 Good morning, and welcome to CSIS. I'm Steve Johnson, the director of the America's program, and it's my distinct pleasure to welcome you this morning to an extraordinary event. We have a singular personality with us today, a truly great American, and I mean that not in the sense of North American or US citizen, but in the sense of hemispheric citizen in terms of the Americas, somebody who has fought for human rights and democracy and helped bring moderate democratic government, a government that is exemplary in many different ways to all of us throughout the globe. Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile. I'm not going to go too much into detail into his history and the book that we have, which is also for sale, I might mention for twenty-nine dollars, and for those of you who brought copies of your book, you'll be able to have an opportunity to have President Lagos sign the book after our discussion this morning, but I'm going to turn that over to Ambassador Craig Kelly, who was actually serving in Chile at the time that President Lagos was in office. Before I do that, I would just have a couple of administrative requests from you. If you could, please turn your cell phones off or at least to stun mode, so that we don't have any ringing throughout the presentation, and also during the question and answer would ask you to, if you have a question, to please identify yourself, who you, what organization you represent, and keep your questions or commentaries fairly brief, so we can have a good wide-ranging dialogue with all of you here today, and without any further remarks on my part, I'd like to introduce Craig Kelly. Stephen, thank you very much. It's a great honor to be able to introduce President Lagos today, just as it was a great honor to serve in Chile as U.S. Ambassador during part of his tenure. A quick glance at President Lagos' career is exhausting, but I'm going to do so very, very briefly knowing that my main duty is actually to leave the podium, but President Lagos was a brilliant student in Chile, then came to the United States, got his PhD at Duke, taught at the University of North Carolina. I don't know how he resolves this at March Madness time, but that's his problem. Then went back in various teaching and administrative capacities at the prestigious University of Chile. When after the, after Chile's September 11th, September 11th 1973, the coup in Chile, he left the country, was in Argentina, was in the United States, spent about four years outside of Chile, but then went back and worked with various U.N. agencies, but assumed leadership of the pro-democracy movement in Chile and became famous around the world for his courage and for his articulate expression of the need for return to democracy in his country. He became a president of Acción Democrática. He was imprisoned for a while and then became leader of the the so-called no campaign in the 1988 referendum and was did an interview on television. In fact, I should have brought my coffee. President Lagos was a famous interview on Channel 13 in Chile of the various pro-democracy and pro-government forces and at one point during the interview he famously looked into the camera assuming that General Pinochet was watching, pointed his finger at the camera and said I speak for 15 years of silence. A very effective moment which galvanized the opposition campaign and we all know the result, the no campaign one, which led eventually to the restoration of democratic government in 1990. Now, if if he had simply stopped there in his political career and returned to academia, he would already have gone down and as one of the most consequential figures in modern Chilean history, but he did not stop there. And he was minister of his minister of education under President Elwin, the first government after the after the Pinochet period for democratic government. As minister of education, he implemented a vision which laid out that a good part of Chile's inequalities were related to inequalities in the educational system and so he undertook various incentives to improve schools, something that remained very dear to his heart throughout his career as president and even today. In the next Chilean government, President Frey served as minister of public works and implemented very innovative programs of private public partnerships involving concessions to build new roads, new ports, and so forth in Chile. Anyone who's had the pleasure of traveling on Chile's excellent highways or visited its very efficient ports has President Lagos to thank for this. Again, these are projects which continued during his presidency. And that presidency, which ran from 2000 to 2006, was noted for President Lagos' ability to combine his deep, deep commitment to greater equality, greater social inclusion in his country, and including innovative programs in health and housing, conditional cash transfer programs, the famous Chile Solidario program, which involved conditional cash transfers and visits by social workers to the homes of the poor and so forth. But combining all this with the economic efficiency for which Chile is famous, free trade agreements with the European Union, with the United States, and opening up to the world the result we have today as a country which has free trade agreement, something Ambassador Carla Hills knows very well, free trade agreements with more countries than anyone else in the world, 56 other countries Chile has some kind of free trade agreement with. And then in foreign policy, bringing Chile to the world stage. When I first arrived in Chile, President Lagos hosted the APEC forum and was very present not only regionally, but on the world stage, something he has continued today as a global statesman with the UN as the leader of the so-called Club de Madrid, the former presidents. In reading this wonderful book, and I encourage you to read it, I just heard Ambassador Hills saying that it was a great read. It really is one it's hard to put down once you start. I'm reminded in reading the book of a couple of really key tenants in President Lagos' career. One is his ability to forge a synthesis of ideas that some people might consider incompatible. You're very hard to pigeonhole President Lagos. For instance, during the resistance, during the anti-pinochet campaign, he knew that apart from expressing moral fervor, the pro-democracy anti-pinochet forces also had to show that they could run the country. They were going to be asked at some point to take over the country and they had to prove that they were able to do that. So you had to express not just what you were against, but what you were for. Likewise, once in power, dealing with the human rights legacy of the Pinochet period, I always was marveled at how Chile managed to look openly at the past and the book describes the various reports, the Reddit report, the Valic report, and so forth about the abuses of the past without being held back, without being paralyzed by the past and everyone knows what Chile has done to move forward in recent years. And this owes a lot, I believe, to President Lagos' ability to see two ideas at once and put them together in an effective way. Similarly with the economy, all the programs for social justice, along with the well-known economic reforms in 1990, when democratic government returned, the poverty rate in Chile was 44 percent. Today, it's under 14 percent. So again, this synthesis of social justice economic efficiency has been something that has made