US-backed dictator's death sparks clashes

Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who terrorized his opponents for 17 years after taking power in a bloody coup, died of a heart attack on Dec. 10, putting an end to a decade of intensifying efforts to bring him to trial for human rights abuses blamed on his regime. He was 91. Within minutes, cars circled the center of the Chilean capital, honking their horns, while people drank champagne and waved flags to celebrate the passing of the man whose US-backed military coup destroyed Latin America's first democratically elected socialist government. "These people are not celebrating the death of anyone," said Jorge Salinas, 50, who was throwing confetti into traffic. "It is to celebrate the end of a cycle of so much pain, so much dictatorship, so much torture. Pinochet signified many deaths, so much suffering for us. That's why you see such happiness in most of the people." Violent clashes broke out between police and Pinochet opponents who threw rocks at cars and set up fire barricades on Santiago's main avenue. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd, but the unrest later spread to several working class districts. Police said 23 officers, including a major and a captain, were injured. Pinochet overthrew democratically elected President Salvador Allende at a time when the US was working to destabilize his socialist government. Chile's economy was in near ruins, partly due to the CIA's covert efforts. Pinochet disbanded Congress, banned political activity and crushed dissent. The world soon reacted in horror as Santiago's main soccer stadium filled with political prisoners to be tortured, shot, disappeared or forced into exile. Pinochet's crackdown on dissent left a lasting legacy: his name has become a byword for state terror, in many cases secretly supported by the United States, that retarded democratic change across the hemisphere. Pinochet's critics regretted his passing only because it meant he could not be tried. "This criminal has departed without ever being sentenced for all the acts he was responsible for during his dictatorship," lamented Hugo Gutierrez, a human rights lawyer involved in several lawsuits against Pinochet. His regime systematically snatched political opponents from the streets and sent assassins around the globe to wipe out critics and resistors. A Truth Commission in Chile established that 3,197 Chileans were killed during Pinochet's years in power and another 250,000 were locked up. Pinochet left no doubt about who was in charge after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup, when warplanes bombed the presidential palace. "Not a leaf moves in this country if I'm not moving it," Pinochet said. He was feted by Washington as a bulwark against communism. The CIA had worked for months to destabilize the Allende government, including financing a truckers strike that paralyzed the delivery of goods across Chile. When Pinochet seized power, he knew he would be enjoying the strong support of the US. The secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, was an admirer and anxious that no bridgehead for the left should be established in Latin America by President Allende. "The prevailing mood among the Chilean military is to use the current opportunity to stamp out all vestiges of communism in Chile," said a CIA memo immediately after the coup. "Severe repression is planned." Another CIA document noted that the methods used by the junta's secret police were "out of the Spanish inquisition." At a meeting between Kissinger and Pinochet in 1976, according to documents released in 1999, Kissinger told him to ignore criticisms from within the US about his methods, assuring him that they were part of a communist propaganda exercise. He told him: "We wish your government well." Kissinger remained loyal to Pinochet. When the retired dictator was arrested in London in 1998 and was facing extradition to Spain, he backed the campaign for him to be allowed to return home. Soon after Pinochet's seizure of power, soldiers carried out mass arrests of leftists. Tanks rumbled through the streets of the capital, and many detainees, including US citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, were herded into the National Stadium, which became a torture and detention center. Horman and Teruggi were among those executed by the Chilean military, their deaths chronicled in the 1982 film "Missing." Within years, Chile and other South American countries with right-wing governments launched Operation Condor to eliminate leftist dissidents abroad. One of Operation Condor's victims was former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, who was killed along with his US aide, Ronni Moffitt, when a bomb shattered their car in Washington in 1976. In May 2005, some of the strongest evidence against Pinochet emerged, when Gen. Manuel Contreras, the imprisoned head of the former dictatorship's secret police, gave Chile's Supreme Court a list describing the fate of more than 500 dissidents who disappeared after being arrested by the secret police. Most were killed, their bodies flung into the sea. Contreras, who is serving a 12-year sentence for the disappearance of a young dissident in 1975, said Pinochet was responsible. Other leftists were rounded up by death squads, and the "Caravan of Death" to Chile's forbidding Atacama desert left victims buried in unmarked mass graves. More than 1,000 victims remain unaccounted for. Pinochet lost an October 1988 referendum to extend his rule and was forced to call an election. He lost to Patricio Alywin, whose center-left coalition has ruled Chile since 1990. Pinochet avoided prosecution for years after his presidency. He remained army commander for eight more years. His arrest in London in October 1998, at the request of a Spanish judge, shattered his retirement. The hunt for Pinochet had started in Madrid two years earlier when Chilean exiles and Spanish lawyers decided to test international law. Many nations had agreed that crimes such as genocide, terrorism and torture could be tried elsewhere if the country where they took place was unable, or unwilling, to act. The general, however, did not feel threatened. In Chile, an amnesty and his self-invented position as a life-long senator meant he was above the law. Two courts decided he should be extradited but Jack Straw, then British home secretary, sent him home to Chile, claiming the general was medically unfit to face trial. Pinochet made what appeared to be a remarkable recovery in Chile but then his fellow countrymen sought to put him on trial. Only on his 91st birthday last month did he take "full political responsibility for everything that happened" during his long rule. But the statement made no reference to the rights abuses. More than 200 criminal complaints were filed against him and he was under house arrest at the time of his death, but courts repeatedly ruled he could not face trial because of poor physical and mental health. Victims of human rights abuses during his 17-year rule gathered at a statue of Allende and urged the government to avoid giving any special honors at the burial. Their plea was heeded by President Michelle Bachelet, herself detained and tortured by Pinochet-era security forces. Bachelet said he would be buried with military honors, but would not be given a state funeral. In a sparse statement, White House spokesperson Tony Fratto said: "Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile represented one of most difficult periods in that nation's history. Our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families."