Give Chile Room on Pinochet, Albright Says

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, reflecting divisions within the Clinton administration, Monday recommended that other nations respect Chile’s demand that Britain not extradite former dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain. But she did not support the demand outright.

“I’m not in the business of giving advice on this,” Albright said when asked what she had advised the British. “I think we’re not prepared to make a statement about the merits of the case.”

While the United States supports bringing criminals to justice, she said, “I think we believe that in Chile the citizens of a democratic state are wrestling with a very difficult problem of how to balance the needs of justice with the requirements of reconciliation, and I think significant respect should be given to their conclusions.”

Albright’s comments represent a change in the Clinton administration’s persistent attempt to keep its distance from the case. But they did not dispel the view that the administration appears riven by an internal debate over how to deal with the many snares and ironies presented by the Pinochet issue.

While Albright’s words will probably be viewed favorably in Chile, they will disappoint critics, especially at lower levels of the State and Justice departments, who regarded the administration’s noncommittal stance as “too mum or too coy,” in the words of one official.

Critics would like the United States to release whatever intelligence it has that might strengthen the case for Britain to extradite Pinochet to Spain for a trial on charges of genocide and torture during his 17-year rule.

The 83-year-old Pinochet, recovering from back surgery, has been under police guard in a London hospital since Oct. 16, when he was arrested under an extradition request issued by Judge Baltasar Garzon. The Spanish magistrate accused Pinochet of crimes against humanity, including the murder of Spanish citizens.

In a surprise decision last week, Britain’s highest court ruled that Pinochet lost his immunity from extradition when he stepped down as chief of state in March 1990.

The issue of whether to extradite Pinochet is now in the hands of Home Secretary Jack Straw, who must make up his mind by Dec. 11.

The Pinochet case abounds with irony. It could, for example, temper the Clinton administration’s long-standing opposition to creation of an international criminal court. The United States joined states such as Iraq and Libya in voting against the treaty creating the court when it was adopted by a vote of 120 to 7 in Rome last July.

The administration was motivated by fear that its creation could lead to arrests of American soldiers and officials on unfair charges whenever anyone persuaded the court to issue a warrant against them.

But the Pinochet case indicates that the United States might be better off with an orderly international court than a system in which magistrates throughout the world might file warrants against various people, including Americans.

“The international criminal court presents an opportunity for a single system that is more predictable, more fair and more protective of everyone’s rights,” Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in an interview.

Critics who want U.S. action against Pinochet usually cite his possible involvement in the murder of Chilean exile leader Orlando Letelier and his American assistant, Ronni Moffit, in Washington in 1976. The FBI accused the Chilean secret police of planting a bomb in their car.

An internal administration debate about Pinochet surfaced in early November when Justice Department spokesman John Russell told a reporter that the department was considering the possibility of trying to extradite Pinochet to the United States for the murder of Letelier, Moffit and two Americans killed in Chile.

“There have been discussions here at a very high level, and we are discussing extradition to the United States as a backup if Pinochet gets immunity in London,” Russell said.

The State Department and the office of the White House national security advisor swiftly objected to Russell’s comments, and the Justice Department issued a retraction, saying no high-level discussions had taken place.

It was clear, however, that some kind of debate over Pinochet was in progress.

Even without possible extradition to the United States, critics of the administration’s policy believe that the U.S. government could supply more information to bolster the case against Pinochet.

“The government can disgorge itself of a great deal of information that the CIA and the National Security Agency have about the murders of Letelier and Moffit,” said Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, where both Letelier and Moffit worked.

In London on Monday, the Foreign Office denied a press report that Albright had urged British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook to return Pinochet to Chile.

Chilean Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza wound up a four-day visit to Britain in which he tried to persuade British officials that Pinochet could be tried on the charges in Chile rather than Spain. He then flew to Madrid to discuss the case.

The London hospital where Pinochet is being held under police guard said Monday that he no longer needs special medical care and should quickly find another place to stay.

Staff writers Marjorie Miller in London and Norman Kempster and Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this report.