Spitting on the dead dictator

WHEN GEN. Augusto Pinochet breathed his last on Dec. 10, this much seemed clear to everybody in Chile: The man who had lived his whole life and never paid for even one of his crimes had done it again. Once more — one final time — everybody in Chile thought that Pinochet had escaped judgment. Everybody, that is, except for a young man named Francisco Cuadrado Prats, who decided that some sort of punishment, no matter how symbolic, was merited. So he walked up to Pinochet's coffin and deliberately, calmly spat on the dictator's face as he lay there in full regalia.

By Ariel Dorfman

December 17, 2006