Jaime Guzmán
Encyclopedia
Jaime Jorge Guzmán Errázuriz (June 28, 1946 - April 1, 1991) was a Chile
an lawyer and senator, member and doctrinal founder of the conservative Independent Democrat Union
party. He opposed Marxist President Salvador Allende
and later became a close advisor to dictator Augusto Pinochet
. A professor of Constitutional Law, he played an important part in the drafting of the 1980 Constitution
. He was assassinated in 1991, during the transition to democracy
, allegedly by members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front
, a Marxist organisation formed to fight the Pinochet Government.
In 1963, only 16 years old, he was accepted to study law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
(UC, formerly PUC) (Spanish: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), graduating in 1968 with hightest honours. He was awarded the Monseñor Carlos Casanueva prize for being the best student in his class.
During his university years he founded the Movimiento Gremial Universitario, a conservative political movement that in 1968 won the presidency of the student union of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
, maintaining an almost uninterreptuded leadership until today. The Movimiento Gremial quickly expanded through the main universities in Chile.
by the military, because there was no available constitutional means to impeach him at that time. The UK's Economist magazine, reporting on Allende's removal two days after the coup, wrote: "...there must be no confusion about where the responsibility for Chile’s tragedy lies. It lies with Dr Allende and those in the marxist parties who pursued a strategy for the seizure of total power to the point at which the opposition despaired of being able to restrain them by constitutional means."
, including being summoned by Pinochet to take part in the Comisión Ortúzar charged with drafting a new constitution
. He also was a key participant in the drafting of Pinochet's Chacarillas speech of 1978, one of the founding texts of the military regime.
Enjoying close contacts with Jorge Alessandri
, he converted himself to the neoliberal
economic policies supported by the Chicago Boys
and eventually distanced himself from Alessandri, while getting closer to Pinochet and to his minister Sergio Fernández.
After having participated to the drafting of the 1980 Constitution, Guzmán distanced himself from active participation in the government and returned to his original political activities. He thus created in 1983 the Unión Demócrata Independiente from the movement started in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In a 1989 lecture to university students, Guzman said that "(we) the civilians in the government...realized that the military regime was an untamed and unbridled horse which had to be restrained so that it would not commit more human rights violations."
, Jaime Guzmán presented himself as a candidate in the legislative elections. Despite coming third place, behind important figures of the Concertación, Andrés Zaldívar
and Ricardo Lagos
, he was still elected due to the binomial electoral system
.
Guzmán continued until his death his functions as a professor of constitutional law
in the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Chile. He was known to have a vast knowledge of Scholasticism
.
His murderers were members of the left-wing terrorist group Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR), Ricardo Palma Salamanca y Raúl Escobar Poblete, however the operation is believed to have been planned by the leaders of the movement Galvarino Apablaza, Mauricio Hernández Norambuena y Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann. whom had been planning the murder of Guzman sine the decade of the 80s.
Hernadez (also known as "Commander Ramiro" was the only one arrested and tried for the murder of Guzman, but after serving less than 3 years in a Chilean prison escape and sought refuge in Cuba. In 2002 Hernandez was arrested in Brazil for the kidnapping of Brazilian businessman Washington Olivetto. He is currently serving a 30 year sentence in the Brazilian prison of Catanduvas.
Apablaza, lives with his wife and three sons in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2010 Argentina's Supreme Court granted a request of extradition by the Chilean Government, however this request was later overturned by the Argentina's national Commission for Refugees ("Comisión Nacional de Refugiados"), being freed in September 2010.
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an lawyer and senator, member and doctrinal founder of the conservative Independent Democrat Union
Independent Democrat Union
The Independent Democrat Union is a Chilean right-wing, conservative political party, founded in 1983. Its main inspirer was the lawyer, politician and law professor Jaime Guzmán, a former senator of the Republic of Chile from 1990 until his assassination on April 1, 1991.Its ideological origins...
party. He opposed Marxist President Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
and later became a close advisor to dictator Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
. A professor of Constitutional Law, he played an important part in the drafting of the 1980 Constitution
Constitution of Chile
In its temporary dispositions, the document ordered the transition from the former military government, with Augusto Pinochet as President of the Republic, and the Legislative Power of the Military Junta , to a civil one, with a time frame of eight...
. He was assassinated in 1991, during the transition to democracy
Chilean transition to democracy
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
, allegedly by members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front
Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front
The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front , also known as El Frente Patriótico, or simply El Frente, is a left-wing urban guerrilla movement in Chile, named for a figure in Chile's independence movement, Manuel Rodríguez. The group was founded on September 14, 1983 as an armed resistance against the...
, a Marxist organisation formed to fight the Pinochet Government.
Early life
Jaime Guzmán was born in Santiago to Jorge Guzmán Reyes and Carmen Errázuriz Edwards. Between 1951 and 1962 he studied in the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones de Santiago, where at a young age he showed interest in literature and strong leadership qualities. Already during his senior year he began to show interest in political life. An excellent student, he graduated from high school at the age of 15.In 1963, only 16 years old, he was accepted to study law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two Pontifical Universities in the country, along with the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. It is also one of Chile's oldest universities and...
(UC, formerly PUC) (Spanish: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), graduating in 1968 with hightest honours. He was awarded the Monseñor Carlos Casanueva prize for being the best student in his class.
During his university years he founded the Movimiento Gremial Universitario, a conservative political movement that in 1968 won the presidency of the student union of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two Pontifical Universities in the country, along with the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. It is also one of Chile's oldest universities and...
