Pinochet menu - Wednesday am everywwhere except here.
MichaelP
They'll surely help you understand what's involved before you start
thinking the most humane solution is for Pinochet to be allowed to return
to Chile, to the acclaim of his rich friends, and the trumpeting of his
fellow officers.
At least, when extradited to Spain he'll receive a fair trial, won't he?
He'll be afforded due process. and he might even be allowed to prove that
he's free of guilt, won't he ?
That reminds me of the value of due process. Does MadelineA urge
Pinochet's release because she's fully informed about the value of due
process - a fair trial - to the likes of Mumia - and Peltier ?? Or about
the the authorized manipulation of trial procedures in such cases ?
Just thought I'd ask !!
Cheers
MichaelP
=============
Straw man
By Mark Steel
Guardian (london) Wednesday December 2, 1998
So there's another argument for not taking out private health insurance.
You could go in to have your tonsils out, wake up afterwards and find
yourself lying next to a military dictator.
Apparently he was a fussy patient who, according to staff, "enjoyed a good
moan". How did the nurses deal with that? "Oh dear, we are a grumpy old
torturer today, aren't we? Well get this soup down you and we'll have you
back at those cattle prods in no time".
Now the hospital has kicked him out. So maybe the consultants will start
to disappear, and the Conservative Party will say that you couldn't blame
him for murdering the chief surgeon, as the hospital's accounts were in a
terrible state.
That would be no more ludicrous than Norman Lamont on Newsnight, saying
that it was time the matter was "laid to rest". His argument was that,
whatever's happened, to continue raking over bygone events with legal
wrangling makes matters worse. Which must mean he supports the abolition
of all laws. All these years and he's never let on that he's a militant
anarchist. Perhaps that's why he threw ten billion quid away on Black
Monday. It was a plot to rid the country of money, which binds the common
person to material possessions and stops us thinking for ourselves. The
argument of Pinochet's lawyers has been even more stimulating. If the
extradition goes through, they ask, does that mean next time P W Botha or
Baby Doc Duvalier goes abroad, that they should be arrested as well? What
a splendid idea! It goes to show, just because you're a right-wing thug
doesn't mean you can't have the odd spark of inspiration.
The case for trying him in Chile was explained by a 'senior source',
quoted in The Observer. Chileans would "make a point of giving him a
proper trial", he said, so that they could "prove themselves" before the
world. Pinochet supporters, as we know, are extremely sensitive to public
relations. They're just easily misunderstood. It seems that, in Chilean
custom, it's a mark of great respect to attack a BBC camera crew.
Also, if the Chilean government really wanted to put Pinochet on trial,
why have they never managed it before? Too busy, I suppose. Jose Miguel
Insulza, the Chilean minister battling for this settlement, must be saying
to Jack Straw: "Honestly, we meant to get round to it but it's been like a
madhouse in Chile, it really has."
So if he does stand trial in his home country, he's not likely to face
that rigorous a grilling.
"General, where were you on the night of the coup"?
"I was out."
"Well that wraps it up for me."
The idea that Chileans are the best people to try someone for crimes
against Chileans is odd, as it assumes that all Chileans have a common
interest. Surely it depends on which Chileans are to do the trying. A clue
as to which section of Chilean society would try Pinochet in his own
country, comes from the following observation. In general, poor Chileans
are demanding his extradition to Spain, while rich Chileans were preparing
to celebrate his return to Chile with champagne. Another clue is that one
influential group amongst rich Chileans demanding his return, is called
'The Pinochet Foundation'.
Since the law lords' decision, the case for extraditing Pinochet has
become more painfully overwhelming than before. And yet an article in this
paper made perfect sense when it began 'Jack Straw is beginning the most
uncomfortable two weeks of his political life'. How can that be? For
millions of people from his generation, if they had the power to determine
whether Pinochet went home or on trial, it would be the most comfortable
two minutes of any part of their life. Following the coup, if Straw had
been told that one day a decision on the dictator's extradition would be
down to him, he'd have leaped with joy. But 20 years of being realistic
leaves him finding the decision the most uncomfortable of his life. It's
like sinking into depression because you've won the Lottery, and can't
decide whether or not to collect the money. And then saying to Camelot "As
it's such a tough one, could I have an extra week to decide?"
Pinochet's lucky that he only overthrew a government and murdered his
opponents. If Straw had caught him skinning up a spliff, he'd have been in
Bow Street Court the same afternoon.
