Pinochet acquitted in rights case

[emad]

Chile's Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal of ex-military ruler Augusto Pinochet in a human rights case.

He had been charged with ordering the abduction and murder of political adversaries in the so-called Operation Condor in the 1970s.

The court upheld an earlier appeals court decision which ruled that Gen Pinochet was too ill to face trial.

The move came a day after the Supreme Court stripped him of his immunity from prosecution in another case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4251642.stm

[acmavm]

1. The words innocent and Pinochet DO NOT belong in the same article,

sentence, or paragraph. The guy's corrupt, bloody, and should have suffered the fate of his victims long ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, revenge is not the answer. Don't want to hear it. Maybe is some of these bastards understood that when payback time comes around it will definitely be a bitch they'd maybe think twice before killing innocent people. If not, then we're better off getting the bastard off this earth.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Note, though, that he wasn't found innocent...

just too ill to face trial.
Small comfort to Chileans who remember 1973. The man should be burned at the stake.

[Barrett808]

7. Isn't "acquitted" simply the wrong word?

To me, it's not the same as "unable to stand trial."

[Say_What]

4. Fate of Allende's staff...

A longtime DU reader :hi: sent me the following a while back:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...Regarding Dr. Paris Roa: He was not simply a doctor and adviser to Allende.
He was a member of the Central Committe of the Chilean Communist Party,
making him a very big, big fish for the golpistas. Almost certainly the
biggest they captured that day.

He and 21 others were taken alive from the burning La Moneda to the Tacna
Regiment, and about five or six days later taken to an army base at Colina,
on the outskirts of Santiago. They were not treated kindly at the Tacna.

About seven of them, including Paris Roa, were either advisers or
functionaries in the Allende government. The other 13 were member of
Allende's Groupo de Amigos Personales (armed bodyguards) and one obrero who
blundered into La Moneda to "protect" Allende on the day of the coup.

There were all executed at Colina. There was a well about 15 meters deep,
and they were shot in groups of four. After they were shot, their bodies
were dumped in the well, and a hand grenade was tossed into it. So five
executions and five grenades.

The remains were found in the late 1990s, if I recall correctly.

http://www.memoriaviva.com/Desaparecidos/D-P/egidio_enrique_paris_roa.htm

[Judi Lynn]

6. Very, very sad, Say_What. What a horrendous waste, killing these people.

They didn't let them go easily, only torturing them first. Nixon's creepy friend Pinochet seemed to have an obsession with torturing, didn't he? Murder, too. All those torture centers spread throughout Chile. It's a miracle the people of Chile EVER got even slightly free of those right-wing monsters.

On edit: Thanks for passing on that friend's comments on what happened to Dr. Enrique París Roa and the others.

[Say_What]

8. This was only a small part of what went on in Chile, Orlando Leteilier

was the first to be arrested. He and about 30 others close to Allende were sent to Dawson Island in the far south of Chile with only the clothes on their back to ward off the Antarctic winds. It was described as very much like Nazi concentration camps the only thing missing was the gas chambers. Here's a bit about Letelier's account of Dawson.

<clips>

On Dawson Island, Orlando Letelier recuperates in the Antarctic cold. His fingers have been re-broken. A fellow prisoner, José Toha, is reported suicide. Toha, the former minister of the interior, is one of Orlando's closest friends. In the months on Dawson Island, Toha has lost 40 pounds and becomes the subject of drug experiments. He allegedly commits suicide by hanging himself by his belt from a steampipe. No one can explain why Toha, so weak that he can hardly move, should have needed a belt for his patient's gown. Chile is now nothing more or less than a fascist dictatorship. Those who had hoped that the generals would restore the Christian Democrats to power are mistaken. The generals kill, torture, jail even Christian Democrats.

September 10, 1974, Buenos Aires
SL:Orlando is released from Dawson island and deported to Venezuela. A month later another Chilean exile, General Carlos Prats, and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, are murdered in Buenos Aires. Prats, who had commanded the armed forces under Allende, was writing a book about the coup and about Pinochet, who had succeeded him as a commander. Prats was a military man but was also fiercely loyal to the constitution; he refused to participate in coup discussions. Prats had recommended Pinochet as his successor on the grounds that he was dull but loyal. Prats and his wife are blown to bits when a bomb explodes in their car. The Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), the Chilean secret police, are accused of the murders. Prats' papers are stolen from his home. No one is arrested. It is the beginning of a string of murders of Chilean exiles.

http://www.tni.org/letelier-docs/timeline.htm


Letelier being arrested and led out of the Defense Ministry in Santiago.

[Judi Lynn]

9. This is the most info. I've seen on Orlando Letellier. What a shame

Pinochet found a way to get the Cuban "exile" bombers to murder him right on the streets of Washington D. C.

I'm very interested in reading this excellent dossier find on him later tonight. The info. you mentioned about having his fingers rebroken is simply overwhelming. He went through all that trouble just for not being a right-wing idiot whore, and got murdered at the end, too.

Why is it we don't hear anything like this happening to right-wingers? They're the only ones who will kill every one in their road to seize power they can't win honestly at the election booth. Everyone knows it.

[Say_What]

10. After reading the book, Missing, which inspired the movie about

the execution in Chile of Charles Horman, I'm now waiting for Assassination on Embassy Row, by Saul Landau and John Dinges. The same person who translated that piece said it was probably the most well researched book about the Letelier assasination.

Amazing how those ExileGusanos are involved in so much death and destruction. Felix Rodriguez assasinating Che in Bolivia, Bosch-Avila and Posada-Carriles blowing up the Cubana airliner after their involvement in the Letelier assasination. What's even more astounding is that they're all pals of the Bushies.




Felix Rodriguez and Old Bush chilling in the White House.

[Say_What]

3. A lot more information at this LBN thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1780220&mesg_id=1780220

[emad]

5. Thanks.

A lot more information on the links between Ratzinger and the Duarte family in UK terrorism campaigns circa 1963-2005 is pending - hopefully for publication in the UK next week.