...but right wingers in Poland, including many in the present government, will not be too happy about the demise of ‘our bastard’.
When Pinochet was arrested in London for human rights violations during a trip in 1998 to see old British buddies like Margaret Thatcher, Marek Jurek – the current Speaker of the Polish parliament - and other rightist MPs, sent a letter of protest to the British government demanding Pinochet be set free.
A group of right wing journalists from the now defunct Zycie newspaper (who have political links with the present Polish government) went to England to give support to the man who ‘battled against communism’.
Aleksander Kropiwnicki of Zycie wrote at the time:
"The decision to detain Pinochet was political. The independence of the judiciary branch--a cornerstone of democracy in this supposedly most law-abiding country in Europe and possibly in the world--suffered a heavy blow."
Tomasz Wolek, the then Editor-in-Chief of Zycie, wrote breathlessly:
"He was the first person in the second half of the 20th century brave enough to put an effective stop to worldwide communist expansion. He saved not only his own country, but all of Latin America,"
In the end, they got their way, and Pinochet was allowed to go home - though only to face trial there (which is where he should have been judged, of course). But the Zycie journalists and conservative POlish politicians were simply following the old Cold War logic that, ‘Maybe he is a bastard, but at least he is our bastard’.
That kind of attitude was rife on both sides during the Cold War and led to Washington and London’s support of various tyrants – Saddam Hussein included – who could do their bidding in regional hotspots around the world. The Cold War, most of the time, was a war fought by proxy, through and between these dictators.
Well, Pinochet looks like he will never be prosecuted in Chile, as his illness will kill him before a judge has a chance to charge him. And in this post-cold war world few tears should be wasted on that.
29 comments:
While I would certainly like to see Pinochet prosecuted, and although I will not mourn his passing, I won't tee-hee his heart attack either or take any glee that his arrest occasioned it.
at least 3,000 people
That's right. At least you were honest enough to admit that the total number of Pinochet's victims (in 17 years of dictatorial rule) amounted to a weekly casualty figure during the first decade of the Cuban revolution, and a DAILY casualty figure during the brief Khmer Rouge reign, a hard-line Communist regime.
And yet, people in the West are obsessed with Pinochet and his 3,000 hard-line Communist victims, while not caring at all about Pol Pot and his victims. And the fact that Chile is now the most prosperous country in Latin America (coincidence ?) is ignored as well.
Kill millions of innocent people and you're a communist hero. Kill 3,000 future Communist tyrants and you're a Devil....
Well, he isn't a devil in my book. I believe his victims were evil people. I believe they wanted to destroy freedom. I am glad he succeeded. And many Chilean people, who live in prosperity, while the Cubans are living in misery, are glad too...
I wrote more extensively on Pinochet on my blog
Geezer: I am very impressed by your compassion for tyrants and thugs. Iz that coz you iz cafolik?
Sonia – sorry, 3,000 was a typo – it should read ‘at least 30,000’ of course. I have changed the text and added link to the Chilean army’s admission of such.
Beatroot,
Quote from YOUR source:
30,000 Chilean leftists were tortured, assassinated or simply disappeared.
At least 3,000 are accepted to have died.
You didn't have to change it. All sources agree that only 3,000 actually DIED...
My original sentence read that Pino was responsible for the murder, torture and disappearance of at least 3,000 people”
That was not correct. It should have read that he was responsible for the death, torture and disappearance of 30,000. That doesn't include of course all the people he disenfranchized when he staged the coup...
I heard he got last rights from the priest in hospital. I don’t suppose that acts as a guarantee he still won’t go to hell?
Well, yes, I am Catholic and against torture and the death penalty even against torturers and murderers.
And why am I not surprised that Sonia is so supportive of a guy who would have thrown her and her bare ass in the slammer?
As far as last rites go, there soitenly ain't no guarantee.
BTW, I'm a westerner and a lefty of sorts and care about the victims of Pol Pot, et al. I just don't think that it takes fascism to wage resistence against them and their ilk.
Sonia's problem is that she has Electra Complex. Adorno's 'Authoritarian Personality'and all that...
I just don't think that it takes fascism to wage resistence against them and their ilk…
But that’s the way they used to think. These days, now the cold war is over, it gets a little more difficult in this age of ‘humanitarian intervention’. But it still doesn’t stop them propping up appalling regimes. Like in Saudi Arabia. I heard President Carter on CNN today saying that US should sit down and talk with all the ‘moderate regimes’ in the middle east. One of those ‘moderate regimes’ was the Saudis!
When is a medieval, sexual apartheid monarchy ‘moderate’? When it’s OUR medieval, sexual apartheid monarchy…
Beatroot you got it wrong!
