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On 9/11/73, General Augusto Pinochet
led a military coup that overthrew Chile's elected government.
The military bombed the Presidential Palace, assassinated 3,197
and tortured of tens of thousands more in order to "save"
Chile from "subversion." Three decades later, Chilean
courts stripped Pinochet of his self-anointed immunity from prosecution.
The 90 year old ex-dictator, under house arrest, faces charges
of murder, torture, drug dealing, tax evasion and money laundering.
Political circles in Santiago
and Washington DC (which once encouraged him) sneer at the mention
of his name. Few people even try to justify his orders to torch
thousands of books and assassinate and exile Chile's greatest
singers-composers, Victor Jara and Angel Parra.
In 1933, to create Germanic
culture," Adolph Hitler vowed to destroy "degenerate
art" and replace it with spiritually purifying Aryan creativity.
While Hitler "saved" Germans from immoral artistic
contact, Nazi officials acquired some of these kinky but highly
marketable pieces.
To justify repression and crime,
Nazi leaders fashioned a pseudo ideology, turning illogical "truisms"
into official credo. Fascism in its various 1930s-60s forms (Germany,
Italy, Spain, Portugal) maintained heavy repressive forces, no
procedural freedoms and trappings of religious overlay.
Slogans substituted for theory
to explain the nature of people living in society. "Loyal"
Party officials often killed and stole, then threatened name
calling (Communist, Jew, socialist, gypsy) to intimidate those
who might expose them. The fuhrer headed a criminal-military
gang in Germany. Drunk on rhetoric, Hitler tried to conquer the
world. Some of his Nazi pals thought
of the loot they would get. Most lost everything. "Schindler's
List" illustrated the corrupt and criminal nature of Nazi
officers. The armed forces' budget provides for criminals an
infinite numbers of profitable scams.
In the 1960s and 70, with strong
US-backing, third world military juntas created mini copies of
European fascism. In Latin America, the militaries in Argentina,
Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Central America overthrew elected
governments. Secret police and the military replaced legislatures
and courts.
In September 1973, Pinochet
led the most dramatic of these fascist copies. He and fellow
generals and admirals blasted away democracy and "saved"
Chile. Pinochet "rescued" Chile from "a Soviet
takeover." As if!
He eliminated the Constitution,
legislature and labor unions. Soldiers burned "subversive"
books and assassinated opponents, after torturing them.
Washington quickly recognized
his government and offered financial support, which it had withdrawn
from President Allende's elected socialist government. Cynical
critics viewed Pinochet as little more than Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger's choice to wage Cold War. Kissinger preferred
obedient dictators to independent, elected presidents.
In March 1976, responding to
human rights complaints, three Members of Congress on a fact
finding visit to Chilemet with Air Force General Gustavo
Leigh, one of four junta members that overthrow Allende's government.
Leigh pointed to photos on his office wall of World War II Nazi
air aces, of whom he spoke admiringly. He told Congressmen George
Miller (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Toby Moffett (D-CT) that
Chilean pilots should model themselves after such heroes.
The Members and their staff
returned horrified by Pinochet's brutality, and by comments from
US Ambassador to Santiago, David Popper. The military junta was
"our kind of people," Popper said. Harkin, on his return,
authored an amendment designed to cut all but humanitarian aid
to Chile. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a similar bill,
cutting off military aid.
In June 1976, Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger told Pinochet in Santiago to "clean
up" his image. After all, "in the United States, as
you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here."
Kissinger referred to Pinochet's
persecution of leftists and his neo-liberal economic policies.
As Pinochet eschewed law, he displayed obeisance to Washington's
policies. For seventeen years, Pinochet used military fascism
to transform Chile from a third world democracy into a globalized
free market economy with a traumatized population. No
wonder, US officials did not talk about "Pinochet-the-fence
and money-launderer."
Until recently, Pinochet critics
focused almost exclusively human rights violations. Official
Washington had shrugged off such wimpy complaints as "birth
pangs" of a new regime. By the 1980s, however, Reagan converted
human rights into an anti-Soviet instrument, and Pinochet became
an embarrassment.
In September 1976, he had made
enemies by ordering his secret police to car bomb Orlando Letelier,
former Allende Chancellor, in Washington DC. The explosion also
killed Ronni Moffitt, an American colleague at the Institute
for Policy Studies where both worked.
By 1988, Pinochet had become
an embarrassment to Washington. US officials pressured him to
hold a referendum. In 1990, Chileans voted his military government
out of power. Still, the debate focused on rights, not crime.
