Back home in Chile, the public’s reaction was far too complex to capture in a few seconds of video. Some Chileans cheered, of course, and others cursed. But many are too young to remember the bloody coup that brought Pinochet to power 26 years ago, or his government’s merciless efforts to eradicate the left from national politics. Many others witnessed the regime’s brutality but wish only to forget the 3,200 killings and disappearances attributed to the general’s men, carried out in the name of social order. “It’s hard to decide what to believe,” says accounting student Luis Osses, 19, with a shrug. “I wasn’t there in 1973. I can’t say if he was doing bad things or defending the country.”
Putting Pinochet on trial could enable young Chileans to settle their doubts. It might even help cure their elders’ amnesia. Nevertheless, the former general won’t be wheeled out to face charges in Madrid anytime soon. The ailing 83-year-old defendant was nowhere near Bow Street on Friday. The court excused him from appearing after doctors testified he had suffered two minor strokes in recent weeks. Pinochet’s case is likely to remain tangled in the British legal system for months to come; his lawyers vowed to file an appeal to stop his extradition. Meanwhile, he remains in police custody, where he has been for the past year. He was in Britain for back surgery last October when authorities placed him under house arrest. A Spanish court had indicted him for crimes against humanity. He has been fighting against extradition ever since. At present Pinochet’s best hope of regaining his freedom hardly counts as hope at all. So far he has flatly rejected any talk of accepting a humiliating offer of clemency on medical grounds–tantamount to an admission of defeat.
The former dictator has already become a virtual nonperson in Chilean politics. The country is preparing to hold its third democratic election since Pinochet stepped down from the presidency in 1990. This year’s front-running presidential candidate is living proof of Pinochet’s growing irrelevance. As one of Chile’s best-known socialist leaders, Ricardo Lagos is the political heir of Salvador Allende, the Marxist president who died during Pinochet’s 1973 coup. The 61-year-old Lagos has downplayed the extradition case, focusing his campaign instead on economic issues. Polls say most voters just want the case over and done with, no matter how it’s resolved. Still, Lagos has also seconded the opinion of outgoing President Eduardo Frei that Chile is the place where Pinochet ought to be judged.
Pinochet’s loyal defenders are fading away. When the general was detained a year ago, hundreds of his supporters vented their rage outside the Spanish Embassy in Santiago, pelting its walls with rotten eggs and tomatoes. But last week in Santiago there were hardly any public expressions of solidarity with Pinochet, except at the offices of the Santiago-based foundation that bears his name.
Nonetheless, some Chileans miss the general desperately. For years after the dictatorship’s end, Chilean judges and prosecutors balked at pressing charges against military officers accused of violent crimes against civilians. Now, with the former dictator safely locked up, the nation’s courts are displaying a new interest in holding the armed forces accountable. In recent months 30 retired military officers have been indicted on charges of murder, torture and kidnapping, some dating back to the early weeks of the Pinochet regime. One of the defendants is Humberto Gordon, a retired general who participated in Pinochet’s four-man junta as head of Chile’s secret police. Last month Gordon was arrested for the 1982 murder of a labor leader, becoming the highest-ranking military official ever to be detained in Chile; two weeks ago the Chilean Supreme Court upheld his indictment. He denies any wrongdoing.
The military had thought it was immune to prosecution on human-rights grounds. In one of his most controversial acts, Pinochet issued a blanket amnesty to cover all political crimes committed between 1973 and 1978. But a lower court recently ruled that the amnesty did not include kidnappings of victims whose bodies were never found. Technically, such crimes are considered to have continued past the 1978 cutoff. That finding opened the way for the indictments of a retired general and four other senior officers who allegedly created a special airborne unit called the Caravan of Death. The unit was implicated in the murders of more than 60 political prisoners–and 19 of the bodies have never been found.
The top ranks of the armed forces are beginning to cooperate with the civilian government. Led by army commander Gen. Ricardo Izurieta, the military has agreed to deliver all documents in its possession that might help locate the bodies of the disappeared. Izurieta is also attending formal closed-door talks with the Defense minister, Edmundo Perez Yoma, and other authorities on the thousands of unsolved murders committed during the Pinochet years. Chileans from across the political spectrum agree that a reckoning by the armed forces is overdue. “It would be a big step forward if the military would just say where the bodies are,” concedes Maria Teresa Arqueros, a pro-Pinochet sales executive.
Hardly anyone in Chile wants Pinochet to die in exile. Even his fiercest foes worry about making him a martyr. And his loyalists seem sure his parliamentary immunity (he is a senator for life) would shield him from ever having to face charges in Chile. The outgoing president is seeking a deal with London to let the old soldier come home. Following last week’s Bow Street ruling, the Frei government is expected to plead for the defendant’s release on humanitarian grounds; Pinochet wears a pacemaker and is taking antidepressant drugs. Some Chileans can never accept the idea of mercy for the dictator. But many others want to get on with their lives–even at the risk of letting Augusto Pinochet die in peace.
