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Episode: Pinochet Part 3: Searching for the Disappeared

Author: NOISER
Duration: 00:52:53

Episode Shownotes

Pinochet consolidates control, creating a terrifying new secret police force. The dictator’s war on communism extends abroad, as Chile joins Operation Condor. But how long can Pinochet’s global allies allow him to go unchecked? And will the families of the murdered and the disappeared ever find justice? A Noiser production,

written by Sean Coleman. Many thanks to John Bartlett, Mark Ensalaco, Peter Kornbluh. This is Part 3 of 3. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions To get an exclusive NordVPN deal, head to https://nordvpn.com/realdictators to get an extra 4 months on the 2-year plan. There’s no risk with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this concluding episode of Real Dictators' series on Augusto Pinochet, we explore the ruthlessness of his regime through the establishment of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), supported by the CIA, to instill terror and suppress dissent. The episode highlights the shift to neoliberal economic policies under the influence of the Chicago Boys, yielding initial growth but increasing inequality. Key events, such as Operation Condor, emphasize Pinochet's international ambitions, culminating in the assassination of Orlando Letelier. The political landscape shifts as citizens unite against Pinochet’s regime, leading to his ousting in the 1988 referendum despite his attempts to maintain control with constitutional changes and an amnesty law. Ultimately, although he faced charges years later, Pinochet evaded justice and passed away in 2006, leaving families of the disappeared without closure.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Pinochet Part 3: Searching for the Disappeared) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_00
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00:00:35 Speaker_06
It's September 2023, in Santiago, Chile. We're on Cerro Chena, a hill overlooking the city. This was once the site of Villa Grimaldi, one of the Chilean army's most notorious interrogation and torture centres. Now it's a place of remembrance.

00:01:00 Speaker_06
Guitar strings pluck out the melody of Chile's national dance, La Cueca. An old woman dressed in black walks slowly across the baked earth on top of the hill. She holds a plain white men's shirt in her hands.

00:01:16 Speaker_06
On the ground by her feet are hundreds of black and white photographs, some nearly 50 years old. They show the faces of husbands, fathers, sons, men and boys who were taken from their homes and never seen again.

00:01:34 Speaker_06
As the song begins, the woman raises the white shirt in front of her, holding it by the cuff and shoulder. The limp, lifeless ghost of a dance partner. She begins to move.

00:01:48 Speaker_06
The air billows through the loose fabric, filling out its contours, as though it still clings to the back of the young man who once wore it. La Cueca, traditionally performed by couples on Chile's Independence Day, has become La Cueca Sola.

00:02:11 Speaker_06
and it has been danced alone by this woman and hundreds like her since the early days of Pinochet's dictatorship. Under the general, they couldn't speak out against the regime.

00:02:24 Speaker_06
They couldn't demand to know what had happened to their husbands, fathers or sons. But they could dance. Even today, barely a bone has been found to offer the bereaved some solace.

00:02:42 Speaker_06
Many of the men in the black and white photographs remain desaparecidos. The disappeared. From the Noisa Network, this is the final part of the Pinochet story. And this is Real Dictators.

00:03:32 Speaker_06
Previously in the Pinochet story we saw the career army man work his way steadily up through the ranks.

00:03:39 Speaker_06
He moved into the top job of commander-in-chief just two weeks before leading a coup d'etat against the socialist president Salvador Allende in September 1973. Now a military junta is in charge of Chile and General Pinochet is at its head.

00:03:57 Speaker_06
Across the country, tens of thousands of socialists have been rounded up into makeshift detention centres and torture camps. And many have been slaughtered by Pinochet's killing squad, the Caravan of Death.

00:04:11 Speaker_06
The General is determined to stamp out Marxism. It's a war he will keep on fighting, both at home and abroad, until the very end of his 17-year rule. But how does it all end for Pinochet himself? And will he ever be punished for his crimes?

00:04:31 Speaker_06
Let's find out. It's November 1973. Two months have passed since the coup and Chile has already been changed forever. The sudden arrest, torture and killing of thousands of citizens has shaken the country to its core.

00:04:54 Speaker_06
As 1974 approaches, Pinochet believes his most dangerous enemies have been dealt with. He's certainly not taking his foot off the gas, but the emphasis on extreme public violence does lessen. Professor Mark Ensalarco.

