Simon Alterman's posting to Chile - a tale of two countries

For Simon Alterman’s first solo posting, Chile offered the chance to live in a beautiful place but also a country led by a brutal dictator known to go after journalists and dissidents and to order the disappearance of thousands of people.

Alterman was sent to Santiago after only two-and-a half years at Reuters, “very well trained, but not fully prepared,” he told the latest Baron’s Briefing. 

In an entertaining talk, he said he was warned about the risk by Reuters colleague Bernd Debusmann, a veteran of several wars and then based in Mexico.

 “He looked at me and said: ‘Chile. That's a very interesting posting. So, if you do your job properly you will either be expelled or shot.’”

Alterman survived without being “disappeared,” but not without close shaves, since no amount of caution could absolutely guarantee his safety in such a place, he said. President Augusto Pinochet regarded all opposition or critical journalists as communists.

Alterman told of one story that got him in frighteningly hot water when he wrote about Pinochet sacking a finance minister with whom he had an ongoing feud. What happened to his story when it was published in an Argentine newspaper is the kind of desk tinkering that gives reporters nightmares.

“At the bottom of the story were two paragraphs that I hadn't written that said the contest between Pinochet and the finance minister was like two gorillas fighting,” Alterman said. Pinochet officials called in a rage.  “There were a few uncomfortable hours” before the newspaper admitted it had added the offending paragraphs, and apologized.

Pinochet cut an imposing figure, broad-shouldered and tall. But he spoke in a surprisingly high voice, Alterman said. At his annual press meeting reporters’ personal electronic devices were taken when they entered. Alterman kept his small tape recorder concealed during one briefing and used it to write a story that corrected the official version of what the president said about his future.

Official media quoted him as saying: “What may happen to me, history will say.”

“Well, what my tape recorder said was: ‘What will happen to me? Let them kill me. I'm a soldier. I'm prepared.’ Which is I think a much better story,” Alterman said.

Simon said he arrived nearly 10 years after the overthrow of socialist President Salvador Allende in a bloody coup and things were a lot calmer than the previous repression, killing and large-scale torture.

Still, Alterman regularly witnessed demonstrators being tear-gassed, police batons cracking heads, and surveillance spooks following him. Random bullets sometimes landed in his Santiago neighbourhood, where the notorious kidnap and murder of an opposition figure took place.

There was also the shocking murder of three Communist Party members who had their throats cut.

Because of the brutality of the coup against Allende and its aftermath, Alterman said, relatively small things in Chile attracted a great deal of attention, in contrast to other South American countries.

Towards the end of his posting there were two major natural disasters in 1985. The first in Chile, where a huge earthquake made up to a million people homeless and killed 200, and then when he was sent to Colombia to cover a volcanic eruption and landslide which killed more than 23,000 people.

Despite the turmoil, Alterman looks back on his days in Chile with deep fondness. It was his first big assignment and a career-defining tour of duty. While in the country, he married his Polish wife, Malgosia, and his son Tom was born there.

“I should just say that life in Chile was wonderful; I mean on a personal level, despite terrible things going on from time to time,“ he said. “But it's a beautiful country -- extraordinary geography, magnificent scenery, delightful people, and quality wine that was little known.”

The coast was less than an hour away and there was “cricket in the in the Prince of Wales Country Club against the backdrop of the Andes.”

Despite the election last year of far-right Pinochet-apologist Jose Antonio Kaast, said Alterman, Chile could still qualify as a good vacation destination. It’s a stable democracy and very safe by Latin American standards. The US State Department gives it a slightly heightened risk rating, owing to street crime and drug trafficking.

The kidnapping of Venezuela’s leader by the Trump administration is not likely to disturb the relative tranquility of South America, he said.

“There's no question that Trump is trying to secure what he considers to be the backyard,” he said. But Chile’s new conservative president will likely align with him, as will others, “And there are quite a few who are very much against them. So, I think it's probably unlikely to have a significant impact.” ■