Jaime Guzman

Jaime Jorge Guzmán Errázuriz (Santiago, June 28, 1946-Ib., April 1, 1991) was a Chilean constitutional lawyer, academic, and politician. He collaborated on legal and political matters with Augusto Pinochet during his dictatorship, taking part in the drafting of the 1980 Constitution and its complementary laws. He was also the founder of the Trade Union Movement of the Catholic University of Chile, of the magazine Reality, of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party and served as a senator after the return to democracy.

He was assassinated in an attack perpetrated by militants of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (autonomous) on the outskirts of the Eastern Campus of the Catholic University, Guzmán's alma mater, in whose chair of constitutional law he was teaching at the time.

Childhood and youth

He was born into a traditional family of Santiago's high society. Son of Jorge Guzmán Reyes, who was a sports leader at the Catholic University, and Carmen Errázuriz Edwards, who in addition to being a descendant of two of the most prominent families from Chile (the Errázuriz and the Edwards), worked as a tourist travel agent in Europe. He also had two sisters: Rosario and María Isabel, with whom he shared his childhood in the company of his maternal grandfather, the conservative senator Maximiliano Errázuriz.

Guzmán did not have a good relationship with his mother, because she constantly criticized the bohemian lifestyle of his father, who was always closer to him.

He studied at the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones, where he was considered an outstanding student who helped with the performance of masses. From a young age he received a strong religious education, and the priest and teacher Osvaldo Lira had a marked influence on his development.

During his school days he held the position of president of the Literary Academy. Once he graduated from his school, in 1962, he traveled to Europe and was particularly admired by Franco's Spain, in which through letters that he sent to his mother, expressed his admiration for Francisco Franco, José Antonio Primo de Rivera and for the Francoist soldiers who died during the Spanish Civil War. Regarding Franco, he wrote:

Francisco Franco cannot be categorized as a dictator, since his admission to power is more than legitimate, by a people who got up in arms by God, Spain and Franco.

Jaime Guzmán, Long live Franco, up Spain!, Revista Escolar N° 436, Santiago, 1962.

At first Guzmán planned to be a priest and later to be a professor of philosophy, but due to pressure from his mother, he entered to study law at the Catholic University of Chile in 1963, where he graduated in 1968 with highest distinction, obtaining In addition, the Monsignor Carlos Casanueva and the Institute of Criminal Sciences awards.

Political youth

The leaders of UDI Joaquín Lavín, Jaime Guzmán and Jovino Novoa in the early 1990s.

Support Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez and political activism

Guzmán had from a very young age «a great ideological and personal proximity to Jorge Alessandri», of whom he said that «he was the person who most influenced my interest in politics. His presidential candidacy in 1958 and his presidency of the Republic, between the ages of 12 and 18, made me admire him as a superior man." week in his plot in Malloco-, and later, Guzmán would collaborate in Alessandri's presidential campaign in 1970, as a youth leader as president of the Juventud Alessandrista Independiente, youth branch of the Independent Alessandrista Movement.

In 1969, Guzmán traveled with a group of friends to Concepción, where they worked on the senatorial candidacy of Francisco Bulnes Sanfuentes, going house to house in the towns located in the peripheral areas of Concepción and Talcahuano, in order to convince the people to vote for the National Party candidate. In 1986, Alessandri passed away. Guzmán attended his funeral, as well as some tributes, among which the then dictator and general, Augusto Pinochet, placed an offering in front of a monument in his honor.