00:05:13 Speaker_04
The worst of the summary executions where people are shot and left on the side of the road or thrown in a Mapocho River that runs through Santiago, that's over. The borders are opening. People who they allow to go in exile, go in exile.

00:05:26 Speaker_06
Now Pinochet's focus switches to moulding Chile into the country he wants it to be. Towards the end of 1973, a new security service is founded. the National Intelligence Directorate, or DINA.

00:05:47 Speaker_06
DINA is led by General Manuel Contreras, a lifelong military man and loyal Pinochet supporter. He will be joined by officers who've just come off the caravan of death.

00:05:59 Speaker_06
And Dina is backed by the resources of a far more powerful security agency, the CIA. The human rights abuses committed in the early months of Pinochet's regime have been widely reported.

00:06:13 Speaker_06
But with eyes on the Cold War, President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger are unwavering in their support. Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. Peter Kornbluh.

00:06:32 Speaker_05
Not only was Henry Kissinger the architect of overthrowing Allende, he was the enabler-in-chief of helping General Augusto Pinochet consolidate what was clearly a bloody dictatorship from day one.

00:06:45 Speaker_05
You know, even after more than a thousand people had been murdered, tortured to death, summarily executed, disappeared over the first five or six months of the Pinochet regime, Kissinger actually sent the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vernon Walters, to meet with Pinochet in February of 1974 and to express the interests of Nixon and Kissinger in welcoming Pinochet and offering discreet aid for his success.

00:07:15 Speaker_05
And it was at that meeting that Pinochet explicitly asked the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Vernon Walters, for help in developing a Chilean secret police service.

00:07:29 Speaker_05
And DINA became not only the most repressive force in Chile, but one of the most renowned repressive forces around the world. Even the U.S. intelligence community referred to it as a modern-day Gestapo.

00:07:42 Speaker_04
that hard core within the military that pushed for the coup from the day Allende was elected. Now they're going to make up the core of DINA. They're going to carry out that mission to extirpate Marxism from the left for three years.

00:07:55 Speaker_04
Chile goes from being a war zone to a police state. But it's underground. It's secret. The people are disappearing.

00:08:06 Speaker_06
Under the leadership of General Contreras, the new agency gets to work. They create a network of secret prisons and torture camps, where their activities can be carried out behind closed doors.

00:08:21 Speaker_06
For Pinochet to have complete power, Dina must continue what the Caravan of Death started, creating a climate of such fear that no one dare rebel. And for that, they'll need willing accomplices among the people. Journalist John Bartlett,

00:08:40 Speaker_02
There was a hatred of people who thought differently, without a doubt. There was a hatred of people who'd supported the Allende government and who had kind of leftist sympathies, and I think a fear of it as well.

00:08:53 Speaker_02
And so those two things combined to make quite a powerful cocktail.

00:08:57 Speaker_06
With the country so bitterly divided, it isn't difficult to encourage ordinary people to turn on one another.

00:09:07 Speaker_02
This idea of informing on one another is something that happens a lot in autocratic regimes. If your neighbor is doing anything that's at all suspicious, or even if they're not, you can inform on them. You can tell the secret police.

00:09:17 Speaker_02
And such was the paranoia around kind of who was a leftist and who was potentially kind of trying to agitate. Those people often ended up being persecuted as well. The number of political prisoners in Chile is phenomenal.

00:09:33 Speaker_06
With Dina busy weeding out real and imagined opponents of the regime, Pinochet can turn his attention to rebuilding Chile's economy. And he thinks he knows just the men to take charge of the nation's finances.

00:09:48 Speaker_06
In the early 1970s, a group of young Chilean economists were sent to Chicago to study under the renowned libertarian theoretician Milton Friedman.

00:09:59 Speaker_06
Since returning home to Chile, full of free market ideas, the so-called Chicago Boys have been advising banks and businesses. Now it's their turn to shine.

00:10:11 Speaker_02
Neoliberalism is a relatively radical school of free market economics. It's the idea that the private sector picks up where the state can't reach and kind of provides for people's needs.

00:10:22 Speaker_02
The Chicago boys who studied at the University of Chicago, those ideas were brought to Chile.

00:10:27 Speaker_02
The theory goes that you need a sort of a rupture, a sort of big shock effectively, which is why economists like Naomi Klein have coined this phrase, the shock doctrine.

