Baltasar Garzon is my hero. If I get a picture, I’m going to put it up on my web page.
Baltasar Garzon is a Spanish judge. He found out that some Spanish citizens had been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Chile in the 1970’s. He found out that the murderers were never apprehended. He was outraged. Then he found out that the leader of this gang of criminals was in England getting some heart surgery. Like any conscientious magistrate, he immediately issued a warrant for this man’s arrest.
The man is Augusto Pinochet.
In 1973, Chile held a democratic election. The people chose a socialist, Salvador Allende, as their new President. The Americans didn’t like that. Mr. Kissinger was heard to remark something like, “Why should we stand back and let an irresponsible people elect the wrong party?” So first, with the aid of reactionary forces within Chile, a crisis was created. Then, fig leaf in place, with the help from the CIA, General Pinochet led a bloody coup d’etat, during which Salvador Allende was cold-bloodedly murdered (Pinochet’s cronies claim he committed suicide). (There is a good film, Missing, on this story). Pinochet’s army then rounded up as many dissidents and potential dissidents as it could find, held them in the Santiago soccer stadium, tortured as many as he could to get more names to arrest, then murdered thousands of them.
A few years ago, Pinochet did what all ugly, maggoty, disgusting despots do when faced with a powerful reform movement: he agreed to step down only in exchange for a full amnesty. I don’t understand how any government can even pretend to be part of this farce. A man walks into a bank . He shoots five people and locks another twenty in the vault. He takes all the money. He runs off with five hostages. He kills four of them. Then he says, “I didn’t do anything wrong, but I will turn over this last hostage to you unharmed if you agree to not prosecute me for anything I might or might not have done before this.” The people say, “if you didn’t do anything wrong, then what do you have to worry about?” Maybe the police are smart. Maybe they say yes. He turns over the hostage. Then he is arrested and tried and convicted and executed.
Except that here, no one arrested or tried or convicted Pinochet, because they were afraid of the army. The army supports Pinochet because, after all, they are the bloody arms and hands of this evil man. They are complicit.
But Garzon had the guts to say, this man is a murderer and a torturer plain and simple. And he had the audacity to serve the warrant. (The French and Swiss governments have since done likewise.) And Blair’s government seized Pinochet and are holding him pending the outcome of the legal wrangling.
Think what a bizarre, crazy, mixed up message this is going to send to the world. That we are all equal before the law? That torture and murder are criminal acts? That justice awaits even the most powerful? Idi Amin, the happy guest of the Saudi Arabian government for twenty-years, since, presumably, his last meal of fresh humans, must be quaking in his boots!
* * *
Someone says to me, in defense of Pinochet, how would you feel if Castro, on his way to the United Nations, was arrested by the FBI and held for murder and torture? You see? We must have separate rules for dictators.
Well, first of all, if seeing Castro arrested was the price to pay for having assholes like Pinochet and Amin and Hussein, and Karadzic arrested, I think I’d go along with it. Let’s arrest him and have a fair trial and see what we come up with. I doubt you’d find nearly as many serious offenses for Castro as you find for Pinochet, or the others, but if you do, then, yeah, he should be charged. The witnesses should be brought forward, and let’s try him. Yes, it would be worth it, even though I like Castro, and his beard.
There is one other complicating factor. Pinochet was not an invited guest of the British government. He came as a private citizen seeking medical treatment (using the money, undoubtedly, that he pilfered from the state treasury).
If he had been an invited guest of the British Government, they would not have had a legitimate right to arrest him. If they did, the whole system of international diplomacy and the conditions under which negotiations can take place would begin to break down. Fair enough.
When Castro speaks at the U.N., as an invited guest, he has the same protection.
But hey, if goes for a walk in Central Park: arrest him! He and Pinochet can share a cell.