Straw seems desperate to find a compromise, which could be presented as
not letting the General off, but not agreeing to everything demanded by
the Spanish judge. So here's a suggestion. Pinochet should be extradited
to Spain, but on the condition that he's kept in the filthiest, most
rat-infested cell in the land, which he shares with a 7ft Basque
ex-wrestler who greets him with "Buenos dias, senor. I say, I do like a
military man with a moustache."
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==================================
Personal accounts of life under General Pinochet
We have received many e-mails commenting on the Pinochet affair. Here are
two particularly startling accounts of life under General Pinochet. Keep
e-mailing us with your views and experiences.
GUARDIAN (London)Tuesday December 1, 1998
"Pinochet must pay for his crimes. It's a personal thing."
From: Tito Tricot, Chile
Tuesday December 1, 1998
It hasn't rained for a long time in Chile. The fields are dry and the
lakes are running low. But no one is thinking about the country's drought
since General Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London this month.
Right-wing politicians and the armed forces were astonished. The left and
human rights activists were sceptical. I was delighted.
I am happy, yet at the same time sickened by those who claim that the
dictator's rights are being violated. By those who state that the aging
General's rights were violated when the British police kept him two hours
incommunicado. Two hours!!! Is this a sick joke? He kept a country under a
permanent state of terror for 17 years.
For designated senator and former commander in chief of the Navy, Jorge
Martinez, this is nothing but "an international conspiracy". For the
Chilean government the British action constitutes "a legal aberration".
There is certainly a legal and political dimension to the case, but there
is also a personal dimension - something neither the current Chilean
government nor Pinochet supporters care about.
But I do, because I cannot forget Patricia's horrifying screams for help
as she was repeatedly raped by a gang of "brave" Chilean marines. She was
only 15 at the time of the coup. She was arrested, like many of us, simply
for being a supporter of the Popular Unity government. I will never forget
the night she tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall.
Did any of the right-wing members of Parliament whom today so
wholeheartedly defend Pinochet do anything for her?
Did any of them defend my legal or political rights when I was brutally
tortured at the Naval Academy in Valparaiso? Where were they when I was
stripped naked, blindfolded and electricity was applied to my genitals? I
certainly did not see any of them when I left the hospital in a wheelchair
only to be taken to the War Academy and tortured again. Yes, this is a
personal problem, for the coup did not only mean the end of a unique
social and political process, but also the end of a dream for a whole
generation of Chileans.
Terror became our permanent companion. Terror made my mother's hair go
grey, because she couldn't find me. She had to go through the humiliating
and agonising journey of knocking at the soldiers' doors asking questions
that always remained unanswered.
Our lives, my life, changed dramatically after the coup, that's why this
is so personal. My wife was five months pregnant when arrested by a
special secret police unit. Where were the now-vociferous Pinochet
supporters when she was sent to a men's prison and kept in solitary
confinement? Did they ever think about the suffering of our baby? He was
born with mild brain damage, but of course the rich politicians,
businessmen and lawyers who complain about the treatment of Pinochet never
helped him.
It's also personal because we had to endure many years in exile, because
our children were born abroad and then went back to Chile to live out
their own exile. Ireland was a place of refuge, but it was never home. We
lived in England, but it was never home. It was exile, that slow and
painful way of withering away from your family, friends, past and present.
Above all it was the realisation that you were not part of your country's
future. So we came back, but the military had changed the country's trees
and lakes, they had moved the mountains and the sea. Nothing was the same.
But nothing mattered, because we were home at last. We were happy, until
the night the secret police broke into the tranquillity of our home,
ransacking the place, stealing the little we had and shattering the peace
of the neighbourhood. Nothing had changed.
They terrorized my pregnant wife and the little being in her womb. "It is
war", they shouted, before ripping away my clothes, tying my hands behind
my back and putting a hood over my head. They took turns in beating me up,
I could feel their stale breath, their joy when their fists or kicks met
the flesh. I stood there, naked, tied up, blindfolded and defenceless, but
proud.
Yes, proud, because I was better than they were, because I had nothing to
be ashamed of. What do they know about ideals, ethics or morality, they
who have been trained in the "art" of killing? They were the raving
animals while I was more humane than ever before, conquering fear in the
name of freedom.
The pain rushed through my entire body, it got increasingly hot in that
room, the torture session went on forever. Was it still night-time, was
the sun already coming out, were people leaving their homes to work, were
little children going to school unaware that in a dark basement cell yet
another human being was being tortured by a group of cowards?
