Chile, hosting the second Summit of the Americas this weekend, expects to be seen as a democracy with a strong economic base. The tear gas, so liberally used last month on Chileans protesting against Gen Pinochet's move, as a lifetime senator, to the Senate, will have wafted away towards the towering Andes. The water cannons will be back in their barracks.
A quarter of a century after the coup which overthrew the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, Gen Aug usto Pinochet remains in a position of power. The former dictator may have been voted from office by the 1988 plebiscite, but his 1980 constitution continues to warp the institutions of state and shackles Chile to its military past. "Chile is what I call a transvestite democracy," according to the Chilean sociologist, Mr Tomas Moulian. "She looks like a nice friendly lady, but lift up her skirt and you're in for a big surprise."
But it was not always so. Allende's victory in 1970 had followed a century-old tradition of strong parliamentary democracy which had long forged advanced social legislation on a continent not noted for social justice. It was the third attempt by the Chilean Marxist to lead his country by democratic principles towards socialism. His election, however, was viewed with dismay in the White House, and President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA director, Mr Richard Helms, "to make Chile's economy scream".
On December 4th, 1972, Allende, helpless as he watched the economy of his country crumble, complained at the UN assembly: "We find ourselves faced with forces which operate in the shadows, without a flag, with powerful weapons."
Less than one year later, Allende lay dead within the Moneda Presidential Palace and Chile's nightmare had begun.
The role played by the US in the coup was put on record in 1976 when a US Select Committee under the chairmanship of Senator Frank Church reported: "There is no doubt that the US government sought a military coup in Chile."
Gen Pinochet took part, reluctantly, in the military coup of September 11th, 1973, and was later appointed president by the military junta. They began changing the face of Chile's economy by initiating a free-market policy.
The Labour Federation (CUT) was disbanded and its leaders executed or forced into exile. Public expenditure was drastically cut, affecting public health and education. At the same time private health care and education was offered to the better off with the added incentive of tax rebates.
Without fear of being removed from office, the military was able to lower inflation and reduce the national debt while ignoring public demand for social equity. The development of new overseas markets increased the "feel good" factor of the business community.
The annual growth rate of between 6 and 7 per cent from the mid-1980s is often cited by supporters of the military regime, but they ignore the absence of any growth between 1973 and 1986. Real wages declined by 10 per cent since 1986 and according to government figures, 25 per cent of the population live in absolute poverty.
Many Chileans among the 95 per cent employed earn less than $50 a month.
The price of reform was heavy, however, for Allende's supporters and suspected communist sympathisers. Institutional violence, torture, extra-judicial executions, disappearances and the complete abrogation of human rights became the norm in the narrow land behind the Andes. The Chilean journalist, Patricia Politzer, said in 1988: "I'm always thinking they're coming to get me again. When I see a strange car in the neighbourhood, I'm up at the window to see what it's doing. I write down the licence number. I have a notebook full of licence numbers."
The judiciary, with few exceptions, consistently failed to respond to habeas corpus petitions which could have prevented the "disappearances" of detainees. The worst atrocities have been attributed to the DINA, Gen Pinochet's secret police. The Rettig Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, appointed by President Aylwin in 1990, heard evidence of over 3,000 civilians murdered by the security forces. They concluded that the DINA was "secret and above the law". Protected by the courts, it responded only to Gen Pinochet. A Vicaria attorney, Mr Jose Zalaquett, spoke to The Irish Times in 1990 and said of the Rettig Commission: "Having sought truth and justice, the whole thing could end without truth and justice, and with great frustration and political tensions, fruits of unhealed wounds."
Prophetic words, as the centre-left Concertacion government pushed the criminal responsibility of the security forces off the political agenda.
But the wounds were brutally exposed on the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso once again on March 11th, as the retired commander-in-chief took his seat in the Senate as a lifetime senator, in accordance with the 1980 constitution. He was joined in the Senate by three designated representatives from the navy, air force and police, and they will be the arbiters of the 1980 constitution in the delicately balanced legislature. The 1978 Amnesty Law, which prevents the investigation or prosecution of a member of the security forces accused of human rights abuse, will not be repealed.
Shortly after Gen Pinochet took his seat in Congress last month, 11 government deputies, led by six from President Eduardo Frei's own party, the Christian Democrats (PDC), filed an accusation against Gen Pinochet, seeking to disqualify the former dictator from his lifetime seat. President Frei rejected the accusation, and along with 11 of his colleagues in the PDC joined with the opposition right-wing parties to defeat the motion.
The Party for Democracy (PPD), the Socialist Party (PS) and the Radical Social Democrat Party (PRSD) formed the Concertacion a decade ago to oust Gen Pinochet's military dictatorship. Now the general is tearing them apart rather than uniting them. Supporters of the accusation say it was a moral imperative for the government to repudiate Gen Pinochet's bullying of the democratic governments.
The Christian Democrats, who acquiesced with the military coup of 1973, have now given a bolt hole to one of the perpetrators of that coup.
The anger of the government left-wing has brought to the surface the historical tensions between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, and any chance the Concertacion government had of putting forward an agreed candidate for next year's presidential election will have evaporated. Gen Pinochet has achieved a bloodless coup.