Taking of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile

In 1966, Guzmán was elected vice president of the Student Union of the Faculty of Law, and the following year he managed to be elected president of the same, where he had to face the seizure of the Central House of the Catholic University, which occurred on 11 August 1967, action led by the president of the FEUC, Miguel Ángel Solar, leader of the supporters of a university reform that had as one of its main postulates committing the University to social change -which would progressively become a commitment to the revolution -, demanding the resignation of the rector of the University, Archbishop Alfredo Silva Santiago, and a greater democratization in the hierarchy of the university. Guzmán led the resistance to the takeover, where he expressed his support for the structure of the authorities of the house of studies, added to the fact that he criticized that the reformists sought to "politicize" & # 39; #39; the cause in favor of the Christian Democratic Party. Although he was unable to reverse the situation, he later presented his candidacy for the presidency of the FEUC, which allowed him to consolidate the Trade Union Movement, created in March 1967 at the School of Law, together with Hernán Larraín, Raúl Lecaros, Manuel Bezanilla, among others.

Foundation of the Trade Union Movement

Jaime Guzmán defined unionism as:

"A stream of thought that seeks to strengthen the autonomy of the intermediate bodies of the community — trade unions, guilds, business, youth, business, etc. — according to the principle of subsidiarity of the state, the key to a truly free society"

Faces8 April 1991: 11-12.

This movement was characterized by defending the autonomy of social organizations, as was the case of universities, rejecting political and ideological influences alien to their own purposes. The principle of subsidiarity was also a central part of the thought of university unionism, especially in relation to the relations of the University with the State. In his work Personal Writings, Guzmán affirmed that the main objective of intermediate companies was to improve their performance and address demands related only to their area, so they could not give their opinion, debate or interfere in areas that do not correspond to it, stating:

I also admit, as in any matter of prudential order and not mathematical accuracy, that there are disputed border areas in the determination of what is or not proper to each intermediate body. Always the good criterion of its members will be essential to resolve each case correctly. The fundamental thing is that this is done from a genuine commitment to the union principles. But when a student organization pronounces itself about mining policy or labor problems, or when a trade union commits itself to or against a particular structure of the National Congress, or when a professional college prosecutes a national economic policy as a whole, we are no longer in any border zone, but in a clear overflow of its field of action.

Jaime Guzmán, Personal writings, pp. 57.

Even so, Guzmán affirmed that union leaders and intermediate bodies should not necessarily be apolitical, allowing them to adopt a political position or militancy, as long as it was not ''totalitarian' ' (according to him, that they are not fascists or Marxists); In the future, he would defend the fact that many of the union leaders were militants in the Independent Democratic Union, it was because he considered that it was the only political party that respected the role of intermediate societies, which is why he considered it as a "& 'Mere coincidence', that these trade union leaders supported the coup of 1973 as well as the Independent Democratic Union.

In his work Personal Writings, Guzmán considered the departure of the rector Silva Santiago and the victory of the university takeover as the bitterest day of his life, where he criticized the position of the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva and Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, since he saw them as accomplices in the victory of the "revolutionary" side (referring to the Christian Democratic Party and MAPU) in the face of their demands. Even so, the trade union movement was growing stronger every year. power and influence within the Catholic University, to the point of holding the presidency of the FEUC almost uninterruptedly between 1969 and 1985, where from 1974 it would be a position designated by the rectory, being the only legal university movement both in that institution and other universities in the country. Among its presidents, Hernán Larraín, Juan Antonio Coloma Correa, Andrés Chadwick, Jaime Orpis, among others, stood out.

According to DINA and naval intelligence records, Guzmán was part of the fascist-nationalist paramilitary group Patria y Libertad, although, according to the same records, he presented "a rejection of nationalism." Consulted by the DINA, Guzmán responded: "to defeat Marxism I was able to ally myself with fascism and the latter is the danger that must be defeated today."

Collaboration with the military dictatorship

On September 26, 1973, days after the coup d'état that overthrew the socialist president Salvador Allende, a commission was formed in charge of preparing the draft of a new constitution for Chile, since that was one of the foundations for which which the Governing Board justified its actions: to restore the broken institutionality. In it, Guzmán was appointed adviser on legal matters by General Gustavo Leigh, a position he would hold until 1983. For the creation of a new fundamental charter to direct the course of Chile, the Ortúzar Commission was born, so called because its president was the lawyer Enrique Ortúzar, was also made up of Alejandro Silva Bascuñán, Jorge Alessandri, Alicia Romo, Juan de Dios Carmona, Sergio Diez and Guzmán himself, among others.

