Posted on 12/13/2006 6:01:16 PM PST by Rodney King
ANTIAGO, Chile - The grandson of Gen. Augusto Pinochet will soon leave Chile's army after causing an uproar with his eulogy that denounced judges who had tried the late dictator, his father said Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT
Capt. Augusto Pinochet Molina, 34, defended his grandfather's bloody 1973 coup at his funeral Tuesday and said judges who later sought to prosecute him were seeking "notoriety, not justice" — a comment that brought applause from mourners and censure from the president.
The reaction demonstrated yet again the deep divisions in Chile over the former military dictatorship.
President Michelle Bachelet — herself once imprisoned under the dictatorship — called the younger Pinochet's comments "an extremely serious offense" because it is an attack against a branch of government.
She said she expected the army to take "necessary measures" to punish Pinochet Molina, but his father, also named Augusto, said he was already planning to leave the army.
Pinochet Molina, an army engineer, was reported to be attending a family religious service for his grandfather at a residence southwest of Santiago on Wednesday and did not comment on the controversy.
Pinochet died Sunday, but the government denied the state funeral normally given former presidents because he was never elected but took power by force, toppling elected Marxist President Salvador Allende in 1973.
Instead, the funeral was held at the Santiago Military Academy.
During the ceremony, Pinochet Molina unexpectedly appeared at the speakers' podium and said Pinochet "defeated Marxism, which attempted to impose its totalitarian model," drawing an ovation from mourners.
He also criticized judges who put the ailing general under indictment or house arrest several times for deaths and torture during his 1973-73 reign. Those judges, Pinochet Molina said, "sought notoriety, not justice."
Bachelet said the officer was not scheduled to speak but "jumping over the line of command, broke into the ceremony."
Bachelet said Pinochet's death "symbolizes the departure of a person who caused an atmosphere of divisions, hatred and violence, but it is not a new era."
"The new era started in 1990, when we recovered democracy" after Pinochet stepped down from power, she said.
Bachelet's father was an air force general who opposed the coup and died while imprisoned by the dictatorship. She said the government will continue to work for reconciliation among Chileans.
"There is room for everybody in Chile," she said.
"There is room for everybody in Chile," Blanchet said.
Everyone except the Pinochets who saved the country form communism.
"Bachelet said Pinochet's death "symbolizes the departure of a person who caused an atmosphere of divisions, hatred and violence, but it is not a new era."
It was his grandfather, you commie bitch.
Wow. I don't think I have ever seen a "Comment #1 removed by the moderator." That is impressive.
I had a great .jpg of Pinochet as a hero, but for some reason it came out very, very, very large.
Capt. Molina is correct, except that he should also include "revenge" in his assessment.
As part of the agreement to voluntarily relinquish power, Gen. Pinochet made an agreement with the succeeding civilian government which gave him amnesty and immunity from prosecution for any of his actions during the suppression of the marxist coup.
When leftist Chilean government officials later decided to prosecute him, they violated this agreement, they broke the contract. In doing so, they thus voided and forfeited their own legitimacy, but none of our "freedom-loving national leaders" ever had the stones or the moral integrity to call them on it.
When the leftists in the Chilean courts broke the contract, the army should have stepped back in and assumed power. If the leftists challenged this, they should have been told "You lying dirtbags wanted out of the deal - well, you got it, and it works both ways. You should have been careful what you asked for." /grin
Speaking seriously now, the story of General Pinochet and the duplicity and vengefulness of the left should serve as a cautionary tale of the dangers of trusting in agreements with totalitarians of any stripe, whether marxist or Islamist. A solemn agreement with leftists is ultimately just as worthless as a hudna(truce) with Islamicists.
May God be merciful to General Pinochet, who saved Chile from the communists.
You can never make deals with Communists. The same thing is happening in Spain. The deal was to let the past be the past, but now with the left in power they are tearing down Nationalist memorials, etc.
Sounds like he spoke truth to power.
"When Chilean President Michelle Bachelet begins her visit to Germany on Wednesday, she will be returning to the former communist East where she lived in exile. Locals still remember her as a hippie with a cause."
"Michelle Bachelet and her mother arrived in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1975, after both were detained and tortured by the regime of Augusto Pinochet. Her father, Alberto, was an ally of the late Marxist president Salvador Allende and died of a heart attack after enduring prison and torture for months."
"The Bachelets were invited to the GDR under an agreement between the East German authorities and the Socialist Party of Chile, which Bachelet had joined as a student in Santiago."
"She recently told the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit that she has fond memories of her four years behind the Iron Curtain, recalling that it is where she married her now estranged husband, fellow Chilean exile Jorge Davalos, in 1977."
"Bachelet returned to Chile in 1979, but Potsdam is still home to many of the Chileans who came here some 30 years ago. One of them, Luis Gonzalez, recalls a 1970s flower-child with a serious streak. "She was slim and beautiful, she looked like a hippie with her long hair and her jeans. But one could see that she was a leader, that she knew how to inspire people," he said."
"Bachelet's visit will not take her to Potsdam, but she will stop in Leipzig, the eastern city where she spent months studying German at what was then called Karl Marx University."
Source: http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_printcontent/0,,2206882,00.html
How touching. Only problem, communists don't lead, they plunder, oppress, and murder. No sympathy for these evil cretins, period.
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