Videla’s regime caused double the amount of deaths when compared to Pinochet. The majority of Pinochet’s victims were trained in Cuba to install communism in Chile. Videla’s regime was less discriminate when it came to their war against Soviet agents.
To compare Pinochet to Videla is inaccurate. Pinochet never harbored Nazi war criminals as Videla did. He brought prosperity to Chile, whereas Videla brought total stagnation. He set up the relatively functional democratic process Chile has today, and voluntarily stepped down to give Chileans democracy. Videla had no such intentions, nor did his successors, who were willing to go into a bloody war to preserve their power.
I don’t deny many of the ‘right wing’ Latin American dictatorships we propped up were corrupt and murderous (Noriega), but I think it’s unfair to put Pinochet, who saved his country from a Cuba-esque fate (100,000 dead) at the hands of Salvador Allende, in with the others. He was unique. In fact, when he handed over power to the people, he was almost elected president (44%), not exactly what you’d expect for a bloodthirsty tyrant, which is what the left paints him as. Similarly to Mubarak, Pinochet was not nearly as bad as the left make out.
Pinochet also provided valuable intelligence to the Brits during the Falklands War.
That was one of the main reasons he was on the Left’s ‘Hit List.”