Pinochet only had to put a couple of thousand in the boneyard.
We put a lot more there in SE Asia and couldn't stop the Commies.
The man was a miracle worker.
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.
Pinochet only had to put a couple of thousand in the boneyard.
We put a lot more there in SE Asia and couldn't stop the Commies.
The man was a miracle worker.
Is he getting the same treatment Diem and Franco get?
Chile is a free society today in spite of Pinochet, not because of him. He ruled as an autocrat for 17 years, are you suggesting that the threat of a commie takeover lasted all those years? His loss in the plebiscite was a rejection of his heavy-handed rule.
Simply because the Chilean people voiced their opposition to Pinochet in the plebiscite does not mean that they made the correct choice nor does it mean that democracy in the answer in Latin America.
Just like slavery was ended and the Union saved in spite of Lincoln, not because of him, hmm ? You have a very strange mindset, sir.
The threat of a communist-totalitarian (throw in Islamofascism under that aegis, all leftist evils) takeover remains a clear and present danger, not just then, but still today, and not just in South America.
Republican democracy, as messy as it is, is not just any answer, it's the only answer.
You are a very poor judge of men but a great judge of women. I love your home page!! Excellent choices but did you have to add that last picture. I just lost my appetite.
Is Pinochet the answer here?
So you would be happier under a Pinochet than under a democratically elected government?
Hey, Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler eliminated the communists from Germany. Are you going to offer Sainthood to those folks as well?
That's the kind of thinking that has borne fruit such as Chavez.
"Hey, Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler eliminated the communists from Germany. Are you going to offer Sainthood to those folks as well?"
Very good point. Everyone should remember that the ends don't always justify the means.
Pinochet obviously didn't believe that at all.
This is the one thing that remains disturbing on this thread, the comparison of a great man who preserved a free and democratic society to legitimate tyrants and monsters... Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. How many of these three stepped DOWN after calling an election ?
Pinochet restored democratic government after Allende sought to destroy it.
Lincoln managed to do that AND work with a democratically elected Congress AND operate within the guidelines of the Constitution AND hold an open election where he stood a very real chance of losing. Like I said, Pinochet was the very antithesis of Abraham Lincoln.
If he didn't believe it, he'd still be ruling Chile from his deathbed as that evil pig Castro is after nearly 48 years of real tyranny and true oppression. That's the difference between the right and the left. You need to get some perspective, sir.
By ruling as an autocrat for 17 years. I guess he had to destroy democracy in order to save it, huh?
"How many of these three stepped DOWN after calling an election?"
Pinochet just stepped down because of the mounting political pressure on him and the growing anger over his iron-fisted rule. And that was after 17 years of holding onto power. You think that Chile was in a state of emergency for that long? And dictatorship was the only answer for that long? I don't think so.
Thanks for pointing out the similarties between the Communist and Fascist tyrants.
I have always been troubled by having to pick between extremes from the Left or the Right.Castro is an abomination but Bautista was a thief and a brute.The Bolsheviks murdered millions but the Czar was a horrid police state ruler.Somoza was replaced by Noriega and the Marxist Sandinistas.A plague on both their houses.Then there is the Russian backed Communist regime that took over Afghanistan in 1979,replaced by who?Yep,THE TALIBAN!
Things that just want to make you SCREAM.
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