should be noted that the "proof" in this case is the presumption.
(2) A later legend has wanted to attribute to Salvador Allende Gossens something like a Jewish identity, adding the supposed ancestry of his second surname. However, Allende was not Jewish, but agnostic, and neither before nor after has he been recognized as such not even from a racial point of view.
(3) Apparently, he refers to the right-wing newspaper Tribuna, which, supported by the Arab colony, spread anti-Semitism without major repercussions according to the report of Professor Mario S. Sznajder
(4) De Lange, N.: The Jewish people. Odyssey through the centuries, folio, Barcelona, 1989, Collection "Atlas Culturales del Mundo", p. 163. Original edition: Atlas of the Jewish World, Oxford.
(5) Jerusalem, 1993, http://www.geocities.com/gezai/centro/seleccionados/judaísmo up.html. Also by electronic magazine Revista Judía. Der Ruf-The so-called Documentation Center.
(6) Sznajder, M. S.: Chilean Judaism and the Government of Popular Unity (1970-1973), site http://www.geocities.com, p1.
(7) In 1940, Allende had suggested as general secretary of the Socialist Party, to receive Jewish immigrants without a visa before the radical president Pedro Aguirre Cerda. Although he was not the only one, his gesture was well remembered.
(9) Declaration of the Rabbinate of Chile, 14-IX-1973, published in La Palabra Israelita of 28-IX-1973, p.29.
(10) See The Israelite Word of 26-IX-1973, p.10. It should be noted that at that time, General Leigh, commander of the Air Force, was the toughest and most anti-communist of the members of the Board
(11) "Looking back, perhaps we should regret a certain degree of unnecessary bureaucracy and not having fully used some modern ideas, such as those proposed by the Israelite professor Yetzekel (sic) Dror, which CONARA [National Commission for Administrative Reform], brought to the country and which also advised the Ministry of Foreign Affairs", see Julio Canessa Robert and Francisco Balart Pérez, Pinochet and the restoration of the national consQnso, Geniart, Santiago, 1998, p.260. Professor Yehezkel Dror worked with General Humberto Julio. He held important positions in the Labor Party of his country, in the Ministry of Defense and after Chile he collaborated with the ~NAM, in Mexico. Within his vast work, translated into Spanish is the book Facing the future, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1990, reprinted in 1993.
(12) During the Emerald vlsita in 1976 or 1977, the authorities of that country tried to prevent access to the port of Haifa. In 1975, Chile presented a vote against Sionism, apparently protected by the Arab promise not to participate in accusations against Chile. However, both US pressure and the change of position by order of Pinochet who said that this vote "do not reflect his thinking on the matter", closed the topic. See Heraldo Muñoz and Carlos Portales, An elusive friendship. The relations of the United States and Chile, Pehuén, Santiago, 1987, p.1987. In 1980, against Israeli opinion, he moved the diplomatic headquarters from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv (not only Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador did it). That year, too, Chile recognized the PLO.
(14) Gonzalo Rojas Sánchez, Chile chooses Freedom. La Presidencia de Augusto Pinochet Ugarte ll.IX.1973 - ll.III.l990, Zig Zag, Tomo I, Santiago, 1998, p.123.
(l5) Gonzalo Rojas Sánchez, Chile chooses Freedom, p.123, note 296. The incident occurred on October 17, 1974.
(l7) Son of former President of the Radical Party Jacobo Schaulsohn. We are informed that after two virulent periods as a parliamentarian, Jorge Schaulsohn, of social democratic orientation, the Jewish colony asked him to lower his profile so as not to compromise the public image. In addition, numerous merchants and industrialists in his district stopped supporting his re-election financially. He currently supports the candidacy of the socialist Ricardo Lagos.
(19) Apart from the references of the historian Ben-Ami, the book by D. Salinas, Spain, the Sephard and the Third Reich (1939-1945) has recently been published., The work of Spanish diplomats against the Nazi genocide, Valladolid, 1997.
(20) Testimony of Jacques Rodrigues, Sephardic Jew, in Mario Matus González, Tradition and adaptation. Validity of the Sephardic in Chile, University of Chile/Israelit Community Sefardi of Chile Editores, Santiago, 1993, p.152.
(2l) See La Tercera, Santiago, 21-IV-1999, p.20. Beyond the versomilitude of these accusations, it is evident that nothing similar emerges from the official reports of Human Rights in Chile.
(22) El Mercurio, Santiago, 16-V-1999, p. D16, Reports, "The defense of Pinochet in Chile. The Government can help in the Cortes."
(23) On the right, for example, the deputy of National Renewal, Lily Pérez (Sephardic). During one of the recent municipal campaigns, supporters of the socialist and Christian Democratic candidates spread a pamphlet against Pérez that said "We want a Christian mayor for Florida."