Within said commission, Guzmán became the main creator of the new Constitution, where he intervened on the issues of the subsidiary State, abortion, the death penalty and human rights. This Commission held 417 sessions in which the articles and codes that would enshrine the Constitution were drafted and corrected. After the plebiscite of September 11, 1980, the Constitution and continuity of the military dictatorship was approved with 67% of the votes, however the legitimacy of said suffrage has been questioned given the absence of electoral records, the non-existence of political parties, the lack of freedom of the press and the systematic persecution of political opponents. Finally, the new Constitution entered into force on March 11 of the following year, with full force as of March 11, 1990, in accordance with the provisions of its transitory provisions.

After having participated in the drafting commission of the Constitution, Jaime Guzmán dedicated a good part of his time to the development of the Trade Union Movement. At the same time, although he did not assume any position of authority in the new regime, he continued to collaborate closely with Augusto Pinochet, being his main editor of political speeches, including Chacarillas' speech, providing him with frequent minutes with political recommendations and doctrinal proposals.

From said Trade Union Movement, Guzmán founded the National Unity Youth Front in 1975 and, in 1983, the Independent Democratic Union political party, of which he was its president between 1983 and 1987; there he established the bases of social conservatism, the defense of the military dictatorship, of neoliberalism, and the strategy to win support in the popular sectors. Between 1983 and 1989 he was a member of the advisory commission to draft the Constitutional Organic Laws, and at the same time, he rejected any type of reform to the Constitution, however minimal.

Return to democracy and senatorial term

After the return to democracy in 1990, he was elected senator for the period 1990-1994, for the Santiago Poniente constituency with 17% of the votes, defeating Ricardo Lagos who had obtained 30%, thanks to the system binomial. He was considered the most important figure in the opposition to the left, according to a survey carried out in March 1991 by the Center for Contemporary Reality Studies (CERC), and one of the most critical of the new government, accusing him, among other things, of lack of rigor in the fight against left-wing extremism.

Professional activity

Academic work

Since 1962, Jaime Guzmán carried out teaching tasks within the Faculty of Law of his house of studies, first being a graduate assistant, then he became an assistant professor, and later became a tenured professor of Political Theory and Constitutional Law, position that he would hold until the day of his death. Later, in 1968, he became a member of the Academic Council of the Faculty, and between 1972 and 1973, he was the representative of the professors of the Plenary Senate and of the Superior Council of the Catholic University.

Social Communicator

Between 1971 and 1973, Guzmán was part of the board of the Catholic University Television Corporation (later renamed Channel 13), and participated in various television programs such as A esta hora se improvise of Canal 13 and the newscast 60 minutos of TVN and wrote several articles and columns for newspapers and magazines such as El Mercurio, PEC, Qué Pasa, Reality, Ercilla, La Segunda, La Tercera, La Nación, and worked as a panelist on the Agricultura, Minería, Chilena, Portales, and Nacional de Chile radio stations. Initially, he wrote articles in which he strongly rejected President Salvador Allende and the government of the Popular Unity, while during the dictatorship period, it used to deal with political, legal and social issues, and did not skimp on generating controversy with its risqué statements^{[citation required]}.

Thinking and postures

Jaime Guzmán

According to the historian Renato Cristi, for the drafting of the 1980 Constitution, Guzmán relied on the concept of constituent power used by Carl Schmitt, an important intellectual of Nazi Germany, as well as on the ideas of a market society promoted by by Friedrich Hayek. In this way, the lawyer configured an authoritarian state and a free market economy.

