Posted on 12/03/2006 1:29:35 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SANTIAGO, Chile - Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year dictatorship carried out thousands of political killings, widespread torture and illegal jailings, clung to life in a Chilean hospital Sunday after suffering a heart attack and being administered last rites.
Just eight days earlier, the 91-year-old former strongman took full responsibility for the actions of his 1973-90 regime after long insisting any abuses were the fault of subordinates.
Pinochet underwent an emergency angioplasty to restore the flow of blood to his heart, and doctors described his condition as "serious but stable." They planned to perform bypass surgery later in the day, state television reported.
"We are now in the hands of God and of the doctors. My father is in very bad condition," Pinochet's younger son, Marco Antonio Pinochet, said at Gen. Luis Felipe Brieba Military Hospital.
Dr. Juan Ignacio Vergara, a member of the team attending the former leader, said the heart attack was "indeed life threatening," especially because of Pinochet's age.
Pinochet's health had been deteriorating for years. Doctors implanted a heart pacemaker in 1993 and he suffered from diabetes and arthritis. He also was diagnosed with mild dementia caused by several strokes.
The health problems helped Pinochet escape trial for the human rights abuses committed during his regime, with courts ruling out proceedings at least twice in recent years as victims of his rule pressed efforts to bring him to justice.
Last week, Pinochet was put under house arrest after being indicted in the executions of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the freely elected Marxist president who was toppled in a bloody 1973 coup led by Pinochet as commander of the Chilean military.
The heart attack came barely a week after Pinochet's 91st birthday on Nov. 25, an occasion he marked by issuing a statement for the first time taking full political — though not explicitly legal — responsibility for abuses committed by his regime.
"Today, near the end of my days, I want to say that I harbor no rancor against anybody, that I love my fatherland above all and that I take political responsibility for everything that was done which had no other goal than making Chile greater and avoiding its disintegration," the statement said.
Pinochet fell ill around 2 a.m. and was rushed to the military hospital accompanied by his wife, Lucia Hiriart.
He underwent an angioplasty, in which doctors introduce a catheter to a patient's blocked artery and inflate a small balloon to enlarge it, restoring blood flow to the heart. Doctors said the procedure was successful and Pinochet remained conscious in the intensive care unit.
Pinochet's younger son said his father had been "virtually rescued from death" with the angioplasty. But the former leader's spokesman, retired Gen. Guillermo Garin, also said last rites had been administered.
Pinochet's grown children and other relatives, former aides and retired military officers went to the hospital, as did Chile's army chief, Gen. Oscar Izurieta.
As news of the heart attack spread, some 50 Pinochet supporters, most of them women, gathered in front of the hospital, some holding his portrait.
"How could I not be desperate? He's like a father to me, and we all owe him so much," said Julieta Aguilar, standing outside holding a small bronze bust of Pinochet.
Ricardo Lagos Weber, spokesman for President Michelle Bachelet, said the government was closely following the situation.
Critics of Pinochet have often argued that his health problems were being exaggerated to help him avoid trial.
"Pinochet is used to becoming ill every time a court ruling is near," human rights lawyer Hiram Villagra told Radio Bio Bio after the heart attack was reported. "He is hospitalized every time he faces an indictment, that is why we have doubts this time, too."
The Santiago Court of appeals was scheduled to rule Monday on Pinochet's appeal of last week's indictment and the house arrest order.
The house arrest was the fifth such action taken against Pinochet on charges stemming from human rights violations during his dictatorship.
The indictment alleges kidnapping and homicide in connection with the deaths of two Allende bodyguards who were arrested the day of the coup, Sept. 11, 1973. Both were executed by firing squad four weeks later, the military regime announced at the time.
According to an independent commission appointed by the first civilian government after Pinochet's rule, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his regime and more than 1,000 of them were "disappeared" by burying them in secret graves or tossing them in the sea.
Pinochet faces two other indictments, one tied to allegations of rights abuses and one involving tax avoidance charges.
And I'm sure you would rather he was still ruling 33 years after Allende's murder. Why the need for elections at all?
Wasn't Pinochet the one who brought Friedman's ideas to Chile?
One could point out the lengths to which Lincoln had to go to to accomplish his goals. You'll note the South was not a part of those he worked with, democratically-speaking, nor was the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus exactly "Constititutional." As you've been told repeatedly, he understood it was not a mutual suicide pact. It was a very messy situation, far more so than anything Chile experienced, but it had to be done, or what could've emerged would've been a far greater disaster. Pinochet did a cleaner job than Lincoln, but both were heroes, nonetheless, despite your sleazy innuendoes and comparisons to bonafide monsters.
Given the rest of South America, I'd say it surely was. Now even more so. The point still remains, he stepped down. If he was interested, as the left is, in crushing democracy, he'd still be ruling.
You're the one that stands in steadfast support of Allende. Without Pinochet, that Marxist pig would've turned Chile into a Cuban hellhole and might still be ruling it today.
"Wasn't Pinochet the one who brought Friedman's ideas to Chile?"
Pinochet's willingness to listen to Friedman is the only thing that I give him credit for.
Then you don't know enough. Pinochet prevented a civil war or Communist coup, saving tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands of lives). And he turned Chile into the freest, most prosperous country in Latin America. Arguably, Pinochet ranks up there as one of the greatest (or the greatest) ruler of any county in the 20th century.
...And speaking as a US citizen who wholly owns a Chilean company (based in Placilla, outside of Valparaiso) who spends three months a year in Chile, Pinochet also gave the country a modern infrastructure, public water that can be safely drank anywhere, modern sanitation, a capitalistic outlook on life, and success wildly beyond any of their neighbors...
