Word: chileanization
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...Chile's former dictator remains in a posture that military men may term "armed retreat." An appeals court judge on Monday dismissed a house arrest order against the former dictator on a technicality - the investigating judge had failed to interrogate Pinochet before issuing the order, as required by Chilean law. Judge Juan Guzman had sent Pinochet a questionnaire during the general 503-day detention in Britain, but it had been returned unanswered. Now the matter will be referred to Chile's Supreme Court, which may rule as early as Thursday...
...Last week, for the first time, a Chilean judge cut through the veil of fear Pinochet had draped over his country and charged the general with kidnapping. These charges, of course, are only a handful of the more than 100 criminal complaints against Pinochet pending in the Chilean legal system. But they'll do: The case concerns the notorious "caravan of death" in 1973, when a group of senior military officers murdered some 73 political prisoners in the weeks that followed Pinochet's military coup...
...question really is whether the Chilean military is prepared to accept democratic life, including due process of law against its own officers when they have violated the country's law or its constitution. And the emerging standoff in Santiago therefore presents the U.S. with an opportunity to reckon with a stain on its own history in Latin America, particularly in relation to Chile...
...atrocities committed by his military junta. Now he may be forced to take personal responsibility. Less than a week after Pinochet issued a statement spun by his handlers as an acceptance of political responsibility for crimes committed by the armed forces during his 17-year reign, a Chilean judge on Friday charged Pinochet with kidnapping. The general is expected to be placed under house arrest shortly, and to go to court to answer charges arising out of the 1973 "caravan of death" - the series of incidents in which some 70 political detainees were abducted while in captivity in the weeks...
...Judge Juan Guzman's announcement Friday is a sign of how far the political tides in Chile have turned against Pinochet. Ever since he allowed the restoration of democracy, conventional wisdom has held that the former dictator was beyond the reach of the Chilean courts. He'd created an umbrella immunity from prosecution for himself as one of his preconditions for handing over power to civilians, and it was widely assumed that the military that had ruled Chile at gunpoint for 17 years would not tolerate civilians putting their erstwhile leader on trial. Even when Pinochet was arrested in Britain...