A Chilean Dictator's Dark Legacy

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Augusto Pinochet, 1915-2006
Augusto Pinochet, the fierce anti-communist dictator who ruled Chile with an iron fist from 1973 to 1990, died Dec. 10, 2006, after suffering complications from a heart attack. He was 91.

His arrest set off a chain of events that led to his return in 1999 to Chile, where the Supreme Court stripped him of immunity the following year. However, a court ruling in 2002 acknowledged that he had vascular dementia and prevented the cases from going to trial. Chile's courts reversed the ruling of dementia in 2004, deeming him fit to stand trial.

Court filings against Pinochet followed at a rapid pace, and various court rulings toggled back and forth on his legal status. He was stripped of immunity in the case of Gen. Carlos Prats, his predecessor as head of the army, who was assassinated along with his wife in a 1974 car bombing in Argentina.

Last year, another court ruling affirmed his immunity. However, several other cases of human rights abuses were progressing through the court system at the time of his death, including one that charged him with the mass kidnappings and tortures at the infamous Villa Grimaldi prison on the outskirts of Santiago.

To his supporters, Pinochet was a patriot who saved his country from political and economic chaos under the threat of communism, restored order and led it into a period of unprecedented prosperity. In their view, the harsh measures taken under his leadership were justified by the violence of the opposition and the threat of civil war. Finally, they credited Pinochet with restoring the country to civilian leadership under democratic and constitutional principles.

Christian Labb?, a former army colonel and one of Pinochet's closest advisers, told The Washington Post last year that Pinochet had accepted the likelihood that he would die an outcast in his own country, with his achievements under attack by his opponents.

"He knows very well that these things happen to great men," Labb? said. "The great men need to wait for history's judgment, not [current] justice."

The first widespread international backlash against Pinochet followed the Letelier car bombing in 1976. The United States suspended all military aid for several years. Chile was condemned in the United Nations and the European Union. Pinochet disbanded DINA but reorganized the secret police under another name. The Chilean government eventually agreed to pay compensation to the United States but never acknowledged official complicity.

In 1978, Michael Townley, a former CIA employee who worked for DINA, was convicted of placing the bomb on Letelier's car. He implicated Gen. Manuel Contreras, the DINA commander, and Col. Pedro Espinosa, the DINA director of operations. In 1987, army Capt. Armando Fernando Larios, a former DINA operative, surrendered to U.S. authorities and quoted Contreras as saying Pinochet personally had ordered the attack, but offered no direct evidence. In 1993, a Chilean court sentenced Contreras and Espinosa to prison.

In 1982, the movie "Missing" dramatized the fate of two Americans, Charles Horman, 31, and Frank Teruggi, 24, who were killed by Chilean officials in 1973. Those cases are still being litigated.

Though the abuses in Chile lessened considerably in the later years of Pinochet's government, periods of violence and repression occasionally flared throughout his rule. In 1986, for example, the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodr?guez, or FPMR, an organization with links to the communists, announced it was abandoning "peaceful protest" in favor of violence and sabotage. Volodia Teitelboim, the Chilean communist leader, announced on Radio Moscow that it would be a year of "titanic battles."

On July 2, during a general strike, an army patrol seized Rodrigo Rojas, an 18-year-old photographer who lived in Washington, and Carmen Gloria Quintana, 19, and set them on fire. Rojas died four days later, but Quintana survived and was blessed by Pope John Paul II, who visited Chile in 1987. The army at first denied responsibility, but a judge in 1989 sentenced an army captain to 300 days in prison for the attack.

On Sept. 7, the FPMR attempted to assassinate Pinochet as he was driven to Santiago from his country retreat. He escaped unharmed when his driver sped from the scene in reverse. Five bodyguards were killed and 12 were wounded. In retaliation, security agents abducted four communists from their homes and killed them. More than 50 leftists were arrested. The government declared a state of siege.