Posted on 12/10/2006 5:14:10 PM PST by indcons
WASHINGTON: The White House on Sunday marked the death of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet by calling his rule a "difficult period" and commending the country for establishing a free society.
"Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile represented one of the most difficult periods in that nation's history," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "Our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families. We commend the people of Chile for building a society based on freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights."
Pinochet terrorized his opponents for 17 years after taking power in a bloody coup.
His death put an end to a decade of intensifying efforts to bring him to trial for human rights abuses blamed on his regime. He was 91.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
The only confirmed cases of such executions were of Allende's personal detail of Cuban bodyguards.
They obviously needed to go, and that was a very intelligent way of disposing of those particular criminals.
Though I do like the "trade unionist" propaganda line, a perfect Chomskian touch.
Stalin was a "trade unionist", you know.
CASTRO Y PINOCHET
James R. Whelan
Martes, 9 de mayo de 2000
Cuando Fidel Castro hizo su entrada triunfal en La Habana, el 8 de enero de 1959, Cuba era uno de los países más prósperos del mundo. Cuando Augusto Pinochet y sus colegas militares depusieron al marxista-leninista Salvador Allende, el 11 de septiembre de 1973, encontraron un país al borde del colapso económico. Lo que desde entonces ha sucedido en ambos países es imposible tapar con el dedo.
Castro gobierna una nación donde prácticamente todo está racionado, un país que Freedom House clasifica como "estado policial de un solo partido" y “sin libertad” por 40 años, caso único en nuestro hemisferio.
Por el contrario, Chile figura entre los países "libres" según Freedom House, desde que Pinochet, derrotado en un plebiscito entregó voluntariamente el poder. Pero Castro es adulado y tratado con respeto por dirigentes políticos y periodistas en todas partes del mundo. El más vergonzoso y reciente ejemplo lo dio Janet Reno, Procuradora General de Estados Unidos, postrándose ante Fidel Castro en el caso del niño Elián González.
En cambio, Pinochet es perseguido y vilipendiado por una amplia gama de observadores y analistas. La misma Janet Reno aportó los formidables recursos de su Departamento de Justicia al flagelo "legal" de Pinochet.
El contraste del muy distinto trato recibido por estos dos líderes latinoamericanos parece provenir de las páginas del libro de George Orwell, "1984", donde encontramos términos como "nuevohablar" (blanco es negro, arriba es abajo) y "doblepensar" (creer en dos ideas contradictorias a la vez). Se trata, ni más ni menos, del triunfo orwelliano de la propaganda política impulsada por la izquierda internacional y del conveniente olvido de los hechos por quienes tienen la obligación de reportarlos.
Poco antes de irrumpir Castro en el poder, el ingreso per capita de los cubanos se aproximaba al de los italianos. Cuba figuraba en el lugar 22 entre las –entonces- 122 naciones del mundo en términos de desarrollo. Más de 12 mil italianos esperaban visas para emigrar a esa isla de oportunidades. Y los indicadores sociales avanzaban paralelamente: el alfabetismo se ubicaba en 80 por ciento, una cifra bastante alta para aquellos tiempos.
Cuba tenía más médicos y dentistas per capita que Holanda, Francia, el Reino Unido y Finlandia. Los cubanos gozaban de las tasas más bajas de mortalidad infantil y las más altas de longevidad de los países latinoamericanos. En 1959, los cubanos tenían ingresos similares a los puertorriqueños, mientras que hoy ganan menos de una décima parte.
Durante años, Castro pudo esconder su incompetencia detrás de las asombrosas subvenciones soviéticas. La historiadora rusa Irina Zorina calcula que la URSS le regaló a Castro cien mil millones de dólares, es decir, cuatro veces el total del Plan Marshall, y tres veces la ayuda recibida por toda la América Latina bajo la Alianza para el Progreso.
Cuando Rusia suspendió su ayuda económica en 1992, la economía cubana se contrajo violentamente, perdiendo 50% de su capacidad productiva y 80% de sus industrias se vieron obligadas a cerrar.
La mejor prueba del inmenso fracaso de Castro es que en ningún consulado cubano alrededor del mundo hay gente haciendo cola para emigrar a Cuba. Por el contrario, más de 1,5 millones de cubanos han huido de la isla, la mayoría de ellos arriesgando sus vidas y abandonando lo que tenían.