Chile famous around the world. Also, I remember President Lagos as someone who had an extraordinary ability to deal with people of all political persuasions. I happened to be there when President Bush came down for APEC. It's no secret that Chile and the United States had different views on the war in Iraq, and yet the personal relationship between them was warm. And this is described in the book, and it's a fascinating part of the book, President Lagos' relation with leaders of the other side of the political spectrum around the world. In concluding, I'd like to say that I think that our view of Chile today has a lot to do with this man. Because today, when we think of Chile, we think of, well, the title of the book, the Southern Tiger of the efficient model economy and so forth. But for many people of my generation, when you thought of Chile 30, 40 years ago, you thought of an autocrat named Pinochet. And for a lot of people, he appeared to sort of the quintessential Latin autocrat, and there was an identification of somewhat Chile with this form of government. When President Lagos was in the pro-democracy movement in the 80s, he saw it as one of his fundamental tasks to show to people that this was an aberration in Chilean history, that Chile had an honored history of Republican Democratic government, and that this period was an aberration and that Chile had to return to those Democratic roots. And I remember very fondly, I had wonderful conversations with President Lagos when he was in La Moneda in the presidential palace. But when he retired from the presidency, I was still ambassador. And I remember some very wonderful conversations, including a lunch at my residence in which he talked a lot about 19th century Chilean history and it dawned on me how that history must have inspired him during the resistance that Chile had this very honored past of participatory and representative government. So Mr. President, Winston Churchill was famous for once having said, a history will treat me kindly because I intend to write it. I would say that history will treat you kindly because you shaped it. You shaped modern Chilean history and it's an honor for all of us to be here with you to hear a little bit of your story. And I just want to welcome you once again to Washington. It's an honor to be with you. Thank you, sir. Well, thank you, Ambassador Kelly, for your kind words. Whatever he says, you have to divide by at least 50 percent because he's very close on your mind. But I thank you also for the invitation to be able to talk with you this morning about this book publication. Probably I should start saying what the book is not about. It's not a formally memoir, a long-standing memoir full of food notes, something like that. A friend of mine told me, I know what you're planning to do, to write a book. It's going to be about the three-volume book, full of food notes, and I guess that one American student will read that book when he's writing a PhD dissertation comparing the taxation of Chile in the early 21st century vis-a-vis Argentina. And some other PhD student probably is going to do something similar in some other areas. But no more than three or four American people will read your very interesting memoir. So why don't you write something that people will read it, not very long, et cetera, et cetera. So I wrote this thinking in the general public and assuming that they know very little about the Farragway country called Chile. Number two, I didn't know that was very difficult to do this because, let me tell you, the publishers, if you don't know, are really the ones that put the title to the book. I didn't like too much the title. And then when I finished the whole thing, they told me that 100,000 words was the maximum, and I have 105,000. So they decided to cut it to 5,000. The reason they told me is very simply because they are going to go to a bookstore and say, oh, what an interesting book, you know? Chile, I say, Chile is far away, but I'm going to take it. And the next dissertation was always, they say to me, is to see how many pages. Oh, 300 something, oh no, that's too much for Chile, period. Well, other thing in that, what is it not about, it's true that to some extent the title that you have about the past, the present and the future, what about the past? I will say that because I got to the past, I have a long-term problem with the past of Chile. That when Chile celebrate 100 years of independence in 1910, well, Chile was at the peak of the development at that time. And then 50 years later, an important economist wrote Chile, a case of frustrated development, and the issue is why Chile didn't make it. At that time, Chile has a per capita income very much like Sweden. I don't need to tell what is the difference today. So that was one thing. And the second thing with regard to the past is the very recent past that we have with about 17 years of Pinochet dictatorship. And let me tell you that since 1831, after a very short period of anarchism right after independence, we had in Chile the rule of law. This is something that somebody told me yesterday during 117 days. Other than that, always the rule of law was established in Chile, the democratic institutions fulfilled what they are supposed to do. There was a long-standing democratic tradition, even in the so-called civil war in Chile, and therefore it was rather unusual to have that kind of thing in our country. And therefore, recovered democracy was the most important thing. And in the book, what I tried to explain is so difficult. How would you start trying to recover democracy when you have a very strong government and where the rule of law is not respected, human rights violations is everyday life, et cetera, et cetera. And then the big issue was how are you going to be able to form a coalition of parties that used to be adversaries in the democratic system and now they realize that to agree around some basic democratic and human rights institutions is essential. And therefore, no matter what your differences are going to be, you have to be together if you want to fulfill the idea of defeating dictatorship. Number two, how are you going to do? And here then we have again a lot of discussions in Chile. Today it looked back very easy, but the discussion was among those things that looked the only way to defeat dictatorship that is based on the power of the army is to defeat by violent means. And therefore, how am I going to get arms where and how am I going to train people? And we say, look, this is not the tradition of Chile. If we're going to defeat democracy, it's going to be through nonviolent means. And it was a very strong discussion at the time. And I would say that the fact that there was an attempt against Pinochet, right after they discovered a huge amount of ammunition and arms being taken by Pinochet's forces, this is what produced, I would say, impractical terms, the defeat of those that thought it was possible to go through violent means, the uprising or the struggle of the Chilean people. And for me, that was nonsense. If people was going to be afraid later, just to sign for the political party that was a party of the opposition according to the rules of Pinochet's constitution, if they were afraid to do that, what about taking an arm to fight? And what I'm trying to explain is this discussion that we have. First, trying to make so many different factions of the socialist party and why we became the so-called the Swiss because we were neutral