Posted on 12/11/2006 12:42:02 AM PST by bruinbirdman
To some he was a tyrant, to others a hero. In life and in death, Chileans remain divided over the former dictator
As news of the death of Augusto Pinochet spread through Chile last night, scores of jubilant people blasted car horns and danced in the streets of the capital Santiago with relief at what they called the country's "liberation" from the last vestiges of the former dictator's control.
But others wept outside the military hospital where he died aged 91, a week after a heart attack, singing in broken voices the national anthem and praises to their deceased general.
Although he left power 16 years ago, Pinochet remained a senator for life. He continued to influence Chilean politics, dividing this traumatised and conservative society between those outraged at the human rights abuses he presided over and those convinced that the military ruler saved the country from a Marxist disaster and set it on a path to becoming the economic success story it is today.
"He broke the chains of communism for us... we didn't become a second Cuba, and that's thanks to him," one woman told local television.
Pinochet was accused of dozens of human rights violations but a lengthy effort to bring him to trial in Chile failed as his defence lawyers successfully argued that he was too ill to face charges. In 2000, he managed to escape being sent from London to Spain, where he faced charges of human rights abuses, after British medical experts ruled he was suffering from "mild dementia" and therefore unfit to stand trial. The same happened when he returned to Chile in 2000.
However Chilean prosecutors gradually dismantled all the constitutional and medical objections and he was due to appear in court to answer charges of tax evasion and human rights abuses.
Among several cases against him, Pinochet was facing charges over the 1973 "Caravan of Death", where it is alleged a military death squad rounded up suspected Leftists from prisons around the country and murdered them. Witnesses said that many of the bodies were thrown from helicopters into the sea, with the corpses opened up and filled with stones.
However it was recent allegations that he had lined his own pockets with state funds during the 17 years he was in power that threw many of his staunch supporters into doubt. "I was a believer in Pinochet," said Jaime Ceballos, 57, a former army officer. "I thought that he did some unpleasant things but because he was a patriot and saw no other way. It turns out he was just a thief."
A spokesman for Spain's ruling Socialist party, Diego Lopez Garrido, called Pinochet a "detestable character of history". Amnesty International, human rights group, said: "General Pinochet's death should be a wake-up call for the authorities in Chile and governments everywhere, reminding them of the importance of speedy justice for human rights crimes, something Pinochet himself has now escaped."
Sheila Cassidy, a British doctor who was tortured for helping a Left-wing dissident, said: "I don't think that he ever thought that he'd done wrong. I think that he continued to think that the people that he tortured were dirt really, and got what was coming to them."
The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture said it was "regrettable" Pinochet would never face trial for his actions. Even as Pinochet lay on his death bed, debate was raging in Chile as to whether he should receive the state funeral normally the privilege of former presidents. A poll conducted yesterday by the leading daily newspaper La Tercera showed that 55 per cent of Chileans were against so honouring Pinochet.
The current president, Michelle Bachelet, herself a victim of the military regime, had already said that she was against a state funeral since Pinochet has been indicted on very serious charges. "The conscience of Chileans would feel violated," she said.
Last month, during celebrations for his 91st birthday, Pinochet took responsibility for all the actions carried out during his regime, but expressed no remorse, insisting everything was done to save the country.
"Today, close to the end of my days, I want to make clear that I hold no rancour toward anybody, that I love my country above all else."
He was asked in 1989 before he gave up power how he would fare under divine judgment.
"I'll go to heaven. Where would I have gone, do you think? To hell? No, don't worry, I'll go to heaven."
Was she an American citizen?
Were the voters in question American citizens voting in an American election?
Are you terrible at making analogies?
Answer key: Yes, yes and yes.
Regards, Ivan
Outstanding!
Pure and simple: Pinochet was a hero to his people and a freedom fighter for all.
He was also a Marxist's worst nightmare...a good thing and never enough of it.
exactly right.
CALGARYSUN.COM
Tue, May 11, 2004
Augusto Pinochet rescued Chile from sins of Marxist dictator
By Paul Jackson -- Calgary Sun
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher regarded General Augusto Pinochet as a great man of heroic stature who halted the total enslavement of the people of Chile under a brutal Communist regime.