El caso Pinochet difícilmente podría ser más diferente. El ex presidente chileno, Eduardo Frei Montalva, sintetizó la situación del país en vísperas de la Revolución de 1973: "Chile está hundido en un desastre economico, no una crisis, sino una verdadera catástrofe... peor que la inflacion, la escasez, la violencia es el odio. Hay angustia en Chile..."
El mismo Allende, a pocos días de su caída, anunció que quedaba pan sólo para cuatro días. La inflación galopaba fuera de control, acercándose a mil por ciento. Un país, antes orgulloso, se había degenerado en un verdadero infierno socialista.
A partir de 1973, el régimen militar chileno tuvo que enfrentar boicots, embargos y hostilidad generalizada, no sólo de parte de países comunistas sino de los supuestamente anticomunistas, encabezados por Estados Unidos.
El gobierno de Pinochet transformó lo que era la segunda economía más estatista de América Latina (después de Cuba) en la más libre y próspera. Sin embargo, en la prensa mundial Pinochet aparece como el villano y a Castro siempre se le da el beneficio de la duda. ¿Dónde está el George Orwell de nuestra generación capaz de desenmascarar tanta hipocresía?
Other people do not.
While it is possible that innocent people were executed in Pinochet's Chile, it certainly isn't proven.
If one were to go by the statements of executed criminals' relatives in the US, one would have to conclude that 99% of the people ever executed in the US were poor, persecuted innocents murdered by the state for crimes they never committed.
Fact: 2095 people were executed in Pinochet's Chile according to independent investigations.
Fact: Allende had armed somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 Communist ideologues - both Chileans and foreigners - as an illegal personal army using weapons purchased from Cuba with money supplied by the KGB. All these individuals were being trained by Cuban personnel whom Allende had imported into the country for the express purpose of building a force that could oppose the legitimate, constitutional army of Chile.
All told, there were about 30,000 Chileans who were actively conspiring with malice aforethought to create a Castro-style regime in Chile.
Conclusion: there were definitely 10,000 Chileans who, on the merits, deserved to be executed for treason. There were definitely 5,000 foreigners who, on the merits, deserved to be executed for being spies and agents of a foreign regime.
Pinochet's goal, in the ten weeks following Allende's suicide, was to destroy the leadership of the Communist fifth column in Chile.
80% of the killings took place in this 10 week period, or about 1800.
Of those, hundreds certainly died in street fighting between Communist partisans and Chilean soldiers.
Yet those individuals are commonly described as "innocent victims" even though they attacked Chilean soldiers.
Perhaps 200 more were Cuban "military advisors" who either died in battle or were summarily executed as spies and saboteurs.
If Pinochet was interested in killing every armed Communist in Chile, he would have executed 15,000 people in those 10 weeks. But he wasn't.
His main concern was killing the Cuban spies who had infiltrated the Chilean government and in killing the leadership of the Communist cells before they could finish consolidating their forces and link up with significant Cuban reinforcements.
Killing actual innocent citizens would have been a complete waste of precious time and resources.
We are not talking about either "murder" or "political opponents."
we are talking about armed agents of a foreign power that have infiltrated someone else's country in the hopes of fomenting a civil war.
That is a military opponent, not a "political opponent."
The situation on the ground in Chile is that Allende knew that he could not secure the cooperation of Chile's legitimate army in imposing a Soviet-style system.
So he brought in Cuban military advisers to train Communist ideologues in Chile as a revolutionary army, and he took KGB money to finance arms purchases to equip this army.
Allende had abandoned politics in favor of force.
The Chilean crisis of 1973 was not a struggle between a legitimate civilan government and a fascist military.
It was a struggle between an illegitimate military government with an illegal army on one side and the legitimate military of Chile on the other.
Actually no, Hitler didn't. Hitler's economic program consisted of making private companies pledge loyalty to the 3rd Reich and commit their production structures to his war machine. Throughout the war he sent them orders on what to produce, how much, and when to deliver. He staffed them with prisoner labor and instituted work programs that forced people who were too young for the army (i.e. high school students) to "volunteer" for work programs in the factories. And, of course, if you were a factory owner who didn't abide by what the nazi state wanted it was off to the concentration camps. The effect of Hitler's economic system was nearly complete nationalization.