with so many divisions and we were only six people or seven people, no more than that. When I recollect the numbers of people that we were talking of these issues, it's ridiculous, really. And this is something that I mentioned in the book. And the other thing that I guess is important, yesterday somebody told me and said, you say very little about the U.S. involvement in the coup. And I say, look, I think that that is rather well known. But more important, I would say, the coup was the consequence that we were fighting among ourselves in Chile. That there was some help from the outside. There is no question. We are talking about the period of the Cold War, that we are talking about when you are with me or against me, therefore it's black and white. But let's be clear, it was our fault why we lost democracy and it was our will to recover democracy by democratic means. And this is what we try to do. And the other thing that I guess is important, but not as very well known, that the change of the American policy vis-à-vis Chile took place during the Reagan administration and the Schulz as the Secretary of State. And this is rather unusual, I would say. But at some time, American foreign policy understood that the future of Chile was in the hands of those that in the opposition were trying to fight by democratic means and nonviolent means. And I remember that, this I don't think is in the book. I remember once talking with President Bush and he was rather surprised when somebody told him that I had been in prison for a short period of time. And President Bush said, and what you did? Well, you know, there was an attempt against Pinochet and they decided to put me on jail. Also, you were involved in that. No, I was not involved in that attempt against Pinochet. And then, why they took you to prison? Well, because that is a dictatorship about, you know. And then I told him, but you see, the first person that went to see me when I was in prison was somebody from the American Embassy on behalf of the ambassador. They did that, yes, they did that. And I was, they didn't know, I was told later that in a visit to the State Department, President Bush mentioned this anecdote and said, I want that you remind that whenever somebody is in prison then an American should go to see why is that, because if he's fighting for democracy, then you have to be at his side. I say this because this is the way that, well, then, as you mentioned, we have some not very well understanding with regard to Iraq, but that's another story that is also mentioned in the book, by the way. Of course, I wrote the chapter about that the usual way for foreign policy. And those that were editing the book in a way that was a little bit more interesting, one of them is Beth here with me this morning. They say, don't you think that is a rather boring title? Why don't you push better Bush, Saddam and me? And that's exactly the title of the chapter. But even though the agreement was that no food notes are going to be on the book, that chapter has a food note that is essential to understand what was really how important was Chile at that moment in the world stage. Because the food note explained very clearly that only by coincidence Chile became involved in those issues, etc., etc. It's a funny story. Other than that, I would say that with regard to the oppression of Chile, it's true. There was 20 years of government from socialist and Christian democrats and some other political forces in Chile. It's true. We were together in the transition to say no to Pinochet, which is quite easy. You just have to say no. It's a little bit more difficult when you realize that if you don't want to have in Chile a political vacuum, then you have to organize to run a government, it's a little bit more difficult than you just say no. And I think that what happened in those four years of Elwin's administration is that we realize that it's one thing to go from transition from dictatorship to democracy and it's another thing much more difficult trying to go from a very underdeveloped to a more developed country to a rather Bagua to a more modern to be able to keep, because your market is very small, opening trade with other parts of the world and you want to compete at the world stage. That is difficult to tackle the issue of human rights violations, as you mentioned, but we have to do it if we want to build with regard to the future, as I used to say in the rest of the Chilean people, in order not to repeat again those violations, never deny that those violations occur in the past. In other words, truth is becoming essential and important to seal precisely the guns of the past. And therefore I think that the decision to open up the country through free trade for us was essential as part of our own development. And at the same time, the fact that if you have decided to go to competition in a globalized world, then the big issue is going to be what are going to be the rules of the game. And we know how important are the rules of the game, but we're going to establish the rules of the game. And this is the reason why, at the end, I tried to explain that in the book, they have to do with something very essential from the point of view of our point of view. Because we say, look, at that time we were at the Security Council and we say everything has to be taken within the Security Council. And if you ask me to go to war in a coalition of the willing, it's how the Security Council, I have to say no because I undermining the multilateral institutions that are the institutions that are supposed to establish the rules of the game. And therefore from our point of view, when you are in a small country, well, this question of how are you going to establish that rules and where is essential. And to some extent, if you see what's going on after 2008 or what is today in Europe, well, the discussion is about who is going to establish at the very end the rules of the game. Don't you think it's rather unusual that those agencies that are supposed to establish what is the risk of a particular country will tell you to the Minister of Finance what they have to do? Don't you think that it's the other way around that citizens select governments and the government are supposed to shape how a society is going to work? Even though I understand it's very important in today's financial market, I cannot believe that those financial markets at the end dictate what are the rules of the game. This is a very important issue in today's world. And therefore I do believe that either because if you believe in free trade, then well, the World Trade Organization is the way to discuss the major issues. When we are discussing the issues of empty dumping with the United States, well, we agree that given our discussions, it was not going to be possible for us, a little country, to ask the United States why don't you change the rules of empty dumping because we don't think they are very fair for us. And they say, well, I don't think that we are going to do that. You know, we didn't do that when we discussed with Mexico and Canada together. We are not going to do it for Chile. But then we agreed to say why don't we take that at the World Health Organization. And in the Doha Development Round, we put the issue of empty dumping and we discussed at the multilateral level. This is what I think should be normally the case in this case and in others, and among others. And therefore, the big issue is with regard to the present, I would