Commemorating Chile's Coup: The Dynamics of Collective Behavior

Commemorating Chile’s Coup: The Dynamics of Collective Behavior

María del Valle BarreraTomás Koch

Benigno E.Aguirre

ABSTRACT

This article examines the dynamics of collective behavior in Santiago, Chile everySeptember 11, the date of the 1973 coup that brought General Augusto Pinochetto power. It uses a multiple-method strategy that includes participant observation,personal interviews, and content analysis of three major newspapers during theperiod 2003–8. The theoretical approach emphasizes time and space coordinatesof specified social actors, sociocultural emergence, a limited range of dominantemotions, and dramaturgy to describe the complexity of ritualized commemora-tions. It shows that incidents occurring on this date are not primarily caused bythe actions of social movement organizations. Moreover, the dichotomy of “dayand night” used to understand the peaceful and violent commemorations is anoversimplification of a complex network of events, actors, and scenarios that hasthe effect of denying any legitimacy to actions that fall outside the state-approvedpractices.

September 11 in Chile, like a totem carved from a log, represents the past ofthe clan and the deeply conflicted history of Chilean society. Every year since

the 1973 coup d’état on this date, many different social and political actors withconflicting beliefs and opinions have transformed some of the streets, parks, mon-uments, churches, and other public places in Santiago and other cities into hal-lowed places of ritual worship.

The significance of these incidents goes beyond their political implicationsand their intrinsic interest to anyone concerned with political dynamics and theoften paradoxical consequences of political acts brought about, in this instance,by the military intervention. The sheer complexity of these forms of collectivebehavior, occurring year after year in well-defined space and time coordinates,challenges present-day social scientific understanding of collective behavior andsocial movements. There are numerous investigations about what happened onTuesday, September 11, 1973 and the following days (e.g., Rojas 2001; Cavallo etal. 2001). They use different points of view to explore the testimonies of that daythat have been recovered.

© 2013 University of MiamiDOI: 10.1111/j.1548-2456.2013.00195.x

María del Valle Barrera is an assistant professor in the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales,Universidad Austral de Chile. [email protected]. Tomás Koch is an assistantprofessor in the Departamento de Sociología, Universidad de Playa Ancha, [email protected]. Benigno E. Aguirre is a professor of sociology at the Univer-sity of Delaware. [email protected].

There are also psychological and sociological studies about the role of thatdate in the collective memory (such as the work of Stern 2000, 2006; Lovemanand Lira 2002; Zipper Israel 2006; Garcés and Olguín 2000; Garcés et al. 2001;Piper Shafir and Iñiguez 2003; Piper Shafir 2005a, b; Wilde 1999; Garretón 2003;Manzi et al. 2003; Rivas and Merino 1997). Nevertheless, the specialized literatureexamining the commemoration of the date is quite limited (Candina 2002; Esco-bar and Fernández 2008; Joignant 2007), while studies examining the commemo-rative actions from the standpoint of collective behavior are practically nonexist-ent. This absence justifies the research presented in this article.

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH

Contemporary conceptual approaches to collective behavior and social move-ments, each with its own emphases and insights, do not provide a satisfactoryunderstanding of the conventionalization of collective behavior incidents that takeplace on September 11. In this study, the approach to collective behavior placesanalytical importance on the actions of gatherings of people that are suffused bysociocultural emergence and are inextricably dramaturgical in nature. Such actionsexhibit a limited range of dominant emotions. They are carried out by five mastersocial units—masses, publics, associational networks, social movement organiza-tions, and small groups—and are located in both time and space, as well as insocial spaces reflecting issues associated with master categories of class and occu-pation, and ethnocentrism and nationalism (Aguirre 2007).

This conceptual approach, which situates the collective behavior actors inchanging cultural settings and emphasizes the theatrical aspects of collectivebehavior incidents (reminiscent of Goffman’s 1963 conceptualization), providesappropriate theoretical constructs to understand the commemoration of Septem-ber 11 in Chile. The empirical findings in the study, for their part, document themultiplicity of actors, places, and collective actions; how collective behavior isaffected by space and time considerations; the importance of dramatic encoun-ters; the overwhelming lack of extreme violence that characterizes the incidentsassociated with this date; and the continuing, encompassing power of the ideo-logical rhetoric associated with the historical figures of General Augusto Pinochetand President Salvador Allende. They also illustrate the ongoing struggle of mar-ginalized people demanding equal opportunities.

RESEARCHING THE COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR OFSEPTEMBER 11

Information used in this study comes from several sources. A total of 518 articles(including editorials and opinion columns) that make reference to September 11during the period September 8 to 16 each year from 2003 to 2008 were contentanalyzed, in El Mercurio (178 articles), La Nación (208 articles), and La Tercera(132 articles). Forty-three text citations taken from those documents (11 from ElMercurio, 28 from La Nación, 4 from La Tercera) were included. They providedinformation about the actors, acts, and scenarios or contexts that played a signif-icant role in the commemorations. These citations contained information of vary-ing completeness and quality on 348 collective behavior incidents that were ana-

BARRERA, KOCH, AGUIRRE: COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR IN CHILE 107

lyzed. In addition, for the last two years of the study (2007–8), 59 articles fromRadio Cooperativa, a digital newspaper, were examined.

Document analysis was used as a systematic procedure for evaluating andinterpretating information (Bowen 2009). The effects of ideological positions oncoverage and content of the newspapers did not prove relevant. The newspaperswere evaluated against each other and other sources of information to probe thepresence or absence of collective behavior incidents relevant to the study.

The first stage in the analysis was to recognize the emerging categories ofactors, acts, and places. In-depth interviews and participant observation wereused to corroborate evidence and verify findings (Yin 1994). The limited numberof years analyzed in this study is a source of potential invalidity. For instance, itis difficult to assess the extent to which the first year considered in the studychanged the nature of commemorations (it was the 30th anniversary of the mili-tary coup and Allende’s death).

The next step was to digitize printed texts in a format compatible with Atlas.ti5.0 for computer-aided analysis. After that, the information was organized into cat-egories related to the central themes of the research, allowing the identificationof meaningful and relevant passages of the texts. Content analysis of documentsyielded data—excerpts, quotations, and entire passages—that were then organ-ized into major themes, categories, and cases (Labuschagne 2003). Documentarymaterial in newspapers provided data on the context in which actors operated,background information, and historical insights; suggestions for the questions thatneeded to be included in the interviews and participant observations; a means oftracking change in collective action; and verification of findings.

An in-depth interview with an official of the Interior Ministry (2008) facilitatedthe identification of the scenarios where major disturbances occur, and alsohelped us to understand the institutional explanations of night and day violence.Another interview with a member of the municipal government of Pudahuel(2008), where most armed violence occurs, as mentioned in the press, helped usto reconstruct incidents of night violence. Seven interviews with residents of theareas where protests and riots most frequently occur helped us understand thesubjective perspective of the neighbors who are the captive audience for theseincidents. We also interviewed four members of the Chilean National Assembly ofHuman Rights (Asamblea Nacional por los Derechos Humanos Chile, ANDH), thecivil organization that organizes the March for the Preservation of Memory, oneof the major collective actions that take place every September 11. In addition,two of the authors joined the march in 2008 and became participant observerstrying to understand its composition, its structure, and the dynamics of its actorsand acts. We used triangulation in the analysis of both qualitative and quantita-tive data, and cross-tabulations to identify the areas mentioned in the press mostlikely to experience violence, the so-called hot spots, on the outskirts of Santiago.

