New charges against Gen Pinochet

Chile's former military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, is to face fresh human rights charges.

Judge Victor Montiglio said there was enough evidence to bring him to trial in connection with the disappearance of another three political dissidents.

The judge is probing Gen Pinochet's role in the case known as Operation Colombo, when dozens of opponents were allegedly abducted and murdered.

The former ruler is now facing charges in relation to nine disappearances.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4502348.stm

dies, they ought to dig up his corpse, drive a stake in his heart and place his head on a pike in a public square.

At least a couple of them have. They were very strong pro-Pinochet in past years. Now that all this stuff has become public, they want him tried and jailed if found guilty. They also want his ill-gotten gains taken from him and the family.

What were the things that changed them?

1. Kidnapping people, torturing them, and killing them. Any one or more of these. Their point? Chile had laws to protect civil rights and a functioning court system. If there was any reason to arrest people, it should have been done openly and according to law.

2. The financial "theft" that Pinochet and his followers apparently committed. Pretending to be trying to support Chile and actually just lining his own pockets and those of his friends and cohorts.

3. The hypocrisy of Pinochet that he didn't know about these things going on. When he was in power he said that "not a leaf falls without me knowing" and now he says he didn't know about the kidnappings, torture and killings.

It's an absolutely amazing change. These people are still conservative but they actually believe in right and wrong, laws and the requirement to follow them, and the need for people to take responsibility for actions.

regime? It's only recently that the ecstatic enthusiasm for Hitler shared by most of the monied people in the UK before the WWII, was conveyed to subsequent generations of UK citizens via the mainstream media.

However, I have have not seen any apologetic acknowledgement of the bluntness of their moral perception by them or the cataclysm of mass slaughter their moral blindness led to, and I expect that would be the case with your in-laws. It is part of the reason for the recrudescence of corporatism/fascism in the UK. "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

government that kidnaps people, lies, commits murder of innocent civilians (in a foreign country maybe but still), steals the treasury blind. Gadzooks, sounds like our own bush** administration.

And lo and behold, we even have some of the CIA criminals that helped Pinochet when he was in power, I believe, back in government. At the very least, these guys helped kill a lot of people in Central and South America.

(This is only one of 11 torture centers employed by Pinochet. He also used three torture ships stationed offshore.)


From Evidence on the Terror in Chile. Report compiled by Raul Silva, Brigitta Leander, and Sun Axelsson. Translated by Brian McBeth. London (Merlin Press) 1974. originally published Stockholm (Ab Raben & Sjogren) 1974:

The Testimony of "Camilo Henriques", pp.55-61.
http://www.trentu.ca/%7Emneumann/camilo.html

The Torture of a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, pp.1-5.
http://www.trentu.ca/%7Emneumann/price.html

João in Chile the Stadium, pp.16-23.
http://www.trentu.ca/%7Emneumann/stadium.html

From a site:

The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet

This site contains accounts of the crimes of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. The texts explain what people are talking about when they call him a "dictator" or "strong man" who committed a few "human rights violations". These reports tend to confirm one another, and collectively give some idea of the range and scale of the atrocities.
(snip/...)

http://www.trentu.ca/%7Emneumann/pinochet.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seems dull, colorless people suddenly find an enthusiastic zest for life when they are given ultimate control over their countrymen. It's a real pity.