say, when we were able to have a transition, two transitions, and the second one means that we decided to keep our coalition together and never was a formal decision on that. It just happened that we have to keep together the coalition in order to fulfill that how are we going to be able to go to a more developed country. And I think that to some extent we succeed. With regard to the future, all of you are very aware of what happened last year in Chile in 2011 about the students' demonstration. But more than that, I would say, it wasn't only a student, it wasn't sort of a malaise in Chilean society. And how is that this country that used to make things very well that somebody write a book up with the title The Southern Tiger? Now you have that kind of thing. And it's my impression that this is the consequence of the success of our story, because we were able to reduce poverty, as you mentioned, from 40% to 13% in 20 years. But that means that that 27% of the population that live poverty behind you, now they consider themselves some sort of middle-income classes. And they have different kinds of demands from Chilean society. If we are proud to have seven out of ten students in the university system, but at the same time, most of that has to be paid, not by government, by state taxes, but by private people. And if you have an income of, let's say, $2,000 per month, and you have to pay a tuition, two, three, up to $400 per month, and if you have two at the university, well, you have problems. Don't you think so? And therefore, what is going to be your demand? Don't you think that Chilean society has to make a bigger effort so that everybody can afford going to college and if you don't have some kind of a scholarship, are going to be in order to make sure that opportunities in Chile are equal for everybody, because once that your kid was able to go to the university finally, first time in that family, well, that's a different demand that's when you are living under the poverty line. Number two, because you have this emerging middle class, well, society will need to address these issues in a different way, because also this emerging middle class now is much more informed, much more empowered. There is something called Internet, and therefore that means something quite different in the way that you understand how you get informed. Now, this is not only in Chile, of course. To what extent, without Internet, it would be much more difficult to have the average spring, the so-called average spring. Until what extent, because of those average spring, then there is going to be something that you can call democracy 2.0? Because I would say that normally democracy at Tunaja would be 1.0, in what sense? That after Gutenberg discovered the press, 200 years later or 250 years later, somebody decided, why don't we print some news every day? And that's the paper and the times in England, in the UK. And if you are going to print news that has to do with public affairs, then why don't we have instead of the king, a democratic system? All of us know what's going on in the country, so we can say something about that. And some French philosopher on the other across the channel decided that it's possible to have something like that, like Montesquieu, Daigreau, so on, etc., etc., all of you don't know the history. And what was politics about? To have a leader, several leaders to talk about public affairs, and people will listen. People will listen, and they vote. Now, it's true during those days to vote, you have to have some property, and you have to be a male. Then things are touching a little. Then you have the radio. But again, now you can listen. But you are not supposed to answer to the leader that was talking on the radio. Then you have the TV, but you are not supposed to answer to the guy that was talking on TV. The big change is that for the first time, I like to say this, to go back to Athens Square, but in Athens, not the Athens of today, of course, no, no, that Athens, the other Athens, you know. The other Athens, that Athens, you know, well, was no more than 150 males, not slaves, of course, and they talked to each other in the square. All of them were political leaders at once, and all of them were able to talk to each other and to convince or not to convince. And today, with this new technological platform, you are back in the square with the only difference that instead of 150, you have probably more than, in this country, more than 150 millions, as citizens being able to talk to each other. And you make a speech, you write a book, and as soon as you finish, you will receive 200,000 tweets saying that you are such a stupid guy. And then they give you the reason why you are that. I mean, it's a different way. Now, how politicians in the 21st century are going to be able to understand that they produce, they emit ideas, and they receive ideas from everybody. So I say this is democracy 2.0, and are you going to have institutions built around this idea that we still have no idea? Because by definition, democracy is a system by which you elect those that are going to represent you in parliament, and you elect those that think like you, more conservatives, more liberals, more right wing, more left wing, whatever you want to call it. Because of the democratic platform, you decide that when are you going to protest, and then in order to protest, you go to the square in Cairo. Well, you can understand even the system, the political system that they have. But don't you think that is something different when one year later in Italy, because the constitution of Italy established that there can be a plebiscite to abrogate a law established in parliament, and the citizens then, with a number of signatures, can call for a plebiscite. And they call it plebiscite. The plebiscite was about four laws approved by parliament to protect the prime minister of that time against some judicial problems, legal problems. The plebiscite, to be able to be imposed over the will of the parliament and to abrogate the law, require a number of people going to vote that day. Well, there was not a single political debate about the plebiscite in Italy. You can imagine why. But the fact is that because of the network, they want the plebiscite and they abrogate four laws approved by parliament. So, then you have a constitution that has an institution established in order that the citizen decided to organize, et cetera, et cetera. Big question. How is going to be our democracy and the theory of representation when you have this kind of thing? I'm not saying that everything will go to plebiscite. In the same way that because of Gutenberg, the press, et cetera, et cetera, now you have a democratic system. How this democratic system is going to change, if ever, in this sense? Final point. I think that in today's world this question is going to be essential in order that our government and our institutions are legitimate. To what extent you are going to lose some legitimacy if you are unable to keep in track with these issues? And in our case in Chile, I think that what we are seeing now is a sense that to discuss about the future, not only political parties can participate and political parties are not the only one that has enough legitimacy. And therefore, about our future, I would say, if we want not to repeat what happened 100 years ago, it's true. Now, given the economic crisis, we are performing rather well. This year we are going to have a growth of about 5%. I