108 LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY 55: 2

DAYTIME AND NIGHTTIME VIOLENCE

Although not present in serious intellectual studies about September 11, the col-lective behaviors on that date, in the popular imagination of large segments ofChilean society, are understood using a simple dichotomy corresponding to thehour of the day in which they take place. From this perspective, daytime eventsoccur in full view of the press and public opinion; most of them take place indowntown Santiago and are authorized by the state. In the words of Santiago’smayor, “daytime detainees were basically arrested because of public disorders,and those arrested at night for carrying weapons, throwing Molotov cocktails[homemade firebombs], and looting” (La Nación 2007a).

During the night, the tense social climate moves to the outskirts of GreaterSantiago and into poorer neighborhoods of the metropolitan area. Barricades areset up; violent confrontations take place, along with looting, robberies, anddestruction of electric power lines and businesses. Nighttime activities alsoinclude instances of by now conventionalized violence and confrontations withthe police and other social control instruments of the state, which at times involvethe activities of gangs of criminals. Paradoxically, the stigmatization of the “night”has meant that while the events of nighttime violence receive the most commentsby the press, the public is less well informed about them; the reasons for theseviolent collective behaviors are little understood.

While not entirely inaccurate, the dichotomy of day and night is an oversim-plification of a complex network of events, actors, and scenarios that have theeffect of denying any legitimacy to actions that fall outside the state-approvedpractices. Even though the evidence we collected is limited, it shows that there isviolence during the day and peace during the night, at both the center and theperiphery of the Santiago metropolitan area. After nightfall, important peacefulcommemorative rituals take place in settings on the outskirts of the metropolis notcovered by the press and not recognized by the authorities, where people organ-ize events such as film showings, monuments in memory of the missing, contests,and art exhibits.

STATE ACTIONS

In Chile, as in other countries, the action of government bureaucracies in facili-tating, creating, and exercising direction and control of the dynamic aspects ofincidents of collective behavior is very important (Aguirre 2000). State actions inconstructing the symbolic meaning of September 11 metamorphosed during theyears following the 1973 coup.

The state’s initial policy during the period 1974–76 was to define the date asa celebration, so that eventually, for many Chileans, the military coup became a“feat of liberation” from socialist and communist tyranny, marking the beginningof a “new Chile.” September 11 represented for them a second national inde-pendence, to be celebrated with the joys of a patriotic holiday. The regime’s dis-sidents endured the date with sadness, but the fear of deadly repression and thegeneral distrust that existed did not allow people to express themselves outsidethe privacy of their homes (Candina 2002; Joignant 2007). Furthermore, in 1980,September 11 acquired a new significance: the institutionalization of dictatorshipcrystallized in a new constitution, which made Pinochet president of the republic


and self-legitimated the regime and the repressive actions of the military junta. Itwas imposed through an irregular plebiscite that took place precisely on Sep-tember 11 (Candina 2002).

However, the actions of the state did not take place in a vacuum. Protestdemonstrations and resistance movements began to operate in late 1970s and1980s. The movements that took up the resistance against the dictatorship wereunified under the contemporarily appropriate master frame of violation of humanrights. (On social movement frames, see Benford and Snow 2000).

The relatives of the missing or detainees, supported by the leftist parties andthe Catholic Church, began their first demonstrations demanding justice and truth.These initial demonstrations ended at the General Cemetery, where it was thoughtthat the bodies of missing persons were buried. Even though these demonstra-tions were always dispersed by the police (Carabineros), they helped to createthe forms of social organization and the uses of space that became antecedentsof arguably the most important form of collective behavior occurring on this date,the march for the preservation of the memory of the crimes committed by the mil-itary junta and the value of human rights. Later on, from 1983 to 1986, the eco-nomic crisis encouraged protests among workers and in the slums of the city, andthousands more began to participate in so-called national protests (Amaro 2003).

This stage nurtured what became important social movements, mobilized toadvance human rights and to create a more egalitarian society. It also identifiedthe scenarios and the collective rituals and forms of protest that continue to thisday, including commemorative acts. These took place in former military detentionand torture centers and in several slums and other places throughout the metrop-olis, the Presidential Palace (La Moneda), Constitution Square (in front of thepalace), university campuses, and the General Cemetery itself.

The most recent ongoing process of symbolic transformation of September 11is linked to state actions that started with the democratic transition inaugurated bythe 1989 plebiscite and the gradual reestablishment of democracy in the country.In the transitional period, a conciliatory political discourse predominated, and thegovernment’s agenda was understood as negotiable (Gajardo 1990), albeit oftenwithin the limits imposed by the Constitution of 1980 (Cavallo et al. 2001). Thefirst democratic government of President Patricio Aylwin (1990–94) permitted thepublic to legitimate the iconic places for remembering the victims of the dictator-ship. It also opened symbolic spaces for the expression of opinions by those whohad been silenced by the dictatorship. Some of these symbolic spaces, createdpartly to help recover the moral legitimacy of the state, were the Commission forTruth and Reconciliation; the reopening of the National Stadium, which was usedas a prison during the coup; and the exhumation and reburial of PresidentAllende’s remains.

The governments of the Concertación thereby also showed their commitmentto respecting human rights organizations and the construction of memorials andmonuments remembering those who died during the dictatorship. As democraticpractices consolidated, however, the governments’ willingness to allow these“expressions of remembrance” declined, side by side with increased calls forpeople to stop thinking about the past and look to the future (Wilde 1999). Today,during the commemoration of September 11, the political establishment increas-ingly tends to avoid confrontational speeches that rekindle the past. It is verycareful to define its position so as not to “arouse passions.” Tellingly, during his


entire administration, President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994–2000) was out ofthe country every September 11.

The logic of the events organized by the government during the years stud-ied has a direct relationship to the scenarios and choreography in which they takeplace, where, through the use of the appurtenances of important places like LaMoneda Palace and Constitution Square, their legitimacy is established. Theseevents consist of diverse religious ceremonies and also tributes in remembranceof President Allende. Decisive in the evolution of the commemorative events hasbeen the government’s acknowledgment of human rights violations and its doc-umentation of them in the official reports of the National Commission on Politi-cal Imprisonment and Torture, along with the activities of organizations such asthe Christian Churches Foundation for Social Help (FASIC), which keep humanrights an important topic of concern for the general public. Allende’s symbolicfigure was rescued from the marginal place to which it had been relegated duringthe Pinochet regime. This re-emergence is expressed by portraying Allende as aduly elected former president who was illegally removed, so that the figure ofAllende becomes a synonym for dignity, democracy, and even justice, in contrastto the increasing deterioration of Pinochet’s public image.

RELIGIOUS ACTS OF COMMEMORATION

Religious acts sponsored by the state have different collective meanings, actors,and settings. They can be divided into two subtypes: the ecumenical events spon-sored by government officials in different rooms and halls of La Moneda Palace,such as Allende’s office in La Moneda, opened in 2008; and the Te Deum cele-brated at the Evangelical Cathedral to commemorate Chilean independence onSeptember 18.

Throughout the period under study, religious ceremonies advanced a themeof national reconciliation, aiming to pray “for all those who on that day and thefollowing ones, both civilian and military, lost or gave their lives for what theyconsidered a noble cause” (El Mercurio 2006a). In spite of their all-inclusive tone,however, these ecumenical religious ceremonies are explicit in their remembranceof President Allende (La Nación 2004a; La Tercera 2003). For example, as far backas 2003, together with politicians of the ruling parties and the president of therepublic, Allende’s widow, daughters, and other relatives attended the religiousceremony on the 11th. Municipal and presidential elections during 2004–5, how-ever, prevented the president of the republic from attending these official reli-gious ceremonies, presumably in order to “give a sign of normalcy,” treating theoccasion as if it were “another working day” (El Mercurio 2004a).

