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Thank You, Pinochet!

by Diwas | January 2007

The death of Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, last month hardly made a stir in Nepal. This man, who once reigned over a faraway country remarkable to us only for its unusual contour, had appeared utterly extraneous to our regular course of politics. Yet, in an uncanny way, the story of this dictator from the other side of the world has triggered quests for justice at a scale that may have reshaped the contours of our own nation as well. As we headily emerge from a violent conflict, voicing our thoughts about resolution, focusing on the future, prepared even to overlook deep traumas and fractures, there is perhaps a lesson for us in Chile's desire to reconcile with its horrible past.

Chileans celebrate the death of Pinochet, photographed by Rodrigo Alvarez

There might have been little consolation for those who yearned to see Pinochet convicted. He had, after all, lived a full life, celebrated his 91st birthday amongst his cronies by accepting "political responsibility" for acts committed under his regime, and, two weeks later, conveniently escaped charges of torture and embezzlement that had amassed against him. But death visited him on December 10, and there was an ironic vindication in it. The man who was trailed by innumerable cases of human rights violations died on the day that marked 58 years since the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the day which, coincidentally, also marked 8 years since he was forced to appear in an English court for alleged crimes against humanity, first time in the twentieth century that a former ruler was arraigned through international law.

If the story of General Pinochet ended on this symbolic date, it began on the date that has become an even greater emblem for the global predicaments of contemporary world: September 11. On that date in 1973 (also a Tuesday), Pinochet bombed the presidential palace of Chile, La Moneda, staging a CIA-backed coup against the democratically elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende, to whom, only a few weeks before, Pinochet had fawningly pledge allegiance. That day, on which President Allende chose to die rather than surrender, concluded Chile's disquietingly peaceful effort for socialist revolution and initiated the intolerantly brutal tyranny of General Augusto Pinochet. For the following seventeen years, he ruled as the supreme Commander in Chief and headed an administration that inflicted its opponents with illegal detention, torture, murder, disappearance and exile. In 1990, Pinochet was finally voted out. But Pinochet, too accustomed to power by now, was not about to let go without brandishing his preeminence and demanding immunity, browbeating the nation with another coup should he or his cronies be as much as touched. And so, by 1998, he became Senator-for-Life and believed there was little now that could stop him from being remembered as "the best President Chile ever had."

In all those years, only in a whimsy could one have imagined that the General could be submitted to law, judged for his actions, or even expected to acknowledge the existence of those whose lives had been shattered at his orders. Such chimeras of justice suited the preoccupation of a scant few delusional utopians. Yet at the end of the century, quite fantastically, Pinochet found himself entangled in a judicial drama that would not only cast a permanent doubt on the invulnerability and unaccountability of all former heads of state, but also set a precedent for jurisprudence that spoke for the whole of humanity. The efforts of one or two idealistic individuals, grumbling for a more ethical world, steadfastly believing that the likes of Pinochet were indictable, it appeared, was sometimes enough to overturn historical destiny.

On October 16, 1998, at the order issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, English detectives arrested Pinochet from a London clinic. This was the result of work done mostly by Spanish lawyer Joan Garces, who had been a political adviser to President Allende and rescued from La Moneda — at the president's insistence — on the day of the 1973 coup. In the years of his life that Allende had deemed worth saving, Garces headed a campaign to actuate the trials of foreign dictators in the courts of Spain (a country whose own dictator Francisco Franco had died unperturbed in his bed, signing death warrants until the end). Garces's wild dream of prosecuting Pinochet became feasible in the late 90s through the growing movement of judicial activists who sought to implement a universal jurisprudence for crimes that infringed certain accepted rights belonging to the whole human species. These activists argued that commitment to humanity has to exceed commitment to any other particular interest, such as that of a nation. And they argued that no one should be above the law. They believed that in a rapidly globalizing world, justice itself needed to be global. They saw in previous examples of Nuremberg Trials and Tokyo Trials a real possibility of bringing former dictators to justice. Added to their movement were the ever-intensifying demands of organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for the Victims of Torture. Unfortunately for Pinochet, the result of all this idealism was the ratification in Rome by 120 countries of the Statute of an International Criminal Court, exactly three months before his arrest.

