Once it comes to Human Rights abuses you can count on Christopher Hitchens to be consistent. In a not too surprising takedown Hitchens compares Pinochet to both Franco and Saddam. He brushes quickly by the market reforms and skips the fact that Pinochet willingly albeit reluctantly relinquished power. In terms of facts I have a problem with Allende being described as "dying bravely at his post." Going out the "Cuban way" is not what I consider brave. How fitting that he used Fidel's AK to finish himself off. Here's Hitch:
It is greatly to the credit of the Chileans that they have managed to restore and revive democratic institutions without any resort to violence, and that due process was scrupulously applied to Pinochet and to all his underlings. But there is a price to be paid for the slowness and care of these proceedings. We still do not know all that we might about the murder of U.S. citizen Charles Horman, for instance. And many Chilean families do not know where their "disappeared" loved ones are buried or how they died. (Perhaps sometimes it is better not to know the last bit.) Not once, in the prolonged process of investigation and clarification, did Pinochet offer to provide any information or to express any conscience or remorse. Like Slobodan Milosevic (who also cheated justice by dying) and Saddam Hussein, he was arrogant and blustering to the very last. Chile and the world are well rid of him, but we can thank his long and brutish rear-guard action for helping us to establish at least some of the emerging benchmarks of universal jurisdiction for tyrants.