Since the beginning of the period under study (2003), official tributes, suchas the placement of memorial placards at the site where Allende died in LaMoneda Palace and the opening, by President Ricardo Lagos in 2003, of the sidedoor (street address Morandé 80) through which Allende used to enter the pres-idential palace and through which his body was removed, have aimed to bringabout the symbolic restitution of Allende’s image as a duly elected president. Inthis context, La Nación (2003a) reported that “a door covered with a Chilean flag… was hoisted for the chief of state to enter into the Palace through the samedoor that the body of President Salvador Allende was taken out 30 years ago.” In2006, under the government of Michelle Bachelet (2006–10), the re-evaluation of


the figure of Allende was accentuated. In President Bachelet’s words, “Here wesaw how they tried to erase memory and history, when they decided to physi-cally eliminate this space with the building of new walls…. We are honoring theman and President who, facing tragedy, knew how to leave us a legacy of dig-nity with his words and deeds” (Radio Cooperativa 2008). The rooms and plac-ards inside La Moneda Palace became sacred places for the public remembranceof President Allende and his ministers by government officials and other nationalleaders.

The second form of religious expression is the ceremony of thanksgiving, orTe Deum, that takes place to commemorate the independence of Chile on Sep-tember 18, 1810. The Te Deum is celebrated on the second Sunday of September.During the period of this study, the date of the Evangelical Te Deum variedbetween September 9 and 14. Its proximity to the 11th is an important coinci-dence. The symbolic attributes of Independence Day turn it into an opportunityused by government officials and politicians from both the opposition and theruling parties to make statements not only about the struggle for independencethat took place roughly two centuries ago, but also about September 11, 1973, itscommemoration, the state of human rights, and the political contingencies thecountry faces. The result is that those religious organizations that cosponsor theTe Deum, convene the religious ceremony, and emphasize its religious nature losetheir prominence as the event turns into a platform for political actors. Religiousleaders use the opportunity to advance their programs with the politicians.

LOCATIONS OF THE COMMEMORATIVE COLLECTIVE ACTS

To understand these commemorative acts, it is important to note the symbolismof the places in which they occur. There is a significant concentration of collec-tive actions in four specific settings during the day, most of them in downtownSantiago. The majority of the 348 incidents covered by the press and analyzed inthis study are concentrated in La Moneda Palace (33 percent); Pinochet’s twohouses (18 percent); Military headquarters (17 percent); and Constitution Square(13 percent). A large percentage can be classified as tributes (50 percent), fol-lowed by religious acts (37 percent). Most of the tributes (74 percent) take placeat Constitution Square and nearby La Moneda Palace, while 46 percent of reli-gious acts take place in military precincts.

Other settings have different symbolism, different traditions of struggle, withdifferent participants and different rhetoric and levels of legitimacy. There are alsohistorical continuities in the collective protests that take place in many of the dis-tricts of greater Santiago on September 11. The contemporary protests and riotsin these neighborhoods are a continuation of their earlier resistance against themilitary dictatorship. These places, considered “iconic” during the armed struggleagainst the military regime, and where the social upheaval and the people’sprotests of the 1970s and 1980s occurred to such an extent that they became con-ventional, continue to be the places where most nighttime violence takes placeduring the commemorations of September 11. Many streetcorners on the outskirtsof the Santiago metropolitan area turn the night into battlefields, where con-frontations with the police and other violence take place.

The forms that violent protest will take are known, practiced, and anticipatedby everyone. Thus, La Nación (2003b) reports, “As the authorities expected, bar-


ricades, transit detours and power failures were reported in some traditionallytroubled spots last night.” Still, the situation is not static. Recent nighttime riots,compared to those that occurred in earlier years, show a greater presence offirearms in the confrontations with Carabineros, an increasing presence of minorsin the protests, and changes in the ways protesters are named. (On the charac-teristics of riots, see McPhail 1991, 1994.)

Five districts, or comunas, are iconic places of disturbances. In them, specificparts of neighborhoods or slums are most often mentioned in the press as placeswhere violence is common. Indeed, about 54 percent of newspaper accounts ofnighttime riots and violence come from Estación Central, Peñalolen, Huechuraba,Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Pudahuel, and the neighborhoods of Villa Francia, Lo Her-mida, La Pincoya, La Victoria, and Pudahuel Sur. These urban areas began duringthe period 1950–70, in which the population of greater Santiago grew very rap-idly and new settlements on the outskirts generated pressure to address a short-age of affordable housing, one of the most pressing issues faced by the state.They came about as a result of state urban policies, as well as the strategies usedby the settlers themselves to improve their living conditions, either within themargins established by law or outside of them (Garcés 2002).

In this manner, Villa Francia and La Pincoya were created in 1969 through theuse of available land sites, La Victoria in 1957 and Lo Hermida in 1970 throughindividual illegal appropriation of land, and Pudahuel Sur in 1981 through the useof already available social housing. All these neighborhoods had strong socialmovements of squatters that participated in the struggle to secure housing. His-torically, the neighborhoods had considerable solidarity and cohesion, which, inthe 1970s and 1980s, were very important resources, necessary to survive povertyand military repression. The social, political, and religious organization among theinhabitants was fundamental for resisting the military regime; this was particularlytrue in Villa Francia, Lo Hermida, La Pincoya, and La Victoria. In these urbanareas, every September 11, annual commemorations take place in the earlyevening to honor the victims of the dictatorship. Vigils, marches, religious acts,and artistic performances are collective practices that have become part of the cul-ture of these neighborhoods. Violent acts take place late in the evening and arepart of the conventionalized schedule of collective actions.

Pudahuel is different in that the military government built it and its urbandesign favored a high concentration of housing that brought about very high pop-ulation density. This area is currently beset by social problems, such as drug useand trafficking and the presence of criminal organizations. In this slum, rituals andcommemorative events do not precede September 11’s violent incidents.

Parenthetically, the use of these contextual characteristics of urban areas toexplain collective behavior incidents in them offers only a partial understandingof the frequent occurrence of violent incidents during the September 11 com-memorations. Needed is information gathered from interviews with a sample ofindividual actors to try to understand what they did, an approach not taken in thisresearch due to lack of resources. Nevertheless, these structural historical factorswould have to be considered in any explanation of their occurrence. It is impor-tant that these historical continuities are seldom mentioned in newspaperaccounts of the “night” of September 11 in Chile.


MODES OF COLLECTIVE EXPRESSION

Three cultural complexes (on this concept see Benedict 1934), or instances of col-lective behavior sharing ideological assumptions, rhetorical explanations, anddominant emotions, emerged from a content analysis of the press coverage ofSeptember 11 during 2003–8. The first is the cultural complex generated by thefigure of Pinochet and acted out at various times by the armed forces, Pinochet’sfamily, his former collaborators, and the foundations and voluntary organizationsof retired military officers, armed forces, and Carabineros. The second culturalcomplex surrounds the figure of Allende, and has been enacted by governmentofficials during the current democratic period, including the office of the presi-dent and its spokespersons; ministers and undersecretaries; governors; the politi-cal parties forming the democratic governments of the Concertación, includingmembers of Congress, political leaders. and party members; the Allende Founda-tion; and Allende’s family and former collaborators of his government.

The third cultural complex during the September 11 commemorations repre-sents the suffering of the people during the military dictatorship, and is embod-ied by the collective remembrance of grieving family members, friends, andneighbors and the victims of the military dictatorship, along with religious cere-monies carried out by organizations outside of Parliament. These include humanrights organizations, Christian churches, political parties with no parliamentaryrepresentation, and neighborhood groups and associations. Each of these culturalconfigurations has its own traditions of rituals associated with specific places inthe metropolis.

