I must admit, Marc, I am extraordinarily disturbed by the growing chorus of apologia for brutal thug Augusto Pinochet. The argument seems to be twofold:
1) A left-wing dictator would have been worse, and
2) At least he helped spark the economy.
Both, I feel, are being wielded far too casually to excuse one of the hemisphere’s most notorious tyrants.
To the first, yes, Pinochet is likely better than Fidel Castro. Castro, for his part, is likely better than Adolph Hitler. The debate as to whether right-wing or left-wing dictators are “worse” is tiresome and, I feel, puts the desire to score partisan points ahead of what should be a bipartisan and universal norm of condemning all of history’s murderous tyrants to the hell they belong. Moreover, I can’t be too impressed by Pinochet voluntarily stepping down and “pav[ing] the way for liberal democrac[y]” after over a decade in office, given that he got there by overthrowing a democratically elected government in Salvador Allende. Allende may not have been ideal, but he was the elected leader (unlike Mr. Castro), and I think its an absurd attempt at counterfactual to assert that he, too, would have been a brutal thug. Democracy, at the very least, already existed in Chile. Pinochet replaced democracy with a particularly vicious tyranny.
To the second, I don’t feel these sort of extrinsic issues can or should in any way be used to lament the loss of evil. I’m no fan of stagnated economic development, but I dislike thousands of “disappearances” and mass torture a whole lot more. Giving points to Pinochet for improving the economy is like giving props to Castro for increasing the literacy rate, or the British colonial government for making the trains run on time. When weighed against the type of incalculable evil waged by Pinochet against his populace, it is a flyspeck.
At least Marc was restrained enough to admit that he does not like right-wing dictators. Others have been far less circumspect. One conservative voice called Pinochet’s death “a loss for us all.” The National Review’s symposium on his life contained five positive eulogies to one condemnation — the one being from the leader of the Human Rights Foundation. Otto Reich probably best (if unwittingly) displayed the type of perverse moral weighing going on in these minds:
Augusto Pinochet was a tragic figure. Instead of being remembered for saving Chilean democracy from a communist takeover, and starting the country on the longest-lasting economic expansion in Latin America, which he did, he will be remembered mostly for carrying out a brutal campaign of human-rights abuses.
Am I the only one not tearing up over this “tragedy”?
This desire to redeem some of history’s worst oppressors needs to end. These people are cast from the same mold as those who are now calling Slobodan Milosevic “a hero and a kind of prophet.” Never forget who we are talking about. If this is what it takes to make the trains run on time, then I say let them be a little late.
On the morning of July 2, 1986, a day of national protest against the military dictatorship, a military patrol commanded by Fernandez Dittus intercepted a group of young people in Los Nogales, municipality of Estacion Central in the capital. All escaped except Rojas and Quintana, who were severely beaten by military personnel, and later soaked with gasoline and set afire. Once in flames and unconscious, patrol members wrapped them in blankets and drove them to an isolated road in the outskirts of Santiago.
In another context, Cynthia Ozick spoke words we would do well to remember now:
Let [Pinochet] die unshriven.
Let him go to hell.
Sooner the fly to God than he.