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UNCLAS SANTIAGO 000124 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/BSC AND PM--JEFF BURNETT 
PENTAGON FOR OSD--KRISTI HUNT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: MARR PGOV PHUM SOCI CI
SUBJECT: CHILE'S AMBITIOUS PLANS FOR DEFENSE REFORM 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Although it has received only periodic 
attention in the press, President Bachelet has encouraged a 
far-reaching series of defense reforms which, if approved, 
would dramatically restructure the Ministry of Defense, usher 
in significant changes to military procurement, and create 
new military justice and pension systems.  Two 
reforms--creating five-year professional careers for enlisted 
soldiers, and formalizing procedures for Chilean 
participation in peacekeeping missions--have already been 
signed into law.  Taken together, these proposed and recently 
enacted changes represent important steps to replace ad hoc 
and antiquated systems with modern best practices and finally 
purge some of the structures--such as the military justice 
system--which enabled Pinochet-era abuses.  End Summary. 
 
Chile's Long Road to Sound Civilian-Military Relations 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) From the 1930s to 1970s, the armed forces were 
thoroughly segregated from--and undervalued by--mainstream 
Chilean society, according to the director of Catholic 
University's defense studies program, Guillermo Patillo. 
Military personnel, including officers, were part of a 
cultural "ghetto" and were seen as largely irrelevant by many 
in the professional civilian world.  Other civilians resented 
the armed forces' failure to intervene against squatters and 
others who threatened law and order.  These decades of 
disrespect and frustration helped to feed the military 
violence expressed during the Pinochet years, Patillo told 
poloff, and together the disrespect and violence laid a 
difficult foundation for building healthy relationships 
between the civilian and military worlds. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) According to academic Augusto Varas, the 1990s were 
characterized by conflict between the civilian government and 
the military, with the presidency gradually gaining power. 
Patricio Rojas, Defense Minister from 1990-94, was fond of 
saying that the only power he had was the "point of a pen." 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Two events during the presidential administration 
of Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) represented turning points in 
civilian-military relations, according to Vargas.  A decade 
after the return to civilian rule, military leaders felt that 
they were increasingly under attack.  Pinochet had been 
arrested in London and a Chilean judge was stripping his 
immunity from prosecution; military officials--including some 
still in office--were facing human rights abuse trials; and 
some parliamentarians were promoting political reforms 
intended to limit the power of the elite and the military. 
To signal their unity in the face of these challenges to 
military power, the commander in chiefs of Chile's three 
military service branches and the commander of the 
Carabineros police force held a well-publicized lunch--in 
public, in uniform, and with TV cameras--without Lagos. 
President Lagos--who did not have the legal authority to fire 
the commanders in chief--sharply rebuked them, firmly 
asserting civilian control over the military for the first 
time in post-authoritarian Chile, and ensuring that the 
dismantling of the remnants of the military state would 
continue.  The incident is known as the "servilletazo." 
 
¶5.  (SBU) A second key moment came in 2004, when Army 
Commander Juan Emilio Cheyre made a dramatic break with the 
army's past.  In his "End of a Vision" speech marking the 
closure of the infamous Army Intelligence Battalion, Cheyre 
said that the army would abandon the Pinochet optic of 
demonizing political opponents as enemies undeserving of 
rights or dignity.  He also said that the army as an 
institution bore responsibility for the human rights 
violations committed and pledged that the army would become a 
firm defender of human rights in the future. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) By 2006, when Bachelet became President (after 
serving as Minister of Defense from 2002-2004), she 
recognized that the time was ripe for institutionalizing 
changes to the defense structure, and asked Defense Minister 
Goni to develop and undertake a series of reforms.  This has 
led to an ambitious set of proposals to dramatically 
restructure the Chilean military's organizational structure, 
personnel system, retirement policy, financing, judicial 
system, and peacekeeping norms.  (Septels will describe other 
reforms in detail and give congressional perspectives on 
likeliness of passage.)  Two reforms--creating professional 
soldiers (enlisted soldiers with five-year contracts), and a 
new law on peacekeeping operations--have already become law. 
Observers agree that while the reforms will be considered by 
Congress on an individual basis, they are really part of a 
package designed to modernize the armed forces and make a 
complete break from the Pinochet past. 
 
What's on Tap:  Recently Enacted and Proposed Changes to 
Chile's Defense System 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶7.  (U) The following reforms have been enacted in the last 
year: 
 
--PROFESSIONALIZATION OF SOLDIERS:  This legislation, which 
became law in July 2008, will, in effect, create an 
all-voluntary military service where volunteer conscripts 
serving one-year terms can apply to become professional 
enlisted personnel on five-year, renewable contracts.  Due to 
demographic changes and job market challenges, the 
Army--which has by far the largest number of conscript 
positions--currently has far more applications for conscript 
positions than it can accept.  Chile's previous system, which 
before 2005 included universal military service but had 
multiple waiver categories, including for university or 
professional education, generally allowed uninterested 
potential draftees to find a way to avoid military service. 
The new system should help to alleviate the considerable loss 
of skills due to short tours of duty for enlisted personnel, 
a particular weakness given Chile's modern defense equipment 
and the training required to operate it.  (See also IIR 6817 
0092 08 for more information.) 
 
