Word: pinochets
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...Before agreeing to step down in 1989, Pinochet awarded himself a parliamentary immunity from prosecution for the thousands of Chileans who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered during his 16 years of military rule. At the time, Chile's political parties had little choice but to accept that deal as the price for restoring democracy...
...spell was broken two years ago in London, when British police arrested Pinochet for extradition to Spain on charges of kidnapping and torture. Although Britain eventually sent the Chilean strongman home on grounds of ill health, his sojourn there emboldened Chilean human rights advocates to press for Pinochet to be tried at home. Although the high court hasn't yet publicized its ruling, lawyers for both sides told reporters Wednesday it had gone against Pinochet. The general's problem is that, stripped of his power, he's no longer of much importance to any sector of Chilean society, and prosecuting...
...watching, Slobo? Pay attention, Saddam. It's been a bad week for tyrants everywhere, what with Wednesday's reported decision by Chile's high court to strip General Augusto Pinochet of his self-authored immunity from human rights prosecutions, followed by Thursday's indictment of former Indonesian strongman Suharto on corruption charges. Retirement, it seems, is the hardest part of despotism...
...Suharto's brutal 32-year reign ended two years ago, when the army that had kept him in power ordered him to step down in the face of economic collapse and social tumult. But the military also facilitated Suharto's departure by guaranteeing him immunity from prosecution. But like Pinochet, Suharto may be a victim of the shifting balance of power, although the balance hasn't shifted quite as far in Indonesia, which is still beset by ethnic violence and fierce infighting among both the political and military elites - and that's worked to Suharto's advantage. Even if convicted...
...hype in Warsaw notwithstanding, democracy has never been the linchpin of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, the very term "democratic" was simply a synonym for anticommunist - Suharto, Mobutu, Generals Diem and Pinochet, the medieval Islamists who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and many other dodgy candidates were all in the "democratic" camp, remember. Even since communism's decisive defeat has allowed Washington to abandon such questionable company, it's simply not true to proclaim democracy as the basis for U.S. foreign policy...