Beautiful Horizons

The Dictator's Shadow

Some time ago, Greg Weeks recommended Heraldo Munoz's The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet andI have to second his recommendation. It is a stunning, unique account of the inner workings of the Pinochet regime, culled from historical documents, meticulous research, interviews and firsthand accounts of the dictatorship, all written in a fashion that makes it extremely absorbing.

Some interesting details:

• While teaching at a military academy, Pinochet wrote a text on geopolitics including a map of the United States with the nation's capital in the Pacific Northwest, apparently not realizing the difference between the state of Washington and Washington, DC.
• At one point when the economy was in crisis, Pinochet's regime effectively controlled some 80% of Chile's financial sector through bank bailouts and subsidies when the economy tanked in the early 1980's, essentially making him  - at the time - more socialist than Allende ever was.
• I had heard before how reticient Pinochet was early on to commit himself to the coup, but I never knew how thoroughly run-of-the-mill his career was, especially prior to the coup. He was a master of equivocation and mediocrity who, under the right circumstances, demonstrated that sometimes turds rise to the top.

Some Suggestions for the Permanent Exhibition

Both Mr. Trend and Greg Weeks post about the Pinochet Museum, sponsored by the late criminal-against-humanity's foundation.  I have some suggestions for the permanent exhibition.

First,

A poster size image of the car in which Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt were killed by Pinochet's secret police on September 21, 1976.

Next,

A poster size image of the memorial to the disappeared and executed at the Santiago General Cemetery, the place where, when confronted with the fact that disappeared victims of his regime had been buried two to a grave, Pinochet remarked on the economy of using one grave for two humans.

Next,

A poster size image of the body of General Carlos Prats, Pinochet's predecessor murdered along with his wife in exile in Buenos Aires by Pinochet's secret police.

Finally, for now

A poster size image of the memorial for the disappeared and tortured at what used to be the Villa Grimaldi, one of Santiago's most notorious torture centers.

I have nothing against a Pinochet museum; I just want to be sure it tells the truth.

Some Things I Meant to Mention Before

I enjoyed this profile of Heraldo Muñoz, Chile's UN ambassador and author of the recent book,The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet as well as A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons, his account of his experience on the UN Security Council during George Bush's reckless run to implement the Iraq War.

What convinced him to write the book was this:

He overcame his initial reluctance to write the book, he said, when he realized that General Pinochet had affected an entire generation in Chile and all around the world — prominent leftist politicians and advocates told him the fight over Chile had inspired them to enter public life and still shaped their outlook.

It took him two years of writing evenings and weekends to finish the work. In addition, Mr. Muñoz wanted to examine the question of whether Chile’s free-market economic miracle was really the fruit of the Pinochet period — as General Pinochet’s die-hard supporters still claim — or whether it might have occurred without such a brutally anti-Socialist regime.

 Although General Pinochet unleashed free-market policies inspired by the “Chicago boys,” young Chilean disciples of Milton Friedman and other economists of the Chicago School, the dictator was forced to retrench and even to nationalize much of the banking sector with a $7 billion bailout in the early 1980s.

It was only after the defeat of General Pinochet in a 1988 plebiscite and the establishment of democracy that the real economic boom occurred, Mr. Muñoz argues in the book, with the poverty level in Chile dropping to 13.7 percent in 2007 from 40 percent in 1990.

This last part I believe is especially important. Pinochet's defenders have argued ad nauseam that Chile's economic successes are a result of his policies. This is patently untrue and given the fact that Pinochet and his family apparently turned themselves into millionaires while on a public servant's salary and aggressively tried to hide their ill-gotten gains, one wonders how thoroughly demented or how deeply in denial anyone would have to be to defend Pinochet.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Judith Apter Klinghoffer's race-baiting comments about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama and Reg mentioned David Remnick's New Yorker article about the Obama campaign. It's time to put the lie to Dr. Klinghoffer's slur of Powell. She made the following comment:

To be honest, I never liked the man. He struck me as a coward. Yes, he was a general but he let fear of assassination prevent him from running for the presidency and he betrayed those who gave him a seat at the table in ill timed books.

From the Remnick article:

For a few weeks, as his book sat atop the best-seller list, Powell discussed a run for the 1996 Republican nomination with his family and his inner circle of aides and friends. Bill Clinton, political tacticians told them, lacked Powell’s particular strengths: his maturity, his solidity in foreign affairs; in a center-right country, the scenario went, Powell might beat the incumbent.

