The Demand for Democracy and Cultural Revolution

While it is easy to call elections, it is more difficult to govern after many years of destructive military rule and sometimes twenty, thirty, or fifty years of the hegemony of the military. The economic disaster alone cannot explain the return of the military to their barracks. Nevertheless, their legacy everywhere was uniformly catastrophic. Still more negative, however, than the latest military adventure was its impact on the political forces and the behavior of authoritarianism. The "praetorianization" of attitudes is more difficult to exorcise than incompetent conduct of government.

Take the example of Argentina. Everyone knew that in spite of the fact that he was the first civilian president elected by universal suffrage in regular free elections since 1928, and in spite of the size of his victory and his personal prestige, Raúl Alfonsín had only a narrow margin of maneuver in his effort to reestablish democracy. It was evident that the civilians had

returned to power because of the nature of the former regime, which was in a more precarious and uncomfortable situation than the military regimes of 1958, 1963, and 1973. It is true that never before had an Argentine government confronted so many dramatic and potentially explosive problems. But the well-known time bombs left by the dictatorship (the "disappeared," an external debt of $ 50 billion, galloping inflation, conflicts over the Falkland Islands and the Beagle Channel) were only the visible part of a generally dark picture that was not favorable to the development of an harmonious and stable political life.

The effects of "state terrorism" and of an economy oriented toward speculation are not easy to eliminate. If it is true that absolute power corrupts absolutely—and not only those who hold it—then it is also certain that Argentina in December 1983 faced more serious problems than in the past, while possessing fewer means to resolve them. It was in this context that the new occupant of the Casa Rosada undertook to govern with the consolidation of democracy as his principal goal. His first objective was to remove the obstacles from the terrain. Thus he took steps to defuse nationalist pressures and the costly demands of the military concerning the two territorial disputes. The Beagle Channel affair was completely resolved. Because he wished to avoid both forgetfulness and vengeance concerning the demands of the "dirty war," he attempted to neutralize any corporate reaction within the armed forces by handing over to the courts only the highest responsible officers, the members of the three juntas that had succeeded one another since 1976.

In the area of economics, after a period of indecision and direct negotiation with the banks and the International Monetary Fund in June 1985, Alfonsín changed course. The struggle against inflation became his number one priority. For that purpose the Plan Austral called for a reduction in public expenditures, a freeze on prices and salaries, and a currency reform. The "economy of war" produced results and it is popular. Volunteer brigades denounced shopkeepers who were guilty of violating government regulations. The monthly inflation rate fell to 2 percent in September; it had surpassed 1 percent per day four months earlier. The miracle was not an economic one.

Despite a surge in unemployment, difficulties in everyday life, and the complaints of the Peronist trade unions, the president's party won the legislative elections of November 1985, and Raúl Alfonsín enjoyed an enviable popularity after nearly three years in power.

What was it that allowed him to eliminate "the unemployed work force" of the paramilitary, to immobilize attempts at destabilization, to halt the inflation, to fire the generals, and to carry out a judicial procedure that was both exemplary and risky? A rupture had taken place with the general elections of 30 October 1983 that were won by a candidate who had not been expected to win. We can ask if the surprising defeat of the party that appealed to the memory of General Perón was not a veritable turning point in history—the end of a cycle dominated by the destabilizing confrontation between the Peronists and the military. The arrival to power through free elections of a party that for thirty years had not passed the barrier of 25 percent of the vote demonstrated the intention of the electorate to break with the past. Is he Alfonsín or the exorcist? He was the only one to denounce the practices of a "praetorianized" political life in which alliances with the military did not disgrace those who formed them, and the preservation of democratic institutions was evidence of anachronistic naiveté. It was his denunciation, that some called "suicidal," of certain corrupting practices of the "politics of sedition" that permitted Alfonsín to win the last-chance election.

Paradoxically, the catastrophic results of the military regime provided an unexpected opportunity to reconstruct democracy and to establish durable roots for it. The isolation of the armed forces, discredited politically, economically, morally, and even professionally, created the minimal conditions for a transformation of the system. The new suspicion of the military on the part of the upper bourgeoisie after the Falkland War, which was seen as a dangerous anti-Western adventure, may act as a deterrent to their traditional tendencies toward coups, while the defeat of the Peronists proved for once that crime does not pay and that an "invincible" pact between the army and the unions could be the prelude to defeat. Is it still necessary for there to be a complete reorganization within the "first

political party of the West" to allow the removal of the most antidemocratic elements? The margin of maneuver of the civilian government is weak. Nevertheless, we can assume that the Argentines no longer expect miracles and that, having demonstrated in the elections of 1983 their desire to survive and to expel the old demons, they can work together to assure the triumph of the rules of social coexistence over corporate egoism. The survival and identity of a society that came very close to collapse are at stake.

