Pinochet's Indictment

The Dawn, Pakistan

January 21, 2005

By Fawzia Naqvi

September 11, 1973, is forever etched in the minds of Chileans and freedom-loving people around the world as a day of infamy. But victims of General Augusto Pinochet are finally getting justice after 31 years of waiting.

On December 13, 2004 the former military dictator was indicted by Judge Juan Guzman for human rights abuses during his 17-year rule. Now 89, Pinochet was stripped of immunity by the Supreme Court and judged fit to stand trial.

The indictment specifies Pinochet's role in the disappearance of nine opposition activists and the killing of one of them. The Chilean congress also unanimously passed a bill granting compensation to 28,000 former political prisoners who were victims of torture under the Pinochet dictatorship.

Pinochet unleashed one of the most brutal dictatorships in modern history when he overthrew Chile's popularly elected President Salvador Allende in a US sanctioned military coup. The US quickly embraced him as one of its most loyal friends in the war on communism. Thousands were murdered, detained or disappeared; most were tortured in 1,131 detention centres all over Chile.

Chile is still trying to free itself from the stranglehold of the Pinochet era when constitutional amendments gave draconian supremacy to the armed forces over civil institutions. A National Security Council superseded civilian authority, anointing itself "guarantor of institutionality."

General Pinochet performed a lead role in Operation Condor - a conspiracy by six South American regimes in the 1970s to kill left-wing opponents. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay conspired to assassinate each other's political opponents. Scores were hunted down, kidnapped, tortured and murdered.

"The Disappeared" became a Latin American expression signifying political activists kidnapped and never found. In Chile alone they number close to 1,000. It is now believed that 500 of the disappeared were tied to steel rails and dumped into the sea from army helicopters.

The Spanish magistrate Judge Balthazar Garzon fired the first shot across the bow in 1998, when on behalf of a Spanish victim he filed an arrest warrant for Pinochet in Britain.

The UK was forced to detain Pinochet for 15 months. Then deemed unfit to stand trial he returned to Chile. Margaret Thatcher, his most fervent fan, could do little to help the general.

Judge Garzon also set his sight on Henry Kissinger who is widely believed to have blessed the coup against Allende and subsequently Operation Condor. Thanks to Garzon, Mr Kissinger is now one of many officials around the world needing special travel advisories by lawyers.

With a Pinochet trial impending, it remains to be seen how far Chile's jurisdiction will extend. However, much more light is likely to be shed on the fundamental role of the US in bolstering repressive regimes and thwarting democracy throughout Latin America during the Cold War.

Few nations have voluntarily dared to embark on a truth and reconciliation journey. South Asia warrants at least three significant investigations for war crimes committed by dictatorships and democracies alike:

Pakistan, for the Pakistan Army's war crimes in East Pakistan; India, for the Indian armed forces' war crimes in Kashmir - with the involvement of Pakistan in perpetuating the suffering of Kashmiri civilians, and Sri Lanka, for the Sri Lankan armed forces' war crimes against the Tamil population in the North Eastern provinces - with the overt military support of both India and Pakistan in that bloody civil war which has claimed upwards of 60,000 lives.

The tipping point for Sri Lanka happened in July 1983 when murderous Sinhalese mobs hunted down and killed at least 3,000 Tamils and forced 150,000 to become homeless refugees. The lynch mobs were spurred on by powerful politicians and even radio announcers, reminiscent of the Rwanda massacres.

The 1983 pogrom fuelled a nascent Tamil insurgency finally giving unrivalled legitimacy to the LTTE, now one of the most virulent, autocratic and deadly rebel movements.

Twenty years later, with a multitude of suicide bombings and assassinations of detractors, it is difficult to discern who has more blood on their hands, the LTTE or the Sri Lankan Army.

But what is unambiguous is that in the '80s and '90s the Sri Lankan state unleashed a scorched earth operation, killing, maiming and terrorizing thousands of unarmed Tamil civilians in the north eastern part of that country.

In 1986 at the behest of Sri Lanka's government, the Indian army occupied the north eastern provinces and fought the LTTE. The Indian army committed atrocious human rights violations against Tamil civilians, including countless rapes. A future Sri Lankan war crimes tribunal could summon Indian commanding officers who served in this failed campaign.

For their future generations, Sri Lankans like the Chileans will need to truthfully reconcile with their tragic past if the wounds are to be healed and a just and lasting peace is to hold.

And war crimes and human rights atonements are pre-requisites if South Asia is to make any meaningful progress toward an enlightened, peaceful and prosperous region. The world awaits further news from Chile of potentially historical and far reaching human rights precedents.