00:10:38 Speaker_02
You need to basically impose these kind of radical free market ideals in the wake of a shock.

00:10:44 Speaker_02
This idea that within a certain period of this shock happening, in the case of Chile, of course, the shock that the shock doctrine refers to was the coup d'etat in 1973.

00:10:53 Speaker_02
You can start to impose these radical free market principles on an economy, which is what they did. And that was how the economy was structured.

00:11:03 Speaker_06
Influenced by Friedman's ideas, the Chicago Boys impose a range of sweeping reforms on the Chilean economy. Under this authoritarian regime, there is an emphasis, in economics at least, on reducing the role of the state. Deregulation. Privatisation.

00:11:22 Speaker_06
These changes are often referred to as constituting the Chilean economic miracle. Initially, they do actually seem miraculous. Under the Chicago Boys, the country achieves a kind of economic stability, even growth.

00:11:37 Speaker_06
There's hope that Chile can be prosperous again. But this is not experienced across society. Greater wealth for some, yes, but also increased inequality, and with it, social tension.

00:11:53 Speaker_06
And as the 1970s roll on, the divide between rich and poor grows wider. Nowhere is the disparity more evident than in the new lifestyle embraced by Pinochet and his wife, Lucia Iria.

00:12:09 Speaker_06
Chile's first couple are enjoying the perks that come with dictatorship. Their opulent home on the outskirts of Santiago plays host to extravagant soirees.

00:12:19 Speaker_06
They travel the world on private jets and helicopters, wear the finest clothes, eat the best food, and buy each other lavish gifts, particularly wine and jewellery.

00:12:31 Speaker_06
Privately, some citizens grumble about their extravagant tastes, but few dare to speak up about it. The full extent of the Pinochet's indulgences won't come to light for decades.

00:12:57 Speaker_01
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00:13:22 Speaker_03
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00:14:14 Speaker_06
On the world stage, Augusto Pinochet is an increasingly popular figure. Outwardly, his reforms appear to be yielding results. Many world leaders seem willing to overlook the rumours of human rights abuses, if the result is economic stability in Chile.

00:14:32 Speaker_05
It was Kissinger's policy to embrace the Pinochet regime, to make sure that the unconstitutional military dictator, the policy was to make sure he did succeed and consolidated his rule and just wanton embrace of this vile, ugly, kind of classic caricature of a dictator who was killing people right and left in this beautiful country that was known for its wine, for its mountains, for its ocean, for its poetry.

00:15:05 Speaker_06
With his stock riding high internationally, and Dina keeping dissenting voices quiet at home, Pinochet takes a bold step. No longer content to take on Marxism solely within his own borders, he now sets his sights on the rest of South America.

00:15:24 Speaker_06
After all, leftist Chileans in exile are, to his mind, still a stain on his country's reputation. In November 1975 Pinochet joins a new covert intelligence collaboration, Operation Condor.

00:15:41 Speaker_06
It's a multinational alliance between dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and later Bolivia. These countries share intelligence resources, helping each other to track down and crush their enemies wherever they may be hiding.

00:16:00 Speaker_06
Pinochet wastes no time putting forward his own list of targets, starting with his former boss.

00:16:08 Speaker_04
Operation Condor is a plot where they're going to secretly go out and start killing people outside the country. So General Carlos Prats, his superior, who was forced to resign as commander-in-chief to make possible coup, blows him up in Argentina.

00:16:23 Speaker_06
But the murder of General Prats is just the beginning. Operation Condor soon extends even further afield. Officially, the United States isn't part of the alliance. Unofficially, the CIA has been sharing intelligence with its regimes.

00:16:42 Speaker_06
But how would the US react when Operation Condor's violence hits much closer to home? It's September 21st 1976, just after 9.30am. In Washington DC the traffic is typically heavy.

00:17:07 Speaker_06
Orlando Letelier is a Chilean exile and an outspoken critic of Pinochet's regime. Today he's on his way to work at the Institute for Policy Studies. He's sharing a ride with an American colleague named Ronnie Moffitt and her husband Michael.

00:17:25 Speaker_06
While they chat, the radio plays quietly in the background. As they pull onto Embassy Row, near the Sheridan Circle roundabout, there's a strange click from beneath Letelier's seat. Then, there's a massive explosion. The car is ripped apart by a bomb.