Argentina is certainly a limiting case. The debacle of the Falklands and the horrors of the "dirty war" have contributed decisively to discrediting the appeal to the military and to rehabilitating the "dull gray old system" that is called democracy. But the cultural shifts and political changes that have taken place elsewhere in different ways have been no less significant.

In Brazil business circles and the conservative politicians have each in turn experienced a conversion on "the road to Damascus." The businessmen rose up against the expanding statism of the military regime, and perceived in a confused way that only a representative pluralist regime free from military tutelage would give them back the right to participate in major economic and social decisions. The politicians who abandoned the official party in 1984 were overwhelmed by the popular mobilization that emerged in the campaign for direct elections. The "Nova Republica," despite the death of Neves and the heterogeneity of its cabinet ministers, is very popular—so popular that Brazilians gave massive support in the streets to a plan for economic recovery that was very similar in its effects and objectives to the Argentine Plan Austral. While the "martyrdom" of Tancredo Neves, "symbol of national unity and the struggle for redemocratization,"^[6] in a certain way gave the regime a sacred quality, the military moved discreetly into the background. We do not know the agreements that were made with the civilians concerning overall directions, political and social rights, or the constitutional framework. The election of a Constituent Assembly scheduled for 1986 should resolve that mystery.^[7] One thing is certain. The military apparatus has not been breached; in contrast to Argentina, until now no member of the military has had to answer to a court for his political or

repressive actions. However, the legalization of the parties of the left, including the Communist party, the recognition of the trade unions, and even the lifting of the ostracism that was directed at the presidential ambitions of Leonel Brizola, the governor of Rio de Janeiro, indicate either a deal, or an evolution in conduct. There is no evidence, however, that the dreaded intelligence community, the "monster" SNI, has been weakened, dismantled, or turned over to civilian control. Gradual and prudent demilitarization, Brazilian-style, has not been translated into an overall change concerning democratic values. However the resurgence in the recent municipal elections of a populist and authoritarian right around former president Janio Quadros who was elected mayor of São Paolo with the support of the conservative establishment proves that the game has not yet been won.

In Uruguay less time was needed than in other countries for the middle and upper classes, who in 1970–73 had been frightened by the Tupamaro guerrillas and the strikes, to demonstrate their rejection of authoritarianism and military tutelage. Beginning with the constitutional referendum of 1980, the first defeat of the regime, it was clear that the country did not support it. Certainly there were economic reasons for that rejection—the discontent of the large agricultural sector that felt that it was paying the cost of the economic policy of a regime that wished to promote nontraditional exports. However, the attachment to democracy was based on broader and deeper motives. Historically democracy had been part of the culture, indeed of the self-definition of the country.^[8] The military also accepted these values so that the leaders of the Uruguayan army believed that there was no other source of legitimacy but free elections. Military men who respected the rules of democracy organized their own defeat in electoral consultations that were supposed to legitimize their power.^[9] The opposition was able to express itself, there was no resort to fraud, and basic liberties were reestablished for the occasion. The Uruguayan army was trapped in its own legalism at the moment that it tried to institutionalize its participation in power. While the military leaders in their negotiations with the parties did not obtain the recognition of the special political rights that the 1980 referendum had refused

them, they nevertheless imposed a certain number of limitations on the new president—in the areas of nominations for the upper ranks in the army, that of the proclamation of the state of siege (urgency), and in the matter of the repression during the period of military rule. This did not prevent the legalization of the trade unions and the parties of the left, or the removal of three extreme-right generals who had not observed their obligation to maintain the reserve that is appropriate for the military in a system of representative institutions.

In the same area one wonders what will become of the relations between the army and the recently democratized government of Guatemala. Before they left power, the military put in place arrangements for the antisubversive struggle that gave them exorbitant civilian and political prerogatives and established a veritable dualism of power, so to speak. The maintenance of the civilian self-defense patrols in the villages, the creation of "poles of development" under military tutelage (a type of strategic hamlet in which the rural population is regrouped in the guerrilla zones) and, at the regional level, the organs of intelinstitutional coordination headed by the local commander, all reduced the powers of the legal authorities. Prudently, President Cerezo did not seek a confrontation with the power of the military, either in this area or in that of human rights, although he ran the risk of appearing to be a president without power like his predecessor, Julio Mendez Montenegro elected in 1966, who was content to cover the absolutism of the military with a fig leaf of representative government.^[10] Nevertheless, despite the seriousness of the economic crisis inherited from the preceding regime, there are indications here and there that prove that demilitarization is in progress. The new government is adapting the institutions inherited from the authoritarian government by civilianizing them. The political police have been dissolved. The organs of "interinstitutional coordination" have been placed under the governors. Will what seemed impossible at the end of the 1960s become a reality today? Certainly history does not repeat itself, but why should Cerezo succeed where Mendez Montenegro failed? To answer that question—which extends far beyond Guatemala—means to draw lessons from the wave of democracy that is now sweeping

over the continent and to understand the special characteristics of a regional situation that goes beyond the particular elements of each nation and the strategies of their internal political forces.