mean, excuse me, last year. This year 2012 is going to be around 4%, which is not bad. And now we have about $15,000, $16,000 per capita income. We are looking forward for when are we going to be in the threshold of the $20,000. And probably the big issue then is going to be more distribution of income rather than fighting poverty. And this makes a tremendous change. And therefore, the question for Chile, I would say, how are we going to be able to organize our society in the stage where we are now, which is different from the state that we were in 1990. And sometimes the major difficulty for political leaders is to be able to agree in some idea of how the country is going to be organized. We agree to have a very open country from the point of view of trade. We agree at the end that it was necessary to look to the past in order not to repeat the mistakes in the future. We agree to have some sort of political arrangement. But now I think that those agreements has to be overcome by different challenges. And the big issue is, in order to have a bright future, better we address these real issues. Fortunately for us are not only real issues for Chile. I think that the question of distribution is becoming a question not only in the developed but also in the developed world. To have in this country a movement that is called the 99%, it sounds incredible for me. I think that it's so sophisticated to understand what that means, 99%. In this room everybody understands that, but it's unusual. I guess that something has to do with the technological platform. And this is where I think that some of our best idea has to be more. In short, I try to write a book thinking in these issues until what extent I would not tend to say what we did was something very new, very novel, not at all. Simply that sometimes it's necessary a little bit of common sense in politics. And I think that we try to employ our common sense in politics to have a broad coalition to perform some things and to understand that that was essential from the point of view of the country. And let me tell you, I wonder if I can say this here, sometimes I perceive that this society that I get to know 50 years ago when I came to study today is a much more polarized society and I don't think that that's a good idea in terms of a political scenario. And probably some kind of understanding what are the bridges between different political groups in society and to build bridges at the end is probably another aspect of a good political leader. And when you try to build bridges, then I guess the country may be better. Thank you. Move to the conversation phase. Mr. President, thank you very much for those remarks. And listen to you, I'm reminded again of how you're able to pull things together. There was a phrase that President Lagos used to use when he was president of Chile when he referred to the need to open up the windows toward the past but continue moving forward. He used to say, No hay mañana sin ayer. There was no tomorrow without yesterday and you have to do both and Chile has done both. If anyone would like to ask a question, make a comment. Please identify yourself and please, sir. Yeah, microphone's coming. Thank you. I'm Tom Rekford with the World Affairs Council. Mr. President, you've talked a bit about Chilean relations with the United States. I wonder, given your knowledge of the sweep of history, how would you characterize Chilean relations with Argentina over the years? Well, thank you for that question because let me put this way. Our relation with Argentina at the beginning extremely good. We were together to fight for independence in the early 19th century. Then there was a time when most Latin American countries were in the process of trying to make sure what is my identity as a country, what are my boundaries, what is the piece of land that I own and then that was the period when we were discussing about frontiers and limits and so on and so forth. And I think that in the 20th century we were solved most of our problems. And because of that then, we were able to fit together what about the future. And I would say that in order to a more globalized world, are we going to be able to work with Argentina together? Are we going to be able to have some sort of integration, economic, physical integration? And we have had some advantages, like different attempts to have a better integration like a gas loop that we were built. And I would say that in the case of today we have a good relation with Argentina, even though they had some problems. But at the same time I think that the big issue is that Argentina is a much richer country in terms of natural resources and natural endowments. They have three meters of a very nice land. They can produce two or three crops of wheat every year. We only have one, because we only have less than one meter of very good soil. So those differences will exist. Nevertheless, I think that Argentina, like many other countries in Latin America, is becoming also a middle-income country in terms of capital income. And of course Argentina and Uruguay had a very strong middle class during all of the 20th century. And therefore in that sense they are much more mature countries than we. Now I think those things are beginning a little bit more even. And I think that in the case of Argentina and Chile or to some extent Brazil, needless to say Uruguay of course, Colombia emerging very rapidly, all of those are countries in South America that now benefit from what's going on in China and some other demands of our natural resources. And number two, that means that we are going to have similar problems with this emerging new demands of the middle classes and how we're going to be able to be dealing with that. Other than that I would say Argentina now has always had a, I would say, a rather different political system from Chile. ours is a much more ideologically oriented. In Argentina the fact of pharaonism produce a tremendous change in the political landscape that still remains many years after pharaon died and it's a fact, a very important political fact. And therefore we have to understand that our friends at the other side of the mountain has that kind of political system and we have to see how are we going to be able to understand to each other and to respect to each other. So I would say that now our relations are good relations, no matter that we understand that to have good relations doesn't mean that our government has to have similar ideologies and this I think is very important. Yeah. I see a number of hands, Mark. I think yours is the first. Go ahead. Microphone here please. Mark Schneider International Crisis Group. Thank you very much Mr. President. You spoke eloquently about the importance of rules of the game being established and being followed particularly in terms of protecting small countries. If one looks at the rules of the game in the Americas in terms of the democratic system a decade ago the Inter-American Democratic Charter was adopted and since then we've seen several countries where key elements like the independence of the judiciary have come under attack. If one looks at how do you encourage respect for those rules of the game do you see any way in which in Latin America the Latin American countries can come together to press for respect for and adherence to the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Obviously Venezuela, Nicaragua there are several countries where those issues are of great concern. I guess