The Death of Augusto Pinochet
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A divided legacy. Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is remembered as a patriot who saved Chile from Communism and as a brutal dictator with blood on his hands.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Today it is a major time to reflect for all Chileans because a big man has left us. He brought order, tranquility,</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is a shame that they didn't finish the trial. I'd like the process to continue, to bring justice to those who died because of him.</s>CHURCH: He was loved by some, hated by many. Did justice elude a leader who had so much to answer for?</s>RICHARD PALO, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His was a life that polarized opinion, now even after his death General Augusto Pinochet remains an emotive subject as ever. The streets of Chile's capital, Santiago, were divided. Some celebrating wildly at the passing of South America's most notorious Cold War dictator, others mourning the man they say saved them from Communism. It was no surprise that this unstable atmosphere bubbled over, anti- Pinochet demonstrations turning violent. Police responded with water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protestors. In Spain, Isabel Allende, the daughter of the president that Pinochet deposed in the 1973 coup said any relief she felt was outweighed by the fact he would escape punishment for his alleged crimes. General Pinochet's wife, Lucia, was with him on his deathbed. Her husband's body has now been taken to the military school where tomorrow he will be buried. There his supporters are holding a vigil already, but the funeral has attracted yet further controversy. In a move that has pleased neither side, Chile's present government has announced that the former leader will be afforded full military honors, but will not be granted a state funeral. Before then, thousands of Chileans are expected to pay their respects in person. Richard Palo (ph), ITV News.</s>CHURCH: Well, the sharply divided opinions of Augusto Pinochet were shaped by his 17-year rule of Chile. Ralitsa Vassileva looks back at the highs and lows of his leadership.</s>RALITSA VASSILEVA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was the most controversial and notorious of the old Latin American dictators. General Augusto Pinochet came to power on September 11, 1973 in a bloody military coup that overthrew Chile's democratically-elected Marxist President Salvador Allende. Pinochet was hailed by some as the man who rescued Chile from chaos. "He's the one who saved Chile from Communism. Without him, we would be another Cuba." The general always insisted he was forced to intervene. "Chile was on the way to self-destruction. Chile's armed forces were obliged to put their patriotism before any other consideration." One of the considerations he was widely accused of putting aside was human rights. During his 17-year dictatorship, thousands of real or suspected opponents were tortured, executed or disappeared. "A hero? Pinochet? A hero of what? Of death?" asks Carmen Vivanco (ph), who lost five members of her family after the coup. Pamela Constable, who wrote a book about Pinochet, says he tried to eliminate his political opponents.</s>PAMELA CONSTABLE, AUTHOR: He basically set about systematically and immediately trying to wipe out the left, physically wiping it out. He was responsible for terrible torture and abuses and what came to be called disappearances of people in Chile. Thousands and thousands of people were very badly abused and killed.</s>VASSILEVA: Although Pinochet is credited for laying the groundwork for Chile's modern market economy, he was criticized worldwide for his disdain for human rights. "Human rights? That's an invention of the Marxists," he once told CNN. Amid growing popular pressure, in 1988 he lost a referendum in which Chileans were allowed to vote for a return to democratic rule. A decade later he retired as commander-in-chief of the powerful army to become, under the terms of the constitution he had written himself, a senator for life with immunity from prosecution. His victims' friends and families, however, could not forget the past. In October 1998, Pinochet was put under house arrest while in London for an operation, pending an extradition from a Spanish judge investigating crimes against humanity committed during his dictatorship. His health failing, he was eventually allowed to return to Chile, only to see his immunity lifted so he would have to face charges of murder and torture at home. Even more humiliating for a man who had always boasted he was free of corruption, in August 2004, it was discovered he had several secret multimillion dollar bank accounts in Washington, D.C. Georgetown University's Arturo Valenzuela says the corruption allegations cost Pinochet most of his right-wing support.