The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights

271 Pages·2006·14.532 MB·English

by  Naomi Roht-Arriaza

The Pinochet Effect
PENNSYLVANIA STUDIES IN HUMAN RIGHTS
BertB. Lockwood,Jr., Series Editor
A complete listofbooks in the series is available from the publisher.
The Pinochet Effect
TransnationalJustice in the Age of
Human Rights
NAOMI ROHT-ARRIAZA
PENN
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia
Copyright© 2005 UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved
Printedin theUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4011
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Roht-Arriaza,Naomi.
ThePinocheteffect: transnationaljusticein theage ofhumanrights/ Naomi
Roht-Arriaza.
p. em. (Pennsylvaniastudiesin humanrights)
ISBN 0-8122-3845-1 (cloth:alk. paper)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.PinochetUgarte,Augusto-Trials,litigation,etc. 2.Operaci6nC6ndor (South
Americancountersubversionassociation). 3.Humanrights-SouthernConeof
SouthAmerica. 4.Criminalliability(Internationallaw). 5.Criminaljurisdiction.
6.SouthernConeofSouthAmerica-Politicsandgovernment-20thcentury. I. Title.
II. Series.
KH966.I57R64 2004
345'.04-dc22 2004055463
Contents
Preface vii
1. The Beginning 1
2. TheAdventures ofAugusto Pinochetin the United Kingdom:
A "MostCivilized Country" 32
3. The Investigations Come Home to Chile 67
4. Argentina: Truth and Consequences 97
5. The European Cases 118
6. Operation CondorRedux 150
7. The Legal LegacyofPinochet: UniversalJurisdiction and Its
Discontents 170
8. TheActors Behind the PinochetCases 208
Notes 225
Bibliography 239
Index 247
Acknowledgments 255
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
The arrest ofAugusto Pinochet in London in October 1998 electrified
the world. Pinochetwas, after all, a symbol ofthe dictatorships thathad
plagued much of the world during the 1970s and 1980s. All that had
gonewronginthatera,inChileandelsewhere,was capturedina photo
graph. A sterngroup ofofficersflanks GeneralPinochet, in darkglasses
and uniform, arms crossed, who stares implacablyinto the camera, dar
ing anyone to challenge him. That image, flashed across the world,
became the darksymbol ofa dark era. Maybe that'swhy, a quarter-cen
tury later, it retains its potency. The story ofthe general's downfall has
the same end-of-an-eraresonance.
I was a college studentwhen SalvadorAllende, a doctor and a Social
ist, was electedpresidentofChilein 1970. Hisexperimentcreatingdem
ocraticsocialismcameto a bloodyendinSeptember1973.Aftermonths
ofplotting the militarystaged a coup, supportedby opposition political
parties, the United States, the business sector and a good part of the
Chilean middle class. Allende killed himself as the presidential palace
was strafed by the Air Force; Congress was dissolved, the Constitution
was suspended, and a militaryjunta ruled by decree. TheJunta soon
came to bedominatedby GeneralAugustoPinochet,whomAllendehad
appointed as army chief. Pinochet centralized control, created a sepa
rate secret police under his personaljurisdiction, and eventually had
himselfnamedPresidentand headoftheArmed Forces. Under his dic
tatorship, some five thousand people were killed, over a thousand
detained and disappeared, tens ofthousands were imprisoned and tor
turedorforcedintoexile.Afterthefirstyearsofdictatorship, the crimes
becamemore selective. Requests to the courtsforwritsofhabeuscorpus
routinelywentunanswered. Familieswere told thattheirlovedoneshad
no doubtleft the country, taken new lovers, been mowed down in mili
tary confrontations or internecine squabbles of the left. Fear clamped
down on Chile. Those who were killed, it was said, had deserved what
they got; their families were shunned, neighbors divided, the press
silenced. Itlasted, in all, seventeenyears.
Many ofthose who fled the Allende debacle found refuge, atfirst, in
neighboringArgentina. Butsoon, and especiallyafter 1975, the Argen-
viii Preface
tine militarytookpowerandbegan its own campaignofterror. Notcon
tent to crush the country's armed insurgencies, they too struck at a
broad swath ofArgentine society, including left-wing supporters ofex
presidentJuan Peron, students, professionals, exiles from other Latin
American regimes, and anyone who seemed to get in the way. In the
end, over 30,000 died, mostofthem taken away to secretdetention cen
ters and camps, tortured, tossed still alive from airplanes into the seaor
shotandburiedinunmarkedgraves. Pregnantwomen gave birthmana
cledandblindfolded,andwere then killedandtheirbabiesgiven to mil
itary families.Jews were marked for especially sadistic treatment. The
terror eventuallyengulfed the entire Southern Cone ofLatin America,
as the militarized regimes of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay,