The typology of collective activities of Pinochetism took three forms: Catholicmasses, personal visits to Pinochet, and evening celebrations and social events.There were three settings in which these collective performances usually hap-pened: the Military Cathedral (la Catedral Castrense) and chapels of militaryprecinct offices; Pinochet’s private houses, in the city (La Dehesa) and the sub-urbs (Los Boldos); and social organizations and event halls in the upper-classareas of the capital. In 2003, on the morning of September 11, the armed forcesconvened masses in their chapels and in the Military Cathedral, attended byPinochet. Former collaborators and even the commander of the army went to seehim. Pinochet’s followers and sympathizers also gathered in front of his housewith pictures, slogans, and signs waiting for the former ruler to step outside togreet them. Eventually Pinochet received some of his former collaborators andmembers of the armed forces at home. In the evening, tributes and receptionstook place in the social clubs and theaters of the city’s upper-class districts.

While some of the behaviors and scenarios are similar during the periodunder study, there are variations in the homilies and the purposes of the militaryreligious services, in the attendance by Pinochet’s relatives, and in the number ofsupporters in front of Pinochet’s houses. Furthermore, the number of former col-laborators and rightist politicians who went to his house to greet him decreased.The legal situation of Pinochet and his family hurt his prestige and honor; chargesbrought against him for human rights violations, with the first lawsuit and his sub-sequent detention in London in 1998, started a slow discrediting process thataffected his public image. In 2004, this situation worsened when the former dic-tator’s secret foreign bank accounts were disclosed. The result was that right-wingpoliticians distanced themselves from him, and public expression of support from


his followers dwindled. Likewise, the active members of the Armed Forcesstopped paying visits: “the presidential candidate for the right [Joaquín Lavín, UDI]and the leaders of the Alliance for Chile decided to follow the example of Presi-dent Lagos and worked on September 11. Those who headed the coup 31 yearsago only received discreet and private greetings” (La Nación 2004b).

Another change that affected Pinochet’s public image was the progressivedecline of his health and his death in December 2006. This obviously diminishedthe number and type of personal visits, as well as the settings where religious cer-emonies and tributes took place. Also during these years, the armed forces wentthrough a modernization process that aimed to enhance the meaning of the com-memoration through a discourse of integration and national unification, whichfurther distanced the institution from partisan politics.

The followers who, year after year, would go to Pinochet’s residence toexpress their support with songs and signs deserve special mention. With impas-sioned slogans about “their general,” they waited at the door for Pinochet and hisfamily to come out to greet “his people.” This event was also affected by thechanges described above; the press underscored the small number of followersin the years following 2004. “Far away is the image of Pinochet, smiling and wear-ing shorts, that last year leaned out for a few minutes at the main door of hishouse in La Dehesa to greet a group of his followers. Yesterday morning, therewere only three faithful followers in front of his residence of Los Flamencos Streetto support the former soldier” (El Mercurio 2005a).

This situation was only temporarily reversed after Pinochet’s death, when thenumber of his followers who went to pay their respects—not at the door of thehouse in La Dehesa but in Los Boldos—increased again: “The leaders of thePinochet Foundation decided to go to Los Boldos, near Santo Domingo, wherethe ashes of the military officer lie. Even though the event was private, about ahundred followers of the late military man arrived to attend a second mass” (LaNación 2007b). Pinochet’s declining health also affected the celebration of hisbirthday. Until 2004, he would go out to greet his followers who came to his res-idence to congratulate him; in the following years his state of health did not allowhim to participate in the celebration.

CHANGES IN MILITARY RELIGIOUS ACTS

The religious acts around September 11 underwent transformations during theperiod under study; these were related both to the locations where they tookplace and the character and content of the events themselves. In 2003, there weremanifold official religious celebrations in every branch of the armed forces andCarabineros. These decreased in the following years (2004–5), when these eventsbegan to involve private acts in the armed services, focusing on remembering thedeath and the activities of soldiers not on duty. The purpose of the Catholicmasses and ecumenical acts also changed: the memorial service for the fallenmembers of the armed forces gave way to a commemoration of “all the victimsof September 11” at the military academy (2006–7).

Pinochet’s absence from the religious acts held by the armed forces exertedinfluence on the behavior and conduct of his followers. Although the first com-memorative services of that period, in the form of Catholic masses and militarytributes, included the former dictator, his family, and his former collaborators, as


well as entities such as the Pinochet Foundation, their participation grew less sig-nificant until finally it was completely absent in the last period, as documentedby La Nación (2007c): “As in every year, the Army celebrated a mass at the Mili-tary Academy Chapel in remembrance of the fallen on 1973 September 11; at notime during the ceremony was the late dictator Augusto Pinochet mentioned. Nei-ther members of the Pinochet-Hiriart family, nor the Pinochet Foundationattended this act.”

The absence of Pinochet followers and sympathizers from those events doesnot mean that these actors disappeared from the political arena. Instead, theymoved to a more private context, such as Pinochet’s houses. In later years, asPinochet’s legal situation and health grew worse, these events became more pri-vate, typified by the absence of press coverage and the participants’ reluctance toissue public statements. After Pinochet’s death, the masses were attended by invi-tation only for the family at the private residence of Los Boldos, where theremains of the former ruler lie. The resulting lack of public information did notallow the analysis of these collective acts.

TWO SACRED SETTINGS

Activities remembering Allende occurred inside La Moneda Palace at the doorMorandé 80 that he used to enter the building and at Allende’s statue in nearbyConstitution Square. Morandé 80 is one of the most important places that facili-tate the public expression of the agendas of the left. It became an obligatory stopon the march convened by human rights groups. These spaces constitute dramaticsites used by pro-Allende groups. They are, in effect, sacred settings used bythese groups for the laying of wreaths, singing of songs related to PresidentAllende, and speeches in his honor.

Another important location often associated with the occurrence of officialand nonofficial tributes is Constitution Square and the statue of Allende placed init in 2000. Every September 11, this square accommodates the largest public com-memorations. It is where, in 2003, the first event in remembrance of the victimsof the dictatorship and “to honor the memory of former President Allende” tookplace (El Mercurio 2003). This collective act was led by human rights groups anddid not include a single speech by a government official, even though the presstypically associated this space with official acts, due to its nearness to La MonedaPalace. Its pseudo-official character gave an official halo to the commemorativeact that took place in it.

After 2003, the commemoration of the 11th in Constitution Square was theresponsibility of human rights groups, Socialist and Communist parties, and mem-bers of the ruling coalition. It involved a series of conventionalized behaviors,such as the laying of wreaths and delivering speeches in front of the former pres-ident’s statue. There were also new behaviors, as in 2005, when a group of rep-resentatives of different social organizations buried red crosses in the square andthrew red paint bombs at the soldiers guarding the palace in protest against thegovernment’s decisions regarding human rights.

The route of this important political ritual, authorized since 2000 (Escobarand Fernández 2008), was interrupted by an act of violence in 2006, when a fire-bomb was thrown at La Moneda Palace during that year’s march. From that dayon, the Metropolitan Council prohibited the march from coming to the park and


the Morandé 80 door (figure 1b). This prohibition became an important reasonfor present-day confrontation, as demonstrators are now arrested when they tryto climb over the police fences.

The interdiction caused a change in the dynamics of representation. The dif-ferent collective actors must now take turns in small delegations to pay tribute toAllende for short periods of time, an official solution that they deeply resent. Theinterdiction has been a source of constant struggle between the government andthe demonstrators. Every year, days ahead of the date, the press reports intensenegotiations between the organizers, the political parties, the Interior Ministry,Carabineros, and the Metropolitan Council. In 2007, La Nación reported that“until the last moment, the organizers of the march tried to dialogue with [theperson] in charge of security in the Metropolitan Council, to obtain authorizationto march in front of Morandé Street in order to pay homage, first and foremost,to Salvador Allende. Yet, the interdiction remains in effect” (La Nación 2007d).