Now, any individual Thatcher admires surely deserves the admiration of others who believe modern-day Stalinists shouldn't be allowed to trample on people's rights and freedoms.
Yet Premier Ralph Klein has got himself in some hot water by suggesting there was something positive in Pinochet cleaning up the chaos left by Marxist Salvador Allende after the reckless and ruthless leader had been in power just three years.
Klein was right and anyone who has read the carefully-assessed and critically acclaimed works Allende: Death of a Marxist Dream and Out of the Ashes: Life, Death and the Transformation of Democracy in Chile 1883-1988 by famed historian James R. Whelan (Winner of the prestigious
Nieman Fellowship at Harvard) will attest to that.
My only surprise at Klein's comments was that, after making his initial assessment of Pinochet, he then tempered his stance somewhat by suggesting Pinochet committed no worse sins than Allende. Actually, Pinochet
committed no sins, but simply rescued his countrymen from the sins of Allende, and deserves the praise of every Chilean for his courage and accomplishments.
President Richard Nixon himself saw the havoc Allende would wreak on Chile and authorized the funding of attempts to prevent him from coming to power in 1970 and backed Pinochet's coup d'etat against the Marxist
politician in 1973. Nixon has been much maligned by his enemies in the lib-left, but he beat them at their game by dying with the reputation of a honourable statesman.
During the three years Allende was in power, he ruined his nation's economy with massive state takeovers of huge sectors of industry and confiscated the assets of U.S. companies in that nation. Shortages of basic commodities were commonplace, and massive strikes erupted in protest.
Within the same period of time Pinochet, with the help of world renowned economists such as the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman, turned the nation's economy around so dramatically observers dubbed it the "Miracle
of Chile."
Allende had pledged to follow the disastrous economic, political and social policies of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro -- who turned his nation into an impoverished slave state -- and Pinochet, a true patriot, felt he
had to act for his own people's sake. He wanted, he proclaimed, "to make Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs."
That, as evidenced by Chile's revival, he certainly did. Naturally, there's nothing the lib-left and their Stalinist allies like better than to distort history and demean the achievements of their opponents.
The campaign against Pinochet never ceases, but never succeeds either.
Revisionist history tells us Pinochet was a dictator, but he was the first dictator to hold a democratic plebiscite and oust himself out of power.
He did that in 1988, when he felt the woes and corruption left by Allende were finally gone.
Following that plebiscite, in which he still won more votes than Allende had in 1970, Pinochet accepted defeat, staying in power only until 1990 when his term legally expired. After that, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Chile's armed forces, and later a senator. Hardly
actions that showed he was hated by the new democratic government of Chile or the Chilean people.
In 1998, while on a visit to Britain, a renegade judge in Spain used an obscure law to order his extradition to Spain to face charges of rights abuses. The free government of Chile itself opposed this bogus move.
Indeed, even Prime Minister Tony Blair's (socialist, at that) government refused to extradite the retired right-wing politician to face a sham showcase trial. Again, hardly a condemnation of Pinochet.
Pinochet returned to Chile and, in 2002, the Supreme Court of his country refused to prosecute Pinochet on any number of phoney charges.
Assess the actions of Allende and of Pinochet and the scales of justice and truth are weighted heavily in favour of Pinochet. The rewriting of history by unrepentant supporters of Allende and continuing attempts to impose the discredited theories of Marxism on society simply must be countered.
Thank you for a great article..and from Canada.
Goes to show that freedom lovers know no boundaries.
No, just the tens of thousands who are actively undermining our political process and/or giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.
But there is an upside: you'll never have to hunt for a parking space in San Francisco ever again. There'll be plenty for everyone after we clean house!
What the hell does that mean?
You have completely reversed the situation. In Chile the military acted against a civilian Government that was in effect suspending the Constitution and confiscating the property of the people. Under those circumstances, one would certainly hope that the military would intervene, here, also. As for the Founding Fathers? That is precisely what they would have done in Chile--rise against the tyrannical Government. Or do you seriously suggest that an elected Government has a right to over-ride the most basic rights of the people, simply because it came out ahead in a three way nose count?
