Pinochet Is History
But how will it remember him?

Reprinted from NRO symposium dated December 11, 2006

As dissident hero Vladimir Bukovsky so accurately observed, “with the exception of the Black Death, torture is the oldest scourge on our planet (hence there are so many conventions against it).” Inspired by the Chilean congressional vote to remove Salvador Allende from power, Augusto Pinochet took full control of Chile — by force. He shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions, and made Chile his sultanate. His government disappeared 3,000 opponents, arrested 30,000 (torturing thousands of them), and controlled the country until 1990. Some insist he “saved” Chile from Marxist tyranny and created an economic miracle. Allende, a democratically elected thug, had set about dismantling Chilean democracy and civil society. The argument goes that, had Allende become a Chilean Castro, it is probable many more would have died and millions suffered (the death and torture toll from Fidel Castro’s totalitarian dictatorship being far greater than Pinochet’s). Why only two alternatives? Why couldn’t Chile have enjoyed economic prosperity and the widespread protection of human rights and the rule of law? Freedom might have been a messy, clumsy, and imperfect alternative but despotism, as Pinochet and Castro demonstrate, is a lot messier. Pinochet’s name will forever be linked to the Desaparecidos, the Caravan of Death, and the institutionalized torture that took place in the Villa Grimaldi complex.

— Thor Halvorssen, a film producer and human-rights advocate, is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation