Ex-dictator Pinochet dies at 91

BOGOTA -- Augusto Pinochet, the right-wing general who came to power in a bloody 1973 coup and ruled Chile for 17 years, died yesterday one week after suffering a heart attack, extinguishing his opponents' hopes he would be found guilty for the crimes of his regime. He was 91.

The most notorious and enduring right-wing Latin American dictator in an era when military regimes dominated the region, General Pinochet was a polarizing figure who lived his final years in infirmity and under indictment, flanked by doctors, lawyers, and bodyguards. For the first time, on his 91st birthday, he took political -- though not legal -- responsibility for acts committed during his regime, but he said he believed they were in his country's best interest.

Under his brutal dictatorship, state agents murdered and tortured thousands of leftist opponents, and General Pinochet allegedly squirreled away a fortune. His critics say he craftily escaped punishment after he left office by feigning dementia.

To his supporters, he was a hero who saved his nation from socialism and chaos, introduced free-market policies that helped make Chile's economy the healthiest in Latin America, and respected elections that ushered in a left-leaning civilian successor. Since 2004, when evidence of multimillion-dollar secret bank accounts emerged, his core of loyalists has shrunk dramatically.

President Michelle Bachelet, who along with her mother was detained in a torture center following the coup and whose father was killed by the regime, recently said it would be against her conscience to attend a state funeral for General Pinochet . Last night, the government decided on military honors without a state funeral -- so as not to anger his supporters or his victims.

Yesterday, military barracks around the country flew their flags at half-staff, and hundreds of Pinochet supporters rallied outside the hospital where he died, while celebrations erupted elsewhere in the capital, Santiago.

"He will be remembered as one of the most powerful men in Chilean history and also one of the most humiliated," said Ascanio Cavallo, dean of the school of journalism at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Santiago.

At the height of his power, General Pinochet cut a striking and unmistakable figure in his dark glasses, flowing military cape, and long leather gloves. He famously declared in 1981 that, "In this country, not a leaf moves if I don't move it."

However, he later denied knowing about the persecution of opponents by his subordinates.

General Pinochet relinquished the presidency in 1990 after losing a 1988 plebiscite that sought to grant him eight more years in office. But he stayed on as armed forces commander until 1998 and then took up a Senate seat guaranteed by a constitution that he created in 1980.

Shielded from prosecution in Chile by that same constitution, General Pinochet was first pursued by the courts during a 1998 medical visit to London, when a Spanish judge demanded his extradition to face charges of genocide, torture, and murder. The general spent a year and a half under house arrest in Britain, while supporters at home donated money for his legal fees. British authorities eventually cited his ill health as grounds for returning him to Chile.

General Pinochet's followers welcomed him with celebrations, but he had lost his untouchable status. Within months, he was stripped of immunity from prosecution for the "Caravan of Death," the nationwide execution of scores of opponents ordered by military commanders after the coup. Chile's Supreme Court ruled him unfit to stand trial, after a panel of doctors said he suffered from mild dementia.

In subsequent years, he was indicted and placed under house arrest numerous times for charges relating to torture, kidnapping, and executions, as well as tax evasion on unexplained assets, but General Pinochet was always spared trial in consideration of his health. He was said to have suffered from diabetes, heart problems, minor strokes, and difficulty in speaking and moving. At the time of his death, he was the target of more than 250 private lawsuits from victims of his regime.

Born on Nov. 25, 1915, in the port of Valparaíso, Augusto José Ramón Pinochet was the son of a customs agent. He rose through the army's officer corps and led a crackdown on the Chilean Communist Party in the 1950s.

In 1970, Salvador Allende became the first democratically elected Marxist president of any nation. Opposed from the outset by conservative politicians, the rich, and the US government, Allende nationalized industry, expropriated land, froze prices, raised wages, and forged ties with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

By 1973, the nation was in crisis, caused in part by covert US efforts to destabilize Allende. Hyperinflation and shortages spurred calls for his overthrow on the streets and in the Chilean Congress. Allende promoted General Pinochet to army commander when his predecessor was forced to resign.