</s>ARTURO VALENZUELA, GEORGETOWN UNIV.: If there was one thing that the Chileans, particularly on the right, who supported him, always said, was that Chile was different, Chile was not a banana republic, that our military officers, they say, are austere and patriotic. And he turned out to be perhaps the greatest crook in Chilean history.</s>VASSILEVA: In a strange twist of fate, disillusionment for Pinochet helped bring his past supporters closer to his victims. In 2006, Michelle Bachelet, a victim of Pinochet's dictatorship, was sworn in as Chile's president Bachelet's father, a Pinochet opponent, died in prison. She and her mother were held briefly and tortured. As president, Bachelet is setting the example for Chile to put the past behind.</s>VALENZUELA: This was done by a recognition of the mistakes that have been made in the past, by the fact that the courts are now trying people for those violations, and this allowed her then to sort of say, and with authority, because she had lost her own father, to say that in fact this is now of the past and this means that we can then build for the future.</s>VASSILEVA: In the end, only his declining health saved him from being tried on both human rights and corruption charges. The once powerful Pinochet, who could draw thousands to his rallies, died in seclusion as the world passed him by with minimum pomp and circumstance, a sad end for a man who had hoped to go down in history as Chile's savior. Ralitsa Vassileva, CNN, Atlanta.</s>CHURCH: We're going to take a short break now. When we come back, he was loved and hated within his own country, but how was Pinochet viewed in other nations. Do stay with us.</s>CHURCH: Spanish authorities say they can try people for crimes committed outside of Spain. That's the basis for Spain's attempt to try Chile's Augusto Pinochet, among other Latin American figures. Spain tried and convicted a man for murders committed during the so-called Dirty War in Argentina and has also gone after a former Guatemalan president for alleged atrocities under his regime. And a warm welcome back to you all. Well, a voice from Chile's past tried to bring justice to Augusto Pinochet. He found hope for a while in a Spanish court. Al Goodman has his story.</s>AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spaniard Juan Garces as a young man was a top political aide to Chile's elected leftist President Salvador Allende. When General Augusto Pinochet led a coup in 1973, Garces was with Allende in the government palace.</s>JUAN GARCES, FMR. ALLENDE AIDE: In the attack</s>GOODMAN: But then a lull before the air bombing assault and Allende called over to Garces.</s>GARCES: In this moment, he asked me to leave, telling me that someone should explain what is happening in the government.</s>GOODMAN: Allende died that day. Garces escaped and returned to Europe. Garces wrote numerous books and articles about Allende and about Pinochet, who wielded absolute power for 17 years.</s>GARCES: I have no personal sentiment toward Pinochet. I never met him. Unfortunately, for me, I was a witness to his crimes. That is why I never forgot the crimes. I was there when they were committed, the beginning of the crimes.</s>GOODMAN: Crimes against humanity, Garces says. And as a lawyer, he decided to take on Pinochet representing his victims.</s>GARCES: All of the victims of Pinochet, that means more than 4,000 people that have been murdered or were disappeared.</s>GOODMAN: And thousands of others who survived torture. Pinochet relinquished power in 1990. Garces saw no immediate chance of success in Chilean courts, still under Pinochet's influence. He took it one step at a time and in 1996 turned to Spanish courts, testing their ability to prosecute crimes against humanity committed in other nations under a concept called universal justice.</s>GARCES: The people that have been committing the crimes will continue to think that they can repeat the crimes in the future. Like they have no price to pay.</s>GOODMAN: In 1998, Spanish Judge Balthazar Garzon issued an arrest warrant for Pinochet, who was then in a London hospital.</s>GARCES: I learned in October of '98 that he was in London and then I asked the court to deliver an international warrant of arrest.</s>GOODMAN: Pinochet fought extradition to Spain and Britain finally allowed him to return to Chile on the grounds he was mentally unfit to stand trial.</s>GARCES: That was fiction. Pinochet continued to manage his personal bank accounts abroad.</s>GOODMAN: But the winds had started to shift against Pinochet at home.</s>GOODMAN: People like Juan Garces became legal hammers against Augusto Pinochet in the latter years of his life. Al Goodman, CNN, Madrid.