that the good answer may be probably it's necessary to explain to some other acting presidents that there is life after being president. Probably they don't know you know. This is something that was taught to me by former president Betancourt that once told me you know I had a good news for you I was candidate for president I had a good news for you there is life after being president and then he had the only problem that first you had to be president. Well, but other than that I could say that I can understand why presidents say they need more power to do one, two, three, four you know. Okay. But the question is that we understand also how political intuition should work and it seems to me that it may be necessary to have a stronger institutions in the hemisphere. If now you have the so-called CELAC this community of Latin American and Caribbean states well I think that it would be so important to discuss those issues very openly in the CELAC. Of course to discuss those also in the Organization of American States but if you say no this is something that we discuss among ourselves, okay let's discuss among ourselves. Now let me tell you whenever I say about Latin American states I try to explain these ones to Prime Minister Chrétien and we of course we talk with Chrétien in English and Chrétien then very rapidly to Spanish to French and say Monsieur le Président je parle français je suis latino-ci so as you're going to have Latin American countries Canada would like to be there as a French speaking country but other than to have inviting to Canada I say that it's important how are we going to be able to address those issues because they're becoming more and more common you know particularly the question about the judiciary and they are the question to be understated very much is the question of the press you know and how the freedom of press is going to be fulfilled and here go in both ways you know because in some cases the press only represent those that can afford to have a general and that's another side of the equation but anyhow that's a little bit more difficult to address. Thank you President Lagos Johanna Mendelssohn from CSIS I was very taken by your words about Democracy 2.0 and some of the implications of social media and you mentioned the Arab Spring Chile might have a lot to teach Egyptians particularly in a military transition and I was wondering if you personally had had any contact with the new government in Egypt or whether colleagues of yours had been trying to discuss comparative lessons of military transitions which are taking place in another part of the world but there are many similarities to the kinds of issues that you faced in Chile. Thank you. Well let me tell you personally unfortunately I was invited by the United Nations to be part of a mission and because of the agenda I couldn't make it. I know that some friend of mine that has played an important role in Chile's concertation of the political democratic parties has been involved in Egypt and has been in with talk with most of the leaders of the new leaders of Egypt. Now let me tell you that it's true what you mentioned how are you going to be dealing with the issue particularly with the militaries and the importance of militaries in those countries. I can't understand how Prime Minister Erdogan in Turkey is becoming such a figure to imitate and the way that he has been able to address the issue of the military establishment Kemal Atatouk, the founder of the military, etc. Let me tell you also that I think that we have been able in Chile at this during my time I was lucky enough before amending Pinochet's constitution that didn't allow the president to dismiss Commanders-in-Chief and some other high-general. I was able to do that because they realized that in the modern world militaries has to be subordinated to those that are entitled the political will of the people and therefore that's part of an institution. Now, how are you going to be able to explain them that now is a different game and to be respected at the world stage you need to work with democratic credentials and among other things that means how are you going to be able to address the issue with the military and the question is that if you participate in politics you are welcome to the club but please leave the uniform in the barrack because if you are going to have the monopoly of the power then you cannot participate about who is going to be the power because that's precisely the reason why you have an army and when you have an army all of us agree that they will have the monopoly of the power but when and how are you used that power can never those two decisions can be made by those that has the power somebody else make the decision when and how and when and how those that are elected by the people now I know it's difficult to explain this decision I know that every country is different whenever my Spanish friends used to give me lessons I say yes I understand thank you for the lesson but let me remind you that you wait till Franco die to make the transition and with the transition with Franco alive it's a different that kind of thing is different and the fact that what's going on now is going to be so important that the new political leaders emerging from this election in Cairo which was extremely important that they were able to have an election within less than a year and they finished who are elected now you know who are in parliament as important as what the military are going to say what the leaders of this new emerging political leaders are going to be able to understand also that in the same way that you have to make a clear distinction you have the power well the when and how belong to the civilians in a similar way if you have a direct line with God whoever is the name of God well you are a very powerful person because you have a line with somebody that is above all of us which is religion but if religion is going to be the leading force I think that is important to make a distinction that the power here in this world belong to the citizens the matters of God and religion for those that really are in that area but I don't think that is fair to use religion to say I'm right and you are wrong I have this direct line you know because again this is very much the power of the military so I would say in the same way that you try to teach the military now is going to be a different game I would say how can you tell them that wars of religion well wars of religion was part of European history and you need about seven or eight years at the Treaty of Westphalia to make sure that the wars of religion are going to be appropriate you know and therefore I would say that here you have two major powers those that have the power of the military those that have the power of religion how those two powers are going to work together in order to build a democratic system and you are not going to make some manners of what you can do with the use of power as a military or using religion can't you make something like that in order to have a democratic system and it's different of what we have because we have not the problems of religion it was very clear a distinction this is religion but the distinction between the state and religion in Chile was before Pinochet was established in the constitution of 1925 yeah I'm Vanessa Jesus Gonzalez from I just wanted to go back for a moment to what you said about how despite outside political forces each country, society has its own power to for