And General Franco is still dead, too.

[bellatrys]

So another former bloody-handed dictator beloved of the Hegemony (State and Church) has managed to die in bed without answering on Earth for his crimes, agéd and coddled in house arrest with the best of medical care in exile, proving that crime most certainly can pay, if you do it on a grand enough scale. His death this way is meaningless - he wasn't killing anyone and hadn't for a long time, was not able to order his armies about - and the damage done (and not just to persons but to the structure of Chilean society, in all sorts of ways) is not even symbolically negated by it the way that even a commuted-in-mercy sentence of execution, to spend the rest of his short life in a real prison and not in his own home.

But hey, let optimists celebrate hollow victories if it makes them feel better - can't hurt, right? [/sarcasm]

Amnesty International's Pinochet page

CIA involvement with the Pinochet regime