Diu vixit - Pinochet is dead
This is the only letter I ever sent to a Pope. It was caused by reading a rumour that, when Pinochet was arrested in Britain on a warrant from Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon, the Vatican intervened on his behalf:
Most Holy Father,
I write as the least of your children, but as one who feels in duty bound to make a remonstrance when the holder of your exalted office appears to be making a serious and public mistake.
Holy Father, the rumoured intervention of the Holy See in favour of the indicted former tyrant Augusto Pinochet has, if true, been the worst day's work the Church has done in years. It will give deep pain to many of the best servants of Christ (especially the valiant priests and laymen who risked martyrdom at this man's hands), confuse Christ's flock, and rejoice the Church's enemies throughout the world. Holy Father, why should the Church interfere with the proceedings of justice in the matter of a successful and unrepentant criminal finally, if too late, brought to book? I understand that it is part of the political duties of the Head of the Church to deal, if necessary, with unprepossessing scoundrels, if they head nations and governments; one of the many reasons why nobody should envy the heavy duties and burdens of your rank. Believe me, Most Holy Father, I am often grateful to be a nobody of no name or rank, with no duties laid on me beyond the ordinary ones of a Christian. But if the Church must deal with any actual existing power in the world, however evil; does it at all follow that she must do anything to shelter them from their just deserts once their day of rapine and torture is done?
Let me sum up, Holy Father, the heads of accusation against Augusto Pinochet, illegally former head of the Chilean state and illegally present life senator. He is a mutineer who rebelled against the legitimate government of the Chilean state and destroyed it not only by force but by stealthy assassination, persecuting its leaders even in exile; a breaker of his oath and his loyalties as a soldier, who for that alone deserves death under any military code. He is a traitor who conspired against the legal government of his country with a foreign power (to wit, the United States), a second capital charge under any military code. And it is worth underlining that, before his mutiny and treachery, Chile had been one of only two Latin American countries never to have suffered military tyranny; the obscenity of his rule could not therefore be seen as part of a regular if unfortunate pattern of politics in his country - it was something new, which he and his villainous American accomplices conspired to introduce. He is therefore to be charged of assault upon the constitution and crimes against humanity - two more capital charges.
Having gained his power by illegal violence and civil war, he kept it by mass murder and torture. Under the Pinochet "government" - and it hurts me to dignify such an object by such a name - torture and murder were part of the normal structure of the State, whose power was turned to the mass arrest and destruction of any suspected political enemy however insignificant. University students, schoolteachers, workers and housewives were abducted and tortured. The younger and prettier women were raped and murdered, films of their horrible deaths being made and sold on an underground market to perverted people in the West. Chile made secret deals with the equally villainous government of Argentina to exchange victims, so that they might be murdered and the bodies disposed of under greater secrecy. Assassination squads were sent to North America and Europe to murder exiles, conspiring with European fascist terrorists such as the multiple murderer Stefano delle Chiaie, the very lowest scum and dregs of the far right. The children of young murdered mothers were taken by families in the very armed forces that had tortured their parents to death and brought up in the tradition of hate that had murdered their parents. For all this Augusto Pinochet bears not only political responsibility as head of state and government, but personal responsibility, since the so-called security office answered directly to him, and he alone, with no interference from any other member of government or military command, decided its policies and sanctioned its acts.
This evil man held on to power until it had become clearly uncomfortable, until indeed most other Latin American tyrannies had been forced to yeld control to legitimate government; and I suspect that even his late return to a hypocritical form of semi-democratic control was due more to pressure from his accomplices in Washington than to any virtuous decision of his own. And having put an end to sixteen years of tyranny, terror, torture and murder, this person made such arrangements as to make it impossible for himself or any of his accomplices to be brought to justice, and placed the supposedly democratic government under the fixed threatening glare of the very armed forces which had already once indulged in literal orgies of torture, rape and murder at their expense.
Throughout all this, this monster has not shown one atom of comprehension, let alone pity, for his victims. He has taught two generations of his supporters to regard his savage wallow in the mud of homicide and torture as a "liberation", and torture and terror as regular and acceptable instruments of policy. He has introduced a new element of cruelty, terror and oppression into Chilean policy. And he, Most Holy Father, claims to be a Christian.
Your Holiness, I do not presume to teach Christian doctrine to you: but is it not the case that no absolution for a sin may validly be given, if the sin involves a crime, unless proper restitution is made for that crime? And when in the whole of his far too long life has Augusto Pinochet shown the least willingness to make amends for the horrors he has inflicted on his people and the hatred he has sown among them? He has covered his crimes up; he has done everything in his power to prevent any punishment being inflicted for them; and when at long last, far too late and yet still in time, the legitimate and legal powers of two states whose citizens had been among his victims have taken it upon themselves to visit the law upon him, he has mobilized every resource in the international armoury of right-wing conspiracy and "respectable" complicity to agitate for his release, as if the operation of democratic law were something to be ashamed of.