democracy or to you know put up with a dictatorship so I just wanted to go back to that since so many Latin American countries have still very fragile democracies and sometimes seem to hope for somebody to come and rescue them or blame somebody outside also and would you mind if I bring this closer for a moment the recorder so you assume that the answer is going to be extremely important I'm afraid that you will be disappointed well first of all let me tell you probably this is the first time in the region where we have all of our governments are elected number two is true that in the first decade of this century quite a number, I mean 21st I mean quite a number of countries change government but when they change governments in all those changes were according to the rules of the game either the vice president or the president would be caught or whatever even in the case of Argentina talking about Argentina I remember in one week they have three presidents or something like that all of them according to them which is not bad you know after saying this the questions about democracy is how efficient is going to be democracy has to deliver democracy cannot be only a bureaucratic institution by which every four or five years you go to the polls and you make the boat and you forget about and the question is that if the president is talking because the president always is the major communicator in any country in Latin America or in the US the question is the president is talking every day about how good the country is because we have a growth rate of five to eight six seven eight percent if people don't realize that that figure that means nothing for the majority of the people unless they perceive that the five percent is expressed because now they have a better school a better primary health care center a better highway a better housing allowance or whatever I mean that something is improving around him and this is the major problem with regard to democracy are we going to learn how to deliver now in defense of Latin America I think that now Latin American countries has an important number of people well prepared that know how to run at least from the economic point of view more to the right more to the left whatever but that's it and it's my impression that in the same way that now we have elected governments now increasingly they know how to run the economy and we don't have the problem that we used to have in the past probably because in the past we have so many crisis we got a PhD in crisis and for the first time we can say look this huge crisis that now we have in the world we are innocent we have nothing to do with that which is good you know but then the second point is are we going to learn how to deliver and probably that's the major issue because if you want to strengthen democracy it's not a question to teach in that in the schools which is good to teach that in the schools but much more important is that you perceive that this is a good system to deliver what are the needs of the citizens those that demand you know and this is something that sometimes you don't understand very well because there are some areas where the market is not going to fulfill or to deliver if you want to have drinkable water in rural areas in the cities very easy you just because you have the cannon in front of you with fresh water in rural areas it's quite expensive in Chile up to $3,000 to have drinkable water in the rural area per family so unless you put the money for that they will not have drinkable water and if you think that drinkable water is something that has to be fulfilled for everybody it's a citizen right or you will say it's a basic need or you will say it's a public good well you can provide the public good through the private system but the question is are you going to be able to deliver that or it's just a promise or something that is written in some paper in the law and this is the point and therefore in some cases if you deliver well it's going to be necessary to do some other things other than the market somebody can say look democracy at the very end is a system by which you establish what are going to be the public goods that the citizens consider that are public goods you see the point I needed to say that those public goods change I'm not sure if I give the example there that I was in the process of cutting the ribbon of a new medical hospital that we deliver and after the ceremony approached me somebody that was in the audience and said Mr. President I didn't want to interrupt you but let me tell you what kind of hospital is this here I know that we don't have scanner and here you're talking to us about this new hospital and the hospital has no scanner at all all the advantages when you are president that you look down it's a minute there's something to help you and the minister said Mr. President the fact that we didn't have a scanner in the hospital because in the next town 50 kilometers from here there are scanner and given the number of people then it's much cost benefit analysis to send them 50 kilometers to the scanner in that other hospital and I said well you see this is the answer no sir I'm so sorry I wanted to have here in my town in my hospital a scanner for them a scanner was a public good you see what I mean he thought that because Chile was growing why don't we have a scanner everywhere why don't you have an X-ray everywhere today but probably 50 years ago I don't know how many X-ray was something unusual you see and this is this is the case well how do you define the public good and the thing is important and this has to do with how to strengthen democracy okay we were running out of time that either two very quick ones because I've seen two hands here but please make them okay three of them okay okay please you had your hand up ma'am I'm Constable from the Washington Post Ricardo it's a pleasure to see you I'm not sure if I'm the only other person in the room who was there during the club aside in 1988 but it was certainly one of the most born experiences of my life I I'd ask you to reflect a little bit you have a unique perspective both as an international economist and as a moderate socialist leader in Chile for many many years two questions one do you now think that it was necessary for the kinds of very harsh economic medicine that was delivered by Pinochet was it necessary to have that kind of harsh medicine delivered by a dictator in order for Chile to emerge as what it is today or was there any other way it could have happened and number two more broadly have your own views as an economist evolved based on your own experiences as the leader of the country I'd be very interested to see your own evolution of thinking thank you okay yeah we can combine them that might be a good idea because we are getting short on time we have the books to take my name is Jud Kessler I'm a former foreign service officer who lived in Chile for five years during the early 70's partner in law firm here in Washington one of the remarkable things about Chile's transition has to do with the economic thinking because when I lived in Chile the students had pictures of Che Guevara and the Marxist left was very much in vogue and some of the parties within your own coalition certainly held those views parts of the socialist party of Marxist of Moscow Line Communist Party and you know you're kind of either with us or against us we say you can't have a capitalist system or a free market system and that kind of socialism