Pinochet ran a police state. No Democratic institutions at all was tolerated.
More hyperbole from somebody who is ignorant of history. Pinochet took steps to restore democratic institutions only six years after the coup and only three years after the last major Allendist pockets were defeated. He held a plebiscite in 1980 to establish the new constitution, which laid out schedules for the restorations of elections. Elections returned in 1988, and Pinochet voluntarily abided by the results.
As a dedicated Conservative it is beyond me how anyone can support a dictatorial system of government under any circumstances or any label.
Then you have an extremely narrow worldview. Democracies, sadly, are an exception to the course of things in human history - not the rule. But that alone does not mean all other systems of government are always evil all the time. There are bad caesars and good caesars. Pinochet was not a bad caesar. Allende was though.
Please do not rely on Wikipedia-type sources for everything. The constitution of 1980 was designed to be a document reconstituting the state. It was designed to slow sudden political changes - checks and balances all over. Within it were the rules for the transition from military government, including the plebiscite of 1988 and civilian elections. The proposed constitution was resoundingly accepted. These are facts. When you say that it was designed to keep Pinochet in power, you are in part correct: it was designed to allow military government for eight years, with the possibility of renewal of mandate for another period, if the popular will agreed. The popular will accepted the constitution, but did not agree to renewal of the mandate. The transition went along as set out in the constitution. Case closed.
With respect to allowing the president - any civilian president - the power to close congress: First, you are wrong - the authority was granted a president to end the session of the House of Deputies. The senate, no. This item was introduced due to the belief that the historically weak Chilean executive compared to a radicalized legislature was thought to have been one of the causes of political instability in the country. (I am not entirely convinced of that interpretation, but many think so.) And you might want to note that this item was not a particularly important point when the junta was in charge. It was meant to secure future presidential authority in case of a sitting legislature disturbing the peace, but it did not allow for permanent suspension of the legislature.
Of course, once Pinochet was out it was amended what, nine times? Ten times? I understand that's removed a lot of the excesses.
Wikipedia (or whenever you're getting your information) does not mention what those excesses were, do they? One "excess" was to allow "institutional senators" - non-popularly elected senators that would represent the political concerns of the courts, armed forces, ex-presidents, etc. Institutional senators essentially acted as a brake on any radical change - requiring a super-majority to do things. This was extremely conservative, in the old sense. Was that an excess? No, but maybe it was bad law. But it's mute point because this rule was amended according to the processes stipulated in the constitution itself. The other "excesses" were similarly conservative - and the amendments have essentially been made to grant political authorities quicker turn-around time.
When you say "once Pinochet was out" - it is not that he was overthrown by popular revolution. He was voted out. He left. Funny that.
She's also a socialist. Y'all casting about for another Pinochet to save you again?
That comment displays more ignorance than I can attempt correct at the moment. Let's simply note that while Bachelet is a member of the Socialist party, she did wear black today. And she seems quite content - happy even - to direct without much difficulty one of the most free-market governments in the world.
The DINA did turn repressive - that seems to be clear. It did kill people, and in during so was acting against Chilean state interests, and against the junta’s interests. The junta did not stop it, for a number of reasons linked to the military nature of the government. But ultimately, I think, the violations of rights during the junta were of an organized crime sort. Love of money is the root of all evil, so the Bible says, and many of the evils that occurred during military rule can be traced to just that. Vargas Llosa claims - or he did - that the Pinochet regime was just another Latin American kleptocracy. I think that is exaggerated to the point of being wrong, but his basic point is correct. Pinochet, even while moving toward a limited government and individual freedoms and strong property rights, allowed a mafia thuggishness to fester in certain parts of the government, the DINA in particular. If it were simple corruption, that would have been bad enough, but is was corruption by people with the state's apparatus of secrecy. Did Pinochet knowingly approve of this? That is the big emotional question. I would guess that the junta had an military's bureaucratic instinct to give orders, expect results, and ignore what it did not want to think about. These guys were not subtle politicians. Knowingly or not, the DINA did turn rogue and vicious. To his credit, when the DINA's mafia-like behavior became known, Pinochet cut it off, and Manuel Contreras was left without official protection. Contreras went to prison, with Pinochet's blessing. One can be cynical about Pinochet's actions. I am somewhat cynical. This DINA question is one that does stain the otherwise pro-freedom transformation that went on during the junta.
