Chilean Military Battles Ghosts of Pinochet Regime

The retired general smokes a pipe and has a jolly smile, but he’s a die-hard Chilean soldier--unrepentant about the past and angry about the present.

An old photo in Gen. Alejandro Medina’s office shows him wearing the black beret and holstered dagger of the elite paratroops he led during the coup by Augusto Pinochet in 1973. A photo from this year shows Medina with Pinochet, who looks pale and fragile in a white sweater, in the house outside London where the former dictator remains in custody.

A British judge will decide today whether to extradite Pinochet, 83, to Spain to face charges of torture carried out by his security forces during the final years of his regime. If that weren’t humiliating enough, Latin America’s most powerful military machine has suffered unprecedented attacks on the home front.

Last month, Chilean authorities arrested Gen. Humberto Gordon, once a member of the four-man military junta, in the 1982 murder of a union leader. Retired Gen. Sergio Arellano Stark faces trial for leading the “caravan of death,” a squad that allegedly roamed the provinces in a helicopter exterminating political prisoners in 1973.

In addition to the unprecedented arrests of at least 43 officers in the past year, investigators are closing in on dozens of uniformed suspects who had thought that they were shielded for life.

It has become clear that time and tranquillity did not absolve the Chilean armed forces of the deaths of at least 3,000 people and the torture and persecutions of tens of thousands more during Pinochet’s regime. His arrest last October began a catharsis that had been delayed but not denied.

“To what end does this lead?” demanded Medina, 68, who is the son and grandson of generals and an instructor at the National Academy of Strategic Studies, a military institute here. “You could have [thousands of troops] parading through the courts. . . . Peace and national unity, the great objective of Chileans, are being violently affected by situations that happened 25 years ago.”

Frustration, Fear in the Military

The prospect of graying battalions being hauled into court is unlikely. But the Chilean military is tasting the frustration and fear that its opponents experienced for years. A landmark decision in July by Chile’s Supreme Court weakened a Pinochet-era amnesty law by allowing judges to reopen cases of political prisoners who “disappeared” during the dictatorship and to treat the crimes as kidnappings-in-progress.

After Pinochet stepped down in 1990, his psychological and political bulk blocked a vital aspect of the transition to democracy: justice. Except for two secret-police chiefs convicted in the 1976 Washington assassination of an exile leader, the armed forces escaped the fate of neighboring Argentina’s repressive military, which democratic leaders scaled down aggressively after commanders were convicted by courts and condemned by the public.

“The military thought the human rights issue was an allergy that would go away eventually, but it turned out to be a tumor that kept getting worse,” said Pamela Pereira, a lawyer who is participating in a historic round table convened by the Defense Ministry to open a dialogue about the past.

In their latest meeting Tuesday, military officers and human rights advocates agreed to pursue two goals: determine the fates of scores who disappeared--who were probably buried in mass graves or dumped in the ocean or mountains--and discuss the historical circumstances that led to the ’73 military uprising.

The government praises Gen. Ricardo Izurieta, Pinochet’s successor as army chief, for agreeing to talks with longtime adversaries. It has not been a love fest; for example, Pereira refuses to shake hands with officers participating in the talks until they reveal information about the disappeared.

Nonetheless, an organization representing relatives of the victims has boycotted the dialogue. They suspect a two-pronged secret agenda: a deal to limit prosecutions with a new amnesty and a publicity ploy to convince British leaders that the infirm Pinochet will be held accountable at home if he is released.

“We have spent our lives fighting for truth and justice,” said Viviana Diaz, head of the victims group. “We will not renounce justice in exchange for truth. This round table is a means of trying to bring back Pinochet.”

Despite Izurieta’s reformist image, he has done nothing comparable to the historic gesture in 1995 by Lt. Gen. Martin Balza, the Argentine army chief who made a dramatic public apology for that nation’s “dirty war.”

In fact, Izurieta denies that the Pinochet regime had an institutionalized policy of human rights abuse, although he acknowledges individual “errors.” Izurieta has also expressed solidarity with jailed officers.

While the Argentine armed forces compounded their brutality by ruining the economy and provoking a disastrous war with Britain over the Falkland Islands, the Chilean armed forces see themselves as saviors. Military officers believe that they saved Chile from Communist chaos in 1973, modernized the nation and then showed discipline by obeying a 1989 referendum that reinstated civilian rule.

Therefore, the “military family,” as active and former officers call themselves, regards the arrests of Pinochet and his generals as a betrayal not just of individuals, but also of an institution whose budgets and privileges remain the envy of its Latin American counterparts.

“They are trying to blame everything on the military,” said retired Gen. Luis Cortes Villa of the Pinochet Foundation, an organization that promotes the ex-dictator’s legacy. “Being a soldier does not automatically make you a murderer. . . . They are trying to dismantle us morally, ruining our history, our values. Attacking the military is not a favor to Chilean society. On the contrary, they are hurting themselves.”

Lawyer Hugo Gutierrez disagrees. He represents families of victims of the “caravan of death,” the six-man squad that allegedly roamed across arid northern Chile dragging prisoners from jails and executing them. The rampage was so shocking that even fellow generals testified against the jailed Arellano, the squad leader accused of acting on direct orders from Pinochet.

Despite the complaints of influential retired officers, who worry most about the new prosecutions, the military wields inordinate power and has impeded the democratic transition, Gutierrez said. Pinochet’s Constitution guarantees the armed forces and rightist allies a disproportionate presence in the legislature and other governmental branches.

Judges Challenging the Military’s Role

The ruling center-left coalition has been more timid than a new generation of judges about challenging the military’s self-appointed role as “guardian” of an incomplete democracy, Gutierrez said.

“The justice system is taking the lead in democratizing the nation because the political class has done nothing,” he said.

The death caravan case represents the ultimate test of the judiciary’s new activism. It is part of a 40-count prosecution being built against Pinochet by Judge Juan Guzman. Although Pinochet could theoretically face trial here if he returns from Britain, his status as senator-for-life grants him parliamentary immunity.

Chileans appear to have grown accustomed and even indifferent to once-unthinkable events: the human rights round table, Pinochet marooned overseas. Judging from the focus of the campaign for the December presidential election, ordinary Chileans are more concerned about unemployment, which just hit a decade high of 11.5%, than they are about the crimes of geriatric generals.

But when asked by pollsters about the human rights question, a majority of Chileans say they want justice done. Although everyone agrees that another military coup is impossible, the society still contends with a great deal of pent-up anger. If the “parade” of officers through the courts accelerates, or if Pinochet dies in England, people across the political spectrum say, there is a danger of extremist violence.

Such political crimes “hopefully will never happen,” Medina said. “We don’t want the extreme of things that happen in Colombia or other nations. But it could happen. And it would be bad for Chile.”