A wary socialist, the general and Chile's future

摘要

Every time Chile's democracy tries to look to the future, the country's past seems to come back to haunt it. On March nth, when Ricardo Lagos, a 62-year-old former professor, is sworn in before Congress as Chile's new president, a taboo will have been broken: though Mr Lagos will be the third consecutive president from the centre-left coalition (called the Concertacion), he will be the first socialist to govern the country since Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup. Yet much as Mr Lagos, like many Chileans, may wish to concentrate on other issues, such as reviving the economy and pushing ahead with social and constitutional reform, he cannot escape the unsettled legacy of General Pinochet and his dictatorship.