house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
Full Version: pinochet
Pinochet has been placed under 90 days
house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
QUOTE(pink shay @ Nov 23 2005, 09:05 PM)
Pinochet has been placed under 90 days
house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
90 days for tax evasion? Geez, at least they got Capone for 11 years for that crime.
QUOTE
His spokesman, Guillermo Garin, described Gen Pinochet's condition as "very serious".
"It's sad to see a person who dedicated his entire life to his country facing this situation," he said.
"It's sad to see a person who dedicated his entire life to his country facing this situation," he said.
Yep! and I look forward to hearing the same thing said about Thatcher ... soon, I hope ...
It is small consolation.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world
From the article...
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's wife and four grown children were arrested Monday in connection with an investigation of more than $20 million held in secret bank accounts linked to the ex-military strongman.
Court officials in Santiago, the Chilean capital, told reporters that Judge Carlos Cerda ordered the arrest of Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart, and four of the couple's five children on tax fraud and other charges.
Reuters news service reported that Pinochet's wife and three of the couple's children would be detained under house arrest in Santiago, at least until today, but that his eldest son, Augusto, was released on bail. The remaining family members were expected to post bail today.
My comment...
And still, the best they could do is 'house arrest'. Oh yeah, and the comfy chair. NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...headlines-world
From the article...
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's wife and four grown children were arrested Monday in connection with an investigation of more than $20 million held in secret bank accounts linked to the ex-military strongman.
Court officials in Santiago, the Chilean capital, told reporters that Judge Carlos Cerda ordered the arrest of Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart, and four of the couple's five children on tax fraud and other charges.
Reuters news service reported that Pinochet's wife and three of the couple's children would be detained under house arrest in Santiago, at least until today, but that his eldest son, Augusto, was released on bail. The remaining family members were expected to post bail today.
My comment...
And still, the best they could do is 'house arrest'. Oh yeah, and the comfy chair. NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
QUOTE(pink shay @ Nov 23 2005, 09:05 PM)
Pinochet has been placed under 90 days
house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
house arrest for tax evasion.
why comes he gets to stay at home?
and what about all the human rights attrocities carried out under his regime.
I just dont understand.
Thanks to the new Labour government and the good old British Legal System, it is highly unlikely that Mr Pinochet will ever face justice for his attrocities. Britain had it within its poweer to deliver Pinochet to Justice but failed to do so.
And we are supposed to respect a legal system, which imprisons people for smoking cannabis, sleeping rough and begging but allows mass murderers to walk free.
Legal Justice in this country has become oxymoronic.
And we are supposed to respect a legal system, which imprisons people for smoking cannabis, sleeping rough and begging but allows mass murderers to walk free.
Legal Justice in this country has become oxymoronic.
And they say there's no good news:
In Chile, Nobody Talks to Pinochet Now
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By EDUARDO GALLARDO Associated Press Writer
September 17,2006 | SANTIAGO, Chile -- Gen. Augusto Pinochet, once the all-powerful dictator of Chile, is a lonely man nowadays.
When his former secret police chief shocked the nation in July by claiming Pinochet made part of his large fortune through drug trafficking, his lawyer and longtime supporter issued a denial but other than his family, few Chileans came to his defense.
Just five people showed up this month to mark the anniversary of a failed attempt on 90-year-old Pinochet's life. And on Sept. 11, the 33rd anniversary of the military coup against socialist President Salvador Allende, only two women appeared at his house for what used to be a day of great celebration for Pinochetistas.
Before, Pinochet could count on legions of supporters to fend off his critics and paint him as the man who saved Chile from becoming another Cuba. Now, the only thing keeping him out of jail appears to be his poor health, which his doctors say includes diabetes, arthritis and mild dementia.
"Pinochet belongs to the past," Michelle Bachelet said as she campaigned to become Chile's first female president this year. Her right-wing rivals readily agreed, calling the aging, ailing dictator irrelevant to most Chilean voters.
Even the courts have turned against him. This month the Supreme Court stripped him of immunity, paving the way to try him on charges involving torture and kidnapping at a secret detention center where hundreds of dissidents -- including Bachelet and her mother -- were held.
It's a long fall for a man who, for 17 years from his 1973 coup, dominated every aspect of public life in Chile. According to an official report, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his rule, including more than 1,000 who remain unaccounted for today.
Pinochet faces scores of criminal lawsuits for the human rights violations, but it's money, not human rights, that has isolated the general.
"Pinochet has been abandoned mainly because of the bank accounts," said political scientist Ricardo Israel. "Many people were prepared to accept the large amount of people who were killed during his regime, but this situation of the money has been a very hard blow for him."