Guzmán believed in the death penalty as an "instrument for the very profound rehabilitation of the human soul". A deeply religious man, he promoted the ideas of "freedom of the spirit" against the "slavery of materialism". For scholars Claudio Arqueros and Carlos Frontaura, the main forms of materialism for Guzmán were Marxist collectivism and the individualism of consumer societies. His ethical principles were always very concerned with the concepts of the common good, family, marriage, tradition and national identity.

Chilean Armed Forces and Carabineros

In an interview conducted by Juan Pablo Illanes on January 22, 1987, Guzmán was questioned about the role of the Armed Forces within Chilean politics, to which he replied that the Armed Forces have been key in the establishment of governments throughout national history, and if a person wishes to be President of the Republic, it is necessary to establish negotiations and consensus with both the Armed Forces and the Police of Chile, considering this method better than competitive and confrontational elections between political parties.

Abortion

Regarding the issue of abortion, he maintained a strong opposition to its legalization, both partial and complete, which he considered an unjustifiable homicide, about which he stated:

The mother must have the child even if she is abnormal, she has not desired it, whether it is the product of a rape or even if she has it, she derives in her death. A person can never legitimately practise an abortion, because it is a homicide and all the negative or painful consequences are precisely what God has imposed on the human being.

Personality

He was always a devout Catholic: he attended mass every day and received communion daily, to the point that when he traveled to another city, he used to ask where the nearest church was and see its schedule so he could attend mass. He also used to deal a lot with topics related to the Christian religion, such as the existence of angels, the existence of God, the role of the Christian faith in society, etc. He was quite close to the apostolic nuncio to Chile in the 1980s, Angelo Sodano.

The repressive organizations of the military dictatorship National Intelligence Directorate (DINA, f. 1974) and the National Information Center (CNI, f. 1977) investigated on many occasions homosexual people or those who could be, including Guzmán, during 1976 and 1978. The report, which tried to monitor one of the main adversaries of the DINA director Manuel Contreras within the government, established a profile of the lawyer and specified the closeness of Guzmán with people recognized for their homosexuality, and although it did not literally mention that it was, it shows the level of intolerance that existed in the high echelons of the government towards various sexual orientations.

In addition to politics, Jaime Guzmán was a soccer fanatic, being a supporter of the Universidad Católica and who, thanks to the influence of his father as the leader of the same sports club, frequently went to watch soccer matches, and even He personally met prominent figures such as journalist Julio Martínez and Sergio Livingstone.

Among his personal interests were classical music, opera, literature, soccer, and he admired the Viña del Mar Festival.

He lived in an austere and sober apartment located in Plaza Las Lilas, where he lived with a domestic worker named Violeta Chaparro. He used to receive constant visits to his apartment, mainly from his students from the Catholic University and members of the trade unions, where they discussed political, social and religious issues. Due to his hypochondriac personality, she had numerous medications and according to Gazmuri, she consumed many anxiolytic and sleep-inducing pills.

Electoral history

These are the results for District 7 (Santiago Poniente) where Guzmán was elected senator. Despite only achieving third place, well below the percentage obtained by Ricardo Lagos, the latter's list could not double his vote, so Guzmán was elected thanks to the binomial system.

Death and aftermath

In Congress, he strongly defended the rejection of a Constitutional Reform project, which allowed the President of the Republic to pardon terrorists. Although the regulation was approved, Guzmán's position was a provocation for the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (Autonomous).

On April 1, 1991, after finishing his Constitutional Law classes at the Eastern Campus of the Catholic University, Jaime Guzmán was expected by his driver. It was at the same exit from the university, at 6:27 p.m., on Batlle y Ordóñez avenue with Regina Pacis, when two front members opened fire on him, who was in the passenger seat. Fuentes accelerated, fleeing the gunfire, while the attackers continued firing. The driver first took him to the UDI headquarters in search of help and then they hurried to the Military Hospital. National radio and television quickly reported the news, while relatives, friends, colleagues and supporters of Guzmán were gathering at the hospital. Despite medical efforts, Guzmán died three hours after being shot, causing nationwide commotion over his violent death.

