By Faiza Rady Extracts from the Spanish warrant for the extradition of former Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, on charges of torture and genocide: "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." As lawyers for General Pinochet are seeking to overturn the decision of the highest British court -- the House of Lords -- upholding the arrest warrant against him, human rights activists around the world are celebrating. "I feel enormous satisfaction on this historic day. It's a 'No' to impunity and a 'Yes' to justice," said Chilean deputy Isabel Allende. The Socialist Party deputy, whose father, President Salvador Allende, was killed during Pinochet's 1973 coup against Allende's democratically-elected socialist government, spoke from Madrid where she had travelled to await the verdict. In the Chilean capital Santiago, the mothers, daughters and wives of the disappeared, the association of relatives of prisoners who had been executed without trial and human rights activists, marched solemnly, carrying photos of their dead and expressing their joy that Pinochet would at last be brought to justice. "These were the women whom I had witnessed for the past 20 or so years, day after day, keeping the flame of memory burning, unwilling to forget their murdered, damaged loved ones, and what had been done to those loved ones in some slippery, unspeakable cellar in this same city," testified Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman in the British newspaper The Guardian. Spanish courts are seeking the extradition of Pinochet to Madrid to stand trial on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture. According to Spanish legal records, Pinochet is accused of ordering the killings and "disappearances" of 3,178 people between 1973 and 1990. Following the English court ruling, Britain faced an avalanche of extradition requests from other European countries. Swiss, French, Belgian and Swedish prosecutors filed extradition claims on behalf of Chilean victims of Pinochet's rule of terror. Pinochet, who had travelled to London for minor back surgery in early October, was arrested while lying in his hospital bed on 16 October. And he recently lost his bid to be granted sovereign immunity from prosecution, based on his diplomatic status as a former head of state and senator-for-life. The Chilean government strongly opposes Pinochet's extradition to Spain and sent Foreign Minister Jose Miguel Inzulsa to demand the former dictator's immediate release. In London last week Inzulsa said: "We fully understand the concern about human rights that everybody has, but the Chilean people have to be allowed to judge and decide how they are going to deal with their past." Despite Inzulsa's assurances to the contrary, many political analysts believe the Chilean government's hands are tied. Pinochet had, long ago, made provisions to live out his old age in comfortable impunity back home. Careful to cover his criminal tracks, he has already secured himself immunity from prosecution in Chile. Before the dictator retired as head of the infamous junta in 1993, he granted himself and his military cronies a blanket constitutional immunity. Any legal action against the junta and its head would, therefore, require a change to the constitution, an arduous and drawn-out process which Pinochet would presumably not witness in his lifetime. Worldwide, human rights groups rejoiced that the dictator had seemingly been unable to get away with impunity after all, and proclaimed the British court verdict as a victory for humanity. Geoffrey Bindman, the lawyer who represented Amnesty International and a number of Pinochet's victims in the case, said, "The ruling was the most important case in human rights law this century," according to the British newspaper The Independent. Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group and Labour MP Ann Clwyd applauded British courts for ruling in accordance with international law -- at last. "This is an important signal to all those guilty of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity: the UK will not provide a hiding place for those guilty of such crimes," said Clwyd. In France, MPs across the political spectrum unanimously cheered the ruling, along with Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who said that "this is a surprise, a joy, bad news for dictators". In effect, many analysts believe the decision to prosecute Pinochet signals a new era for dictators and political criminals around the world. "This was a bold and principled [ruling], taking a stand on behalf of the globalisation of fundamental human rights which will be seen as a milestone," wrote The Guardian. The European Left's general state of elation notwithstanding, some analysts believe the Pinochet legacy is alive and kicking in Chile. "We have been, we still are, hostages of Pinochet," commented Chilean writer Dorfman in that context. Hostages of Pinochet and, by implication, hostages of the US government. "The Nixon administration openly favoured the coup and helped prepare the climate for the military intervention against the socialist government of President Salvador Allende," recalled The New York Times, stressing that this was achieved "by blocking loans, financing strikes and supporting the opposition press." "Since Allende's socialist government had support from activist working-class parties, trade unions and peasant organisations, the Chilean military turned its guns on these organisations without pity -- murdering some 30,000 of their leaders and activists," explained the American weekly Workers' World. "Such horrendous details could be repeated for many thousands of human beings in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Indonesia and quite a few other US client states," said prominent scholar and political analyst Noam Chomsky. American support and promotion of Pinochet's and other fascist regimes in the region explains the Clinton administration's refusal to hand over CIA documents relevant to the investigation of Spanish judges handling the Pinochet case. While the US government belatedly showed some signs of contrition over its blemished record in Central America -- expressed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who surprisingly conceded to Washington's "terrible past mistakes" -- the relevant CIA files have so far remained tightly sealed. "If this were a case the US would like to see prosecuted, the response would be cooperative," The New York Times quoted Reed Brody, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, as saying. In this context, it is evident that the US very much holds the strings, meting out justice at will -- according to criteria of political expediency. Some ominous voices in the US and elsewhere are already clamouring for the arrest of enemy heads of so-called rogue states, such as Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Moreover, the potential globalisation of justice may signal danger -- to the South in particular. While the aging Chilean dictator's belated and still highly hypothetical trial for crimes against humanity should be acclaimed as a victory of universal progressive forces, his trial outside Chile would also signify a loss of national sovereignty under the conveniently 'modern' banner of globalisation.
