Ex-Dictator Stirs Up Chileans Anew

Political controversy flared anew around Gen. Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday as Chilean leaders condemned the arrest of a leftist leader whom the former Chilean dictator accuses of defaming him.

Gladys Marin, secretary-general of the Communist Party, was being held in a women’s prison in the Chilean capital, Santiago, after repeating her statements that Pinochet is a “psychopath and blackmailer” responsible for murders and torture during his 17-year reign.

Marin’s husband was among more than 3,000 people who, according to a government investigative commission, were killed by security forces after Pinochet’s military coup in 1973.

Pinochet and his supporters say he fought an unavoidably violent war that saved the nation from leftist extremists.

Four carloads of plainclothes police agents arrested Marin on Tuesday on a busy boulevard. She is charged with defaming the commander of the armed forces, a post that Pinochet retains seven years after Chile’s return to democratic rule.

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Critics called the arrest of Marin, 55, a calculated display of strength by Pinochet showing that Chile’s transition to democracy is incomplete. They said the aggressive police operation--the agents surrounded Marin’s car--was unjustified and that it recalled the secret police of the dictatorship.

“The world has been turned upside down,” said Sen. Sergio Bitar, a leader of the ruling center-left coalition who visited Marin in prison Wednesday. “The person who says there were crimes during the dictatorship is charged. And many of the people who committed the crimes still walk the streets.”

Pinochet, 80, wields considerable influence through his appointees in the judiciary and eight of the 40 Senate seats.

His regime passed laws that shield the military from human rights prosecutions and prevent the removal of top commanders by the president. The government of President Eduardo Frei is trying to change those laws.

Leaders of all four governing parties expressed support for Marin and the small Communist Party, which garnered about 6% of the vote in municipal elections Sunday.

Marin criticized Pinochet at a memorial Sept. 11, the 23rd anniversary of the coup that toppled President Salvador Allende and unleashed a campaign of torture, kidnapping and assassination that spilled over into other nations, including the U.S.

Marin accused Pinochet of “the principal responsibility for state terrorism, for crimes against humanity,” according to press reports. Pinochet retaliated by suing for defamation, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years. As a protest gesture, Marin declined to post bail.

This is the third recent case in which the former dictator has filed charges against political leaders who criticized him. One case was dismissed, and another has yet to be resolved.