Word: pinochets
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General Augusto Pinochet is not a particularly scary man, now that he's out of uniform. He appears in public these days as a rather feeble octogenarian sporting soft colors, smiling affably, his eyes vaguely anxious and his demeanor almost eager to please. These days, the ruthless dictator of yore inspires more pity than terror, particularly now that the veneer of international respectability of his 17-year reign of terror has been stripped away...
...Pinochet had once been able to convince himself that every skull crushed and every tortured body tossed into the ocean by his armed forces was part of the price of defending democracy and Western civilization in Chile against communism, but no longer. After all, it was the support of the United States and Britain that had helped him sustain that illusion, but these days he's the subject of criminal investigations not only in his home country, but also in the U.S. and much of Europe...
General Augusto Pinochet has accepted political responsibility for the 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...
...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...
...military made a show of welcoming Pinochet home last March after he'd managed to persuade Britain to release him on the grounds of his fading physical and mental capacities. But the generals were castigated by the country's Socialist party government, and prosecution may have become inevitable once the Supreme Court in August stripped Pinochet of his immunity. After all, the country is now a stable democracy and getting on rather nicely without the general, and the military is unlikely to risk instability by going out of its way to protect Pinochet from prosecution. All the general may have...