Figure 1. Route of the March for the Preservation of Memoryand Places of Riots (2003–2008)

a. Map of Santiago depicting the route of the marches 2003–6 (gray line) and 2007–8 (blackline). 1. Los Héroes Square (starting point); 2. General Cemetery (ending point); 3. Consti-tution Square. N = north. b. Detail of the area framed in a. Route of the marches 2003–6 (gray line) passed near LaMoneda Palace (4) and Constitution Square (3). From 2007 on, the route of the march waschanged (black line) to avoid the presence of demonstrators next to La Moneda Palace. c. Detail of area framed by rectangle c in a. The marches 2003–8 (gray and black lines)ended at the entrance of the cemetery (2). “Explosion” symbols in b and c show places where riots occurred and year (i.e., ’05 meansriots in that place during the march of 2005).

It is not surprising that the demonstrators were very unhappy about this deci-sion. A leader of the Assembly for Human Rights expressed it as follows: “We donot accept this situation, and the group will arrive at Morandé 80 with its wreathno matter what, and we repeat, no matter what. I expect that the authoritiesunderstand that if they denied our right to march yesterday, they cannot nowdeny us our right to lay a wreath on the 11th” (La Nación 2007e). Another demon-strator expressed similar feelings: “It is a provocation. It shows no respect forwhat we are commemorating, no respect for the memory of the victims; it is ahuge setback for democracy,” stated Mireya García, vice president of the Associ-ation of Families of the Detained and Disappeared, before her arrest (quoted inEl Mercurio 2007). “It cannot be that a President who was herself a victim of thedictatorship fails to understand the enormous symbolism of passing by Morandé80 to pay tribute with our mere footsteps at the very place where the lifeless bodyof President Allende was carried out,” said Viviana Díaz, another member of theassociation (La Nación 2007f). The papers editorialized, “In the morning, whatseemed like a peaceful day of controlled tributes was interrupted by a group thatstruggled with the police and accessed Morandé Street to reach the emblematicdoor” (La Nación 2007g).

THE MAIN MARCH

The events approved by the Metropolitan Council are mostly concentrated iniconic places in downtown Santiago and in some neighborhoods that were sym-bols of the resistance against the military dictatorship. For example, according tothe report by the Metropolitan Council on the occasion of the 32nd anniversaryof the coup, it authorized 11 events organized by human rights organizations, theSocialist and Communist parties, student associations, and professional guilds (LaNación 2005a). The explicit aim of these events was to remember the fallen at thetime of the coup and those who died in the years that followed. Besides the cen-tral demonstration and march, the council authorized the laying of wreaths at thefoot of the statue of former President Allende in Constitution Square, organizedin 2005 by the National Assembly for Human Rights, law students of the Univer-sity of Arts and Social Sciences, the Youth of the Party for Democracy, PresidentAllende’s Friends Foundation, President Allende’s Friends Group, and the Associ-ation of Families of Detained and Disappeared (La Nación 2005a).

The events that take place in the vicinity of former detention centers and innearby squares and streets are tributes in remembrance of the dead and missingduring the dictatorship, as well as to political personalities who embody thememory of the fallen. In these figures, religious and lay symbolism merge. Thus,in 2005, in downtown Santiago, in the neighborhood of Huechuraba, a vigil andwalk were authorized, in addition to a religious event on Grecia Avenue, whichis close to the National Stadium, a sports facility used as a detention and torturecenter after the military intervention (La Tercera 2005a).

In these events, the actors most often mentioned by the media are the polit-ical parties, both those of the ruling coalition and those from the extraparliamen-tary left, which take advantage of the date to pay tribute to their political leadersand to remember events that occurred under the dictatorship. An example tookplace in 2003, when a segment of the Christian Democratic Party paid tribute tothe 16 leaders, headed by Bernardo Leighton, who in 1973 opposed the military


coup. This tribute took place in the square named after the former leader (La Ter-cera 2003). The Socialist Party also has, by now, conventionalized an event at theGeneral Cemetery that takes place before the general march for human rights, inwhich the party pays tribute to Allende as a fellow member. El Mercurio reportedin 2004, “The Socialist Party remembered former President Salvador Allende’sdeath and the military coup of 1973 with a simple event at the former ruler’s mau-soleum at the General Cemetery” (2004b).

Both commemorations and violent incidents often occur in the vicinity ofseveral universities in Santiago. Confrontations between police and university stu-dents can go on for hours and reach their climax when police use water cannonsand detain many students. For instance, in 2006, the police entered the Universityof Santiago and arrested a large percentage of participants in the protest. The edi-tion of El Mercurio that day reported 79 detainees, 54 of them minors, and theconfiscation of firebombs and slings with pellets (2006b).

The March for the Preservation of Memory, the collective memory of thenational tragedy, convened by the National Assembly for Human Rights andapproved by the Metropolitan Council, is one of the most important dramaticenactments and arguably the most important activity during the September 11commemoration in the Santiago metropolitan area. The march’s route is fromdowntown Santiago to the General Cemetery in the Recoleta neighborhood (LaNación, 2004c; see figure 1). The general march has a long tradition in the com-memoration of September 11. Its antecedent dates back to the end of the 1970s.It serves as a performing platform for several social actors with different ideolo-gies and goals, even though they all condemn the dictatorship’s repressiveregime. Moreover, it is a mechanism to protest against contemporary practices thatmarginalize and exclude people from full participation in society. Thus, the invi-tation of the National Assembly for Human Rights in 2008 stated,

One month after the commemoration, 35 years ago, of the most flagrant violationsuffered by the people of Chile, the military coup, we call on every social andlabor organization, on the institutions of our country and on all Chileans, men andwomen alike, to turn this September 11 into a day of commitment to the con-struction of a country where truth and justice prevail as lessons for humanity, inorder that those events will never be repeated. (ANDH 2008a)

Every year the march takes on a different tone to keep relevant to the cur-rent concerns of the people. For example, in 2004, the theme was Pinochet’s legalsituation and proposals for amnesty for those involved in violations of humanrights. La Nación reported that the organizers agreed that the march had a differ-ent flavor that year due to the adverse legal situation Pinochet was facing (LaNación 2004d).

During the entire period under study, the National Assembly for HumanRights convoked people to the march. Every year the conveners make an explicitcall for a peaceful demonstration. In 2005, the convocation read, “We convoke allthose who want to express themselves in a different manner [violently] to refrainfrom doing so, and to let those who are going to mobilize peacefully do so” (LaNación 2005b). In 2007 it read, “We have proven that we can march peacefully,even when chaos is predicted. We come here to remember the victims, not toconfront the police, who often are the provokers” (La Nación 2007h).


The march is called every year for the Sunday closest to September 11, exceptin 2004, it took place on Saturday, September 11. It lasted approximately fourhours, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, and proceeded along Bernardo O’HigginsAvenue to La Moneda Palace, where the procession stopped in front of Morandé80 and the statue of Salvador Allende in Constitution Square (see figure 1). Whilethe march passed the statue and door, traditional tributes were paid to formerpresident Allende. After this obligatory stop, the march continued to the GeneralCemetery, where it became a stationary gathering in front of the Missing andDetained Memorial erected in 1993, with speeches delivered to commemorate thevictims of the dictatorship. The speakers were mainly representatives of humanrights groups and leaders of the extraparliamentary left.