On Sept. 11, 1973, the armed forces bombed the presidential palace. Allende apparently committed suicide, and tens of thousands of his sympathizers were rounded up in the National Stadium, which was used as a concentration camp. Over the next 17 years, the security apparatus detained an estimated 150,000 suspected opponents of the regime, according to prominent Chilean human rights lawyer José Zalaquett, and masterminded high-profile executions at home, in Washington, D.C., and in Buenos Aires. Tens of thousands of Chileans passed through more than 1,000 secret detention and torture centers. Thousands more fled into exile.

In 1983, pro-democracy and labor organizers organized massive street protests, which were crushed with force. Three years later, General Pinochet survived an assassination attempt.

Post-Pinochet government panels concluded that his regime killed or "disappeared" more than 3,000 political opponents and detained at least 28,000 in torture centers.

Allende's revolution and the coup that ended it bitterly divided families, and have served as the backdrop for emotional retellings in novels, memoirs, documentaries, and feature films. The right-vs.-left struggle that played out in Chile epitomized the Cold War sideshow that defined South America in the 1970s and '80s, as military regimes repressed leftist movements in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia.

Despite truth commissions and reparations to victims, Chilean society has not reached final consensus on the Pinochet legacy. Yet unlike other Latin American nations that opted not to pursue human rights violators, Chile has prosecuted hundreds of former officials, including dozens of generals, with the prominent exception of General Pinochet himself.

After stamping out perceived communist threats, General Pinochet turned his attention to the economy, following advice from the "Chicago boys," economists trained by free-market proponent Milton Friedman. Deregulation and privatization followed, triggering financial collapse and unemployment. But the economy recovered, and his policies are widely credited with Chile's steady economic growth since the mid-1980s.

Retired Colonel Christian Labbé, a former Pinochet government spokesman, compared the former president to Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Chilean independence hero Bernardo O'Higgins, saying in an interview that "he will be remembered as a great statesman who acted in a very important moment in history. . . . Pinochet is being destroyed politically, but his work and his legacy are untouchable."

Erstwhile supporters are no longer united in that view. Many abandoned him after details emerged about secret foreign bank accounts and the extent of systemic torture.

Despite the belief "that he saved the nation from the chaos of the [Allende] government . . . the right-wing sector is disillusioned with Pinochet," said Lucas Sierra, a researcher at the Center of Public Studies, a conservative think tank in Santiago.

In a 2003 interview with a Miami television station, General Pinochet called himself "an angel. . . . Reflecting and meditating on it, I am good." He refused to apologize for the brutality of his regime, saying any excesses were committed by subordinates. Infuriated opponents said the clarity of his comments undermined arguments that he was senile and incapable of standing trial.

In his final years, he lived a reclusive existence on his ranch outside Santiago. The stooped, aged figure who needed assistance to dress and walk was a far cry from the iconic dictator known for his erect stature and fiery glare.

In June 2004, a US congressional investigation revealed General Pinochet had secret US bank accounts holding as much as $8 million. Chilean investigators eventually turned up evidence of $27 million in "suspicious funds" hidden worldwide and began prosecuting him for massive tax evasion. He was being investigated for embezzlement at the time of his death, but no charges had been filed. His wife and four of their five children have also been charged in the financial inquiry.

On his 91st birthday, in a statement read by his wife, General Pinochet declared that "at the close of my days, I want to make clear that I hold no rancor toward anybody and I love my fatherland above all, and that I take political responsibility for everything that was done, which had no goal other than making Chile greater."

He never admitted to ordering the executions and torture or to stealing public funds.

"He's going to go down in history as the emblematic Latin American dictator," said Sebastian Brett, Chile researcher for Human Rights Watch. "I don't think history will appreciate his refusal to take responsibility for anything."