“Some in my family, in my circle of acquaintances, were concerned that, as a black person running for office, you’re probably at greater personal risk than you might be if you were a white person,” Powell told me. “But I’ve been at risk many times in my life, and I’ve been shot at, even.” Powell thought about the question for a few weeks and then, he said, he realized, “What are you doing? This is not you. It had nothing to do with race. It had to do with who I am, a professional soldier, who really has no instinct or gut passion for political life. The determining factor was I never woke up a single morning saying, ‘Gee, I want to go to Iowa.’ It was that simple. So the race thing was there, and I would’ve been the first prominent African-American candidate, but the reality is that the whole family, but especially me, had to look in the mirror and say, ‘Is this what you really think you would be good at? And do you really want to do it?’ And the answer was no.”

His heart wasn't in it. That's all. Mores the pity that someone as blindly reactionary as Klinghoffer - arguably the only coward here - is unable to consider that policy. One can only hope that the hate geenrated from the reactionary right will cause it's own self-immolation.

Ten Years On

I still remember where I was when I got the news. I had been in Seattle on business and decided to take advantage of some available vacation time and the city's proximity, to visit Vancouver. I picked up a copy of the New York Times at a newsstand on Robson Street on Sunday, October 18, 1998. After having dinner, I walked back to my hotel, sat down and opened up the paper. I blinked in disbelief at this headline:

BRITAIN ARRESTS PINOCHET TO FACE CHARGES BY SPAIN

I devoured the article, stunned by this turn of events. I followed the story with an almost obsessive interest. I participated in forums on the CNN and New York Times web pages. I wrote letters, participated in Amnesty International actions and did whatever I could in the hopes that the former general would end up in Madrid.

Although Pinochet managed to gin up enough feigned illness to convince Jack Straw, the UK's Interior Minister, to let him return to Chile; aided by the Chilean government's claims that they could judge Pinochet in Chile. This claim seemed contradicted by an amnesty Pinochet had granted himself in 1978 as well as his status as a senator-for-life, a role he had created for himself that gave him parliamentary immunity from prosecution.

That was before I had heard of Judge Juan Guzman, a brilliant jurist who, unlike the other brilliant jurist whose work started the series of events that led to the arrest of Pinochet, Baltasar Garzón, was from Chile, not Spain. Guzman's persistence led to Pinochet being stripped of his immunity and his eventual indictment for crimes against humanity.

While some may argue against the attempts to prosecute Pinochet in Europe, it had the effect of forcing Chile to address these issues. I do not believe that Pinochet would ever have been prosecuted in Chile if not for the efforts of Judge Garzón. Chile's democracy is stronger for it.

Indeed, international justice is stronger for it. Even the Bush administration, notwithstanding its utter hypocrisy on human rights, has managed to sign into law a potentially valuable act that involves universal jurisdiction.

Prosecuting criminals is a valuable way to prevent crimes. Prosecuting criminals against humanity is no less valuable. Pinochet's arrest was an important step in demonstrating this.

More Burnishing of Henry Kissinger's Undemocratic Reputation - Updated

The National Security Archives at George Washington University has released the transcripts of telephone conversations obtained through the Freedom of Information Act of Henry Kissinger talking up the possibility of the overthrow of a democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. When the Secretary of State at the time expresses the desire to “see what we can work out [with Allende]," Nixon orders Kissinger to prevent that from happening.

Remember all this the next time you see the mainstream media bring Kissinger in to speak authoritatively about foreign relations.

Update: Marc Cooper has much more here.

Stick a Fork In Him

Manuel Contreras, the intellectual author of the only act of state-sponsored terrorism to be committed in our nation's capitol, the assassination of Ronni Moffit and Orlando Letelier in September 1976, has been sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the murder of General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires in 1974.

Prats was Pinochet's predecessor as commander of the Chilean army and fled to exile in Buenos Aires after the coup. He and his wife, Sofia, were killed in a car bombing on September 30, 1974. The blast was so violent that debris landed on the nonth floor balcony of a building across the street.

Contreras was the head of DINA, Pinochet's secret police unit and was reported to have breakfast with Pinochet in La Moneda on a daily basis. He's 79 years old. What a shame he and Pinochet never had the chance to dine at a prison cafeteria together. I'm sure when Contreras finally goes, he and Pinochet can roast marshmallows in hell together.

