Word: pinochets
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That imaginary scene does seem farfetched, but it is the kind of thing officials in Washington and other capitals are starting to take seriously. It is very close to what happened to another ex-President, Chile's General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, in a London hospital in October. Pinochet may end up being shipped off to Spain to stand trial on charges of torture and mass murder. The families of his thousands of victims are rightly cheering, and human-rights activists are delighted that the world may no longer be safe for retired tyrants. But officials in perfectly upstanding governments note...
...took a ruling in Britain's highest court that Pinochet was not covered by official immunity to highlight a dramatic but almost unnoticed evolution under way in international law. The premise that national leaders cannot get away with mass murder and torture has been on the books since the Nuremberg and Tokyo war-crimes trials and is reinforced by resolutions at the U.N. It's also backed by international treaties banning genocide, torture and terrorism...
...human-rights wave right now is Baltazar Garzon, 43, a hard-charging investigative judge of Spain's National Court. Two years ago, he began looking into human-rights abuses against Spanish citizens in Argentina, which were linked to Chile by a scheme called Operation Condor. With this plan, Pinochet and other South American junta leaders pooled their deadliest secret-police units to crush resistance to their rule. Garzon concluded that Pinochet is not covered by the traditional legal tenet, called sovereign immunity, one aspect of which protects national leaders from prosecution. Garzon argues that it does not apply because murder...
Chile's sky hasn't fallen in. And despite Madeleine Albright's fear that General Augusto Pinochet's extradition would destabilize the fledgling democracy, Chileans actually appear to be growing tired of the saga. "The military and a small number of right-wing protesters vented their frustration in tough talk following Britain's decision," says TIME reporter Elizabeth Love. "But there's no threat to democracy." After all, there would be little logic in the military again seizing power when the civilian government has already exhausted all diplomatic means of winning Pinochet's release...
...With Spain formalizing its indictment against Pinochet Thursday, the general looks set for a lengthy sojourn in Britain. And that further reduces the risk of turmoil in Chile. "The longer this drags on, the more it becomes simply part of the political background as life goes on," says Love. "People are getting sick of the issue -- a majority of Chileans believe Pinochet is guilty, but they are also telling pollsters that the issue doesn't affect them." The one thing that could disrupt the onset of calm, of course, would be the general's return home. That would force Chileans...