Steun de campagne van de Comité tegen Straffeloosheid in Chile !
Giro 3168  t.n.v. Pinochet naar de rechtbank, te Amsterdam

THE BRITISH HOME OFFICE AUTHORIZES A. PINOCHET TO RETURN TO CHILE.

In view of the discretionary decision taken by Mr. Straw allowing A. Pinochet Ugarte's return to Chile, we wish to itemize the following aspects:

1) It is evident that Senator for Life A. Pinochet's detention signifies a landmark in the fight against impunity. All those, like us, who have worked directly in the procedure of his detention and in the subsequent processes coordinated throughout the world may well say that from a legal point of view not a single question has been pushed back. The defense of Agusto Pinochet Ugarte has exhausted all its legal and legitimate resources.

In this regard it is necessary to emphasize the work of the Belgian human rights organizations that have made it possible for Belgium to adopt a coherent position concerning the defense of the international human rights system, which has demonstrated that it is possible and necessary that these rights are defended by the governments, who are legally responsible for guaranteeing the efficiency of these rights.

In the same way, the procedural actions undertaken by the Investigation Court number five of Madrid, do not resist any questioning because it has always safeguarded the victims' right to be defended in a legal process of this nature.

The responses of the Belgian, Spanish, French and Swiss judiciary in relation to the questioning of the medical examination to which A. Pinochet has been subjected, have shown that the medical report carried out upon request of the Chilean government and under Mr. Straw's responsibility has been more a stratagem of deviousness rather than behaviour in accordance with the rule of law.

We have to stress that Spanish government has opposed these proceedings since their very beginning; this opposition has found its reflection in the inclement position of the General Attorney's Office and the writtings of the Audiencia Nacional Attorney, Eduardo Fungairiño.

2) As we informed timely [see Nizkor information message dated 09feb00, although only disseminated in Spanish], we have been able to verify that the Chilean government, as much as by the representation of Mr. Frei as by the little known of Mr. Ricardo lagos, has conspired in order to send Augusto Pinochet back home and thus restoring his impunity situation.

As The Chile Committee Against Impunity - Piquete de Londres has denounced, "The government (Chilean) lies when it promises European states that Pinochet can be tried in Chile and that the judicial cases of the plaintiff States can be undertaken by domestic courts". In addition, "The Chilean government is not ashamed of the fact that while it puts the victims and their relatives in a completely defenseless position, it employs and wastes enormous state resources in a real crusade in order to prevent Pinochet from standing trial. The Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Executive power as a whole have openly given priority to the return to Chile of an unpunished Augusto Pinochet and to the fact of ensuring the armed forces that is no reason to worry since the political agreements and the negotiations are still in force."

We are in the duty to say that it has been the upcoming Chilean president, Mr. Ricardo Lagos, who has instrumentalized this opprobrious stage of the Chilean history. By promoting an agreement with Mr. Straw aimed at preserving the Chilean impunity system he does not but deserve all human rights defenders' disdain.

3) With respect to Mr. Straw, whose personal history includes his opposition to the Chilean regime, he has had a similar behavior to that maintained by the British government in the Bermudas Conference, held between April 19 and 30, 1943, and where the old unionist and bundist Artur Zygielbojm could verify with much pain the inefficiency of the means that rendered impossible for any Power and for any international instance to stop the Polish genocide. Mr. Straw is placing the Chilean victims under a similar impotence.

He has set aside the legitimacy of British justice to promote a maneuver worthy of the democracy of the eighteenth century ‘rotten boroughs' that Edmund Burke defended so well.

Mr. Straw will go down in history, along with Eduardo Frei and Ricardo Lagos, as one of those who have shamefully chosen the recourse of denying reality in lieu of facing the historical responsibility of respecting the justice and the human rights of their own people. As we have timely said, their fate will be labeled by the ghost of August Pinochet Ugarte and their memory will be torn into shame.

As at that time, those who are primarily responsible for crimes are their perpetrators, but these crimes are also a burden that weighs indirectly on humanity as a whole. It also weights on the people and governments of those countries that, having been given the opportunity to enact concrete measures that would restore justice and to put an end to the current stage of the crimes, they have decided not to do so. This forced silence has left the deaths of thousands of defenseless people unpunished, including women and children, and has converted the leaders of those countries into accomplices of the authors of those crimes. We can not keep quiet on this issue either.

Madrid. March 2, 2000 Equipo Nizkor --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ii) STRAW SENDS PINOCHET HOME.

Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet will not be extradited on torture charges and is free to leave the UK, Home Secretary Jack Straw has decided.

Mr Straw believes the general is medically unfit to stand trial in England.

Without any last-minute legal challenges, the general could be on a plane home within hours - ending 16 months of wrangling over his future.

He slipped out of the Wentworth estate, Surrey - where he has been under house arrest - in a convoy under police escort just before 1000 GMT, avoiding angry protesters and media.

A Chilean jet is on the runway at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, after waiting on standby for the general for months at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. Mr Straw made his decision after re-examining a medical report filed on General Pinochet in January. He considered criticisms of the medical report from Spain, Switzerland, Belgium and France but decided they were unjustified.

"The attempted trial of an accused in the condition diagnosed in Senator Pinochet on the charges which have been made against him in this case, could not be a fair trial in any country and would violate Article Six of the European Convention on Human Rights," said a Home Office letter to the Spanish ambassador.

In January, Mr Straw had said he was "minded" to allow the general to go free, after medical experts said he was unfit to stand trial.

They concluded the 84-year-old had "extensive brain damage". Their report said he was suffering from memory loss and had difficulties expressing himself and understanding complicated phrases.

End of the line?

Protesters have reacted with dismay to the decision.

Henrika Harkko, a 24-year-old student from Santiago, said: "We have tried to make the world listen, we wanted justice, we are not getting it." Campaigners who have fought to have him extradited may still yet mount another legal challenge.

But Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has said he will abide by the decision.

Amnesty International, which has made legal challenges before, said its aim was to achieve justice for the victims, not to prevent Pinochet leaving the UK at all costs.

A spokesman for the Belgian Foreign Ministry said: "We are aware that of course we could appeal. But we consider that the margin for action is very narrow. "

General Pinochet was arrested in London in October 1998 at the request of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon who is seeking to put him on trial for human rights abuses during his 17-year rule in Chile. [Source: BBC News. Thursday, 2 March, 2000. 10:00 GMT]
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: - Special report on the preparation and development of General Augusto Pinochet's detention and Spanish judges' ruling recognizing the principle of universal criminal jurisdiction for domestic courts. http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/juicio/report.html -Legal foundations: no immunity for crimes against humanity and the principle of command responsibility. http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/juicio/hc.html - Text of the 'Amicus Curae' submitted by Amnesty International - London to the Panel of Judges of the House of Lords. Universal jurisdiction and the absence of immunity for crimes against humanity. http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/juicio/amicus.html - The Criminal Procedures against Chilean and Argentinian Repressors in Spain. Short Summary http://www.derechos.net/marga/papers/spain.html - Informacion sobre el jucio en espanha contra el senador vitalicio Augusto Pinochet Ugarte / Info on the Spanish trial against Senator for Life Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/juicio/ -- FIN DEL MENSAJE END OF MESAGGE EINDE BERICHT FIM DA MENSAGEM FINE DEL MESSAGGIO ENDE NACHRICHT FIN DEL MENSAJE END OF MESAGGE EINDE BERICHT FIM DA MENSAGEM FINE DEL MESSAGGIO ENDE NACHRICHT *