Augusto Pinochet, 91, Chilean Dictator
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Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile who died yesterday aged 91, saved his country from communism and created the most successful economy in Latin America; he was also responsible, however, for the widespread torture and murder of his political enemies.
Any judgment of Pinochet must take account of the rule of his predecessor, President Salvador Allende, who in 1970 had become the first Communist in the world to win power in a democratic election. Allende’s program of nationalizing the means of production, and expropriating foreign-owned industries, banks, corporations and estates, brought economic chaos.
Inevitably, such a government did not appeal to the Americans, who sought through economic and other means to undermine the Chilean government. According to Pinochet’s supporters, the only way to prevent Chile from becoming another Cuba was to engineer a coup. Shortly after Allende appointed him commander in chief of the armed forces in August of 1973, Pinochet struck. While the navy seized the port of Valparaiso, the presidential palace at La Moneda was ringed with tanks and bombed by the air force. Allende was later found dead, clutching a submachine gun that had been given him by Fidel Castro. It was not clear whether he had died fighting or had committed suicide. By the end of the day Pinochet was in command of Chile.
He dissolved the National Congress, imposed censorship, outlawed Marxist parties, purged universities and abolished trades unions. Hundreds of suspected political opponents were herded into the national football stadium; many were tortured; many were killed, some by a traveling hit squad known as the “Caravan of Death.” Detention camps sprang up throughout Chile.
Though the atrocities were at their worst in the first three years of Pinochet’s rule, sporadic killings went on into the late 1980s. It has been estimated that more than 3,000 perished, though the number of los desaparecidos — “the disappeared” — will never be accurately known.
The only real argument – not justification – for Pinochet is that he presided over an economic miracle in Chile. He inherited triple-digit inflation, and left an economy that served as a model to enthusiasts of the free market.
He returned expropriated property and promised compensation to the American companies for the copper mines which had been seized. Then, advised by “the Chicago Boys”, Chilean disciples of the American economist Milton Friedman, he slashed spending, privatized public enterprises, provided generous incentives for foreign investors, deregulated the banks, lowered trade barriers and promoted exports.
Over the next two decades Chile achieved a growth rate three times greater than the average for South America. Economic achievements were leavened by growing inequality, but there was a 95 % literacy rate, low infant mortality and an average life expectancy of 74 years.
Pinochet was not only an extraordinarily successful dictator; he was also one of the very few to surrender power at the behest of the electorate. The Constitution of 1980 gave him an eightyear term as president; and in 1988 he held a referendum in the confident expectation that his tenure would be extended for another eight years.
This time, he was surprised by a coalition of 16 parties that garnered 53 % of the vote. Grudgingly, but peacefully, Pinochet handed over power in 1990 to a democratic government. Yet until 1998 he remained commander in chief of the army, and he named his own successor.
As a senator for life, Pinochet commanded a majority capable of holding off those who sought vengeance.
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was born in Valparaiso on November 25, 1915, the eldest of six children. Their father was a customs agent, whose ancestors had arrived from Brittany during the 18th century. Having graduated the military academy as a lieutenant at 18, it took him 20 more years to reach the rank of major. He was appointed adjutant at the under-secretariat of war, and lecturer at the War College, and served briefly as military attache at the Chilean Embassy in Washington. Beginning in 1968, he published books on South American geography and the Pacific War of 1879.
Pinochet’s elevation in 1973 to commander in chief caused some surprise, not least to his wife, who was convinced that he was joking when he told her the news. Subsequently she learned, like Pinochet himself, to discern the hand of providence.
In fact, Pinochet had been secretly preparing for the coup for at least a year, keeping even his wife in the dark. On September 5, 1973 he held secret talks with the heads of each branch of the armed forces; on September 9 they all committed themselves to the coup.
The measures which Pinochet took to destroy the Communist opposition proved too much even for the United States, which suspended military aid in 1976. Relations were further soured when, later that year, Allende’s Foreign Secretary Orlando Letelier, and his American secretary Ronnie Moffit, were killed by a car bomb in Washington.
The advent of Jimmy Carter as American president in 1977 brought him under increased pressure to change his ways and hold elections. But Pinochet remained unimpressed.
The Roman Catholic Church in Chile, however, stood forth as the champion of the thousands of families who had lost members after the dictator’s advent to power. When Pope John Paul II visited Chile in 1987, he was given an album containing photographs of 758 people who had disappeared after the coup of 1973.
For some years after his fall, Pinochet continued to take a robust view of the excesses of his regime. Faced with evidence of a mass execution, with the victims huddled together in a pit, he observed, according to one report: “Whoever buried them served the Fatherland well, by saving money on nails.”
In 1998, he traveled to Britain for an operation, and was arrested, to be tried for human rights violations. But his lawyers convinced the government that Pinochet’s health difficulties were too severe for him to be tried.
Pinochet returned to Chile, where he was joyously received by his supporters but later questioned by prosecutors.
Pinochet doggedly refused to acknowledge guilt. He had a series setbacks to his health, and further indictments; within the last two weeks he was hospitalized with heart problems.