00:17:49 Speaker_06
Orlando Letelier dies within minutes, his legs severed from his torso. Ronnie Moffat is rushed to hospital with the shrapnel wound to the throat. There she too succumbs to her injuries. Only her husband, sitting in the back seat, survives the attack.

00:18:08 Speaker_06
He is thrown from the vehicle by the blast and escapes with a head wound. The assassination prompts immediate international outcry. Since an American citizen died in the attack, the U.S. government has no choice but to respond.

00:18:28 Speaker_06
The White House condemns it as an act of terrorism. An investigation is launched to identify and punish those responsible. But one name comes to the fore, and it doesn't sit well with the CIA.

00:18:43 Speaker_06
Michael Townley is an American citizen who spent some of his childhood in Chile. In 1970 he returned there, at Henry Kissinger's request. During Allende's rule, he worked with groups opposed to the then president.

00:19:00 Speaker_06
And now it appears he's a fully signed up DINA agent, working for General Pinochet. What's more, he doesn't just have Orlando Letelier's blood on his hands, but that of General Pratt's as well.

00:19:16 Speaker_06
Townley's involvement makes it almost impossible for the CIA to deny knowledge of Operation Condor.

00:19:26 Speaker_05
It took two years for the FBI to identify DINA as the terrorist agency that had committed this atrocity, even though for the previous two years, similar things have been happening in other parts of the world where it was clear that Pinochet's agents were murdering his opponents, and not his Marxist opponents, but his military colleagues, such as General Carlos Prats in Argentina,

00:19:54 Speaker_05
and the vice president of the Christian Democratic Party, Bernardo Leighton, who, along with his wife, was shot in the back walking down the streets of Rome in an assassination attempt that had been orchestrated by the Chilean secret police, TINA.

00:20:11 Speaker_06
The USA's apparent links with Latin American dictatorships are becoming a problem, not least when it comes to their European allies.

00:20:21 Speaker_05
The CIA was worried that they would get blamed by their own allies in Europe for international assassination operations that the Southern Cone secret police services were carrying out. Why? Because these secret services were tied closely to the CIA.

00:20:38 Speaker_05
And so when the CIA began to intercept intelligence that these operations in countries like France and Spain were being planned, this was going to really cause a lot of problems.

00:20:49 Speaker_05
And when those intelligence services in France and Spain came to the CIA and said, did you know about this? Aren't these your guys? The CIA would be in a really difficult position because they did know about it and these were their guys.

00:21:07 Speaker_06
The assassination of Orlando Letelier turns out to be a grave miscalculation by Pinochet. How can the US continue to support him now? Under American interrogation, Michael Townley spills his guts.

00:21:26 Speaker_06
He implicates several individuals in the assassination plot, including high-ranking members of the Chilean regime. But Pinochet has a trick or two up his sleeve. In 1978, he passes an amnesty law.

00:21:41 Speaker_06
It protects military personnel who committed human rights abuses in the aftermath of the coup. Then, in 1980, he rewrites the Chilean constitution, granting himself sweeping executive powers.

00:21:56 Speaker_02
The ideals of the Chicago Boys and the Chilean right were sort of encoded in the 1980 constitution, which was drafted without popular input, of course, by the kind of closest confidants of the military junta.

00:22:08 Speaker_02
And it managed to enshrine these sort of free-market, Catholic, conservative, right-wing ideals, really. That's still the constitution today.

00:22:19 Speaker_06
To give the new rules a stamp of popular approval, Pinochet holds a rather dubious plebiscite.

00:22:25 Speaker_02
constitution was ratified by a fraudulent referendum. You know, agents of the state were told to vote multiple times in its favor. You know, there was sort of intimidation.

00:22:34 Speaker_02
The question is basically like, Augusto Pinochet, like as the question, do you want more of this? And then there's a yes box, which is a Chile flag and a huge box. And it says yes underneath.

00:22:45 Speaker_02
And then a tiny little box, like a blank box next to it that says no. So it's almost as if you're being unpatriotic by taking notes. It's like, vote for the yes, the Augusto Pinochet box. This is Chile, this is what we want, this is what we represent.

00:22:59 Speaker_02
Or, yeah, you can put a little cross there if you want, but that's not very patriotic. That's not what's going to be best for Chile.

00:23:08 Speaker_06
Legitimate or not, the new constitution, coupled with the economic miracle brought about by the Chicago Boys, represents a show of strength for Pinochet. It appears that the chaos that led to the general's coup is in the past now.