An average of three thousand to seven thousand people participated in themarch during the years of this study. The gathering forms a colorful humancolumn through the streets of Santiago. In spite of its apparent uniformity andorderly alignment, it is heterogeneous. Indeed, the composition of the march isdiverse, and the ways participants demonstrate also vary. According to participantobservations in 2008, at the front of the march were the relatives of missingdetainees and human rights groups, who carried signs and canvases with the col-orless faces of the victims of the dictatorship while singing songs and shoutingslogans demanding justice and exalting the figure of the late president Allende.Immediately behind them, in a rather compact group, marched the members ofthe Communist Party, elders first, grouped according to party cells, and thenimmediately behind them were the Communist Youth. As one would expect, thecolor red prevailed among them, and both signs and chants referred to the partyand the figure of Allende.

Following these compact and differentiated groups were other smaller butequally tightly formed groups composed of members of organizations that werecreated during the years of underground resistance to the dictatorship, such as theManuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front and the Revolutionary Left Movement. Behindthese groups came social organizations marching in a more dispersed way, giventhe diversity of actors that participated. Homosexual and feminist rights organiza-tions, soccer team supporters, and cyclists were among the many others that min-gled with additional Communist Party cells, along with political parties, such asthe Christian left, and other leftist groups, such as Class Against Class. Theyformed a more compact assembly than those who walked at the tail end, butmuch looser than those at the head of the march.

In this segment of the march the presence of families with children and elderswas more frequent, as they joined the march independently of organizations par-ticipating in it. The diversity of actors and voices was the most colorful, cheerful,and noisy moment of the procession. By means of signs, songs, dances, andshouting, each group identified and reaffirmed itself while, at the same time,maintaining its connection to the core purpose that inspired the march. With eachsong and sign the groups legitimated the meeting and condemned human rightsviolations and the repression perpetrated by the dictatorship while reassertingtheir right to participate.

The marchers at the very end walked quite loosely; the press called themanarchists. Even though some carried emblematic black anarchist flags, most ofthem did not carry signs, nor did they chant slogans, but instead conversed withpeople and shouted at the press. This was the most frequent verbal expression


from these groups, who otherwise walked peacefully most of the way. The pressconstantly besieged them, perhaps because their anarchist identities corre-sponded to the common stereotype used by many news organizations to describethe motivation of those who would participate in violent behavior. As the marchmoved on, some members of these violence-prone groups crossed the police bar-riers and wrote anarchist slogans on the walls of adjacent buildings. Most of themremained relatively peaceful until the end of the march, when the traditionallyaccepted context that facilitated their collective violence materialized.

A strong police presence was on the scene during the entire march. Whilethe press reports were uncertain about the precise number of officers assigned tothis task, the collective statistics indicate a number higher than six hundred Cara-bineros. Very often the marchers interpreted the strong presence of the police asa provocation, which elicited violent responses from them (ANDH 2008b).

The march, as well as the disorders happening around it, has conventional-ized in the course of time, and the violent incidents have become predictableevents. Year after year, during both day and night, the police, the Interior Min-istry, and the intelligence forces try to remove troublemakers and prevent con-flicts, while local authorities prepare the “battleground.” Mayors and governorsremove lights, close rest stops, and reinforce security in those places where vio-lence has become the norm.

The content analysis of the mass media, verified by participant observationof the march, shows the places along the route of the march where confronta-tions with police usually take place, as can be seen in figure 1. The marcherscommit acts of violence that include destroying windows, scratching walls, andthrowing paint bombs against fast-food outlets, banks, and public buildings thatare considered emblems of the “capitalist system” and the “establishment” (LaNación 2006a).

THE ROLE OF THE POLICE AND INTERNAL CONTROLDURING THE MARCH

The strong police presence along the entire route of the march has beenincreased in recent years. Their show of force has been the strategy used toaddress security problems and minimize the damage to public and private prop-erty during the demonstration.

The march making its way through downtown Santiago is enclosed by policebarriers, metallic fences also named papal fences, which have a double function:to confine the demonstrators and to make it difficult for observers to join theirranks. Every street intersection along the route is guarded by a small police con-tingent armed with weapons for crowd dispersal, while additional police protec-tion is assigned to banks, gas stations, stores, and subway stations. La Nación(2003c) reported that “access to the area will be guarded with strict security meas-ures: 1,500 policemen on duty, and the certainty that neither the town of Reco-leta nor its neighbors will foot the bill for damage caused by eventual excesses.”

Throughout the period under study, government and police officials issuedstatements in which they made clear their intention to control the gatheringthrough a strong police presence in traditional places of conflict. Unintended,however, is that the massive police presence to prevent acts of vandalism actu-ally creates the expectation of violence and facilitates the occurrence of violence


and confrontation; it becomes an important part of the dynamics of these publicperformances. Without the police on the scene, many groups and organizationsin the march would be deprived of opposition against which they could perform.Still, promises are made: “Alberto Cienfuegos, General Director of Carabineros,guaranteed police protection for this day and said that Chileans can trust in thesecurity forces that will be deployed in any case where an attempt against thepublic order occurred” (La Nación 2004d).

Other internal mechanisms of control are emerging inside the demonstrationitself, in effect creating strategies and compromises among its participants in orderto ensure a “peaceful day.” During the entire period under study, there wererepeated attempts to gain internal control. Members of the Communist Party, whotake care of the internal security duties of the march, play the role of peace-keepers: “the Communist Party was committed to creating a group of controlduring the march to placate any act of violence last Sunday, September 14” (LaNación 2003d). Important is that members of the march control each other tomaintain the prevailing understanding of the organizers. Thus, reportedly,

a hooded anarchist tried to provoke riots when he threw missiles against thepolice officers stationed at the [La Moneda] Palace. Yet, the individual did notcount on the reaction of a member of the Communist Youth who called him toorder by breaking a flagpole on his head…. “[He was told] Here are whole fam-ilies, old women and children, who come to remember their dead and not to lookfor a confrontation with the police,” the young man said to the masked guy whowas bleeding as a result of the aggression. Immediately afterward, a score ofyoung [anarchist] men rushed toward the group of Communist Youths, carryingsticks and kicking and cuffing them. “Calm down, Comrades. Let us keep goingpeacefully,” asked Pizarro [one of the organizers]. The intervention of the policemoved the violence inside the graveyard, where the aggressions and argumentsbetween both adversaries continued. The Anarchists, who were entrenched at thecemetery gates, incited the Communist youths at the Memorial Monument to jointhem against the police. “The enemy is outside, red cops. You’re afraid to fightoppression, we are not,” said one of the hooded individuals who served asspokesman. (El Mercurio 2006c)

As is clear from this incident, the effort by the participants in the march tokeep internal order does not prevent the incidents from taking place; disruptiveevents inside and outside the march continue to happen year after year.

THE ACTS AT THE END OF THE MARCH

The end of the march is marked by a conventionalized event at the Detainees andMissing Persons Memorial. Most of those who take part in the crowded marchenter the cemetery, while on the outside, several incidents and confrontationswith the police take place that cause damage to public and private property, suchas destruction of lights and street signs and damage to cars and buildings closeto the cemetery (see figure 1c). They end with a great number of arrests.

