Chilean Leaders Hope Pinochet Will Fade Away

If former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet wins his release this week from the gilded captivity of an exclusive clinic in London, he may return home to suffer more than the humiliation of having faced justice, however fleetingly, for the crimes of his regime.

In Chile, despite the government’s effort to protect him from extradition to Spain, his arrest by the British 24 days ago appears to have irrevocably changed the political arena in which Pinochet, 82, had staked out an untouchable position as senator-for-life.

There is a growing consensus among Chilean leaders that the time has come for the ailing, aging former tyrant to fade out of politics. Just a month ago, that suggestion would have been unthinkable.

Even some Pinochet partisans want him to lower his profile and make conciliatory gestures about the atrocities of his 17-year reign.

“This incident has created a new national scenario,” Pedro Daza, a National Renovation party leader who served as Pinochet’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview Saturday. “To reach a new political accord for the future, we need everyone’s cooperation, including that of Gen. Pinochet. It would be important that his role diminish, though that is not an ultimatum but rather would depend on a decision by Gen. Pinochet himself.”

And top officials of the center-left government have declared recently that Pinochet would speed a painful transition to democracy by bowing out.

“Sen. Pinochet would do a great service to the nation by distancing himself from future political activity,” said Interior Minister Raul Troncoso. “We don’t intend for him to resign from the Senate. . . . But we expect different personal conduct and for him to lower his political profile.”

The government has not wavered in its criticism of Spanish leaders, who decided Friday to forward to Britain the judge’s extradition request. But the new and frank conversation about Pinochet’s future shows how profoundly this episode has shaken Chilean politics, heralding the end of an era. In that sense, the impact has been healthy because it has forced the democracy to confront its weaknesses and reexamine unspoken pacts that now seem untenable.

Chile remains divided, though. All attention centers on the appeal to the House of Lords of a British court decision that Pinochet’s status as a former head of state makes him immune from prosecution.

Today, a judicial panel of the House of Lords is expected to hear arguments from Pinochet’s lawyers. The panel could rule as early as midweek on whether to hold him pending extradition or set him free.

Although the legal and political conservatism of the House of Lords makes the latter decision more likely, last week’s proceedings deepened the worries of the Chilean right. By consenting to consider testimony on human rights violations from attorneys acting on behalf of Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, the British panel broadened the scope of the hearing more than was expected.

“This is what has begun to create a sensation of doubt over the verdict,” said Daza, who recently was in London consulting with Pinochet’s defense team.

Pinochet Says He Feels Betrayed

In his first statement since his arrest, Pinochet complained over the weekend that he felt betrayed by Britain, said he would fight the extradition and asserted that the incident has interfered with Chile’s political healing.

“In Chile, as in any other place, recrimination is the enemy of reconciliation,” Pinochet said in the written statement, which was prepared by a public relations agency and published in the Sunday Times of London. “My friends and countrymen have reconciled themselves with the past. They are my true judges.”

Pinochet’s many critics here see Judge Garzon and other Spanish authorities as heroes. But rightist leaders have called on President Eduardo Frei to consider breaking diplomatic relations with Spain and to convene the military-dominated National Security Council.

“This is the most grave and serious problem to affect the nation’s sovereignty and dignity in this century,” said Sen. Andres Chadwick. Chadwick condemned legislators Juan Pablo Letelier and Isabel Allende of the Socialist party for going to London last week in a show of support for the Spanish investigation of murders and other crimes.

Letelier’s father, Orlando, was a Chilean exile leader assassinated in Washington, D.C., in 1976 by Chilean spies. Allende is the daughter of President Salvador Allende, who committed suicide during the 1973 military coup when air force planes bombed the presidential palace.

Both legislators are living symbols of the repression, and, at an emotional news conference in London, both recounted their families’ ordeals. They were joined by survivors of Pinochet’s concentration camps, who described vicious torture by soldiers using electric shocks and specially trained dogs.

As for the potential convening of the National Security Council, a move that Chile’s armed forces chiefs discussed Friday, it would have mostly symbolic value. For all its militarism, Chile has not fought a war since the 19th century; no one is considering a commando attack on the psychiatric hospital where the ex-tyrant, described as silent and morose, awaits a ruling that could finally put him behind bars.

To send a diplomatic signal of its displeasure, the government has temporarily summoned its ambassador in Spain back to Chile for consultations. But Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Insulza made it clear Friday that he does not intend to break ties with Spain.

“Nations gain nothing by breaking diplomatic relations,” Insulza said. He described the Pinochet crisis as difficult but added, “I don’t think it is the worst problem we have confronted in the century.”

Insulza is one of the political heavyweights openly discussing the need to end the Pinochet era, regardless of what happens next. Insulza told journalists recently that Pinochet’s retirement in March as commander in chief of the army came nine years too late, thereby impeding the nation’s transition to democracy. If Pinochet returns to Chile, the foreign minister said, he should stay out of politics.

“This is a political theme that has divided people, that has exalted passions and should have been resolved with his retirement in 1989,” Insulza said. “Since we already lost nine years, perhaps this is the moment to begin so that we don’t lose the next nine.”

Insulza is walking a political tightrope that is emblematic of the government’s predicament. The foreign minister, a Socialist, endured a harsh exile during the dictatorship--like many of his fellow leaders of today’s democracy--and he makes no pretense of admiring Pinochet.

But Insulza’s diplomatic offensive on behalf of the ex-dictator has won the respect of rivals. Citing the government’s attitude, even Joaquin Lavin, presidential candidate of the hard-right Independent Democratic Union party, suggested last week that Pinochet should make a comparable “gesture of greatness.” In the cautious codes of Chilean political discourse, the word “gesture” speaks volumes. For many, it refers to the need for a long-overdue apology for the campaign of terror that claimed at least 3,000 lives.

Some Still Hope for Apology

In a carefully reasoned article last week, Sen. Edgardo Boeninger recalled the example of Gen. Martin Balza, the Argentine army commander who was praised throughout South America when he apologized several years ago for the horrors of Argentina’s military regime.

Boeninger, an eminent Christian Democrat, urged the unrepentant Pinochet to follow suit. He wrote: “Let us hope his mind--guided by his conscience and his heart--is illuminated in the near future.”

Such careful language would have sounded revolutionary not long ago. In September, Pinochet looked positively gleeful on the Senate floor, casting a key vote and negotiating with longtime rivals.

Now, there is renewed talk of trying him in Chile, though his parliamentary immunity is a major obstacle. A more likely scenario is the formation of a proposed South African-style truth commission intended to bring closure to the unresolved traumas of the past.

For the moment, a special magistrate investigating 11 criminal suits filed against Pinochet here for murders during his regime said last week that he hopes Pinochet will “act with humanitarian spirit” if called to testify about the fate of the victims who have never been found.