Interviews From The Short Century. Marco Lupis

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Lucía Pinochet

       Death, torture and disappearance

       Santiago, March 1999 .

      â€œ Pinochet? Chileans see him as a cancer. A hidden and painful illness. You know it’s there, but you're afraid to talk about it...to even say its name. So you end up pretending it doesn’t exist. Maybe you think that by ignoring it, it will just go away without you having to confront it.” The waitress at Café El Biógrafo , a popular hangout for poets and students in the picturesque bohemian Santiago barrio of Bellavista, known for its colourful houses, couldn't have been much more than twenty years old. She may not even have been born when General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the “ Senador vitalicio ” [Senator-for-life] as he is known here, was either giving orders that would see his opponents “killed, tortured and forcibly disappeared” - as the families of the more than thirty thousand desaparecidos claim - or ruling with an iron fist to ensure that Chile was free from the threat of communism - as his admirers insist. And yet she is keen to talk to me about Pinochet, and she has some forthright views: “It’s all about Pinochet here. Whether you're a fan of his or not, you can't deny that he is present in every part of Chilean life. He's part of our politics, clearly. He lives large in everyone's memories, in my parents’ stories, in teachers’ lessons. He’s in novels, non-fiction books, the cinema. That's right, in Chile even films are either for or against Pinochet. And yet somehow we continue to pretend that he isn’t there...”

       This stubborn old man, who faced up to the British justice system “with the dignity of a soldier”, this “poor old guy” (as whispered into my ear by the concierge at the Círculo de la Prensa , where during the shadowy years of the military dictatorship, people loyal to the General would come to “pick up” pesky journalists right in front of the Palacio de La Moneda, where Salvador Allende died in the midst of the coup) had become a lumbering giant whose presence was felt in every corner of every street of every quarter of Santiago, a city that seemed to me uncertain and inward-looking

       He is the living memory of this country - a colossal, ubiquitous memory that embarrasses those who supported him and irritates those who opposed him. A vast, sprawling memory that clings to people's lives, hopes and fears, to Chile's past and to its future.

       In October 1998, having retired as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean army and been appointed Senator-for-life, Pinochet was arrested while in London for medical treatment and placed under house arrest. First at the clinic where he had just undergone back surgery, and then in a rented house.

       The international arrest warrant had been signed by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, for crimes against humanity. The charges included nearly a hundred counts of torture of Spanish citizens and count of conspiracy to commit torture. The UK had only recently signed the United Nations Convention against Torture, meaning that all the charges related to events that occurred during the final fourteen months of his rule.

       The Chilean government immediately opposed his arrest, extradition and trial. Thus began a hard-fought, sixteen-month battle in the House of Lords, then the highest court in the UK. Pinochet claimed diplomatic immunity as a former head of state, but the Lords refused in light of the severity of the charges and authorised the extradition, albeit with several restrictions. However, shortly afterwards, a second ruling by the Lords enabled Pinochet to avoid extradition on health grounds (he was eighty-two years old at the time of his arrest), for “humanitarian” reasons. Following medical assessments, the British Home Secretary Jack Straw authorised Pinochet to return to Chile in March 2000, nearly two years after he was put under house arrest.

       It was at the end of March 1999, in the midst of this complex international legal battle, that I went to Santiago to monitor the situation for the daily Il Tempo and to interview Pinochet’s eldest daughter, Lucía. The House of Lords had just rejected Pinochet’s claim for immunity, and the plane that the general’s family and supporters had hoped would bring him home to Chile returned without him.

       The reaction on the streets of Santiago was immediate. On March 24, the Chilean capital had awaited the ruling with bated breath. The city may not have been in lockdown, but there was a discrete Carabineros - military police - presence at potential flashpoints: the presidential seat at La Moneda, the British and Spanish embassies, and the headquarters of pro- and anti-Pinochet organisations. There was blanket media coverage, enabling Chileans to follow events minute by minute. With live satellite links to London, Madrid and various locations in Santiago starting at seven in the morning and lasting all day, it felt like a truly historical event. At around midday local time, less than an hour after the Lords had issued their ruling, two afternoon dailies were published in special edition. The headline of one of them put it very neatly: “Pinochet loses but wins”.

       In the morning, the residents of Santiago had crowded round televisions in public places, from McDonald's to the smallest of bars, to follow all the crucial developments. Angry customers in one large city-centre store beseeched the manager to СКАЧАТЬ