From the BBC: “Chile’s former military ruler Augusto Pinochet has said he takes political responsibility for everything that happened during his 18 years in power.”
Here’s some of what he said (or rather of what his wife read on his behalf): “Today, near the end of my days, I want to say that I harbour no rancour against anybody, that I love my fatherland above all… I take political responsibility for everything that was done.”
Everything? Well, certainly the coup that brought down the democratically-elected Salvador Allende in 1973. He claims to have had “no other motive than to make Chile a great place and prevent its disintegration,” but, well, that’s where the bullshit comes in. For he doesn’t seem to understand what might be wrong about overthrowing a democratic government. And he doesn’t take responsibility for the human rights abuses that were committed, but that’s because he doesn’t think any human rights abuses were committed.
For more, see this BBC profile of the former dictator: “It was he who ordered many of the purges that saw more than 3,000 supporters of the Allende regime killed, thousands more tortured, and many thousands more again forced into exile.”
And see Costa-Gavras’s powerful film Missing, with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek.
And see these important resources: Remember-Chile, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.
And listen to Pink Floyd’s “The Fletcher Memorial Home” (on The Final Cut). (The lyrics are here.) Pinochet’s surely in there somewhere.