Bolivia, and Brazil coordinated their efforts to find and destroy oppo
nents through Operation Condor, sending dissidents found in one
country to another to disappear. Operation Condorwas led by Manuel
Contreras, Pinochet's secretpolice chief.
Argentina and Chile eventually reverted to civilian rule, in 1986 and
1990 respectively. The RaulAlfonsin governmentinArgentina commis
sioneda groupofnotablesheadedbywriterErnestoSabato (also known
as CONADEP) to report on the fate of the disappeared. Their report,
Nunca Mas (NeverAgain) established the existence ofmore than three
hundreddeath camps, thenamesofthe disappearedandthegeography
ofterror. Itwas a best-sellerinArgentina.Alfonsin turnedto themilitary
courts, believing that the armedforces could purge their own, butafter
ayearofstonewallingthe civiliancourtstookovercasesagainstthe mili
tary brass. Nine members of the ruling juntas were tried for crimes
including torture and murder. Efforts to reach further down into the
military ranks ran into threats ofmutiny from disgruntled officers. So
Alfonsin, afraid ofjeopardizing a fragile transition, backed off. He
passed laws limiting the time within which prosecutions could be
brought. When those laws didn't sufficiently placate a restive military,
he followed up with a "due obedience" law that made it practically
impossible to indict any but a handful of top officers. The final insult
came when his successor, Carlos Menem, in 1990 pardoned thejunta
leaders alongwith the few otherswho were still subjectto prosecution.
In Chile,beforeleavinggovernmentthemilitaryhadexacteda consti
tutional scheme that reserved a key role for them. The arrangement
reserved a percentage offoreign exchange for the military, retained
Pinochetas armedforces chiefuntil 1997, andthen made hima senator
for life alongwith othernonelectedsenators. The incomingAylwingov
ernment did not even try prosecutions. Chastened by the Argentine
experience, PatricioAylwin promised the truth, "andas muchjustice as
possible." HisTruth and Reconciliation Commission published a three-
Preface IX
volume reportthatincludedthe namesofknownvictimsofthe dictator
shipalongwithwhatcouldbediscoveredabouttheirfate. Butthereport
named no names of those responsible, and the Commission got little
helpfrom the militaryinfinding outwhathadhappened. AlthoughAyl
win encouraged the courts to make use of information passed on to
them by the Commission or from other sources, he did not try to over
turn a militaryself-amnesty thatimmunized them from prosecution for
crimes committed before 1978-the bulk of the military's crimes.
Rather, he focused on reparations payments to victims, and took the
then unparalleled step ofpubliclyapologizing, in the name ofthe Chil
ean state, for the crimes committedin its name.
Bythe mid-1990s, both countries' governmentswere anxious to move
on. Both saw continuingconcerns aboutthe disappearedand theirchil
dren, andaboutjusticefor thevictimizers, as distractionsfrom the beck
oning issues of economic growth and global integration. The human
rightsmovements thathadsustainedfamilymembersandsocialactivists
throughyearsofdictatorshipwereataloss, reducedinnumbers, unable
to impose their agenda, and unsure howto combine demands aboutan
accounting ofthe pastwith attention to currentinjustices. The interna
tional community, for whom Chile andArgentinawere the poster chil
dren ofrepressive regimes during the 1970s, called offits scrutiny and
reestablished the flow ofloans and trade. The Chilean "economicmira
cle" was held up as a model for the developingworld. No suggestion of
ad hoc UN CriminalTribunalshere.A controlledandlimitedtransition
from dictatorship to democracy, based on pacts among elites, partial
truths, andverypartialjustice, seemed to have become the templatefor
other LatinAmerican countries, and even for other continents. End of
story.
Or was it? What was the road from there to Pinochet's 1998 arrest,
and beyond? I setoffto find out.
Argentinaand Chilewere onlythe firstofa paradeofcountriesstrug
gling with the dilemmas of "transitionaljustice," as it has come to be
called. There were the ex-Soviet bloc states, with their extensive secret
police files and networks ofinformers to be exposed and theirwaves of
propertyseizures to sortout. Soon after, negotiatedsettlementsoflong
simmering civil conflicts in EI Salvador and Guatemala included UN
sponsored truth commissions, chargedwith investigating the pattern of
(mostly) military atrocities over the preceding decade. In both coun
tries, the "truth" combinedwith an almosttotal lackofjustice. The Sal
vadoran legislature passed a broad amnesty three days after the
distinguished UN-appointed truth commissioners found the army had
carried out hundreds ofatrocities. The Guatemalans did little better. A
mixed commission of national and foreign dignitaries found that the