00:23:23 Speaker_06
His Chile projects stability. Internationally, some of the heat surrounding Pinochet begins to cool. Significantly, Britain, under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, lifts its arms embargo on the regime.

00:23:39 Speaker_06
This allows Chile to begin dealing weapons globally. This isn't the last time Pinochet and Thatcher will scratch each other's backs.

00:23:48 Speaker_06
When the Falklands War breaks out in 1982, Pinochet never publicly comes out in favour of the Brits, but his refusal to support his Latin American neighbour, Argentina, speaks volumes. Thatcher certainly appreciates the General's position.

00:24:05 Speaker_06
The conflict marks the start of a long personal friendship between the two leaders, one that will endure long after they both leave office. But behind this outward image of authority, trouble is brewing for Pinochet.

00:24:22 Speaker_06
The so-called economic miracle is failing the poorest in the country. Political repression by Dino is turning Chile into a pressure cooker. Unrest is growing.

00:24:33 Speaker_06
Despite all his efforts to purge the country of socialism, a militant left wing is on the rise again. The general now has a target on his head. It's September the 7th, 1986.

00:24:54 Speaker_06
The presidential motorcade sets off, heading towards the center of Santiago, with the general on board. Other road users make way as the vehicle glides through the city streets. Onlookers pause on the pavement to watch their leader pass.

00:25:12 Speaker_06
As they make their way through the Locuro neighborhood, the motorcade suddenly slows. The road before them is blocked by a civilian car. Why isn't it moving? And then, quite suddenly, a man steps into their path. He positions something on his shoulder.

00:25:30 Speaker_06
It's a rocket launcher, and it's aiming right at them. The president's driver throws the car into reverse, wheels spinning. A handbrake turn and they're gone, just as the first vehicle in the motorcade is hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

00:25:52 Speaker_06
Thanks to the quick thinking of his driver, Pinochet survives the attempted hit unharmed. Five of his officers are killed, eleven more are injured, and the general is furious.

00:26:06 Speaker_06
The attempt on his life, known as Operation Dagger, is claimed by a leftist guerrilla organisation. They are called the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, or FPMR, named after a hero of the country's independence movement.

00:26:22 Speaker_06
And they are about to bear the full brunt of Pinochet's wrath. A brutal crackdown ensues, targeting opposition groups. There are more arrests, more horrific interrogations. People even vaguely linked to the FPMR have disappeared.

00:26:39 Speaker_06
But this won't be enough to halt the turning tide. Operation Dagger is a pivotal moment. Pinochet's grip on the country is beginning to loosen. By 1987, the General is under mounting pressure to return Chile to civilian rule.

00:27:01 Speaker_06
Even the Pope speaks out while on a tour of South America, branding the regime as dictatorial. What was a key source of support for Pinochet, Nixon's administration is long gone. President Reagan is now in the White House. And the new U.S.

00:27:17 Speaker_06
ambassador in Chile, a man named Harry G. Barnes Jr., is butting heads with Pinochet. Ambassador Barnes has been sent to Chile with instructions to encourage, quote, the orderly restoration of democracy as speedily as possible.

00:27:34 Speaker_06
But Pinochet isn't willing to relinquish power. He's still convinced that he's backed by most of the country. To ease the pressure, the general announces that he is willing to do things democratically. If he's defeated at the polls, he'll step aside.

00:27:51 Speaker_06
After years in the wilderness, opposition parties are legalized again. In 1988 Pinochet holds his second referendum. Do the Chilean people wish to stick with him? Yes or no? As he presents it, it's a clear choice. Risk civilian rule again?

00:28:16 Speaker_06
Or consent to another eight years of stable military stewardship? Pinochet is confident, but he hasn't bargained on the opposition parties uniting under a far-reaching no campaign.

00:28:31 Speaker_06
His opponents are savvy, using television adverts, billboards and rallies to condemn the human rights abuses, Pinochet's extravagant lifestyle and the country's economic inequalities.

00:28:44 Speaker_06
With a common goal of ending the dictatorship, the No campaign has the support of foreign governments, human rights organizations, exiled Chilean activists, and the U.S. ambassador.

00:28:58 Speaker_06
On October 5, 1988, the No campaign triumphs, by a significant margin. It looks like Pinochet's time at the top is over. But, unsurprisingly, the General has a backup plan.