Pinochet had done a great service for his country and Latin America; the people of Chile owe their country’s position of stability and economic success to his courage. The media’s leftist bias was clearly on full display with the shameful double standard applied to him. Yes he was a dictator with the death 3000 people on his hands but what was the alternative? In the league of murdering dictators this guy wouldn’t even get honourable mention. Castro would but then don’t expect that in the media.
Allende called himself a Marxist, that’s polite parlour talk for a communist. He had connections to east block security services going back to 1950. Every indication from his program and actions pointed to the implementation of a communist state not some Latin American version of Sweden’s social democracy. The pattern of history with communist take over is almost always similar, had Allende survived Chile faced a desperate future. It would have faced a situation of hundreds of thousands dead and similar numbers living a bleak existence in refugee camps through out South America. After the mess was over the Chileans would have needed fifty years to restore civil society.
We don’t chastise the surgeon for the bloody mess created in the process of removing a cancerous lesion from the body; lets apply some common sense here.
If Allende was actually Marxist, there would have probably been a different scenario, and Pinochet would not be heard of.
Again Sonia set the bar high, he killed less than Pol Pot.
I dunno know what media Jan is talkin' 'bout, but growing up in the goodle US of A, I learned that Castro was purt near the devil incarnate. Nasty. Beard and cigar. Green fatigues. Combat boots. No suit and tie. Kids under their desks coz o' him and that Kruski guy. I was one of those kids shitting in my pants. Yea, the media glossed over all his bad points.
And Jan must answer ren's question: If Allende was the evil murderer he claims, why didn't he do in Pinochet???
Historians and the media have failed to recognize Pinochet’s importance for what he prevented from happening, which is the bigger story. Methodology and motives notwithstanding he saved Chile.
Ren and geez: in answer to your question on “If Allende was the evil murderer he claims, why didn't he do in Pinochet??? “
Allende didn’t see a danger, firstly Chilean military officers had been well known for staying out of politics a rarity in South America, secondly he knew Pinochet on a personal level. The personal level was that they were lodge brothers at the same Masonic hall. When the General Pratt resigned (for some public and outrageous conduct – road rage) Allende felt Pinochet was a safe bet and promoted him to the top military post.
The economic and social conditions had reached such a point the military was going to make a move. The lower house had passed a motion calling on the forceful removal of the Allende government a month before the coup; the Supreme Court had condemned the government for lawlessness. The legislative and executive branches of government were in all out conflict with each other. The citizens were facing an inflation rate of over a 140%.
So in rides Augusto on his white horse.
So he wasn't like Stalin et. al. who anticipated and saw danger everywhere and acted accordingly as only commies would? Certainly, if Allende was the murderous shit you insist he was, he would have acted at least as soon as things started to turn so obviously sour. And you'd think his crack eastern block security service operatives -- "going back to 1950s" would have been of more help. Then again, maybe Allende believed in democracy -- something that seems to be happening in more and more South American countries thanks tuh dubya's debacle in Iraq.
Geez said: “Then again, maybe Allende believed in democracy”
As you seem to feel that Mr. Allende was committed to democracy lets look at his KGB file:
According to the Mitrokhin Archives of KGB files, Allende had been codenamed "LEADER" as a KGB contact, had been supplying the Soviet Union with information since the 1950s, and had received $30,000 from the Soviets for "solidifying trusted relations" and providing "valuable information". KGB archives record that Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, its case officer in Chile, was instructed by headquarters to "exert a favourable influence on Chilean government policy," and that Allende "was made to understand the necessity of reorganizing Chile's army and intelligence services, and of setting up a relationship between Chile’s and the USSR’s intelligence services."
"Kuznetsov arranged his regular meetings with Allende through the President’s personal secretary, Miria Contreras Bell, known as La Payita and codenamed Marta by the KGB. La Payita was Allende’s favourite mistress during his presidency. Kuznetsov reported that Allende was spending 'a great deal of time' in her company. 'His relationship with his wife has more than once been harmed as a result.' Despite Allende’s affairs, however, his wife, Hortensia, remained intensely loyal to him. Kuznetsov did his best to cultivate her as well as her husband." (The Times extract from the Mitrokhin Archive volume II, by Mitrokhin and historian Christopher Andrew)[7].
The legislative and judicial branches of government in Chile had had enough of Mr. Allende’s concept of democracy. The following was what the Lower House and Supreme Court took issue with:
"violations of the Constitution" into "a permanent system of conduct." Many of the charges came down to disregarding the separation of powers and arrogating the prerogatives of both the legislature and judiciary within the executive.
