The "crazy" dictator

Thanks to the diagnosis of forensic experts who declared the former head of Chile "mentally incompetent", Augusto Pinochet will live out his last days peacefully, probably laughing at the "world justice" that could not do anything to him.

The "Case of Pinochet" lasted (some would say, "stunned" the world) for about three and a half years. It opened on January 3, 1998, when Gladys Marin, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Chile, filed the first lawsuit against the general, accusing him of a series of crimes committed during the years of the dictatorship, and ended - at least for now - on July 9 of this year with the decision of the Court of Appeals in Santiago, which literally declared the former head of the Chilean state insane. Since "senile dementia" was established by court experts, all accusations against Pinochet fell into the water and the case has every chance of ending as many had long predicted - de facto with the victory of Pinochet, who will spend his last days as an ordinary pensioner. True, the court verdict is conditional and the whole case can be reactivated if it is established that the former dictator shows signs of mental recovery, which, of course, he, his family and those who have always supported him will not think of showing publicly.

FIRST NO: One ironic commentator wrote on the occasion of the practically acquittal that the only thing missing is the court's opinion on whether General Pinochet was "more insane" when he was killing and torturing all those who were against him, or is it now that "doesn't remember anything". Be that as it may, the "case of Pinochet" will remain an evident stain on the conscience of international justice, if it (justice) exists at all.

At one time, the arrest of Pinochet in London, at the request of the Spanish judge Baltazar Garcón, gave rise to great hope that the world's dictators would, one after another, end up in the face of justice, but it turned out that even among the dictators there are privileged ones, and those same world powers that were in some other cases vocal supporters of "satisfaction of justice", in the case of Pinochet they were principled only in words.

Great Britain, as one of the first economic partners of Chile, never really cared about Pinochet actually being tried in London, even less was there a realistic option of extradition to Madrid, which formally requested him, but the government of José María Asnar did everything to ensure that Pinochet never arrives on Spanish soil. Jack Straw, the British Home Secretary, who after 503 days of legal taunts and traps decided to bring Pinochet back home to Chile for "humanitarian reasons", is today the Foreign Secretary in the new Blair government. In Madrid, they are satisfied because they did not get their hands on a hot chestnut, and in Chile, after strong promises that the dictator will be tried for all the wrongdoings he has committed, they ended the farce by declaring him insane.

A ONDA farce: It is more or less clear to everyone who is crazy and who is confused. Vivien Dias, president of the Association of Relatives of Chilean Citizens Tortured and Disappeared During Pinochet's Dictatorship, said the court's decision was "unbelievable and shameful for the country," because the court was guided by anything and everything but the facts. "We all know that Pinochet is guilty." When our relatives were tortured, shot and disappeared forever without a trace, neither this court nor any other said or did anything to save them," said Vivien Dias.

On the other hand, Marco Antonio Pinochet, one of the former dictator's sons, said that he hoped that his father "will now be able to live out his remaining days in peace and tranquility."

The president of the country, the socialist Ricardo Lagos, following the example of some other sworn legalists, limited himself to the assessment that "the judiciary is independent of the state" and added:

"The court's decision must be accepted with the same respect as any other."

The three-member commission of the Appellate Court was not unanimous, with a 2:1 decision that "Pinochet is temporarily insane", but many suspect that this "division of the court" is also part of an overall farce that does not serve international law - not to mention justice - honor.

True, the Court's decision was appealed; Alexa Karaoka, one of the most important people in the reform of the country's criminal code, challenged the constitutionality of the decision on Pinochet's "temporary insanity", but there have already been so many lawsuits and appeals in the whole case that no one believes that anything would change even if that new appeal was accepted. Simply, it was tacitly agreed to allow Pinochet to die a natural death, and then some cynic will say that, well, biology has overtaken Justice...