Dictators, Pinochet

     Chilean WAISer Carlos López expresses the feelings of those who suffered under Allende's regime. He writes:
     I understand Fred Wainright's feeling, BUT has he thought what it would have been like if Allende had remained in power? Would I be alive today? Would my brothers, if alive, be living in Chile? Could anyone in my family had been able to escape the Cuban style paradise that Allende was after? We lost our family farm, paid for with worthless bonds. Pinochet did not return it, but his regime at least made the life of the 14 families that live there bearable. Has anyone investigated what the life of an "asentado" was like under Allende? Who were the "interventores?" Evidently this gentleman did not live in Chile in those years. Pinochet was not a good solution, but it was a solution. It is regrettable that even one Chilean life was lost, but what would had been the cost in lives, in exiles, in starvation had Allende remained in power? In relative and absolute terms, Chile experienced less deaths, less desaparecidos, less suffering that all three of her neighbors.
     I fully support the efforts of the current Chilean justice system to bring those guilty of torture to justice in Chile but not anywhere else. Chileans are better qualified to judge their own. What better example do we have that in the Letelier case? Townley and Larios are out, protected by the US federal government, while Contreras is in jail in Chile.
     My comment: I have just read a report on the proposed International Court of Justice. It said the court would intervene only if the local government refused to try the accused. My understanding is that Chile has offered to try Pinochet.

Ronald Hilton - 10/13/99