The jailed former spy chief, retired Gen. Manuel Contreras, maintains Pinochet made the money through arms and drugs trafficking, but has provided no proof. Through his lawyers, Pinochet insists his money is the result of savings, donations and good investments.
It has taken years for the dictatorship's darkest secrets to become public. Most of the killings occurred in the early years of the dictatorship. But although democracy was restored in 1990, dissent for years remained muted.
Even after he allowed the 1988 referendum that ultimately ended his rule, Pinochet's connection to those in power, especially in the military, made him untouchable -- until 1998, and his stunning arrest in London on an international warrant issued by Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon.
"There is a before-Garzon and an after-Garzon in efforts to bring justice in the human rights abuses in Chile," human rights lawyer Alfonso Insunza said.
Human rights charges were filed against Pinochet in Chile after his return from London. Then, in 2004, it emerged from a U.S. Senate investigation that he had a fortune in foreign bank accounts. A Chilean judge estimated it at $28 million, and Pinochet was indicted for tax evasion.
Now comes the biggest shock -- the claim that the money came from drugs and guns.
The army commander, Gen. Oscar Izurieta said, he expects Pinochet to prove the fortune is legitimate, but that all the same the affair has done "terrible damage" to the military.
"It's very difficult for me to forgive him," he told the magazine Que Pasa.
Hermogenes Perez de Arce, a prominent newspaper columnist and former right-wing congressman, is one of the few who still defend Pinochet.
"Many right-wing people who supported him have abandoned him or openly adopted a language against him," Perez de Arce told The Associated Press. "I say they were brainwashed."
He said Pinochet was a longtime hate figure to leftists worldwide, and insisted the accusations of corruption and human rights violations are baseless.
Because of Pinochet's declining health, the courts have repeatedly dropped human rights charges against him, but the tax evasion case stands.
The victims of the dictatorship continue to seek justice, but the possibility of Pinochet going on trial appear remote, despite his being stripped of the immunity he enjoys as a former president in at least four indictments.
Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart, has asked for forgiveness on his behalf -- while not saying he did anything wrong.
"He has said many times that if he was wrong, he asks the people who fell to forgive him, especially from our side, but also for the adversaries," she said this month.
Meanwhile, Chileans seem more galvanized by Garzon than by Pinochet. The Spanish judge was here last month to accept an honorary degree from Universidad Central in Santiago, and only 12 Pinochet supporters, none of them prominent figures, showed up to protest.
In Chile, Nobody Talks to Pinochet Now
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By EDUARDO GALLARDO Associated Press Writer
September 17,2006 | SANTIAGO, Chile -- Gen. Augusto Pinochet, once the all-powerful dictator of Chile, is a lonely man nowadays.
When his former secret police chief shocked the nation in July by claiming Pinochet made part of his large fortune through drug trafficking, his lawyer and longtime supporter issued a denial but other than his family, few Chileans came to his defense.
Just five people showed up this month to mark the anniversary of a failed attempt on 90-year-old Pinochet's life. And on Sept. 11, the 33rd anniversary of the military coup against socialist President Salvador Allende, only two women appeared at his house for what used to be a day of great celebration for Pinochetistas.
Before, Pinochet could count on legions of supporters to fend off his critics and paint him as the man who saved Chile from becoming another Cuba. Now, the only thing keeping him out of jail appears to be his poor health, which his doctors say includes diabetes, arthritis and mild dementia.
"Pinochet belongs to the past," Michelle Bachelet said as she campaigned to become Chile's first female president this year. Her right-wing rivals readily agreed, calling the aging, ailing dictator irrelevant to most Chilean voters.
Even the courts have turned against him. This month the Supreme Court stripped him of immunity, paving the way to try him on charges involving torture and kidnapping at a secret detention center where hundreds of dissidents -- including Bachelet and her mother -- were held.
It's a long fall for a man who, for 17 years from his 1973 coup, dominated every aspect of public life in Chile. According to an official report, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his rule, including more than 1,000 who remain unaccounted for today.
Pinochet faces scores of criminal lawsuits for the human rights violations, but it's money, not human rights, that has isolated the general.
"Pinochet has been abandoned mainly because of the bank accounts," said political scientist Ricardo Israel. "Many people were prepared to accept the large amount of people who were killed during his regime, but this situation of the money has been a very hard blow for him."
The jailed former spy chief, retired Gen. Manuel Contreras, maintains Pinochet made the money through arms and drugs trafficking, but has provided no proof. Through his lawyers, Pinochet insists his money is the result of savings, donations and good investments.