Among other particulars, the regime was accused of:
ruling by decree, thus thwarting the normal system of adopting legislation
refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its own partisans and "not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravene its objectives"
ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office
various offenses related to the media, including usurping control of the National Television Network and "applying ... economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government..."
allowing its supporters to assemble even when armed, while preventing legal assembly by its opponents
"...supporting more than 1,500 illegal 'takings' of farms..."
illegal repression of the El Teniente strike
illegally limiting emigration
The resolution finally condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups.
It seems Mr. Allende's romance with democracy ended right after he got elected. So is your defence of Allende based on him being an inept commie?
First of all, I don't care if he may have had an affair. And if he did with a KGB agent, why wasn't that in the file? Why folks like you seem so obsessed by hints of sexual liaisons is odious especially given the likes of Newt Gingrich who had an affair with a woman while his wife was on her deathbed. I won't even delve into the Foley scandal. Politicians are human beings. And Allende's wife remained wed despite knowing about her husband's relationship whatever it was. Like I said... odious.
As far as Allende supplying the Soviet Union information, I'm not surprised. Are you suggesting that the Soviet Union was controlling Allende? That his government, like those in Eastern Europe, was a mere sattelite puppet appatus for his Soviet masters? Then again, why didn't they, if they were in control, put the clamps down much earlier? Yet you blame the supposed puppet for being inept? Sorry. Silly.
As far as the legislative assault is concerned, do you suppose that some of that may have been engineered by Dr. Kissinger with funding from the US? Naw, the US wouldn't do something that sounds like Soviet meddling in the affairs of a foreign government -- not to mention what was done to the economy. And that decree.... funny, but it looks like something the new Democratic House and Senate should be issuing about the Bush junta in weeks to come -- only the particulars will be a bit different. Stay tuned!
Hilarious, just hilarious. Pinochet was a good guy because someone else might have been worse. Who knows, maybe the Czars would have killed more people than Lenin and Stalin.
There is no doubt that the extreme left being swept away by history into political irrelevance now exists in a state of emotional distress. With nothing to look forward to (or back to) except the ruins of a failed and disgraced ideology, left now to engage in pointless acts of political masturbation. In a sense this was not a political idea or logic but a religion, since religion absolves a practitioner thru the mechanism of faith to dismiss logic and reason. Now that God is dead emotional disarray prevails.
I for one say lets erect a statue to Pinochet in Warsaw for what in Poland would we call 3000 dead communists…………….a good start.
counterfactual said...
Hilarious, just hilarious. Pinochet was a good guy because someone else might have been worse. Who knows, maybe the Czars would have killed more people than Lenin and Stalin.
Perfect answer. Though I don't suppose Sonia, Jan Novak, and their ilk will get it. The political spectrum is a circle and they are trying to get so far from communism that...
The present day Chilean commission lookijg into Pinichet’s terror has heard testimonies about a detention centre known as "Venda Sexy" - or Sexy Blindfold.
"Men and women victims of sexual torture - we have received a lot of testaments of that kind of things.
"These kind of perversions are fairly common if you feel there is no limit on what you can do."
So what, Jan, would you like the monument in Warsaw to look like? Maybe a statue of a rapist?
Fighting communism by raping and torturing women cannot lead to a victory - only a defeat for humanity.
Beatroot said: "Men and women victims of sexual torture - we have received a lot of testaments of that kind of things.”
No ones arguing the fact that approximately 3000 were killed and thousands tortured. Torture is torture not withstanding the methodology.
The NKVD and UB employed this method of torture on a grand scale against Polish citizens from 1939 to around 1956. If you would like I can give you the standard procedure used by the UB in dealing with female captives.
Communism openly taught and operated on a basis of anything goes to get into power and hold on to it, a matter of historic fact.
Combating communism required proportional action carried out relentlessly and without mercy.
Back to the statue, I think a nice fountain each side of the statue could be tasteful.
The Pinochet statue in Warsaw is a great idea.
Poland is already on the way to becoming the Skansen of Europe, so why not go for it completely?
I suggest Pinochet's statue next to one of a duck taking off to the skies...
...no, how about a little statue of some electrodes on a pair of testicles?
Actually a good idea, we have a large statue of Pinochet with his hand out stretched holding Allende’s dismembered testicles and in the other hand the electrodes. At the base of the statue a button, when pressed an electrical charge arcs from the electrode to the testicles and they glow brightly for a few minutes.
And the French though the Eiffel tower was a tourist draw!
Need anybody else say more?
Need. Disgusting.
Actually, Poland wasn't the only group calling for his release. Thatcher also called for his release.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6167351.stm
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