The end of a long goodbye

Augusto Pinochet, the man who ruled Chile with a rod of iron for 17 years has finally passed away. I have to say that I don't share the sadness expressed by Margaret Thatcher nor will I ever be in sympathy with the throngs of weeping supporters who gathered in Santiago to bid farewell to their former tyrannt.

Even though some clueless Chileans persist in believing that he "saved Chile from communism" and "stopped Chile from becoming another Cuba", the reality of his legacy is somewhat at odds with their fawning admiration.

The US-backed miltary coup he fronted was, alongside the Suharto regime in Indonesia, one of the earlier examples of the use of military power and political repression to subvert the democratically expressed will of the electorate to suit the requirements of multinational corporations.

Far from saving Chile from anything, he oversaw the brutal murders of over three thousand people and the torture of countless others. He also threw open the doors to foreign exploitation of Chilean natural resources and labour. This same model has been used the world over to overturn democratically elected regimes, to denude countries of their natural resources and to pave the way for exploitation of their workers.

The polar opposite of the hero that a section of the Chilean population think him to be, the man was a traitor and should have paid for his treachery as soon as he was pushed out of power in 1990. Instead he lived on for a full 26 years after his junta was thrown out.

Never once the 26 years since the end of his dictatorship was he subjected to the due process of law. Quite to the contrary, this vile tyrannt was awarded the post of "senator for life" under the provisions of the 1980 constitution. He remained on as head of the armed forces until 1998. Chilean lawyer Hugo Gutierrez could not have put it better when he said that "This criminal has left this world without ever having been sentenced for any of his horrific criminal acts he committed during his dictatorship."

No olvídemos los desaparecidos!