The images of barricades, bonfires and hooded individuals recurred this year inthe commemoration of the coup. The events took place outside the GeneralCemetery, where the march organized by the National Assembly for Human


Rights in remembrance of the victims of the dictatorship gathered more than 4,000people…. About 50 hooded individuals started the incidents and confronted thepolice, causing damages to the property of the cemetery and in the adjoiningstreets. (La Nación 2005b)

In the typical case, the march arrives at the cemetery and most of the partic-ipants enter its premises. The police, posted outside the cemetery, keep far awayfrom the crowd. The police contingent increases its numbers as the people enterthe cemetery. A group of participants situated at the rear of the march does notenter the premises and instead confronts the police: “About 150 demonstratorsstarted setting tires on fire and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the spe-cial police force posted at the site to protect the event; they in turn reacted withteargas bombs and water cannons” (La Nación 2005c). In the confrontations, sev-eral participants enter the cemetery and mingle with the crowd as they attempt toescape from the police. “Most of the rioters entered the general cemetery, wherethey mingled with the three thousand people taking part in the political event inremembrance of the victims of the dictatorship” (La Nación 2004e). The policeSpecial Forces then enter the cemetery looking for the demonstrators, which, inturn, provokes the rage of those who are paying tribute or delivering speeches.

The gathering outside the cemetery with burning-tire barricades is augmentedonce the tribute inside the cemetery ends, as some individuals who have takenpart in it go out to “fight.” For this purpose, they cover their faces and stock upon blunt objects, such as stones for throwing at the police. In the press accounts,it is unclear who these actors that take part in the riots and confrontations are. Agreat many epithets name them as “vandals,” “the usual infiltrators,” “bold trou-blemakers,” “antisocial elements,” “childish ideologues,” “youth against thesystem,” and “anarchist youth.” Despite these labels often used by the press, atthe present time their identities and their political ideas are not known.

Clearly, there is not always agreement among the ever-widening diversity ofsocial actors that take part in the march, which include human rights organizations,leftist political parties, native movements, gays, feminists, football fans, anarchistgroups, and so on, each claiming a space and playing a role in it. This diverse setof actors share the wish to pay homage to Allende and the other victims of the dic-tatorship, but in the absence of further study, it is not possible to say much moreabout them at present. These actors and the social organizations they form areabsent from press accounts, and, despite their importance for the analysis of theseincidents, could not be included in this study, due to lack of resources.

COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE ON SEPTEMBER 11

The daytime violent incidents happen mostly in downtown Santiago. Accordingto the count of acts of violence mentioned in the press, Santiago receives thehighest number of mentions. This study found variations in the extent of the vio-lence from one year to the next according to the day of the week when the marchtook place. These patterns corroborate what is known about the importance offree time and people’s availablity for mobilization in protests, riots, and otherforms of collective behavior in the United States and elsewhere (McPhail 1991).

In years in which the march took place on the weekend and near the reli-gious celebration, the acts of violence increased, since people had more time to


plan and mobilize to participate in it. This is the case in 2006, when disordersoccurred during the march staged on Sunday, September 10, and then more dis-orders took place on Monday the 11th. The same effect occurs when the Te Deumis conducted in close proximity to the 11th.

Deciding about the authorized route of the march has also brought about vio-lent protests; permission to pass by certain commemorative places or the revoca-tion of same has provoked riots, confrontations, and detentions. Such was thecase in 2007 and 2008, when the perimeter of La Moneda Palace was closed offand access to the two most important commemorative sites, Morandé 80 and thestatue of Salvador Allende in Constitution Square, was restricted, a point of fric-tion that remains unresolved.

The third factor influencing violent protest is the work of regional and munic-ipal authorities in coordination with police security strategies. Laws have beenissued that punish possession and use of explosives, and police presence on thestreets and in places prone to disorders has been noticeably increased, even asthe police force has increased its arsenal, adding new means of control and dis-uasion of demonstrators in recent years.

During the time period researched in this study, violent protests occurred inmost of the municipalities in greater Santiago, with the exception of Las Condes,Vitacura, and Providencia, the wealthiest districts of the metropolis. They tookplace most often in Santiago (10.1 percent), Estación Central (9.5 percent),Peñalolen (9.5 percent), Huechuraba (6.6 percent), Pudahuel (6.0 percent), PedroAguirre Cerda (5.7 percent), Recoleta (5.7 percent), La Pintana (4.9 percent), CerroNavia (3.7 percent), Renca (3.4 percent), and La Florida (2.9 percent). The munic-ipality of Santiago is most often mentioned for daytime incidents of violence,while Estación Central, Peñalolen, Huechuraba, and Pudahuel are most oftenmentioned for nighttime incidents. Regarding the specific tactics used during theprotests, the most frequent is electric power cuts, followed by lootings, shootings,and barricades.

Due to this diversity of protest tactics, it proved useful, to make sense of thedata, to divide the incidents into five main modal categories: power cuts andbomb threats, attacks against property, bonfires and barricades, use of firearms,attacks against the police, and others. Santiago is the district with the greatestnumber of newspaper articles mentioning attacks both against the police andpublic and private property. Estación Central presents the largest number of inci-dents with firearms; in Peñalolen, the use of bonfires and barricades is the mostrecurrent; and Pudahuel is the district most often mentioned for the occurrenceof attacks against the police at night. Huechuraba, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, and Reco-leta are mentioned in a substantial number of articles containing informationabout violent incidents but do not show a clear trend for any of these tactics.These findings showing the heterogeneity of acts of violence and of places whereit is enacted echo what is known about protest activities in the United States andelsewhere.

As on other commemorative dates of social unrest, such as the so-called Dayof the Young Combatant (March 29), bomb threats are very common on Septem-ber 11. The same is true of cutting electric cables, a protest tactic that was typicalduring the military dictatorship. In addition to its great impact, cutting electricitymakes the night “darker,” which makes skirmishes and confrontations with thepolice easier. Chains are thrown at high-tension cables, causing power interrup-


tions in several areas of the city. The press reports that such blackouts and inter-ruptions of power leave important parts of the city without electricity until theearly hours of the next day. Reportedly, the blackouts affected 140,000 customersin 2003 (La Nación 2003b), 300,000 homes in 16 towns in 2004 (La Nación 2004f),70,000 Santiago residents in 2005 (La Nación 2005d), 105,000 customers in 2007(La Nación 2007i), and 300,000 customers in 2008 (Radio Cooperativa 2008b).Another type of collective protest used in conjunction with other tactics is con-frontations with the police on the streets. From dusk on, groups of demonstratorsinterrupt traffic and put up “barricades.” These barricades are made from tires,pieces of wood, metal, asphalt, and other material that are set on fire as a“marker” between the police and the demonstrators.

The demarcation of a confrontation zone by means of these barricades cre-ates a “liberated space” that allows the demonstrators and other groups to carryout criminal acts and attacks against public and private property alike. This is thebackdrop against which confrontation with the police begins. “Before 8:00 PM, atthe intersection of Grecia Avenue and Tobalaba, groups of demonstrators hadalready set up barricades, thus launching a new episode of nighttime riots” (LaTercera 2006). The demonstrators throw stones, missiles, and Molotov cocktails.They use firearms much less often. Their attacks are directed against Carabineros,who respond with water cannons and teargas as they try to restore public order.Despite the use of these tactics, the number of persons killed in these incidentsis surprisingly small.

Throughout the years of the study, different types of confrontations werereported frequently in the news, such as setting fire to barricades, interruptingtraffic, assaulting drivers who tried to drive though the barricades, and ransack-ing clinics, schools, and other buildings (El Mercurio 2004c; 2005b; 2008; LaNación 2004f; 2006b; 2007j; La Tercera 2005b). In 2007, the death of a policemanin Pudahuel Sur was the headline news of that day. “Vera’s death is the firstmurder of a serviceman in this disturbance since the end of the dictatorship, andconfirms the high degree of violence that takes place during the last episodes ofnighttime street demonstrations” (La Nación 2007k).

