Fred Hiatt: Pinochet Apologist
This is Fred Hiatt:
Writing in the Washington Post, Hiatt claims
It’s hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile’s economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It’s leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.
Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle — and that not even Allende’s socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.
These are Chilean officials digging up a mass grave where Pinochet piled the corpses of leftists he slaughtered.
Many were buried two to a coffin. Pinochet thought that was funny and said “Whoever put them two to a coffin should be congratulated because he saved the Chilean government the price of more nails.”
This is Victor Jara, whose hands were smashed to liquid with rifle butts, at the behest of Pinochet, before he was machine-gunned and left on the side of a road. He was one of thousands herded into the Cilean Stadium on September 12th to be tortured and murdered for their political beliefs.
Fred Hiatt excuses Pinochet, who had 3,000 of his people murdered an tortured at least 20,000 others, because the years following Pinochet’s reign were prosperous (although, as the BBC noted this morning, the gap between the rich and the poor in those years widened more than ever before).
John Aravosis at Americablog writes,
Chile had ten million citizens at the time that Pinochet was busy killing them. The US has 300 million citizens, that’s 30 times the population of Chile at the time. To appreciate how many political prisoners Pinochet had put to death, an equivalent number in American terms would be nearly 100,000 Americans put to death for their political beliefs, and another 36,000 Americans mysteriously disappeared by the government. Is that a price you’re willing to pay for economic growth?
Shorter Fred Hiatt: It’s OK to torture and murder your political opponents if the country profits.
Fred Hiatt is a bad person. It should happen to him.
