Pinochet

No Memorials for Pinochet

General Augusto Pinochet’s ashes have barely been scattered and already the debate in Chile has begun over how he should be remembered. Right-wing politicians have proposed a bill in the Chilean congress to erect three monuments in his honor. Municipal leaders of Las Condes, a wealthy Santiago suburb, plan to name a street after him. Chile’s Defense Minister has suggested that Pinochet might merit a bust to accompany other past presidents in La Moneda presidential palace.

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Saddam’s Execution

The execution of Saddam Hussein, though he was undeniably guilty of a notorious series of crimes against humanity, represents a major setback in the pursuit of justice in Iraq. The trial and the sentence were both problematic. The opportunity for future trials, and to present evidence of U.S. complicity in some of Saddam’s crimes, has been lost. And the overall message — that leaders face justice only if they run afoul of U.S. authority – undermines international legal norms.

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Release Secret Documents Now

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s death robbed his victims and their families of the chance to obtain full justice. But they can still pursue the full truth. And the U.S. government can help.

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The Pinochet Precedent

The news that a priest had performed "last rites" for Augusto Pinochet on Sunday was as disappointing for his opponents as his supporters. With a battery of human rights cases pending against the 91-year-old former Chilean dictator, there was still hope that he might one day see the inside of a jail cell, or at least a court room.

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Hurricane Milton

While economists laud the recently deceased Milton Friedman for being “a champion of freedom whose work transformed economics and changed the world,” as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times put it, people in the South will remember the University of Chicago professor as the eye of a human hurricane that cut a swath of destruction through their economies. For them, Friedman will long be associated with two things: free-market reform in Chile and “structural adjustment” in the developing world.

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