Pinochet critics remained obsessed with his excesses --- which
assumed that his brutality derived from political motives.
Few thought the generalissimo,
his wife and children, had taken substantial pieces of state
contracts and engaged in narcotrafficking. These activities in
turn led them into tax-evasion schemes. They hid the lucre in
Washington DC's Riggs Bank, known for its willingness to help
right wing dictators launder ill gotten gains.
Ironically, the events of 9/11/01
helped expose the criminals of 9/11/73. In 2004, a Congressional
staffer, following Patriot Act guidelines, searched foreign bank
accounts and discovered that Riggs Bank officials had permitted
false names to appear on accounts that belonged to Pinochet family
members. "El jefe's" hanky panky began to emerge.
More than a decade after civilian
government regained formal legitimacy elected leaders mustered
courage to examine Pinochet's practices. They had not even challenged
his amnesty laws, passed before he left power in 1990. The civilian
alliance had acceded to Pinochet's demands for life time Senate
seats for himself and his military cronies and an "independent"
military budget.
Since Chileans lacked the will
to proceed in the courts, in 1996, former Allende adviser Juan
Garces filed with Spanish progressive prosecutors briefs calling
for Pinochet's indictment for international terrorism, genocide
and torture. In 1998, Pinochet traveled to England. Judge Baltazar
Garzon filed an extradition request. A British police officer
arrested him. Finally, in March 2000, the Law Lords affirmed
the arrest, but British and Chilean government officials used
a "medical" pretext to spring Pinochet. A decade after
Pinochet left Chile's Presidency, the civilian regime still lacked
the nerve to examine his horrific crimes.
Some lawyers and legislators
tried to erode Pinochet's immunity, but not until the 21st Century
did conservative Judge Juan Guzman open the investigative doors
on Pinochet's assassinations. In August 2004, following in Guzman's
footsteps, Judge Sergio Muñoz probed the "Pinoaccounts."
He demanded the records of Pinochet and 38 family members, including
his wife and five children. Where had they obtained more than
$28 million dollars, the amount stashed in the US banks?
Muñoz also received
a copy of the US congressional report about a weapons development
project that failed. Pinochet managed the enterprise and profited
from its collapse. Simultaneously, Chile's lower house authorized
a commission to investigate the sale of 51 government owned companies
that got privatized during Pinochet's reign and cost Chile millions
of dollars. But who got the money? (Pinochet Report IPS)
At Pinochet's Santiago home,
Muñoz also questioned Mrs. Pinochet, 82, and their son,
Marco Antonio Pinochet. He then charged them with tax evasion.
"If the judge wants to jail someone, to pass judgment on
a part of Chile's history," Pinochet said defending his
family, "it should be me, not innocent people." (People's
Daily August 11, 2005)
As cases against Pinochet cascaded
from killing and torturing Chileans to tax evasion and theft,
other Chilean investigators probed "Operation Condor"
the network of Latin American intelligence agencies that
assassinated hundreds of its "subversive" enemies in
the 1970s.
Two cases involved drug trafficking
and the possible murder of former Chilean President, Eduardo
Frei. Frei's family charged that Pinochet used Eugenio Berrios,
a chemist who worked for DINA, to manufacture poisons for Pinochet's
enemies. Berrios also made Sarin nerve gas, in case the dictator
needed it for larger numbers of people. In addition, Berrios
apparently developed a designer like cocaine (black coke).
Retired General Manuel Contreras,
former head of Chile's secret police and intelligence, revealed
this "fact" to Chilean government Minister Claudio
Pavez. Contreras stated that Pinochet ran an illicit narcotics
business that included manufacture of illegal drugs, their distribution
and money laundering with the profits from drug sales. Contreras
alleges Pinochet was no comandante but rather "criminal
en jefe."
Hitler's rhetoric ran away
with reality. Organized crime failed alongside of world conquest.
Pinochet "saved Chile" from "subversion,"
and saved a pile of Chile's money for himself. He thought he
had gotten away with it. He had distracted his enemies who focused
attention on assassinations and torture.
In so doing, they forged new
international law paths, helping to differentiate acts of state
from criminal behavior. Now, judges focus on Pinochet's non-political
criminality as well. In less than a decade, even his former supporters
have had to shift their views of him from "savior of Chile"
to the Al Capone of the Southern Cone.
Saul Landau's new book, A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD,
will be published by Counterpunch Press. He can be reached at:
slandau@igc.org
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Available
from CounterPunch Books!
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