In Letter, Pinochet Called Abuses in Chile 'Necessary'

SANTIAGO, Chile, Dec. 24 -- In a letter to Chileans written to be published after his death, Gen. Augusto Pinochet said he wished he hadn't had to stage the bloody 1973 coup that put him in power and called the abuses during his long rule inevitable.

His fate was public shunning and unimagined loneliness, he said in the message made public Sunday.

The former dictator, who died Dec. 10 of heart failure at age 91, insisted that the military takeover avoided civil war and a Marxist dictatorship, and said his 1973-90 rule never had "an institutional plan" to abuse human rights.

"But it was necessary to act with maximum rigor to avoid a widening of the conflict," Pinochet wrote.

According to an official report, at least 3,197 people were killed for political reasons in the 17 years after Pinochet overthrew elected Socialist President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. In addition, Pinochet's security forces tortured about 29,000 people and forced tens of thousands into exile after the coup, during which Allende died.

Pinochet's "message to all my compatriots to be published after my death" was made public by the Pinochet Foundation, a group of former aides. Its president, Hernan Guiloff, said he received the text from Pinochet in 2004.

When he died, Pinochet was under indictment charging him with human rights abuses under his dictatorship and tax evasion in connection with secret multimillion-dollar foreign bank accounts.

Many who endorsed the dictatorship's repression of dissidents turned against Pinochet after hearing allegations that his family spirited $28 million into overseas accounts.

"How I wish the Sept. 11, 1973, military action had not been necessary!" Pinochet wrote. "How I wish the Marxist-Leninist ideology had not entered our fatherland!"

He insisted the violations under his government were inevitable because "as part of the characteristics of our rivals, it was necessary to implement certain procedures of military control, such as temporary imprisonment, authorized exile, executions by firing squad after military trials," he said. "As long as ideological and armed fanaticism continued to endanger stability, we could not lower our arms."