00:29:19 Speaker_05
He did not voluntarily step down from the October 1988 plebiscite. He had told his own subordinates that, quote, I'm not leaving no matter what.

00:29:30 Speaker_05
And he had put in place a Machiavellian plan to kill a lot of people, create chaos the night of the vote if he was losing, and use that chaos and violence that he himself was secretly going to orchestrate and order

00:29:45 Speaker_05
to annul the entire election and stay in power as dictator for life, which had always been his plan, going all the way back to the Constitution that he pushed through in 1980.

00:29:59 Speaker_06
But what the General doesn't know is that Ambassador Barnes has got wind of his scheme, and has been working to ensure the result of the referendum is honoured.

00:30:10 Speaker_05
That plan that he had was thwarted by first the power of the public position against him, the power of the Chilean people voting against him.

00:30:19 Speaker_05
By the efforts of the United States government of all places, which had helped to orchestrate a coup in 1973, and now in 1988 was trying to thwart a second Pinochet coup, the U.S.

00:30:32 Speaker_05
ambassador, in particular, really did push other members of Pinochet's inner circle not to implement his plan. And when he tried to implement it the night of the plebiscite, Every single one of his generals stood up and said, we won't help you.

00:30:47 Speaker_05
We won't implement it. We won't sign a decree for emergency powers for you. You wanted this vote. You made yourself the candidate. You lost. And now we're going to go back to civilian rule.

00:31:01 Speaker_06
Once his kingmakers, America is now a key player in Pinochet's fall. The general is left with no choice but to stand down. In 1989, Chile holds its first democratic presidential elections in almost two decades.

00:31:27 Speaker_06
Patricio Aylwin of the Christian Democratic Party wins the presidency. Pinochet's rule is finally over. But that's not the end of the story.

00:31:40 Speaker_06
He may no longer be in power, but Pinochet has an exit strategy, a way to ensure he never has to answer for his actions.

00:31:50 Speaker_06
Article 9 of the Chilean constitution, the constitution he created, states that if a former president has served at least six years, he becomes a senator for life. Chilean senators enjoyed parliamentary immunity from prosecution.

00:32:07 Speaker_06
Thus, Pinochet cannot be prosecuted for human rights abuses carried out under his regime. The general settled into a comfortable retirement.

00:32:22 Speaker_06
While his victims and the families of the disappeared begin a years-long legal battle to bring him to justice, Pinochet is still living the high life. He has his own security detail, which follows him everywhere he goes.

00:32:37 Speaker_06
He still owns multiple properties, both in Chile and abroad. He travels frequently, for holidays and, as we know, for medical treatment. In 1998, a decade after losing the referendum that removed him from power, Pinochet takes a trip to London.

00:32:58 Speaker_06
He enjoys a few tourist attractions and catches up with his old friend, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He then checks himself in for back surgery at an exclusive clinic.

00:33:10 Speaker_06
It's while he's convalescing in the private hospital in the West End that some unexpected guests arrive at his door. The Metropolitan Police, with a warrant from a Spanish judge. But the arrest is just the beginning of a prolonged legal battle.

00:33:28 Speaker_06
and General Pinochet knows his way around a rearguard action. He's released from detention on medical grounds. Instead of being extradited, as the Spanish warrant requires, he remains in the UK under house arrest.

00:33:44 Speaker_06
The house in question is a comfortable property on a luxury estate in Surrey. But he can't hide from the truth forever.

00:33:54 Speaker_05
General Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London for being the vile dictator that he had been, for being the international terrorist that he had been.

00:34:05 Speaker_05
His arrest was such a bolt of thunder for the human rights movement that the administration of William Clinton basically could not say no to the petitions of the families of Pinochet's victims, from right-to-know advocacy groups like my own, the National Security Archive, to our petitions that the United States declassify all the evidence of Pinochet's human rights atrocities.

00:34:33 Speaker_05
so that evidence could be used in a court of law.

00:34:41 Speaker_06
As newly declassified documents are made public, pressure mounts to see the deposed dictator brought to justice. But Pinochet still has friends in high places. Thatcher speaks out publicly in his support. He is old. He must be allowed to go home.