</s>CHURCH: And as Al Goodman reported there, Pinochet was spared from criminal proceedings by his poor health. He also had powerful friends who lobbied on his behalf. Paula Hancocks has more on the efforts to bring him to trial while he was in Britain and why they failed.</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What started as a brief pleasure trip to London ended with General Pinochet staying almost two years at Her Majesty's pleasure. Pinochet was arrested in London in October of 1998 on an arrest warrant by a Spanish judge. The charges were allegations of torture during his 17-year regime in Chile.</s>VICTOR BULMER-THOMAS, CHATHAM HOUSE: From the day he arrived, he was controversial. First of all, people were astonished that he had been picked up by the British authorities in response to the Spanish request for extradition. And secondly, because so many top politicians piled in, either defending the decision to arrest him or arguing that he should not have been arrested.</s>HANCOCKS: The Pinochet case saw many unusual twists and turns in the British legal system. A law lords' ruling that Pinochet did not have immunity from prosecution was annulled after it was revealed that one of the lords had close ties to the human rights group Amnesty International. A second hearing decided he could be extradited to stand trial in Spain. The home secretary at the time, Jack Straw, also faced pressure to allow Pinochet to return to Chile. He finally released him on medical grounds.</s>JACK STRAW, FMR. BRITISH HOME SECY.: This has been an unprecedented case, both I and the courts have had to navigate in uncharted territory.</s>HANCOCKS: Pinochet had many high profile supporters, the most vocal being Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister.</s>BULMER-THOMAS: During the Balkans war in 1982, Chile had given support to the British armed forces, and in particular the Air Force, in their efforts to retake the islands, and Margaret Thatcher was eternally grateful to General Pinochet for that. And as far as she was concerned, that trumped all other arguments.</s>HANCOCKS: Public opinion was split. The anti-Pinochet clan fighting for him to stand trial in Spain held numerous demonstrations. During his nearly two decades in power, more than 3,000 people were either killed or disappeared. Paula Hancocks, CNN, London.</s>CHURCH: Well, some past U.S. leaders have approved of Pinochet, because he was a strong opponent of Communism. But the current U.S. president has close ties with the new Chilean government and released a statement after Pinochet's death giving condolences instead to what he calls the victims of his reign and their families. Jonathan Mann has more on the historical relationship between the United States and Chile.</s>JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before Augusto Pinochet even took power, the Nixon administration saw Chile as a challenge it had to address. Chile had set a precedent in 1970 when its people made Salvador Allende the first Marxist president ever freely elected in Latin America. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger reportedly said, "I don't see why we need to stand idly by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." Now-declassified U.S. government documents show that Washington did not stand by. It drastically cut U.S. assistance to Chile, blocked other international aid, and spent millions of dollars covertly to undermine Allende. The CIA also sent a secret cable to its station chief in Santiago. Now declassified, it told him, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." The U.S. ambassador was instructed to approach selected military leaders. They would be given to understand that their involvement in a coup would not jeopardize American military assistance. And on a date that would eventually be meaningful for Americans for a very different reason, the military struck on September 11, 1973.</s>PETER KOMBLUH, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE: The United States we know from declassified records did not participate directly in the coup of September 11, 1973, but it was a U.S. effort to create the conditions for that coup, to create the justification and the instability that would hasten that coup. Those are the efforts that the United States took.</s>MANN: Allende died in the coup, the first of thousands of deaths in the years that followed. From the start, Washington was supportive of the military junta, even when it was clear that it was carrying out widespread arrests and killings. Within weeks, the United States sent millions of dollars in aid and Kissinger, by then secretary of state, told those around him, "I think we should understand our policy, that however unpleasant they act, the government is better for us than Allende was." Over the years, as thousands of Chileans disappeared or were killed, that remained Washington's policy.