Chile's Most Wanted

Latin Trade, May, 1999 by Greg Brown

On inequality and its challenges ...

Regarding the problem of inequality, there are short-term and long-term solutions. In the long term, the only solution is education and training for workers. In the long term, you have to reduce the gap in worker productivity. But ending the gap in productivity means a very deep transformation of the economy. In the next century, the difference between rich countries and poor countries will be a matter of education. As the saying goes, "If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach him to fish..."

On reconciliation ...

Every transition from dictatorship to democracy requires a degree of forgiveness. Not everything is forgiven. There is a measure of justice. Not everything demands justice; there is also a measure of pardon. That's how it went in South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay ... What has been the difference between all of these countries and Chile? There is one, a very important difference. In all of these countries, the transition concluded because there was a new consensus. The difference here is that a constitution was drawn up in the interests of Pinochet and it cannot yet be changed. The difference is that in Chile the Concertacion received 55% of the vote--in any European country or in the United States if you have the majority you have the power to govern--and in Chile we don't have the power to govern because we are still the minority in the Senate. What kind of Constitution is that?

On the proper resolution of Pinochet's problems abroad ...

I have said that things among Chileans should be dealt with in Chile. He should return, but we have a task, too. And that is to recover an institutionality in which we can all agree.