, maintaining an almost uninterreptuded leadership until today. The Movimiento Gremial quickly expanded through the main universities in Chile.
Under Allende's government
As the leader of the Gremialista movement, Guzman worked with advocates on the left and right in congress to call for the removal of Salvador AllendeSalvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
by the military, because there was no available constitutional means to impeach him at that time. The UK's Economist magazine, reporting on Allende's removal two days after the coup, wrote: "...there must be no confusion about where the responsibility for Chile’s tragedy lies. It lies with Dr Allende and those in the marxist parties who pursued a strategy for the seizure of total power to the point at which the opposition despaired of being able to restrain them by constitutional means."
After the 1973 coup
After the military coup, Guzmán became a close advisor to General Augusto Pinochet and a highly influential policy maker in Chile at this timeChile under Pinochet
Chile was ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet from 1973 when Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'etat until 1990 when the Chilean transition to democracy began. The authoritarian military government was characterized by systematic suppression of political parties and...
, including being summoned by Pinochet to take part in the Comisión Ortúzar charged with drafting a new constitution
Constitution of Chile
In its temporary dispositions, the document ordered the transition from the former military government, with Augusto Pinochet as President of the Republic, and the Legislative Power of the Military Junta , to a civil one, with a time frame of eight...
. He also was a key participant in the drafting of Pinochet's Chacarillas speech of 1978, one of the founding texts of the military regime.
Enjoying close contacts with Jorge Alessandri
Jorge Alessandri
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez was the 27th President of Chile from 1958 to 1964, and was the candidate of the Chilean right in the crucial presidential election of 1970...
, he converted himself to the neoliberal
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
economic policies supported by the Chicago Boys
Chicago Boys
The Chicago Boys were a group of young Chilean economists most of whom trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, or at its affiliate in the economics department at the Catholic University of Chile...
and eventually distanced himself from Alessandri, while getting closer to Pinochet and to his minister Sergio Fernández.
After having participated to the drafting of the 1980 Constitution, Guzmán distanced himself from active participation in the government and returned to his original political activities. He thus created in 1983 the Unión Demócrata Independiente from the movement started in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. In a 1989 lecture to university students, Guzman said that "(we) the civilians in the government...realized that the military regime was an untamed and unbridled horse which had to be restrained so that it would not commit more human rights violations."
During the democratic transition
Following Chile's return to democracyChilean transition to democracy
The Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
, Jaime Guzmán presented himself as a candidate in the legislative elections. Despite coming third place, behind important figures of the Concertación, Andrés Zaldívar
Andrés Zaldívar
José Andrés Rafael Zaldívar Larraín, popularly known as El Chico Zaldívar , is a prominent Chilean Christian Democrat politician. Andrés Zaldívar is of Basque descent.-Early years:...
and Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He won the 1999-2000 presidential election by a narrow margin in a runoff over Independent Democrat Union candidate Joaquín Lavín...
, he was still elected due to the binomial electoral system
Politics of Chile
The politics of Chile takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Chile is both head of state and head of government, and of a formal multi-party system that in practice behaves like a two-party one, due to binominalism. Executive power...
.
Guzmán continued until his death his functions as a professor of constitutional law
Constitutional law
Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....
in the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Chile. He was known to have a vast knowledge of Scholasticism
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought which dominated teaching by the academics of medieval universities in Europe from about 1100–1500, and a program of employing that method in articulating and defending orthodoxy in an increasingly pluralistic context...
.
Death
Guzmán died on 1 April 1991, shot at the exit of the Catholic University where he was a professor of Constitutional Law. He was driven to a nearby hospital by his driver but died 3 hours later from several bullet wounds.His murderers were members of the left-wing terrorist group Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR), Ricardo Palma Salamanca y Raúl Escobar Poblete, however the operation is believed to have been planned by the leaders of the movement Galvarino Apablaza, Mauricio Hernández Norambuena y Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann. whom had been planning the murder of Guzman sine the decade of the 80s.
Hernadez (also known as "Commander Ramiro" was the only one arrested and tried for the murder of Guzman, but after serving less than 3 years in a Chilean prison escape and sought refuge in Cuba. In 2002 Hernandez was arrested in Brazil for the kidnapping of Brazilian businessman Washington Olivetto. He is currently serving a 30 year sentence in the Brazilian prison of Catanduvas.
Apablaza, lives with his wife and three sons in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2010 Argentina's Supreme Court granted a request of extradition by the Chilean Government, however this request was later overturned by the Argentina's national Commission for Refugees ("Comisión Nacional de Refugiados"), being freed in September 2010.
See also
- History of ChileHistory of ChileThe territory of Chile has been populated since at least 2,000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors began to subdue and colonize the region of present-day Chile, and the territory became a colony from 1540 to 1818, when it gained independence from Spain...
- Independent Democrat UnionIndependent Democrat UnionThe Independent Democrat Union is a Chilean right-wing, conservative political party, founded in 1983. Its main inspirer was the lawyer, politician and law professor Jaime Guzmán, a former senator of the Republic of Chile from 1990 until his assassination on April 1, 1991.Its ideological origins...
- Errazuriz familyErrázuriz familyThe Errázuriz family of Chile became politically influential since the beginning of the 19th century, and played a very significant role in Chilean politics. Francisco Errazuriz, an immigrant of Basque origin, was the first member of this family to arrive in Chile in 1735...