</s>KOMBLUH: Augusto Pinochet's name became synonymous with human rights violations in the 1970s and 1980s and the United States had a hand in that, frankly.</s>MANN: Decades later, Secretary of State Colin Powell said it is not part of American history that we're proud of. Jonathan Mann, CNN, reporting.</s>CHURCH: All right, we have to take a short break now, but when we come back, the new face of Chile and the Pinochet legacy. Do stay with us.</s>CHURCH: Pinochet's death marks the end of a dark era for Chilean politics for many, including the country's current president. Michelle Bachelet was imprisoned for her beliefs under Pinochet. Her father also died after being tortured in prison. Bachelet recently said it would violate her conscience to attend a state funeral for the former dictator. Welcome back. So hero or murderer? How will history view this man who has divided his country both in life and in death? A man whose legacy is still hotly debated decades after he was swept to power in a violent coup? We turn now to Bruce Douglas for some answers. He's the assistant editor of "Latin American Newsletter." Thanks so much for talking with us. How inevitable do you think it is that we'll see this divided legacy of Augusto Pinochet?</s>BRUCE DOUGLAS, "LATIN AMERICAN NEWSLETTER": I think it will continue for a while. At present, Chile's politics, although it is a stable country which models itself very much on other small nations like New Zealand, there is still quite a fractious political atmosphere, and part of President Bachelet's responsibilities as president will be unpicking some of the legacies, some of the constitutional legacies, that August Pinochet left behind.</s>CHURCH: One of the former dictator's five children, Marco Antonio Pinochet, said, "Maybe not today, but as time passes, I believe my father will take the place he deserves in the history of Chile." How likely is that, do you think?</s>DOUGLAS: Well, I think he's always going to be a controversial figure, and I think it very much depends on whether historians prioritize economic success or respect for human rights. I think undoubtedly Chile is a sort of poster child of the near liberal economists of the Chicago school. But at the same time, its success, the opening of its economy, which has paved the way for being one of the more prosperous societies in Latin America, came at a terrible human cost of at least 3,000 people murdered and tens of thousands tortured and hundreds of thousands forced into exile.</s>CHURCH: A lot of people are asking whether his death will mark the end of the investigation of those crimes committed during his dictatorship. How likely is it, do you think?</s>DOUGLAS: I think there will be a lot of political impetus to carry on investigating those crimes. Isabel Allende, the daughter of Salvador Allende, who is now a deputy for</s>CHURCH: Was it the right decision, do you think, to deny him a state funeral, as most former presidents, of course, are given that honor?</s>DOUGLAS: Yes, well, I think the situation has changed recently with the revelations that he had been stealing from the country. There's supposed to be around $27 million stashed away in secret bank accounts throughout the world, and I think that cost him a lot of support even among his most enthusiastic supporters, which meant that it was increasingly untenable for President Bachelet, who, as your report earlier stated, was tortured under Pinochet, to allow such a state funeral to go ahead.</s>CHURCH: Just very quickly, does the death of Pinochet mark a new beginning, do you think, now, for Chile?</s>DOUGLAS: I think it does. I think now that he as a person is out of the way, perhaps it is possible to address the subject with a less emotional aspect to it, and I think possibly we can see more reconciliation between the two strands of Chilean ideology.</s>CHURCH: And do you think at the funeral, of course, tomorrow, that that could put to bed some of the problems? Or do you think we're going to see possibly supporters and those against him vying for a little while to come?</s>DOUGLAS: I think tomorrow could be quite an emotional day in Chile. I suspect there will be some protests. Every September 11 in Chile, the anniversary of that coup is always marked by a certain low level violence and demonstrations, and I think we'll see the same tomorrow. But I suspect it will die down after that.</s>CHURCH: All right, Bruce Douglas, thanks so much for talking with us. Appreciate it.</s>DOUGLAS: Thank you.</s>CHURCH: And that's all for this edition of INSIGHT. I'm Rosemary Church. Stay with us. END TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.voxant.com