Word: pinochets
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...fact, at least partly because he objected to being seen with some of the Latino "gorillas" who were on hand. But Carter, if smiling, dealt quite sternly with some of the autocratic leaders whom he flatly accused of violating human rights. "Magnifico hombre, de veras," murmured Chilean President Augusto Pinochet as he emerged from the presidential lecture, even though Carter had urged him to speed up trials and release more prisoners...
...Chile's experience is less significant because of Pinochet's bloodthirstiness than it is because of the nature of the government that preceded it, and the method in which that government was overthrown. Allende was elected by a popular vote on a platform calling for a peaceful transition to socialism. During its three years in power, the Popular Unity government--a coalition of Chile's leftwing groups--nationalized the country's coppper mines, gave the land of absentee landowners to the farmers who worked it, and took the first steps toward enforcing a more equitable distribution of income...
SINCE THE COUP, the junta has been even more repressive and reactionary than most of the people who originally supported it could have foreseen. Shortly after he took over, Pinochet banned all political activities--to the horror of the centrist Social Democrats who had previously gone along with the army. As more and more stories of mass murder and imprisonment leaked out, the American people learned with horror about the monster their intelligence agency had helped create. The awarding of a Nobel Prize to University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman last fall was roundly condemned: Friedman...
American protests about the Chilean junta's brutality were redoubled this past year when President Carter began his campaign in support of human rights. In an effort to assuage international ire, Pinochet reported the junta had released all its political prisoners; the report was somewhat undermined when Amnesty International later revealed that at least 400 Chileans--and perhaps many more--are still in jail on political charges. More recently, Pinochet dissolved the DINA, the feared secret police that had imprisoned and tortured suspected leftwing sympathizers, and answered only to Pinochet and the rest of the junta. Like the earlier announcement...
GIVEN THE FERVOR with which President Carter has promoted the idea that human beings deserve certain basic types of humane treatment, it is a little bit disturbing that after meeting with Pinochet last week, Carter told reporters he and the general found themselves in complete agreement on human rights. It does not appear likely now--if it ever did--that Carter will put the muscle behind the human rights drive he once promised by refusing all aid to the Chilean junta--surely one of the worst offenders. A different U.S. president felt no qualms about ending financial support...