00:35:00 Speaker_06
She even sends him a bottle of expensive scotch. Her accompanying note reads, Scotch is one British institution that will never let you down. During his house arrest, Pinochet's image as an infirm, doddery elder statesman is solidified.

00:35:18 Speaker_06
His medical team claim he no longer has the mental capacity to stand trial. British Home Secretary Jack Straw agrees. He declares if Pinochet, now in his mid-80s and showing signs of dementia, isn't fit to face trial in Spain.

00:35:34 Speaker_06
Instead, Pinochet is allowed to return home to Chile.

00:35:40 Speaker_05
The Chilean government lobbied vociferously the British to kind of orchestrate his return. He feigned mental incapacitation and physical limitations. He was only photographed in a wheelchair for months and months and months.

00:35:56 Speaker_05
Everybody thought that he was paralyzed and couldn't walk from the supposed strokes that he had had. Behold, when he got back to Chile, instead of being sent to Spain, he jumped right out of his wheelchair and walked across the tarmac. from the blame.

00:36:11 Speaker_05
So it was quite an orchestration.

00:36:18 Speaker_06
But how long can he keep walking away from justice? The immunity from prosecution which he granted himself two decades earlier may not be as watertight as he thinks.

00:36:30 Speaker_04
Under Chilean law, they name a special prosecutor, a judge, because it's a special case. Pinochet, he's got parliamentary immunity from prosecution. If we're going to do the impossible and prosecute him, we first have to impeach him.

00:36:44 Speaker_04
So they named Juan Guzman Tapia to be this person. They picked Juan Guzman because he was conservative.

00:36:51 Speaker_05
The Chilean government claimed they were going to prosecute him and that they wanted to see justice done, but I think we're caught by surprise when a bold and courageous judge actually indicted him within three days of his return.

00:37:06 Speaker_05
But Judge Guzman, who I had the great honor and pleasure of knowing fairly well and seeing many times before his passing a couple of years ago,

00:37:16 Speaker_05
He faced this dilemma, which was that Pinochet's argument was that he had suffered these strokes, he could not contribute to his own defense. And this went back and forth and back and forth for a couple of years.

00:37:30 Speaker_05
But then Pinochet made a strategic mistake. He gave an interview to a rabidly right-wing Cuban-American television station in Miami. in which he basically said, I sleep like a baby.

00:37:43 Speaker_05
If human rights atrocities were committed, they were committed by rogue subordinates without my knowledge, et cetera, et cetera. And Judge Guzman did something very interesting in the pursuit of justice against Pinochet.

00:37:56 Speaker_05
He brought in a team of therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists to watch this interview and dissect it. And their professional report to the judge was,

00:38:07 Speaker_05
Here was an individual who could think clearly enough to place the blame on his underlings and try and absolve himself of any culpability.

00:38:18 Speaker_05
And that thought process was the process of somebody who could think rather clearly in trying to protect their own ass, basically.

00:38:26 Speaker_05
These were the words of somebody who was not mentally incapacitated, but somebody who was rather mentally savvy in trying to place the blame elsewhere.

00:38:35 Speaker_05
And based on this report, which drew a lot of attention in Chile, Judge Guzman determined that Pinochet was not, in fact, mentally incapacitated, could contribute to his own defense, and could and should be indicted in Chile.

00:38:55 Speaker_06
Finally, it seems, Pinochet will stand trial. But things don't quite work out that way. It's Sunday, December 3rd, 2006. Nighttime, around 2am. We're in the Santiago Military Hospital, and the staff are awaiting the arrival of a seriously ill patient.

00:39:20 Speaker_06
Augusto Pinochet, who recently turned 91, has been living under house arrest for several years. But a medical emergency has granted him special dispensation to come to the hospital. He's had an acute heart attack.

00:39:35 Speaker_06
The doors crash open, and Pinochet is wheeled into the emergency ward. Swiftly, the doctors perform an angioplasty, a procedure to open a blocked artery and get blood flowing again to his heart. It saves him, for now.

00:39:52 Speaker_06
But his condition remains extremely serious. A priest is sent for, to read the general the last rites. It's six years since he was first indicted, but Pinochet has still managed effectively to dodge punishment for his crimes.

00:40:12 Speaker_06
He suffers from diabetes and arthritis. He's had a series of strokes. Repeatedly, his medical issues have been used to slow the legal process. But while he's avoided prison, he's not been immune to shifting public perceptions.

