Chile Indicts Former President Pinochet

Judge Juan Guzman of the Chilean judiciary issued an indictment of Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile. The charge concerns the kidnapping, or disappearance, of nine opposition activists and the murder of one of them during his 17-year reign. Chile has 3,000 dead from that time and 30,000 have testified that the military regime arrested or tortured them. A trial will be a joke, and while Judge Guzman is a credit to his nation, a bullet in the back of General Pinochet's head would be a better solution.

"La Operacion Condor" was the name of a conspiracy among six South American governments back in the 1970s to kill off members of opposition political groups. Its name, either deliberately or by historical irony, is reminiscent of the Condor Legion led by Wolfram Von Richthofen (cousin of the infamous Red Baron) -- it was the Nazi air fore used during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso's "Guernica" is a reminder of their work. And the Chilean government was up to its neck in Operacion Condor.

To appreciate the gravity of the general's crimes against humanity, a little demographics and population comparisons are in order. Chile had a population of around 9.5 million. If the same proportion of Americans today had been killed by their government for opposition activities, there would be on the order of 90,000 corpses. Those who would defend him on the grounds of being a necessary evil in the fight against communism (itself the worst crime against humanity as measured by deaths and longevity) must explain why that much evil was so necessary.

There are other cases against the 89-year-old, including charges that he ordered the murder of his predecessor as boss of the Chilean army, General Carlos Prats, as well as claims of money laundering and tax fraud. So, those who take his side as an anti-communist have a great deal of explaining to do even if killing leftists was necessary. General Prats wasn't a Che Guevara type; he entered the Escuela Militar at 16 and served with no small distinction in the army, including military attaché in Buenos Aires.

If Judge Guzman pursues the matter, the general will put on a dumb-show of incompetence to avoid a trial (although as the judge noted, the former dictator looked and sounded lucid enough during a TV interview with a station in Miami in November 2003). If there is no trial, the deeds go unpunished. The crimes of a head of state and government are political matters, not judicial ones. Extra-judicial punishment is in order.

© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

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