disinformation | augusto pinochet faces death

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augusto pinochet faces death
by Nick Mamatas (Laddertrick@gvny.com) - October 29, 2000

Perhaps the most ruthless dictator in the hemisphere during his reign, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is currently wheezing away his final days, and fighting extradition to Spain on charges of torture, terrorism and genocide.

Called "Britain's only political prisoner" by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the enfeebled Pinochet found himself back in Chile (March 2000). He may finally pay for decades of political repression. Chile has stripped him of prosecution immunity he arranged before surrendering military power as well. Spain and Chile may not get him; he can still face legal moves from France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg, if he doesn't die first.

Pinochet was not a just a strong man, he was a strongman. In 1970, Chile elected Salvador Allende, a left-wing social democrat with strong Marxist leanings to the presidency, over the objections of the Chilean business community, the CIA and the United States.

Allende had been in the crosshairs for years: during the 1964 election, the United States funneled US$20 million into the right-wing Christian Democrats' war chest. By 1970, inflation and a conservative forces split allowed Allende to eke out a victory (36.6% of the vote). Attempting to halt raw materials extraction from Chile and their subsequent sale back at inflated prices, Allende nationalized industries and took back mineral rights. US-owned Anaconda and Kennecott Copper lost their ability to suck out minerals and profits from Chile. Sanctions followed, Allende had to appeal to the angry middle classes to complete the transition to socialism. A split from the left wanted to create a movement from below, which would render capitalist development moot by seizing total social (rather than state) control of the country's assets.

International capital called in its big guns. On September 11th, 1973, a brutal coup overthrew the government. Allende himself died fighting. Pinochet assumed power, though many observers could see the hand of international capital and US geopolitical interests pulling the strings.

Within months, 30,000 supporters of Allende's Popular Unity coalition were dead. Football stadiums were stuffed with prisoners who were systematically tortured with car batteries to the testicles, beatings, shootings and exhaustion and starvation. Many more simply disappeared in the manner typical of Latin American union leaders, peasants and workers when they become inconvenient to the global economy's need for cheap raw materials.

The United States came to the rescue: unfortunately, not to the Chilean people, but of the free market. After the opposition was liquidated and the Constitution abolished, there was the golden opportunity to write a new one.

Pinochet whistled for the "Chicago Boys," a group of economists from the University Of Chicago, and set about making a new society based on free market principles. Land and capital was returned to the ruling elite; the money supply was tightened to reduce inflation and increase the power of the rich.

The economics of extraction began apace - most Chileans found their standard of living evaporating even as the local elite and multinational corporations prospered. Political repression continued - Pinochet's death squads operated in Chile during the 1980s.

In 1988, Pinochet lost a plebiscite and agreed to step down. He did retain Army control even after democracy was restored in 1990, and declared himself "Senator For Life" in 1998, so that he would not have to face trial for his crimes.

On October 16th 1998 during a visit to Britain, Pinochet was arrested and held for potential extradition to Spain, which had filed charges against him.

One by one, the hurdles are falling. The UK ruled that he could be extradited. Chilean military has promised to investigate the final fate of the disappeared. Pinochet supporters claim he is senile and so ill that the stress of a trial could be "potentially fatal." One would certainly hope so.

Chile: Rules Of Law, Rules Of Business
A site for the dot.com millionaires-on-paper out there. Apparently, two decades of brutal dictatorship is just great for business and for the rule of law. Hurray for Pinochet! Better start drawing up my death lists, if I want to make my mortgage payment next month.

Free Markets In Chile
An occasionally insightful reprint from 1982, when the Chilean economy hit the reef of reality once again. Written from a right-libertarian point of view, this piece is still honest enough to take Pinochet's torture state seriously, rather than simply insisting that the repression was "communist propaganda." The author's belief in "God given" natural rights is almost quaint, but his main complaint about Chile' seems to be that the Chicago boys were monetarists rather than proponents of the even more extreme Austrian school of economics. Worth a skim.

Amnesty International Pinochet Case
A set of Amnesty International press releases, concentrating on the attempt of a Spanish court to extradite Pinochet from the UK and try him. Outdated, given recent developments, but still a good reverse-timeline of events.

Allende's Chile, 1972
A primer on Allende's Chile and the coup that brought it down. This page is part of a class assignment, and students are supposed to read through the material and come to a peaceful solution, one that would make both the leftists and the people who killed all the leftists happy. Well, that will be useful one day. Probably right after the next coup.

Totalicapitalism Was Black Book
I love email with footnotes and a bibliography. Unlike many Internet consumers, some politically-minded emailers can actually sustain and support an argument, as Jeffrey L. Beatty does here. Some of the left libertarians who rightly despise Big Government and its attendant Big Massacres can't quite come to terms with their fact that their economist heroes sullied their hands with torture, murder and social engineering. Extensive quotes from historians demonstrate the difference between wishful thinking and cold facts.

Social Absurdity
The US government, in both Republican and Democratic variations, now supports the privatization of Social Security, as a matter of economic principle (or economic religious belief). They dusted off Jos� Pi�era, Pinochet's former Minister of Labor to make the magic happen. Pi�era was responsible for privatizing the pensions of most Chilean workers, and had the help of Pinochet's guns and death squads to make sure it happened. The military and the special "security forces" that terrorized the population, however, were generously allowed to retain their government-backed retirement plans.

Chile, A Quarter Century On
An excellent article hidden in the freakish dungeon of Geocities.com. This article examines the economics of the Pinochet regime, and the phony claims of economic liberty. Pinochet sold off Chile's future to avoid paying his own taxes, while keeping some of the copper industry nationalized, because the Chicago School plan just wouldn't work, even with the fuel provided by all the corpses the regime supplied. Even more interesting is the examination of social classes in Chile since the end of the Pinochet era.

Chile, Capitalism And liberty For The Rich
Questions and answers from anarchist Iain MacSaorsa. The right still upholds the Chilean experience as proof that economic liberty creates political liberty. After all, Pinochet smashed all political liberty, but introduced economic liberty, and then stepped down from power after his mission as accomplished. His liberty rang rather hollow to the tens of thousands who were directly murdered by the state, and the thousands more who were brought to near starvation conditions thanks to "freedom."

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