00:40:31 Speaker_05
The name Augusto Pinochet had become synonymous with gross violations of human rights. He was hounded in the last several years of his life by the legal system. And as he aged,

00:40:46 Speaker_05
it became clear that he felt even the need to try and explain his abuses and his historical position to try and justify how it was that he was going to be remembered as a pariah rather than as a savior.

00:41:00 Speaker_05
And you can see in these final letters that he writes that were released by the Pinochet Foundation, and in fact, even the creation of the foundation to try and buffer in some way possible, you know, his image, his kind of desperate

00:41:14 Speaker_05
need to justify, qualify, and in some ways apologize indirectly for things that had happened during his dictatorship.

00:41:29 Speaker_06
A week after his heart attack, Pinochet lies in his hospital bed, surrounded by family members. Outside the hospital, a crowd of his supporters stand and chant. They wave placards expressing love for their former leader. They bellow out his name.

00:41:47 Speaker_06
They say he will live forever. They even mock those trying to bring him to justice. You never got him, they cry. They don't say he was innocent, though.

00:42:00 Speaker_06
With loved ones by his side, Augusto Pinochet dies in Santiago Military Hospital on December 10, 2006. It just so happens to be International Human Rights Day. The general's body is taken away for cremation.

00:42:18 Speaker_06
Apparently he didn't want a grave that could be desecrated. Today, long after his death, Pinochet's legacy continues to be contested. Chilean society remains deeply divided.

00:42:38 Speaker_06
Some still see him as a patriotic hero who took a stand in the Cold War, but to many others he was a cruel, untethered despot responsible for a litany of crimes.

00:42:52 Speaker_05
The true history known to his victims, known to the majority of Chileans, recorded in secret documents that are still coming out today, is of a very evil dictator who ran a very evil military dictatorship.

00:43:09 Speaker_05
And Pinochet will always be remembered for the dictator, human rights violator, international terrorist and corrupt thief that he was. People who want to whitewash that will continue to try, but the historical record will always be there.

00:43:26 Speaker_05
The declassified documents are so powerful. The historical record on General Augusto Pinochet is crystal clear.

00:43:37 Speaker_06
Under Pinochet's rule, tens of thousands of Chileans were tortured, executed or disappeared. That's according to two government truth commissions set up after Chile returned to democracy.

00:43:51 Speaker_06
Furthermore, it's been revealed that Pinochet, his wife Lucille, and their family embezzled millions of dollars from the public coffers. Those ill-gotten gains, it turns out, funded their extravagant lifestyle.

00:44:08 Speaker_06
Many of Pinochet's conspirators continue to elude justice. Worse, hundreds upon hundreds of families of the disappeared still have no clarity about what happened to their family members or even their remains.

00:44:25 Speaker_06
The fate of thousands of citizens is still a mystery.

00:44:35 Speaker_04
For me, disappearance is the core of Pinochet. They can talk all about the regime and everything like this and national security states, neoliberalism and US foreign policy. But to me, the whole story is that.

00:44:48 Speaker_04
You want an essence of Pinochet, disappearance.

00:44:54 Speaker_02
For two decades, two of the women I spoke to were going out into the desert every day, just searching these barren plains, and they never found anything.

00:45:02 Speaker_02
Occasionally, you'd find a bone, and it would turn out to be an animal bone or a fragment of clothing, and they'd just leave a pile of stones in the desert to kind of mark the extent of their search, and then turn back empty-handed every evening.

00:45:14 Speaker_02
We've only ever found 307 of the forcibly disappeared people since the return to democracy, or any kind of trace of them, any kind of a body or a fragment or anything. So for the rest of these families, you know, they have no idea what happened.

00:45:28 Speaker_02
No idea at all. You wake up every morning and they're still not there. There's still no evidence of them. There's still no trace. It makes you a victim over and over again, I think.

00:45:48 Speaker_06
Real dictators will be back soon. Next time we'll cross the border, from Chile into Argentina. We'll explore the story of a gaunt, hawkish man who earned the nickname the Hitler of the Pampa.

00:46:03 Speaker_06
A man whose awkward bearing and discomfort in the limelight belied his astonishing capacity for cruelty. A dictator who literally stole the children of his prisoners and sought to use sport and spectacle to mask his atrocities.

00:46:20 Speaker_06
The story of Jorge Rafael Videla. That's next time.