Saul Landau
Picture
Homer Simpson’s boss, naked, a scrawny figure bent with age, covering his
genitals with his general’s hat. The caption: "You’ve stripped me, but
don’t take my hat!" Augusto Pinochet, former President, Generalissimo, King
of the world, now naked, stripped of immunity. The Chilean Supreme Court has
removed the imperial armor that has covered his treacherous butt since he led
the September 1973 coup to overthrow the elected socialist government of
Salvador Allende.
Pinochet,
head of the army under Allende, didn’t join the coup plotters until the last
minute. He vacillated, procrastinated, anguished. Then, when he understood that
the armed rebellion had strong US backing and would succeed, he joined the
conspiracy and, as head of the largest unit in Chile’s armed forces, he declared
himself head of the military junta. Overnight, he became more fanatic than the
most rabid of the fascist ideologues inside the military. Shortly after the
military takeover, Pinochet established DINA, a secret police and intelligence
agency, answerable only to him. DINA thugs began their caravan of death,
committing wholesale murder. They also tortured tens of thousands suspected of
"subversion." Some members of the original cabal began to complain
about the "excesses." By June 1976, however, Pinochet understood: he
had gotten away with murder – mass murder.
In
June, according to declassified documents, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
visited Chile, symbolically blessing the illegitimate government. Kissinger met
with Pinochet and obsequiously pleaded for the General’s understanding that he
had to make a human rights speech to the OAS meeting in Santiago, but that his
excellency should not take this in any way as directed against his government.
"We approve of your methods," Kissinger told Pinochet.
Which
methods?
Did
Kissinger refer to the free market economic model that he had imposed through
military fascism, or the method of eliminating his political opponents by
murdering, torturing and exiling them? US Embassy and CIA officials had
carefully reported the data on Pinochet’s efficient death squads, torture
chambers and concentration camps. Kissinger understood these
"methods." Kissinger also had information on Operation Condor, a
sinister collusion of secret police and intelligence agencies from Argentina,
Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. The CIA and FBI had both assisted Condor
agents in rounding up "subversives." On several occasions, as
Kissinger knew, Condor agents had gone beyond their boundaries to assassinate
enemies. In late June, just after Kissinger’s departure from Chile, a Condor
mission from Santiago commenced. Its target: Orlando Letelier, Allende’s former
Defense Minister. Did Pinochet interpret Kissinger’s approval of his methods as
a green light to kill Letelier? On September 21, 1976, just three months after
Kissinger’s visit, Pinochet’s secret police agents detonated a bomb under
Letelier’s car in Washington, DC. Ronni Moffitt, Letelier’s colleague, at the
Institute for Policy Studies, also died in the explosion.
In
1978, The Justice Department indicted Chile’s secret police chief and eight
other conspirators. Privately, the FBI agents concluded that Pinochet had
authorized the hit on Letelier, but unfortunately he would "get away with
it."
Indeed,
Pinochet had gotten away with 3,192 murders during his seventeen year rule. He
made some concessions to US power. Two high DINA officials ultimately went to
prison in Chile for the Letelier hit, but in 1990, Pinochet, as he stepped down
from the presidency to become army chief, had wrapped himself and his military
minions in an amnesty decree — absolving the killers and torturers. Pinochet,
almost everyone in power and out agreed, had gotten away with murder. In 1996,
former Allende advisor, Juan Garces, representing families of Pinochet’s
victims, and a Spanish law team, filed charges against Pinochet and other high
military officers – in Spain. The political and legal community laughed at this
act of futility. In 1998, Pinochet retired as army chief and made himself
Senator for Life, adding yet another immunity blanket for his old age. By now he
had accumulated a sizeable fortune and enjoyed the routine of the fearful bowing
and scarping before him. The once deferential army officer behaved as if he had
been born Emperor of Chile.
The
Spanish case proceeded. In the Fall of 1998, some of his legal advisers worried
about the proceedings in the Spanish court, which the Spanish government had
tried and failed to derail. But Pinochet dismissed such concerns as he prepared
for his annual voyage to London to visit his dear friend, Lady Margaret
Thatcher. Pinochet sipped tea with the fomer British Prime Minister who hailed
him as an ally in her 1982 war against Argentina over the Malvina/Falkland
Islands. Pinochet and Lucia, his wife, shopped and tasted the fine cuisine of
London;s posh restaurants before the general entered a high-priced clinic to
repair a back problem.
Meanwhile,
the Spanish judge issued an order to British authorities to arrest Pinochet.
They held him for fifteen months, accused in Spain of violation of international
law, torture. The House of Lords upheld the arrest, thus affirming a sea change
in international law. A torturer, like a pirate was fair game for any court in
the world. In March, 2000 Home Secretary Jack Straw, after cutting a deal with
Chilean and Spanish authorities, released Pinochet on flimsy health grounds.
Now, at age 84 and in Chile, no one can touch him, said the cynics. But the
determination and courage evinced by those who had pressed the Spanish case and
the judgment by the House of Lords proved infectious. Those who once trembled
before Pinochet, now filed suit against him — in Chile. Once timid Chilean
judges upheld the newly discovered international law. And Pinochet’s victims and
their families can laugh at the naked, former tyrant, whose lawyers maneuver
desperately to keep him out of court.
The
lessons: Aspiring human rights violators have also learned this lesson and aging
criminals like Kissinger checks carefully with foreign governments before
travelling abroad. For those who pressed the care: Sometimes, with courage and
determination, you can achieve a measure of justice – and change international
law.
Saul
Landau is the Hugh O. LaBounty Chair of Interdisciplinary Applied Knowledge at
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, 3801 W. Temple Ave. Pomona,
CA 91768