Obituary: Augusto Pinochet Ugarte 1915-2006 -- Death of dictatorship Fayza Rady Augusto Pinochet, chief-major-general of the army and dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990, died of heart failure in the Chilean capital Santiago on Sunday, 10 December. Though he managed to evade trial for charges of "crimes against humanity, terrorism and torture", the strain of fighting a barrage of legal battles turned him into a recluse, a hounded and broken man at the end of his days. Pinochet is accused of the disappearances of more than 1,000 people, the killing of at least 3,197, and the detention and torture of 200,000. In 2004, he was charged with tax evasions of $9.8 million and he was under investigation for holding an estimated $27 million in secret foreign bank accounts. Pinochet was under house arrest on charges of kidnapping and murder when he died in the Santiago Army Hospital. Pinochet was never made to pay for his crimes. "To the end he was surrounded by lawyers trying to defend the indefensible," said Isabel Allende, daughter of Salvador Allende, the democratically-elected Socialist president of Chile who died defending his presidential residence during the 1973 military coup headed by Pinochet. "At this moment my thoughts are with so many of our dead, certainly my father, but I think of all our people who were disappeared, tortured, murdered," said Allende, an MP for her father's Socialist Party that once again governs Chile. Nevertheless, despite his infamous legacy, Pinochet continues to command considerable support and loyalty from the country's military-industrial complex. The government authorised all military facilities to lower flags at half-mast as a sign of mourning, and he was buried with military honours on Tuesday. Pinochet ascended to power from the ranks of the armed forces. He was 18 when he joined the army. In 1972, he became a general, and Allende appointed him as commander- in-chief of the army on 23 August, 1973. It was a grave mistake. On 11 September, less than three weeks later, Pinochet led a violent military putsch against Allende. In 1990, declassified, yet heavily censored United States government files revealed that Washington engineered a destabilisation campaign against Allende from the very beginning. In early September, then US President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to do all it could to prevent Allende from being inaugurated. Failing to do so, Nixon then granted the CIA $10 million to oust Allende from power under the "Track II Plan" -- a scheme supervised by then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. An October 1970 CIA document states that "it is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the US government and American hand be well hidden." After the coup, and with the blessings of the Nixon administration, Pinochet shut down all democratic institutions and went on a murderous rampage against "communism" and its supporters. He declared a state of siege, introduced martial law, closed parliament and ordered censorship of the media. In the first month, it was reported that more than 250,000 people were arrested and tortured, among them workers, trade unionists, students, communist party members and supporters of Allende. Consequently, it is estimated that more than one million Chileans fled the country during the first year of Pinochet's rule. All the while the US lent a helping hand. In an effort to perfect his government's repressive strategy, Pinochet set up the Gestapo-like Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA) in 1974. DINA officers, trained in the infamous Army Schools of the Americas -- based in Panama, but established by the US -- controlled and directed the arrests and torture. They used sophisticated techniques. "The most usual method was the 'grill' consisting of a metal table on which the victim was laid naked and his extremities tied and electrical shocks were applied to the lips, genitals, wounds or metal prosthesis -- also drugs were used and boiling water was thrown on various detainees to punish them as a foretaste for the death which they would later suffer," reads the Spanish warrant for the extradition of Pinochet from England on charges of "torture and genocide" issued in 1998. "Such horrendous details could be repeated for many thousands of human beings in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, Indonesia and quite a few other US client states," comments prominent scholar and political writer Noam Chomsky. At the time Pinochet narrowly averted extradition on the grounds of alleged "ill health and mental incompetence to stand trial". Following the coup, Pinochet proceeded to export his anti- communist crusade to other Latin American countries under CIA and Pentagon tutelage. This was done under the code name Operation Condor. The Condor team of assassins was directed by DINA Commander General Manuel Contreras. Condor was uncovered when Contreras moved his operations further afield, arranging for the murders of prominent South American political figures in the US and Europe. In addition, Condor executed thousands of Chilean exiles in Latin America. It later surfaced that victims were buried in unmarked graves in the Northern Atacama Desert, in the coastal city of La Serena and in the southern city of Cauquenes. At the height of repression in Chile, Pinochet retained US support. On 8 June 1976, Kissinger reportedly met with the dictator and told him, "You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. We are sympathetic to what you are trying to do." Empowered by US support, and the Chilean army's backing, Pinochet held on to power until Latin American juntas gradually went out of style in the late 1980s. By 1988, the US had distanced itself from the dictator. Haunted by his crimes and unable to maintain his grip on power, he lost a national referendum to extend his rule until 1997. As with many other US backed dictators, Pinochet's crimes went unpunished. Yet, the call for justice remains. "This criminal died without having being sentenced," commented human rights lawyer Hugo Gutierrez. "I believe that the responsibility the state bears has to be considered."