It has taken years for the dictatorship's darkest secrets to become public. Most of the killings occurred in the early years of the dictatorship. But although democracy was restored in 1990, dissent for years remained muted.
Even after he allowed the 1988 referendum that ultimately ended his rule, Pinochet's connection to those in power, especially in the military, made him untouchable -- until 1998, and his stunning arrest in London on an international warrant issued by Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon.
"There is a before-Garzon and an after-Garzon in efforts to bring justice in the human rights abuses in Chile," human rights lawyer Alfonso Insunza said.
Human rights charges were filed against Pinochet in Chile after his return from London. Then, in 2004, it emerged from a U.S. Senate investigation that he had a fortune in foreign bank accounts. A Chilean judge estimated it at $28 million, and Pinochet was indicted for tax evasion.
Now comes the biggest shock -- the claim that the money came from drugs and guns.
The army commander, Gen. Oscar Izurieta said, he expects Pinochet to prove the fortune is legitimate, but that all the same the affair has done "terrible damage" to the military.
"It's very difficult for me to forgive him," he told the magazine Que Pasa.
Hermogenes Perez de Arce, a prominent newspaper columnist and former right-wing congressman, is one of the few who still defend Pinochet.
"Many right-wing people who supported him have abandoned him or openly adopted a language against him," Perez de Arce told The Associated Press. "I say they were brainwashed."
He said Pinochet was a longtime hate figure to leftists worldwide, and insisted the accusations of corruption and human rights violations are baseless.
Because of Pinochet's declining health, the courts have repeatedly dropped human rights charges against him, but the tax evasion case stands.
The victims of the dictatorship continue to seek justice, but the possibility of Pinochet going on trial appear remote, despite his being stripped of the immunity he enjoys as a former president in at least four indictments.
Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart, has asked for forgiveness on his behalf -- while not saying he did anything wrong.
"He has said many times that if he was wrong, he asks the people who fell to forgive him, especially from our side, but also for the adversaries," she said this month.
Meanwhile, Chileans seem more galvanized by Garzon than by Pinochet. The Spanish judge was here last month to accept an honorary degree from Universidad Central in Santiago, and only 12 Pinochet supporters, none of them prominent figures, showed up to protest.
This just seems "too little, too late" to me...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...nav=hcmoduletmv
From the article:
Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest and indicted for the first time on torture charges for abuses at a secret detention center where President Michelle Bachelet and her mother were once held, the judge handling the case reported Monday.
My comment:
I was so happy to see Bachelet win the Presidency in Chile (now if only I can also witness Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House here in the US).
From the article:
Two court officials notified Pinochet at his suburban Santiago mansion of the decision by Judge Alejandro Solis, who on Friday had charged Pinochet with one homicide, 35 kidnappings and 24 cases of torture at Villa Grimaldi, one of the most infamous detention centers in the early years of his 1973-1990 dictatorship.
My comment:
And to think, those charges are just a drop in the bucket.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...nav=hcmoduletmv
From the article:
Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest and indicted for the first time on torture charges for abuses at a secret detention center where President Michelle Bachelet and her mother were once held, the judge handling the case reported Monday.
My comment:
I was so happy to see Bachelet win the Presidency in Chile (now if only I can also witness Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House here in the US).
From the article:
Two court officials notified Pinochet at his suburban Santiago mansion of the decision by Judge Alejandro Solis, who on Friday had charged Pinochet with one homicide, 35 kidnappings and 24 cases of torture at Villa Grimaldi, one of the most infamous detention centers in the early years of his 1973-1990 dictatorship.
My comment:
And to think, those charges are just a drop in the bucket.
It doesn't matter. Vermin don't like the light, not even a little. The souls of the departed are ready for any kind of justice they can get.
So, here at work, we're on a sort of "Dictator Deathwatch", with both Pinochet and Castro ailing. And the talk turned to the pros and cons of each. I was shocked to discover that our resident ultra-conservative (a proud Bush Republican) was actually coming off as a Pinochet apologist. He was trying to make Castro sound worse than Pinochet, and I asked whether Castro ever persecuted his political foes as brutally and systematically as Pinochet did.
He actually said Chile's strong economy justified the political executions of the Pinochet era.
Excuse me? I can't figure out if this guy was taking the piss, or whether he simply automatically takes a position opposite to the left-wing one (a knee-jerk conservative?), but it got me wondering: is his position actually accepted in serious circles, or is it simply crackpot? Should I give this perspective a reasonable hearing, or is it just too loony to be taken seriously?
My mind simply boggles at the idea that a strong economy is ever justification for political torture and murder.
He actually said Chile's strong economy justified the political executions of the Pinochet era.