The judicial investigation established that the material authors were the militants of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), Ricardo Palma Salamanca ("El Negro") and Raúl Escobar Poblete ("Commander Emilio"), while the intellectual authors would be the members of the Frentista political-military leadership Galvarino Apablaza ("Commander Salvador"), Mauricio Hernández Norambuena ("Commander Ramiro") and Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann ("Commander Gabriel"). The operation was prepared, according to journalistic sources, since the end of the 1980s, having as motivation, according to the FPMR command, the role played by Senator Jaime Guzmán as ideologue of the military dictatorship.

On June 6, 1993, under the government of President Patricio Aylwin; Law No. 19,205 was promulgated, authorizing the construction of two monuments in memory of Jaime Guzmán, in the cities of Santiago and Valparaíso. The same law established a parliamentary Commission, chaired by then-senator Carlos Bombal, in charge of executing the objectives of the regulation, among them, to call a public contest for the design of a Memorial in his name, with the purpose of keeping the memory alive. of the work, figure and personality of Guzmán. It is worth noting the great interest aroused by this contest, in which 140 high-level projects participated, as reiterated by the specialists that made up the Commission.

Disputes

During the military dictatorship

His participation in the military dictatorship is the result of great controversy, particularly due to the knowledge he had of the human rights violations committed during the Pinochet regime, according to court documents, which at no time diminished his fidelity to the regime. In Guzman's own words:

The civilians that we were in the government, we realized that the military regime was a chaste horse, and that it had to be stopped, so that it would not commit any more human rights violations (...) We when we learned that there would be a shooting or a disappearance we tried to avoid, and in many cases we did.

According to lawyer Nelson Caucoto:

It is serious that knowing that such abuses occurred, or even more, that "they were going to happen," these criminal acts were not reported to the courts in circumstances that they were already charged with the knowledge of amparo remedies, allegations of kidnapping, for alleged misfortunes brought in favor of hundreds of Chileans who finally disappeared forever.

According to what was expressed by one of the founders of Patria y Libertad, Roberto Thieme, Guzmán would be one of the masterminds behind the human rights violations that occurred during the military dictatorship.

Dignity Colony

In June 2005, after the arrest of the German criminal and ex-soldier Paul Schäfer, and the eviction of Colonia Dignidad, some invitation cards from friends and visitors to said enclave, access to which was restricted at that time, were discovered. Among various files were the names of Jaime Guzmán, Andrés Chadwick, Hernán Larraín and Carlos Bombal, among other politicians and religious entities.

The former Minister of Justice of the military dictatorship, Mónica Madariaga, assured in an interview that Jaime Guzmán gave classes inside Villa Baviera to his disciples and current leaders of the UDI, including Pablo Longueira and Andrés Chadwick.

I know that Jaime Guzmán (the murdered former UDI senator) taught Pablo Longueira, Luis Cordero and Andrés Chadwick (all leaders of the Independent Democratic Union) inside the Dignity Colony. [...] They were indoctrinated in that place, there they were politically formed, they were taught. Jaime Guzmán instructed them and gave them lectures, did it in the Platonic style, he would walk through the fields dictating classes. All of them benefited from Colonia Dignidad. Now they don't say anything. [The Senator of the UDI Hernán Larraín] was very friendly to the people of Cologne Dignity.

Monica Madariaga in interview with The Third.

Works

• Guzmán, Jaime (1992). Personal writings. Santiago de Chile: JGE Ltda. ISBN 956-12-0759-1.
• Guzmán, Jaime (1996). «Political Law: Notes of the Classes of Professor Jaime Guzmán Errázuriz». In Rojas, Gonzalo; Achurra, Marcela; Dussaillant, Patricio, eds. Revista Ciencia Política (Catholic University of Chile) XIX: 192.