Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was arrested Wednesday and charged with tax evasion, passport forgery and other crimes associated with his possession of hundreds of illegal bank accounts, many of them in the United States.
Pinochet, who turns 90 later this week, was placed under house arrest at his suburban estate east of Santiago -- a process he has experienced twice before for allegedly committing human rights abuses while ruling Chile from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet's lawyers successfully quashed those court cases by arguing that he was mentally unfit to stand trial, and on Wednesday they told reporters that the same arguments should apply to the current charges.
Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? And chances are Pinochet will skate on this too, like everything else. That's okay -- it's not like they're really going to send a 90-year-old man to prison, no matter how much of a sumbitch he is. The point is that they're going to hound this rotten old bastard to his grave, and that's something. Augusto Pinochet will never know another moment's true peace for as long as he lives, and that's a pretty good thing. Coulda been better, mind you, but whattaya gonna do?
The indictment came eight months after a U.S. Senate report revealed that Pinochet had used various aliases to stash money in more than 125 accounts at six U.S. banks, including Riggs Bank in Washington, where he kept $8 million. Other accounts have since been uncovered in banks in Britain and Gibraltar.
Oh gee, they say it like it's a bad thing. Recall also who's in charge of Riggs Bank -- none other than the monkey's uncle himself, Jonathan Bush. There are coincidences in life, and then there are stacks of coincidences. The Bushes' longtime proximity to blood money and international money laundering is one such stack. Perhaps Pravda can put the ever-intrepid Boob Woodward on the case, if his arms aren't too tired from hoisting the administration's water for three years.
For years, Pinochet's claims of dementia have frustrated prosecutors in pursuit of him for crimes they say include the murder and torture of thousands of people after he took power in a 1973 military coup. In addition to Wednesday's indictment, other prosecutors are preparing charges against Pinochet for his role in Operation Colombo -- the 1975 disappearance of 119 members of the Revolutionary Leftist Movement, whose bodies were eventually found in other Latin American countries.
Chile's Supreme Court ruled in September that Pinochet's immunity as a former president could be withdrawn for the Operation Colombo case, and a medical panel that recently examined Pinochet did not rule out the possibility of a trial.
Again, why not helpfully point out that two of those people Pinochet tortured and killed were American citizens? Not that it automatically makes them better than native Chileans, but apparently that's all that gets us motivated on these things. Furthermore, you'd think that the newspaper of record in the nation's capital might also take a second to point out Pinochet's terrorist at in said capital, the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. That these details consistently get elided whenever and wherever Pinochet merits mention for his nefarious deeds is telling.
Pinochet's wife and son were arrested in August and charged as accomplices in tax evasion for helping him move money between the accounts; they are currently free on bail. Judge Cerda set Pinochet's bail at $23,000 -- an amount that Pinochet's lawyers said he could not afford because all of his money has been frozen by the courts.
"It's sad that a man who dedicated his life to the country is now facing this situation," said Gen. Guillermo Garin, a spokesman for Pinochet.
Transcripts of recent testimony by Pinochet, leaked to the Chilean press, suggest that Pinochet has switched his earlier strategy of evading questions and now appears to be justifying his actions, such as the transfer of funds to his children.
"My children are lepers, like me," Pinochet reportedly told Cerda.
Good. They are enablers of a vile human being. The hell with the lot of them. Perhaps the next generation can try to rehabilitate the name, without shuffling thick envelopes of blood money around the Caribbean.
The Riggs connection is actually deeper. A few months ago, I read some investigative journalism that claimed Riggs Bank to be the institution the CIAgency uses to finance some of their operations. Friendly feelings towards Augusto go even further back, to gramps George 41.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the petty hounding of Pinochet is pretty small change compared to the justice his victims deserve. Harassing him with tax evasion charges is not gonna put an end to their rolling in their graves. Too bad the press here hasn't learned to see him as the real monster he is, instead of trying to sweep all this under the rug, as befits a former reliable "bulwark against Communism" in Latin America.
--M.
Marius:
ReplyDeleteYep. Poppy Bush's involvement with BCCI is the key to the whole rotten thing I think. It's a very tangled web, woven by a bunch of assholes who took a weird oath to a secret society in the Ivy League. I hate how that sounds, but that's what much of it boils down to.
They should take Pinochet's laundered money and divide it among the families of his known victims. Naturally, that will never happen.
As far as the proverbial "bulwark against communism", it's interesting how, as the Monroe Doctrine has finally wasted away, the major SA gov'ts have taken a "market-left" turn, if you will. They're leftist, with some socialist tendencies (esp. Chavez), but by no means communist. Populist, really.
That may be less attractive to the int'l investor class, but fuck 'em. That region has had more than its share of authoritarian assholes.