so how did you work that out could you talk about that within the coalition and we would fold in because you're related so we can perhaps fold it in or save some time Mr. President, Arturo Cotridas from the Inter-American Defense College before the first world of Iraq you have the courage to say no to that world we are living a crisis in the Middle East and Chile depends in 100% of the oil imported from other countries if you have to advice to the current the current government of Chile what would be your position in that crisis the position of Chile about the possibility of military crisis in the most in regard to Iran is that what you're referring to that's a lot in one with a little bit of time left your powers of synthesis will really be tested now thank you well first of all I don't think that in order to implement economic reforms even though they are to be very strong you need to have a dictatorship because it seems to me that in the democratic system you can explain to the people what you have to do when President Frey decided to close the coal mines in Chile a tremendous effect in those coal mines in Chile cities that you know but it was possible for the president to go there and explain why they wanted and it was necessary for the economy and this was a question of culture for those people and it's very difficult to do but it's possible to explain and even today they normally keep voting for concertation which is not very appropriate or they keep voting so I think it's possible it doesn't justify the thing with the question of evolution of the thinking I think that those questions were related first I think that democracy sometimes is like an environment you are not going on in your city sky is beautiful and blue how happy I am because I'm living here in a very clean city to take you for granted the problem is the air is not clean anymore then you start complaining and then you discover how important was the past when your city was so clean for me democracy was for granted I never thought that I was going to be to see a dictatorship in Chile never and it seems to me that the first important aspect was and that something that has to be still waiting for some historian to write how much change Chilean culture because of the exile what that means to send to exiles 20 30, 40,000 people but those 20, 30, 40,000 people are leaders in their own communities and that is a tremendous change we were in the middle of Pinochet dictatorship 82, 83 and I was invited to a very poor neighborhood in Chile to have a meeting with some socialist people I left with that very small and modest house in the middle of a winter time extremely rainy day I tried to avoid going because it was raining so much they say oh sir we are trying to prepare something for you after your talk and I left to a modest house of about 12 people no more than that and I left to the house to my surprise was a very modest extremely modest house but you had tears a cuckoo watch cuckoo cuckoo well then I learned that what they had prepared for me was a raclette here this is Switzerland quite sophisticated the son and daughter were exiled in Switzerland and the owners of that house very modest people has been in Switzerland they never thought that the context is what's going on abroad is the number two reason not only to see democracy working or not working if you are going to be in the East European countries that many of them went to there they didn't like it that you have to ask permission to leave the country to somebody that is your boss number three with regard to economic thinking the fact that probably you went very far away with the question of socialization many things I remember quite well early in the 1980s a discussion about what role should have the banking be still property of the state or should the banking go to the private sector and I remember when among 10 people the decision was 8 to 2 to go for the private sector we assumed that our 10 people were making huge definitions in our group of course it's very funny to be in those cases and none of us at that time thought that some of us is going to be in a position of power tomorrow then the question was and that's another story when you decided to open up the country because before that when you have a closed country you have a monopoly beer was a monopoly only one company cement only one company still only one company so you went against monopolies and one way went to socialize everything but when you open that then you can drink imported beer imported beer probably was cheaper than the other one my goodness what about then free trade it's not so bad after all in the Chile of the 70 how many people can afford to have a drink of whiskey other than those that have some facilities to import you remember that I didn't thought that was possible to have whiskey in a normal way and when you discovered that now whiskey probably cheaper than Pisco well my goodness in what world we are living now you see that is the other way of changing the world the world you know and needed to say then after the building world but then I used to say there are two things and two walls that came down the building wall and the other wall is treating 2008 because what happened with lemon brothers is something to think about that we say with regard to the evolution of thinking and with regard to the question of Iran to conclude I think that it's extremely difficult to have some advice if it's possible to say that when you have no all the elements let me tell you that with regard to Iraq at least talking with Shirak and Shirak telling to me look Mr. President I can tell you 100% that there is no atomic weapons in Iraq and my intelligent people say that they have not found weapons of mass destruction but I cannot tell you 100% that there are no weapons of mass destruction well what are the real point with regard to this issue unless you are in power there is going to be very difficult on the outside to say look I think that a preventive responsibility to protect means that some kind of prevention has to be made before or this is going to be extremely dangerous and therefore there is responsibility to protect shouldn't go so far I guess that you have to be very careful what that means and if you are going to be able to do that and all of us know that in the past it has been done that thing and some facilities were destroyed and the people in Iran decided not to tell anybody that they had been wounded in such a way but in this case I think that I have been told that probably the kind of economic sanctions being applied today by the United States are so strong that if you can put similar pressure in Japan and China then they will go to the negotiation table the question is are you going to be able to put that pressure in those attitude or are you in a position to say look if you don't do that then I will have to take some other means and you are going to be responsible I mean there are many ways of how would you want to handle that very hot potatoes but I think that the war in Iraq probably will be of some important lesson for that President Lagos Ambassador Kelly thank you very very much now you've got a chance to get your books signed and to buy a book if you haven't previously done so and I invite you to go over to the table one thing I should tell you is that both cash and credit card are accepted President Lagos will sign with a pen for those who pay in cash and use a rubber stamp for those who pay with credit card