Pinochet in Suburbia

That was the original title of the HBO film Richard referenced here. I watched it last night and before I comment on it, I just have to say how much I like the ad from HBO:

To say that the film didn't show the general much sympathy would be to wallow in polite understatement. Of course the man deserves none and while the film will probably not be shown as the Wednesday matinee at the Pinochet Foundation, it impressed me as being an accurate accounting of the events surrounding Pinochet's arrest.

Who comes off badly here? Pinochet, of course . In addition to being arrogant, he does an impressive job of faking his dementia and disability, both of which he managed to recover from the instant he touched down on the tarmac in Chile. Margaret Thatcher comes across as a shallow, manipulative upper-class twit (hey, that's how I remember her). Jack Straw gives new meaning to the word feckless - and manages to piss off his son.

There's a great example of the banality of evil in the film. Early on, Pinochet wants to visit the garden of the house where he is staying, but the female cop assigned to him advises him that he is forbidden to go there. He threatens her with going to her superiors and she stands firm. She warmed to him and later,as she drives by a protest near the house, comments "Don't they have anything better to do?"

What made her change her mind? He apologized for his earlier behavior. While this would hardly serve to satisfy those whose lives Pinochet and his regime wrecked and the survivors of the disappeared and murdered by his minions, in the film it humanizes him - in her eyes - turning him for her into a benign grandfatherly figure, about as far from the reality as one can get.

Times Are Tough All Over

How bad? The late Augusto Pinochet's son, also named Augusto, is having to sell his late father's suits:

The suits are being sold from a tailor's shop in central Santiago for more than $2,000 each, La Tercera said.

"All I can say is that these suits are used, including by myself. My father gave them to me a long time ago," the late dictator's son said.

No doubt that they were once stain-resistant.

On the Lam

So, you're the former head of international operations for DINA, the Pinochet-era secret police, you've been convicted of kidnapping, sentenced to five years in prison, your appeals are exhausted and you have to report to prison on Monday, June 11, 2007. What do you do? Apparently, rather than face justice like an adult, you go on the lam:

Government authorities Thursday alerted border police and promised to track down and jail former secret police leader (r) Gen. Raúl Iturriaga Neumman, who this week defied court orders to begin serving a jail term for a Pinochet-era human rights crime.

Iturriaga was to report to prison on Monday to begin a five-year sentence for ordering the 1974 kidnapping of 22-year-old Luis San Martín Vergara, a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Iturriaga at that time was part of the DINA secret police, in charge of international operations.

He can't go to Italy as he has been convicted in absentia of attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton and his wife in 1975 and he can't go to Argentina as he is wanted for questioning in the murder of General Prats and his wife in 1974. One has to love his crocodile tears:

"I was subjected to undue prosecution, just like approximately 500 other members of the armed forces, several of whom have been convicted for the same reason, under the complacent gaze of the government and institutions that do not defend our rights, which we are justly claiming," continued Ituriaga in his TV statement. "I have put up with many things, including detentions, endless depositions, identity parades with false witnesses, humiliations, double standards, bias, psychological exams, suffering on the part of my family and friends, loss of work, personal financial chaos, judicial political persecution, and so on."

"Must we continue to put up with this? I won't any longer!" he declared.

Among the things he will not have to endure are being disappeared only to have his remains turn up in an abandoned mine or buried two to a grave in a cemetery in Santiago, being tortured and being drugged, put on a helicopter and tossed out live over the ocean, all of which the victims of the  regime in which he gladly served, suffered. What a coward.

Scam What Am

Well I guess this was inevitable:

Security experts today warned of a new 419 fraud which poses as a communication from the grandson of the late General Pinochet, former military dictator of Chile.

The emails arrive with the subject line 'President of Chile who died' and claim to be sent by Captain Augusto Pinochet Molina.

Molina was discharged from the Chilean army after making an unauthorised speech at his grandfather's burial in December 2006.

According to the bogus emails, Captain Pinochet is seeking help to hide his family's fortunes from the authorities. The message includes a link to a BBC News story about General Pinochet's funeral in an attempt to add credibility to the story.

Well, at least in this regard we know the family did have illicit fortunes. Fortunately, the known amount has been frozen.