Abstract

Pinochet, Stripped

This article discusses the prosecution of former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Today, Pinochet is as close as he has ever been to being prosecuted for crimes ranging from "illicit enrichment" to international terrorism. Until only a few weeks ago, the 88-year-old general appeared destined to live out his remaining years beyond the reach of justice. In July 2002 the Chilean Supreme Court closed down the long legal process against Pinochet that had begun with his October 1998 arrest in London, ruling that he suffered from "irreversible" dementia. "I have a clean conscience," Pinochet then declared in a rather coherent statement. "The work of my government will be judged by history." Instead, his "work" is again being judged by Chilean tribunals. On August 26 the Supreme Court essentially reversed itself. The court stripped Pinochet of his immunity, giving the green light for a special magistrate, to prosecute Pinochet as the "author of the crimes of kidnapping, conspiracy and torture" in the disappearances of nineteen people during the mid-1970s. The sudden reversal of Pinochet's legal and political fortunes is the result of the dramatic exposure of his hidden fortune in the United States. On July 15 a Senate subcommittee released a report which detailed evidence of secret bank accounts Pinochet had kept between 1994 and 2002 at the Washington, DC-based Riggs Bank. Riggs had been Pinochet's "personal banker," according to the report, and "deliberately assisted him in the concealment and movement of his funds while he was under investigation [during his detention in London] and the subject of a world-wide court order freezing his assets." While Pinochet could eventually manage, through legal maneuvering or death, to escape final judicial reckoning, it is clear that the impunity of his actions, and the immunity of his legacy among his closest supporters, has been stripped away once and for all.