It maintained that status until May '74, I think, when Contreras was able to get it away from direct Army control and maintain it as an organization separate from the chain of command.
In those first few months it was basically doing what Army intelligence normally does - flushing out spies and armed cells.
There was no time to mess around with extortion - the Army needed to win and win quickly.
The situation was still pretty fluid in those first few months.
Well, why couldn't he just mass imprison the subversives until the political crisis was over? And why didn't he allow the Christian Democratic Party and other un-military elements who SUPPORTED THE COUP to rebuild the civilian government as soon as possible, instead of staying in control with his junta?
That was an unworthy and exceedingly clumsy attempt to deceptively frame the argument and mischaracterize your premise.
The analogous scenario would not be if Hillary Clinton simply wins the Presidency in 2008. The correct equivalent to the events in Chile would be if she won the Presidency, then proceeded to bring in Cuban or other "UN" operatives and "military advisors", funded by Russia, China, Iran, or other such enemies of the US, to staff critical postitions in our government and to equip and train a private army personally loyal to her, and then turned those forces loose to begin subverting and dismantling the Constitutionally mandated structures and operations of our government.
If she then continued, by decree and backed by her personal foreign-financed army, to confiscate the land and property of citizens, to nationalize private industry and businesses, to shut down websites such as Free Republic and alternative media such as talk radio, to send her goons busting into homes to confiscate firearms, and all the rest of the ruthless tactics of marxist regime destabilization and takeover Allende's mentors and backers repeatedly practiced throughout the twentieth century, and finally, if the Congress and the members of the Supreme Court called on Tommy Franks or the Joints Chiefs or whoever in the DOD would act, to step forth and stop this marxist coup-in-progress, you're damned right I would support it, and rightfully so.
At least with Tommy Franks or other military leaders who have sworn an oath and dedicated their lives to the defense of the Constitution there would be a good chance of the restoration of the rule of law once the crisis was past. With the marxists there would be no chance, and anyone who refuses to acknowledge that the history of the twentieth century clearly demonstrates that reality is naive or dishonest.
Our fundamental differing point is that while we agree that Pinochet did do some good things in creating a popular coup against the communists, we disagree on whether he was a good caesar or not. I do not believe so, judging by his tactics and his reluctance to bring back the civilian government as soon as possible, and his seeming uncaring in reining in his DINA secret police.
Look, if you're against Wikipedia sources, what sources are you basing your info on?
he saved Chile from communism. The deaths of a few thousand communists doesn't bother me.
Yes. The White House comment was not balanced. See National Review's online symposium today. In the final contribution, Otto Reich pretty much nails it. Best of all was his closing comment: That Pinochet was both a dictator and a liberator.
I have no problem with the coup. What I would have a problem with is if General Franks, now President, stayed in power with the Pentagon top brass for the next 16 years or so and allowed militiamen and rogue FBI units tacitly supported by him to roam around the country killing everyone who they suspected of being pro-Hillary. What I would expect that he and the military would declare free elections, and returning the gov't to the pre-Hillary period, with the protection of the military.
Colin Powell made the stupid statement several years ago that U.S. participation in the coup against Allende was not something we're proud of. He should have distinguished between the coup, which was not only justified but necessary, and the aftermath. In addition, I'm skeptical that we had any participation in the coup. We did support some of the resistance before the coup, as we damned well should have. The more I know about Powell, the less I like him.
What? You're not up for 17 years of military rule?
I gave you a serious, reasoned answer - unfortunately, your response is evasively unserious. Our respective assessments of the issue are clear enough for all here to make their own judgements.
I wish you well.
Because he had armed groups running around the country and the situation was quite fluid - they mass imprisoned most of the Communist footsoldiers for a few months, but they couldn't afford to have the Communist leadership cadres in the prisons.
Look how bad the situation is in Guantanamo with prisoner organization and behavior - and that prison is completely isolated from the mainland with plenty of staff and resources.
Ah, but he did. Plenty of CD personnel held positions of responsibility in the military government and the drafting of the 1980 constitution incorporated their input.
The situation was not fully in all the provincial capitals until mid-. Within two years of that date the new constitution was already being drafted.
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