In conjunction with these types of protest, criminal acts take place, such asvandalism and looting. Parts of municipalities lacking public lighting make iteasier for thieves to carry out widespread criminal activities, such as looting shopsand public institutions. Throughout the years of the study, the press reported rob-beries and lootings of supermarkets, gas stations, minimarkets, food stores, phar-macies, and bakeries, among others. They also reported significant attacks againstdaycare centers, high schools, health centers, and other public institutions thathad relevant consequences for the quality of life of the communities, such as thecancellation of social events and the loss of computers and furnishings in schools.

On many occasions, despite the great number of police officers and the manypeople arrested, it is not possible to prevent these acts from taking place. Oftenthe lootings take place late at night and involve many people who are well organ-ized. It has been recognized that large educational and economic disparitiesamong sectors of Chilean society are preconditions encouraging these criminalbehaviors (De la Fuente et al. 2011). In the absence of survey research, however,it remains a challenge to know the motivation behind these violent public acts,the social identities of violent actors, and the connections, if any, between themand peaceful actors in the commemoration of the 11th.


CONCLUSIONS

This study contributes to the analysis of collective behavior during the annualcommemorations of September 11 in Chile, arguably the nation’s most importantpolitical ritual. It identifies continuities and changes these behaviors have under-gone during the time period studied. The study uses the conceptual frameworkproposed by Aguirre (2007), which presents a synthesis useful to the study of col-lective behavior. The complexity of the commemoration renders unsatisfactorythe rational explanations that posit the importance of minimizing costs and max-imizing material benefits as drivers for participation in collective behavior activi-ties. It is unclear if and how the participants of the September 11 commemorationand their organizations derive any material benefits.

Most of the activities of September 11 that symbolically enact political differ-ences are not pure collective behavior reflecting sociocultural emergence, for bynow they have experienced a considerable degree of conventionalization and areon their way to becoming proto-institutions. Dramaturgy, initially introduced byGoffman (1963) in the study of gatherings, is a key aspect of the commemorativeactivities. It emphasizes a script, division of labor, actors, audience, otherobservers, and props, as well as the need for choreographing the collectiveactions in specific settings (Snow et al. 1981). This is revealed most forcefullythrough the ongoing controversy regarding the government’s decision to prohibitthe marchers’ access to La Moneda Palace and Constitution Square and the statueof Allende, which deprives demonstrators of some of the most important settingsin which to carry out their dramatic enactments. It is also present to a greater orlesser extent throughout the activities of the day in Santiago. Likewise, the resultsshow a distinguishable number and type of social actors participating in the com-memorations of that fateful day.

The mass media give the impression that the disturbances occur by chanceand are due to individual willfulness with no connection to the past or presentof the society. The actors’ motives are constantly stereotyped, and neither thepress nor the political authorities show any desire to analyze or explain theircollective behavior beyond the stigmatic characterization of acts perpetrated bylumpen, anarchists, vandals, and violent or antisocial people. Neither the pressnor the authorities are capable of recognizing the protesters as carrying outlegitimate acts of protest, and thus they eliminate the need to recognize themas citizens.

This representation of the violent participants in the commemoration runscontrary to the reality that few people have been killed during the commemora-tions. It suggests that the participants in violent incidents use them as a way toshow their existence, to express their grievances, and to manifest the power ofan “unseen” or relegated sector of the society. Perhaps the self-imposed limits tokillings and other severe acts of violence are due to the adoption of agonistic rit-uals of conflict (Nieburg 1970), in which people participate in politics and expresstheir viewpoints in the company of many others but do so without transformingthe meanings of these occasions through the use of widespread violence, likewhat happened during the years of the dictatorship. Poverty, inequality, andsocial exclusion are not usually mentioned in most analyses of the 11th. Similarly,new social movements expressing lifestyles and values devoid of economic con-cerns are also absent in the news for that date.


Notwithstanding the efforts of the political class to erase the day from thecommemorative calendar and turn it into another “working day,” its significancehas remained, and year after year, every September 11, Chilean society opens upa space for memory, values, ideology, and identity expression. During this day,Santiago transforms itself into an open scenario that allows the expression of dif-ferent sets of cultural values. Even though the commemoration continues to belinked to the military coup, its meaning has changed, mirroring the enormouschanges in Chilean social identity since 1973.

After more than 20 years of democratic life and neoliberal economic policies,the country has strengthened its institutional framework, has achieved recognizedmacroeconomic success, and has attained the highest standard of living in LatinAmerica, according to the latest reports from the United Nations Human Devel-opment Index (UNDP 2011, 2013). However, Chile remains a country with veryhighly unequal distribution of income and decreasing rates of political participa-tion. The commemoration is not only “open” to those reenacting the historical-political discourse associated with the removal of President Allende; new culturalmeanings are attached to it. Social actors representing economically and politi-cally marginal people use the day to express their rejection of the system. Forthem, the date is a day of collective expression of new values and a claim forrecognition and participation, including acts of violence. Also active on the 11thare subcultures with styles of living and values not always related to social classand political parties, such as environmentalists, feminists, homosexuals, and othergender-related identities, who also demand inclusion in the political system.

Like a major catastrophe impacting society brought about by sudden trans-formations in the natural world, the 1973 coup represented a fundamental breakin Chilean political traditions that forced Chileans to define themselves for oragainst it. More than three decades after the military coup, the commemorationof September 11 in Chile continues to be the setting for a symbolic fight over thereconstruction of the past and hopes for the future. In this context, the com-memorations are examples of cultural emergence or creation after the coup.People facing the dictatorship had to abandon some of their customs, beliefs,and rituals, as well as modify their political behavior. Since that day the societyhas changed irrevocably, so that the past cannot be brought back in any realsense. All that people opposed to the changes brought about by the Pinochetregime can do now is symbolically act out their outrage. This they do in the dis-ciplined way typical of the Chilean people on what is, for many of them, a dayof mourning. The mobilization of the poor and marginalized, as well as newsocial movements, makes the commemoration of the 11th a collective ritual ofaffirmation of the rights of citizenship that gives public voice to a variegated col-lection of actors.

The September 11 commemoration should be considered a moment of civicreaffirmation, when the well-to-do are reminded that others in the society arenot as satisfied as they are with present-day conditions and are demanding solu-tions from them. The commemoration can be understood as a drama showingsocial and cultural continuity, adaptation, transformation, and even to someextent, progress in the aftermath of the coup. It is a diffused symbolic struggle(compare Gusfield 1986) involving the very definition of political legitimacy andultimately, the social and political identity of the Chilean people; a struggle forthe true reconstruction of the past, if only because a great number of actors


wage a battle for the consecration of competing memories. To some of them,the date remains the day of Allende’s death and the end of the political dreamhe embodied. To others it represents salvation from communism; to others, thebeginning of repression, death, and exclusion. To still others, it symbolizes theunkept promise of a fair society. And for others, it is the hope of a new cultureof acceptance and inclusiveness, in which new values can coexist with more tra-ditional viewpoints.

Much remains to be done in the scientific study of the September 11 com-memorations in Chile. Future studies using surveys and in-depth interviews withdifferent participants in the many instances of collective behavior identified herewill help to understand better the grievances, myths, and fears that exist in thesociety; how participants become mobilized to participate in the commemoration;and what factors are related to the collective actions they employ. Our hope isthat one of the contributions of this research will be to call attention to this need,and that other scholars will continue this line of research, improving on the find-ings of this study.

NOTE

We would like to thank Luis Federico Batiz (UACh) for his assistance and criticalreading of the manuscript and Vicente Echerri for translation services. This work wassupported by Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo, Universidad Austral de Chile,Valdivia, Chile (I-2007-11).

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Commemorating Chile's Coup: The Dynamics of Collective Behavior

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