I will never know the answer to these questions. All I know is that at one
point I was taken to another room, tied to a chair, threatened with being
executed before tiny electrodes were fixed to my wrists and genitals. It
was electricity. You could feel it coming, travelling throughout your body
like a million pins pinching your flesh, your bones, your kidneys, and
your brain. It is a painful explosion of shiny colours that comes out of
your mouth in the form of a scream that you cannot control. It is as if
somebody else is screaming in the room; it is not your scream, it is not
your body, but it is your pain. You swallow electricity and you vomit
electricity. It hurts, and they know it. That is why this is personal.
I spent four months with a plaster cast from my neck to my waist because
they broke my back. Not in a private clinic, not in a hospital, but in
prison. Because ten years went by before I could get a job, because my
first wife died without knowing what true democracy is. Because I was
separated from my children and it hurt.
President Eduardo Frei has called upon the Chilean people to remain calm.
But, you know what? I don't want to remain calm, for this is personal,
this is between Pinochet and I. I want the whole world to know that he is
a murderer, a terrorist, a criminal, an animal. I want the whole world to
know that I feel deeply embarrassed by the civilian government's defence
of the dictator. It sickens me that two European countries have finally
arrested Pinochet, because our own judicial system was unable or unwilling
to bring him to justice.
I don't care whether he is 80 or a 100 years old. He must pay for his
horrendous crimes. We will never rest until he and all those responsible
for crimes against our people are brought to justice. It is not only a
legal or political problem, it's personal, because I was lucky, because I
survived, because it is my duty to pay homage to all my sisters and
brothers who fell in the struggle against the dictatorship.
Tito Tricot,
Chile
_________________________________________________________________
"We were all taken blindfolded to the detention centre located in the
neighborhood of NuNoa - the so-called 'house of terror'"
From: Arturo C. Ellis, Santiago, Chile
Sunday November 29, 1998
My name is Arturo C. Ellis, geographer, born in Chile, holder of a British
Passport number C 556841 D and son of a former British Diplomat. I declare
that the night of September 29, 1974, a gang of the Chilean secret police
(DINA) led by Osvaldo Romo (famous for his brutal tortures) broke into my
house searchig for my cousin Cecilia Bottai. I was taken with a submachine
gun under my neck into the house, where I was living with my cousin Gilda
Bottai, her husband, Edmundo Lebrecht and their 3 years old daughter
Tania.
We were all taken blindfolded to the detention centre located in the
neighborhood of NuNoa a - the so-called "house of terror". I was forced to
lie on the floor and interrogated about my activities and isolated from my
relatives. I was then put against a wall with my hands up, a position I
had to maintain during all the rest of the night. In the meantime, they
hit me with their firearms on my legs while they made sounds simulating
preparing to shoot, in a kind of psychological torture.
I was released in the street the next morning with my cousin Gilda, while
her husband remained detained.
One month later, at the end of October, they came again, like the first
time, at night during the curfew hours. Then I knew they were coming for
me because they acquired the certainty, in their perverted minds, that I
was a dangerous terrorist with military training. This was because at that
time I was studying Geography at the University of Chile and I had a
number of maps marked with my field work and outdoor equipment that they
found in the first housebreaking. They surely thought this was part of a
military operation (I have never fired a gun).
I escaped through the window out into the garden and I remained hiding up
in a tree for a couple of hours while they where searching all over the
place with their machine guns ready to shoot. I was able to reach the
street creeping on the floor in between the bushes. I continued creeping
on the sidewalk up to a friend's house where I asked for help.
The British Embassy was notified of what was going on. They advised me to
remain in a safe place while they arranged my exit from the country. I had
to hide for ten days, moving continuously. At last, on November 4, 1974, I
was taken to the airport by the British Consul, Mr. Ferneyhough, and flown
to Britain.
As a result of the failure of my arrest, my relatives were severely
tortured and the order to shoot me was given. If I was captured, I would
not be alive know.
I do not write this in the spirit of revenge, but with a sense that
justice must be done. I lost not only my material goods stolen during the
housebreaking, but also my family life and my studies at the University
and therefore, my future.
My human rights were violated, and I think the dictator must be held and
taken into courts. If not, all the British lives lost during the war
against Hitler's and Mussolini's fascism, in which my father participated,
will mean nothing.
Arturo C. Ellis
Santiago, Chile
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