Excuse me? I can't figure out if this guy was taking the piss, or whether he simply automatically takes a position opposite to the left-wing one (a knee-jerk conservative?), but it got me wondering: is his position actually accepted in serious circles, or is it simply crackpot? Should I give this perspective a reasonable hearing, or is it just too loony to be taken seriously?
My mind simply boggles at the idea that a strong economy is ever justification for political torture and murder.
Too looney to be taken seriously.
That's what I thought. I just needed to share my bafflement.
is maggie's mate dead yet 
QUOTE(Beryl the Peril @ Dec 4 2006, 08:58 AM)
is maggie's mate dead yet
Yes. No doubt there will be all kinds of obituaries in glowing terms about how he loved his mother and sent flowers to Thatcher etc. Truth is, he was against democracy, led an armed coup against an elected government and lived the life of Riley. I will not be weeping the death of this tyrant.
Dead dead dead. And joined in death by Jeane Kirkpatrick, friend to dictators, apologist for war crimes. Dead dead dead.
My only hope is that Thatcher will be so distraught she'll throw herself into the grave with him...
I think it's a shame that he never faced justice.
maybe thats why the thatch was 'saddened' to hear of his death.... :sarcastic smiley:
Here's an interesting rememberance...
http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/200...ican-right.html
Pinochet is dead.
Let's remember what Thatcher had to say when this dictator was arrested in Britain for slaughtering thousands of people.
She took part in a meeting held under the banner: "General Pinochet: the only political prisoner in Britain".
Many on the American right, who hailed Thatcher as a great leader, will be surprised at how extreme the old windbag actually was.
Her support for a man who overthrew the democratically elected Allende in the most bloody coup in South America in the 20th Century will surprise no-one in Britain, where people lived under her rule for eleven long years.
This woman referred to coal miners in her own country as "the enemy within" and described the unemployed as "social security scroungers", despite the fact that it was her own policies that contributed to much of the unemployment within the country at the time...
http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/200...ican-right.html
Pinochet is dead.
Let's remember what Thatcher had to say when this dictator was arrested in Britain for slaughtering thousands of people.
She took part in a meeting held under the banner: "General Pinochet: the only political prisoner in Britain".
In a hall bedecked with Chilean flags, Thatcher was flanked by two Chilean senators, former chancellor Norman Lamont and Pinochet's son, Marco Antonio. Met by rapturous applause, she decried the extradition proceedings against the former dictator as "international lynch law", "judicial kidnap" and the equivalent of a "police state".
The case against Pinochet was a "Marxist" plot, Thatcher claimed. "The left can't forgive" Pinochet for defeating communism and successfully transforming Chile into a model free market economy, she continued, and were taking revenge on one of “Britain's greatest friends”.
Many on the American right, who hailed Thatcher as a great leader, will be surprised at how extreme the old windbag actually was.
Her support for a man who overthrew the democratically elected Allende in the most bloody coup in South America in the 20th Century will surprise no-one in Britain, where people lived under her rule for eleven long years.
This woman referred to coal miners in her own country as "the enemy within" and described the unemployed as "social security scroungers", despite the fact that it was her own policies that contributed to much of the unemployment within the country at the time...
is she dead yet
no, Beryl, but as they say, keep hope alive.
I've read stuff like any one else, and saw cartoons like this.
But this was the analysis I thought the most of.
I have said I like these people, and I'm sure some people on here wouldn't - but that's politics. I was chatting to a nice chap from the Socialist Party on saturday, and took a copy of their paper. I thought it was rubbish, but I still respect them.
But this was the analysis I thought the most of.
I have said I like these people, and I'm sure some people on here wouldn't - but that's politics. I was chatting to a nice chap from the Socialist Party on saturday, and took a copy of their paper. I thought it was rubbish, but I still respect them.
I guess it's easy for a man with a nice desk job writing a column could be bored by the explosion of emotion at the death of Pinochet. After all, some of those people would probably be dead by now of something, wouldn't they?
Sorry, Damon. His death was polarizing and infuriating - he escaped worldly justice again - and cathartic. May his hell be especially dreadful and may Maggie and Kissinger follow him very very soon.
Sorry, Damon. His death was polarizing and infuriating - he escaped worldly justice again - and cathartic. May his hell be especially dreadful and may Maggie and Kissinger follow him very very soon.
Happy Holidays everyone. I am back. I remember Christopher Hitchens (when he still had a few braincells left) did an incredible douumentary "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" He did an excellent job documenting Kissinger's crimes against humanity, going into great detail with the Allende assination and Pinochet's dictatorship.
I have regrets that Pinochet will never face justice here.
I have regrets that Pinochet will never face justice here.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.