Chile has free trade with most countries, a free-floating currency, transparent banking and business, strong rule of law, and a strong integrated democracy. Not to mention a very strong economy.
Having talked with my workers many times about Pinochet, to a person - old and young, male or female - they all say Pinochet did many bad things as a man, but great things for Chile. He should be left alone and make his peace with God. He's revered down there by most as a strict grandfather, who punished when he had to, but made the family - the fatherland - better for it.
Pinochet is a hero.
Correct.
Bunk. The two are not comparable.
You may well be right.
NEW YORK - Chile’s former strongman, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, is the Great Satan for leftists everywhere.
This week, Pinochet, now a Chilean senator, was arrested in London, where he had gone for back surgery. Britain held the 82-year old retired general after a Spanish judge sought to have Pinochet extradited to Spain to face charges of ‘genocide, torture, and other crimes’ rising from the disappearance of Spanish marxists during Chile’s ‘dirty war’ of the 1970’s.
Ironically, Cuba’s communist caudillo, Fidel Castro, whose firing squads have executed thousands, and whose prisons are notorious for vicious torture of political prisoners, was being feted in Spain at the very same time the warrant was issued for Pinochet.
Communists and their little step-sisters, socialists, are making a great hue and cry that Chilean security forces killed 2,000- 3,000 marxists during the 70’s dirty war. This sudden and touching concern for human rights comes from a party that murdered 80 MILLION people this century and has never even repented its monstrous crimes.
Had Allende’s communist cemented their hold on Chile, thousands of ‘bourgeois’ and ‘enemies of the people’ would have been executed - as they were in Cuba.
Britain is holding Senator Pinochet in violation of the diplomatic passport he carries. Tony Blair’s new socialist government is obviously more concerned with ideological revenge than diplomatic convention. And talk about ‘perfidious Albion.’ During the Falklands War, Gen Pinochet aided Britain, and saved many British lives, even allowing Britain’s SAS commandos to operate against Argentina from Chile. So much for British gratitude.
Beside the shocking illegality of his detention by Britain, the charges levelled against Pinochet by the Spanish judge and the left-leaning media are untrue - or distorted.
In 1973, army commander Pinochet overthrew Marxist Salvador Allende, who was turning Chile onto a Stalinist state. Pinochet, backed by the US and Britain, led the subsequent war against marxist terrorists. All urban wars are dirty and bloody. Look at Northern Ireland, Israel’s war against Palestinians, or Algeria.
Marxist urban rebels tried to overthrow Chile’s government, using bombings, assassinations, kidnapping and guerrilla assaults. Chile, and neighboring Argentina, suffered a reign of terror and faced near anarchy as communist guerillas attempted, in their own words, to ‘destroy the capitalist state. ‘
Chilean and Argentine security forces were ordered to fight an all-out war against the communist rebels. Terror against terror. In the process, some innocent people were arrested, tortured or disappeared. But most victims were not innocents. They were mainly marxist guerillas and terrorists,or part of the marxist support network, that included students, and marxist clergy and nuns.
The soldiers finally won these bloody wars, restoring peace to Chile and Argentina. Today, thanks to - and because of - victory in these conflicts, Chile and Argentina are proud, prosperous democracies. The soldiers who did the necessary dirty work to make this possible are often accused of crimes, and shunned by society they saved.
Pinochet’s sweeping free market reforms transformed Chile from a socialist disaster into Latin America’s fastest growing economy. Once Chile was politically stable and economically booming, Pinochet returned Chile to full democracy. He resigned from the military and became a senator.
The charges against Pinochet are preposterous. The Spanish judge has no grounds to demand arrest. Genocide deals with eradication of whole peoples, not a few thousand marxist revolutionaries in an urban terror war. Russia just murdered 100,000 Chechens. Serbs killed 300,000 civilians in Bosnia and Kosova. Where are the warrants for ex-communist Yeltsin and current communists Milosevic? Or Castro?
Final irony. If Pinochet had failed and Allende survived, Chile would not be a democracy today, but a Stalinist police state like Cuba, with no human rights, no democracy, and thousands of political prisoners.
Pinochet’s triumphant success in Chile reminds leftists of communism’s great crimes and abject failures. That’s why they hate him so much.
Pinochet saved Chile and restored democracy. He deserves salutes, not arrest.
Thinking that the ends justify the means. However, the result is not always in the best interest of mankind.
I fault no one for making those choices, only the ones who murdered to keep their power.
I can't remember if it was Eisenhower or another President who,when questioned by a reporter about some nefarious US ally,replied"Yes,he's
a real bastard but he's OUR bastard"
That summed it up for me.
You must believe the NYT.
And you're the one standing forsquare in support of non-Democratic, one-man, totalitarian police state rule. And if Pinochet was still running it that way today you'd have no problem with it. It's not dictatorship you oppose, it's Marxist dictatorship.
I don't find it all surprising that you're a Davis supporter considering how little use he had for courts and the rule of law. And I'll also point out that something isn't unconstitutional just because you say it is.
As you've been told repeatedly, he understood it was not a mutual suicide pact.
A tin-horn police state is a tin-horn police state regardless of whether you label it Marxist or not. The only difference between Pinochet and Castro was Russian support.
It was a very messy situation, far more so than anything Chile experienced, but it had to be done, or what could've emerged would've been a far greater disaster.
Let's see, Marxist tyranny or Pinochet tyranny. Yep, a whole lot to choose from. In the end Democracy is one thing, police state is another. Pinochet was police state. Same as Castro.
Pinochet did a cleaner job than Lincoln, but both were heroes, nonetheless, despite your sleazy innuendoes and comparisons to bonafide monsters.
Which is why his own people arrested, tried, and convicted him for his excesses. The only thing keeping his sorry ass out of jail is senility.
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