Let Chile Move On

For almost three years, Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet has been struggling to stay out of jail. From London to Santiago, a team of lawyers succeeded in keeping him free, but it has been a stressful, expensive and uncertain time for the former dictator. Last week, however, in a lamentable decision, a Chilean court of appeals suspended the proceedings in Chile against him. Two of the three judges found the 85-year-old demented and unfit to stand trial.

The court’s decision disappointed the families of many who were killed, tortured or “disappeared” during the 17 years that Pinochet and other generals and colonels controlled the government. But what began with a Spanish judge who ordered Pinochet’s arrest for the deaths of a handful of Spanish citizen and other human rights atrocities has reached its end. Prosecutors should drop any further appeals, not for the sake of a despised old man but to bring some finality to the Chilean nation.

Pinochet’s arrest on a Spanish warrant while visiting London in 1998 was a landmark in the fight for international human rights--though in that case as well he was ruled unfit to stand trial. It helped establish the principle that human rights crimes are subject to universal jurisdiction. Henceforth every dictator will have to think twice before leaving home.

Pinochet seized power in a bloody, CIA-assisted coup in 1973 and ruled Chile with an iron fist. More than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared during his dictatorship. Even after he left the presidency in 1990, Pinochet held influence over Chile’s military. And a Senate seat he awarded himself for life gave him immunity from prosecution. At the very least, his invincibility has now been shattered.

It is regrettable that Pinochet will remain free. But Chile is a far different and prouder place now. It is one of the most stable and least corrupt democracies in Latin America, regaining a position held in the years before Pinochet’s coup. History has condemned Pinochet, and an important precedent has been set. That is considerable.