--NEW LAW ON PEACEKEEPING:  This new law establishes the 
first clear procedures for Chile's participation in 
peacekeeping missions, specifying that the President will 
authorize the sending of troops, the Senate will approve the 
action, the Ministry of Defense will provide the equipment 
and transportation necessary to deploy, and the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs will fund the deployment.  The law stipulates 
that Chile participate only in UN-led peacekeeping 
operations.  It also allows, for the first time, for Congress 
to approve multiple-year missions, avoiding the current 
practice of annual congressional approval.  (See also IIR 
6817 0067 09 for more information.) 
 
¶8.  (U) Additional reforms are being considered, although it 
is not clear when these will come to a vote, particularly 
given that 2009 is a presidential and parliamentary election 
year: 
 
--RESTRUCTURING THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE:  The current 
Ministry of Defense grew in an ad hoc way to accommodate the 
1930s joining of the Ministries of War, Navy, and Air Force; 
evolving defense needs; and congressional and executive 
dictates.  Draft legislation would emphasize jointness by 
ending the practice of naming an undersecretary for each 
service branch; replace a system of military advisors and 
civilian contractors with a corps of direct-hire defense 
staff; and formally move the police forces (Carabineros and 
Investigative Police, or PDI) under the Ministry of Interior. 
 The lower house of Congress has already approved the 
re-organization.  Septel will report on prospects for Senate 
passage. 
 
--REFORM OF THE COPPER LAW AND CHANGING MILITARY FUNDING AND 
PROCUREMENTS:  Chile's copper law funnels 10 percent of 
earnings from the state-owned copper company, Codelco, into a 
fund for defense equipment purchases.  For several years 
there has been talk of breaking the link between copper sales 
and military financing, and instead moving towards a 
multi-year defense procurement budget.  This discussion has 
been encouraged by record high copper prices over the past 
several years, which swelled the fund before the recent 
decline in copper prices.  While earlier speculation held 
that this was too controversial to be passed this election 
year, the press attention recently riveted on the Mirage 
defense purchasing scandal has increased the likelihood that 
the Congress will take up the issue.  (Note:  USD 15 million 
in kickbacks--including 2.4 million given to former Air Force 
Commander in Chief Ramon Vega and his family--has allegedly 
been uncovered in the 1994 purchase of 25 Mirage aircraft 
from Belgium.  End Note.) 
 
--OVERHAUL OF MILITARY JUSTICE SYSTEM:  Chile's military 
justice system was formed in 1925 based on 18th century 
jurisprudence, according to MOD advisor Pablo Contreras.  The 
current system allows for both specifically military and 
essentially civilian cases to be heard via the military 
justice system, a provision which was widely abused during 
the Pinochet era.  Proceedings are secret and the defendant 
does not have the right to see much of the evidence against 
him, commonly leading to an inadequate defense.  Prosecutors 
and judges are typically military personnel--often without 
any legal training--who remain within their normal chain of 
command while serving in the military justice system on a 
rotation, leading to severe limitations on their ability to 
investigate and fairly judge their superiors.  Current 
proposals to reform the system would follow US and German 
adversarial models, and would create a distinct military 
service of legal professionals, better insulating them from 
pressure from superiors in the general military service.  The 
criminal code would also be rationalized, removing 
infractions that are not specifically military in nature. 
New jails and prisons would meet higher standards and allow 
those awaiting trial to be separated from the convicted. 
 
--CHANGES TO MILITARY PENSION SYSTEM:  The generous pensions 
offered to Chile's military are out of step with retirement 
planning for the rest of the workforce.  Chile is renown for 
having embraced privatized retirement planning decades ago. 
Military personnel are eligible for a full pension after 
twenty years of work, and many go on to start second 
careers--including as civilians within the Ministry of 
Defense--while retaining their military pensions.  When a 
member of the military dies, his wife and any single 
daughters under the age of 26 are eligible to receive a 
survivor's stipend until they marry.  As a result, many 
widows and adult daughters of deceased military personnel 
enter stable, decades-long relationships and have children 
with their partners but decide not to legally marry so that 
they can continue to receive the stipend.  Chileans also 
recognize that pension regulations need to be reformed in 
light of changing gender roles and the growing number of 
women in uniform. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) These reforms to Chile's defense system are long 
overdue, reforming systems that can be easily abused--like 
the military justice system; providing a legal basis for 
peacekeeping and the structure and operation of the Ministry 
of Defense for the first time; and creating a better-trained 
fighting force with the introduction of professional 
soldiers.  Reforming the copper law would sever the illogical 
link between copper proceeds and military spending.  The 
current proposals would introduce a more logical and 
transparent multi-year procurement system and perhaps give 
the military more flexibility to fund non-equipment costs 
such as personnel, maintenance, and operations. 
SIMONS