Birds of a feather...

One of the first things I remember about entering the University College of Wales in September 1973 was that people were getting very agitated about events in Chile. With good reason, as it turned out. At first reports were very unclear, sounding more like rumour and counter-rumour, but it soon became very clear that a disgraceful event had taken place. The democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende had been overthrown in a bloody coup d’etat, with the full complicity of the USA, merely because he was a socialist. It was led by Augusto Pinochet, who previously had been a trusted presidential aide, in charge of the military. Allende did not survive the coup, allegedly taking his own life. For the next 17 years Pinochet ruled Chile with an iron hand, establishing one of the longest lasting dictatorships in Latin America.
Who’s your Daddy?

He and his thuggish entourage soon revealed that they had little use for democracy, viciously crushing any opposition to their rule. This resulted in approximately 3000 people dead or were simply not there anymore. The verb ‘disappear’ was given a new transitive format. The 1977 ‘Operation Condor’ and the infamous ‘Caravan of Death’ were among the devices used to further his program of obliterating resistance. By 1990 he had been forced from office and spent the rest of his time among us deftly avoiding trial for his crimes against humanity, at the same time allegedly building up a hoard of ill-gotten gains in murky overseas accounts. He was incarcerated in Britain for about 18 months in the late 1990’s awaiting trial for human rights abuses, but finally managed to wriggle off the hook on the grounds his state of health had made him unfit to stand trial. One of his strongest defenders was the former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Hilda Thatcher, who argued that he was ‘a true friend’ to Britain thanks to his support during the Falklands War. It is my considered opinion that Thatcher showed her true colours at this time, and that we saw in Pinochet’s actions what she would have done to her opponents during her time in power, had she not been constrained by a parliamentary democracy.
Britain needs ‘true friends’ of Pinochet’s ilk like a collective hole in the head.

The evil old monster has now gone to his grave, without ever having to answer for his crimes. For some people, Pinochet was and remains a hero, on the grounds that he was strongly influenced by the Chicago School of Economics, using its tenets to ‘transform’ Chile into South America’s strongest economy.
Oh, I see, so that’s all right then...