No Rest for the Wicked: Pinochet’s Gift to Us All

As a writer, I suppose I just can’t help it. Even when I am in the midst of a major crisis, I always end up absurdly fixing my attention on how people use words.

That’s what happened when I heard the news that Jack Straw, the British home secretary, was “minded”--that is, inclined--to send Gen. Augusto Pinochet home rather than extradite him to Spain to face charges of torture. Juxtaposed to my sadness and dismay at the dictator’s upcoming liberation from house arrest in London since October 1998, I found myself obsessively concentrating on the word “minded.” A peculiar use, at least for a native Spanish language speaker as I am. Straw was subtly establishing that he had carefully weighed the medical reports that indicated that the general was too ill to stand trial, that the old man could not endure a prolonged judicial process. That is what Straw’s mind had discerned about Pinochet’s body.

But what of Pinochet’s mind? I always dreamed of the miraculous moment when this arrogant man who has been accused of crimes against humanity would have to look at the faces of his victims in a court of law and listen oh so slowly to the accounts of their suffering, when he would be forced to recognize the damage he inflicted on them. That was and still is my dream, but I must reluctantly admit that if Pinochet does not possess full consciousness, it would be senseless to submit him to prosecution. What would be judged is a mere husk of a man, the outward trappings of a mindless human being, no longer effectively Pinochet himself.

Is this the case of the Chilean general? Although I do not have the reports of the British specialists, I suspect that Pinochet is still entirely and astutely his own self. I do not doubt that he can answer quite simple questions such as, for instance: What did you eat for breakfast this morning? And while we’re on the subject of breakfasts, do you remember sharing a morning meal each dawn with Gen. Manuel Contreras, the head of your secret police, 1 1/2 hours each day for years and years? During so many hours and so many cups of coffee, didn’t you ever speak, not even once, of the disappearances of the opponents to your regime? Did you never mention, while you chewed your toast and jam, what was happening in the dark cellars that Contreras reigned over, not even a word about the howls that spilled out of those cellars with such intensity that people in the streets thought twice before daring to rebel or resist? And didn’t Contreras consult you, as his superior and commander in chief, whether it was really necessary to kill Orlando Letelier in Washington?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Pinochet’s mind, alert and watchful inside his sick body, were to prodigiously resurrect upon disembarking in his native land. I wouldn’t bet against that intellect of Pinochet’s that Straw considered incompetent to stand trial suddenly throwing out opinions every which way, protesting his innocence and greeting with clarity his hordes of fascist followers.

If this scenario were to transpire (leaving quite a smear of pie on Straw’s face), the men who govern Chile, if they are endowed with the slightest sense of decency, have but two alternatives. The first is to accelerate the pending accusations against the dictator, fully participating in the indictments and investigations and expending as much time and energy in prosecuting Pinochet as they have spent defending him during the past 15 months. The other option would need to be espoused if it became evident that it is impossible, as many in the human rights community have contended, to judge Pinochet in Chile. In that case, the government should promptly return him to England or send him straight to Spain.

It’s only a dream. Maybe my own mind has grown feverish, conjuring up a form of retribution for Pinochet that hasn’t a chance in the world of withstanding the hard test of reality. Maybe I need to console myself imagining a future world where nobody is above the law.

And yet there is one judgment that Pinochet cannot escape.

The judgment of humanity.

What happened with the insignificant and remote body of a second-rate dictator will matter far less, as time goes by, than the shining example that his arrest and extradition trial established forever. Pinochet’s accidental return to Chile does not invalidate any of the advances in human rights his detention achieved. English and Spanish courts have solidly established the indisputable principle that when a crime is committed against humanity, it is that humanity itself that has the obligation to prosecute and punish the criminal, wherever he may find himself and however powerful he may be. There are in the world today thousands of vile men who destroyed lives, who raped and tortured and who will not, solely because of the Pinochet extradition trial, be able to travel abroad. These felons are, from now on, imprisoned within the confines of their own countries. During the century that is opening, they will never again sleep well at night. Now it’s their turn to feel fear.

This is Pinochet’s final gift to humanity.

Thank you, General.

Now it is your turn, you and the men like you, to feel fear.