Word: pinochets
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...torture and genocide are such heinous crimes that any country should be free to try those who are accused of them. "Some crimes go beyond boundaries," says Robert Pastor, a member of Carter's National Security Council, "and we ought to pursue them that way." So rather than extradite Pinochet, Britain could try him in an English court...
...Clinton Administration is trying both to keep its distance from the case and to work out a clear policy on it. It would be logical for the U.S., going all out against terrorism, to favor a trial for Pinochet. He almost certainly gave the order that sent assassins to blow up a car on Washington's Embassy Row in 1976, killing two people...
Instead Washington is straddling two positions. It says gross violators of human rights should be punished, but at the same time the views of the democratic government of Chile should be respected. And Chile insists that Pinochet should be sent home. Beyond that, says State Department spokesman James Rubin, "we have no view as to the merits of the case...
...officials swear they no longer fear exposing any lingering secrets about CIA support for Pinochet or for his 1973 coup against Chile's socialist President Salvador Allende. What does concern them, they say, is the prospect of a dangerous new right-left polarization in Chile if Pinochet were tried abroad. But having said that, the officials claim they are trying to signal to the Chilean government that it must "make the tough decisions it needs to" and pledge to try Pinochet itself. Of course, Pinochet has immunity at home, and no one thinks he would be put on trial there...
...Pinochet mess may prompt the Clinton Administration to take another look at the soon-to-be-born international criminal court. Washington refused to sign on last summer out of fears that overzealous prosecutors might launch frivolous or malicious war-crimes cases against American troops abroad, or even decision makers at home. Now, if courts around the world begin to step in as Garzon has done, the U.S. could decide that a well-designed tribunal with established procedures would be better than worrying about that midnight knock on the door...