Indeed, it was precisely to prevent the sort of Democracy that allows the election of a lawless Government seeking to empower a criminal mob, that the Founding Fathers adopted the sort of Federal Constitution that we have--specifically intended to limit the tendency towards one man/one vote "Democracy."
William Flax
"Precisely.
The MSM history of Chile rarely mentions the Communist foot-soldiers
spirited into Chile to help Allende create the second Cuba.
I've heard the number of these "freedom fighters" put at about
10,000 to 15,000.
10,000 Communists with guns and explosives can really screw up a
neighborhood.
Good thing Chile had someone will to oppose them. And to win."
Agreed
Your analogy is faulty by drawing a comparison between Allende and the Democrats (even though the latter has plenty of communist sympathies). The Dems are, for the time being, a legitimate political party that operates largely within the rules of our political system.
Allende's backers in Chile came from outside of its political system's mainstream. They consisted of a coalition of two marxist political parties and the MIR, a marxist guerilla organization backed by Castro. MIR was a particularly insidious outfit - the type that ran around playing Che Guevara in the jungles and blowing up cars in busy city intersections. Think of Chile's equivalent of the Red Army Faction, or Hezbollah. And yes - Salvador Allende had close connections to the inner circles of MIR. His nephew Pascal Allende was the organization's co-founder. MIR's leader in 1973, Miguel Espinoza, was a member of Allende's presidential cabinet. The number of armed marxist guerillas in Chile, sanctioned there with full support and invitation of Allende, was 15,000-20,000 at the time of the coup.
A better comparison for where Chile was in 1973 is actually Weimar Germany circa 1932. A divided electorate gave a fringe group - the nazis - a plurality in the government, which was just enough for them to solidify their power and call out the stormtroopers to suppress the opposition.
Allende was planning the same thing with his marxist militias in late 1973. The mainstream liberal party in Chile's government, the CDP, even joined the conservatives in OPPOSING Allende and calling for military intervention a few weeks before the coup.
Well said.
"General Pinochet stepped in -- at the request of the Chilean Supreme Court which had determined that Allende's administration was outlaw."
The Chilean Supreme Court passed a resolution denouncing the Allende's government failure to uphold certain judicial decisions. Viewed purely as a constitutional matter, that would be akin to the 1832 USSC denouncing President Andrew Jackson's refusal to enforce the court's decision in Worcestor v. Georgia.
The Chilean Supreme Court never requested General Pinochet, or anyone else for that matter, to overthrow Allende's government.
I'm puzzled how you could have so much as imagined that the Chilean Supreme Court would have requested a military coup leading to a dictatorship that would reject both the Chilean Constitution and the Chilean democratic system in toto.
"Allende was democratically elected - but he had no conceivable mandate for his brand of agrarian reform."
That's a reasonable position.
However that wasn't the position of the Nixon administration. They would have tried to overthrow the democratically elected government Chile even if Allende had a sweeping mandate.
Kissinger summed up their position when he said "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."
Some might agree with that. I just wish they'd be honest and say so, instead of dancing around the point that Allende's government was democratically elected. At least then we could have an honest discussion about the issue.
Well I gotta hand it to you. You're consistently simple-minded.
Let's take your points seriatum, shall we?
Isn't that because he overthrew the democratically elected government to install himself as a dictator
He 'overthrew' the Allenda at the request of the Chilean Supreme Court, the Chilean Bar Association, and almost 1/2 of the Chilean Parliament.
then rewrote the constitution
That would be the Chilean Parliament who rewrote the Chilean Constitution.
to make himself a senator for life
Also done by the Chilean Parliament.
before handing power back over to civilians years later?
You mean after the lawfully declared State of Emergency ended.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong
Happily done.
L
Yeah, I heard the same thing about Chavez.
From Charles Morse...
From David Horowitz...
As Justice Scalia has remarked, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
There are such things as national emergencies. Lincoln understood this. I'm puzzled that you don't seem to understand it. Or maybe you do, and you just don't mind things like insurrection, slavery, violent communist take-overs and "democratically elected" presidents who seek their own country's over-throw by hostile foreign powers like Cuba and the Soviet Union.
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