During the 503 days of house arrest in London, awaiting extradition to Spain, Pinochet came unexpectedly close to conviction. Although at the end of the trial, and during the rest of his life, he averted that fate by feigning dementia, he could not circumvent the terror that something could happen to him, that the romantic chanters of human rights could actually trounce him. He, who must have thought he could get away with anything, could not get away without hearing that he was directly responsible for the deaths, disappearances, and tortures wreaked on Chileans in defense of his authority. And Judge Garzon had brought 250 pages of such charges to the court, pages that described cases of tongues, toes, penises and vaginas being electrocuted; of gang rapes; of eyes being gouged; of food served with ears and fingers floating in them; of fathers being forced to penetrate their sons in front of other family members; and so forth. We can imagine Pinochet calmly denouncing these charges as lies; but we cannot imagine the humiliation he must have felt while he listened to them. We cannot know whether he learnt that human desire for justice and equality is too strong to be dismissed as a whim.From his comfortable office in Edificio Diego Portales (a colossal building that Allende had proposed to convert into a cultural center for ordinary women and children), Pinochet had once proclaimed that torture is necessary to eradicate communism, to maintain peace and order. The contradiction in making terror an agent of stability escaped the General. From that building he had also remarked how human rights can be restricted "when the social body sickens." Often known as Tata, grandfather, he thought of his citizens as wayward children, who needed to be punished and disciplined. He wanted to be remembered by the world as the person who unshackled his country from unruliness, who was — for that purpose — willing to strangle his own rowdy grandchildren. But as the trial in London showed, this man, who must have felt that the fate and the future of the world lay in his hands, could not ultimately determine the fate of his own persona. In the days following his trial, Pinochet has been associated with just the opposite of what he stood for: the legitimacy of demanding justice and accountability at an international scale.

Therein lies the significance of his story. Pinochet might have escaped, but he has helped usher in a whole set of legal and theoretical questions that has made it harder for someone like him to escape. There are still many aspects of the jurisprudence, to which Pinochet was subjected, about which we need to be wary. We do not know how it is going to influence the independence of nations, or if it is going to be yet another way for powerful nations to twist the arms of weaker nations. We do not know if it will succeed in checking atrocities performed against humanity. We do not know what happens if the world's lone superpower never recognizes its legitimacy. But one thing is certain. Following the trial of Pinochet, demand for accountability has only intensified. In this period, Serbian Slobodan Milosevic was removed without immunity, extradited to the Hague, and convicted, albeit posthumously. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has proceeded to convict many personnel on charges of genocide. HissÃ¨ne Habre of Chad is under nominal house arrest in Senegal and is awaiting extradition to Belgium for charges of human rights violation. In Belgium alone, cases have been filed against Ariel Sharon, Fidel Castro, and even George W. Bush, even if there is little hope from these lawsuits.

Notwithstanding the difficulties we continue to face in subjecting our leaders to the law, the reality of the post-Pinochet world is that immunity and impunity are less of an option for the average human mind. This mind now conceives power with a greater consideration for ideas, values and emotions that define us as humans.

The impact of this global climactic change towards justice and accountability can be felt even in Nepal. For some time now, we have, as a nation, grappled with the need to respect life beyond any national, local, political or economic ambition. We have strived to settle the tussle between our desire for equality and our desire for stability, both on the streets and in our minds. We have, within the confines of our country, sought to embolden ourselves by defining ourselves globally, as humans whose rights are nonnegotiable. For some time now, we have been unhappy with the symbolism with which we judge and prosecute our leaders who have also killed and tortured, with chaining and banishing them only in our thoughts.

Through the bizarreness of world history, General Pinochet may have inspired our own current endeavors of accountability. It is in the context of a global quest for justice that the formation of the High Level Probe Commission must also be placed. To conclude that the Commission's current investigation of authorities and its hope of impeaching King Gyanendra for the atrocities performed during the April movement can serve as a cornerstone in Nepali history, in the case that the government is more enthusiastic about its findings, does sound a bit hasty. After all, the tenability of the Commission and the motives (as well as the outcomes) of its missions are still moot. But it cannot be doubted that a kind of judicial precedent is being set even in Nepal. Something of a shift towards justice seems to have occurred. Still, our mind may wander to the intensity of inequality, negligence of human rights by many political actors, and the immeasurability of terror, trauma and torture that clouds our nation. Is Nepal capable of producing a Pinochet? More importantly, does a little bit of Pinochet reside in the lot of us? How do we remember and reconcile with our horrible past? How do we come together and share a country? How do we learn to fight for each others' dignity?

How do we make sure that a Pinochet does not appear among us?

Yet, as long as we ask these questions, we have Pinochet to thank.

Comments

January 12th, 2007

1 | tibetan_tomato:

NO REG required, nice!

pinochet was an ally of the british during the falklands war. the brits even considered attackin the argies from chile. it looks gentleman like behaviour not to hand pinochet over to the judiciary.but it is rather a very poor judgement.

killing commies is not a crime, it seems.

January 25th, 2007

2 | mehdi:

The death of former dictator pinochet has been a relef and a reason of festivity for all chileans; however, this dictaor should have suffered the consequences of his macabre assaninations and tortures

March 12th, 2007

3 | Ian:

“The death of former dictator pinochet has been a relef and a reason of festivity for all chileans; however, this dictaor should have suffered the consequences of his macabre assaninations and tortures”

Prachanda, right?

May 18th, 2007

4 | turueie:

Incredible how your able to make up all these lies and then try to spread them around. Don’t you see that those idiots celebrating are communist? Incompetents who support allende. Somebody who had an inflation of 1,000%+ and didn’t respect the countries constitution anyways. I think you should learn the history of Chile before you write your stupidities on the internet

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Thank You, Pinochet!

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