In this sinister agitation for the release of an unrepentant murderer, Holy Father, the Church should have no part; no more than she did in the days of your predecessor Pius XII of blessed memory, when supporters of the Nazi indicted of Nuremberg circulated a rumour that the Vatican had applied for clemency - and the Holy See officially replied to a British enquiry by quoting the Pontiff's previous statement that war criminals should expiate their crimes (7 October 1946). Most Holy Father, no code of law in the world prescribes, or can prescribe, a term of prescription for the crime of mass murder; the age of the criminal is no more a consideration than his nationality, rank, political position, or supposed religious views. If a horrible, evil old hypocrite tries to use his false and lying presumption of Catholic faith to shelter himself from the just reward of his crimes, his age should give him no more shelter than his membership of the Church he has stained by his still unatoned crimes. Quite to the contrary, the Church ought to encourage him to give himself up and face trial; in the hope that being brought by force, at last, with the evidence of his crimes, which he had tried for so long to conceal, should break through to some place in the darkness of his soul and produce, at last, visible convinction of his sin. For whether or not the law of Spain can ever get hold of him, another law and another court wait for him and will not wait long; and it is not the responsibility of the Church to help him go before the One Who made him, at least, with some comprehension of the evils he committed?
I have the honour to be,
Most Holy Father,
Your Holiness' most devoted, most obedient child
FABIO PAOLO EDOARDO VIGILIO BARBIERI
25 February 1999
Most Holy Father,
I write as the least of your children, but as one who feels in duty bound to make a remonstrance when the holder of your exalted office appears to be making a serious and public mistake.
Holy Father, the rumoured intervention of the Holy See in favour of the indicted former tyrant Augusto Pinochet has, if true, been the worst day's work the Church has done in years. It will give deep pain to many of the best servants of Christ (especially the valiant priests and laymen who risked martyrdom at this man's hands), confuse Christ's flock, and rejoice the Church's enemies throughout the world. Holy Father, why should the Church interfere with the proceedings of justice in the matter of a successful and unrepentant criminal finally, if too late, brought to book? I understand that it is part of the political duties of the Head of the Church to deal, if necessary, with unprepossessing scoundrels, if they head nations and governments; one of the many reasons why nobody should envy the heavy duties and burdens of your rank. Believe me, Most Holy Father, I am often grateful to be a nobody of no name or rank, with no duties laid on me beyond the ordinary ones of a Christian. But if the Church must deal with any actual existing power in the world, however evil; does it at all follow that she must do anything to shelter them from their just deserts once their day of rapine and torture is done?
Let me sum up, Holy Father, the heads of accusation against Augusto Pinochet, illegally former head of the Chilean state and illegally present life senator. He is a mutineer who rebelled against the legitimate government of the Chilean state and destroyed it not only by force but by stealthy assassination, persecuting its leaders even in exile; a breaker of his oath and his loyalties as a soldier, who for that alone deserves death under any military code. He is a traitor who conspired against the legal government of his country with a foreign power (to wit, the United States), a second capital charge under any military code. And it is worth underlining that, before his mutiny and treachery, Chile had been one of only two Latin American countries never to have suffered military tyranny; the obscenity of his rule could not therefore be seen as part of a regular if unfortunate pattern of politics in his country - it was something new, which he and his villainous American accomplices conspired to introduce. He is therefore to be charged of assault upon the constitution and crimes against humanity - two more capital charges.
Having gained his power by illegal violence and civil war, he kept it by mass murder and torture. Under the Pinochet "government" - and it hurts me to dignify such an object by such a name - torture and murder were part of the normal structure of the State, whose power was turned to the mass arrest and destruction of any suspected political enemy however insignificant. University students, schoolteachers, workers and housewives were abducted and tortured. The younger and prettier women were raped and murdered, films of their horrible deaths being made and sold on an underground market to perverted people in the West. Chile made secret deals with the equally villainous government of Argentina to exchange victims, so that they might be murdered and the bodies disposed of under greater secrecy. Assassination squads were sent to North America and Europe to murder exiles, conspiring with European fascist terrorists such as the multiple murderer Stefano delle Chiaie, the very lowest scum and dregs of the far right. The children of young murdered mothers were taken by families in the very armed forces that had tortured their parents to death and brought up in the tradition of hate that had murdered their parents. For all this Augusto Pinochet bears not only political responsibility as head of state and government, but personal responsibility, since the so-called security office answered directly to him, and he alone, with no interference from any other member of government or military command, decided its policies and sanctioned its acts.
This evil man held on to power until it had become clearly uncomfortable, until indeed most other Latin American tyrannies had been forced to yeld control to legitimate government; and I suspect that even his late return to a hypocritical form of semi-democratic control was due more to pressure from his accomplices in Washington than to any virtuous decision of his own. And having put an end to sixteen years of tyranny, terror, torture and murder, this person made such arrangements as to make it impossible for himself or any of his accomplices to be brought to justice, and placed the supposedly democratic government under the fixed threatening glare of the very armed forces which had already once indulged in literal orgies of torture, rape and murder at their expense.
Throughout all this, this monster has not shown one atom of comprehension, let alone pity, for his victims. He has taught two generations of his supporters to regard his savage wallow in the mud of homicide and torture as a "liberation", and torture and terror as regular and acceptable instruments of policy. He has introduced a new element of cruelty, terror and oppression into Chilean policy. And he, Most Holy Father, claims to be a Christian.
Your Holiness, I do not presume to teach Christian doctrine to you: but is it not the case that no absolution for a sin may validly be given, if the sin involves a crime, unless proper restitution is made for that crime? And when in the whole of his far too long life has Augusto Pinochet shown the least willingness to make amends for the horrors he has inflicted on his people and the hatred he has sown among them? He has covered his crimes up; he has done everything in his power to prevent any punishment being inflicted for them; and when at long last, far too late and yet still in time, the legitimate and legal powers of two states whose citizens had been among his victims have taken it upon themselves to visit the law upon him, he has mobilized every resource in the international armoury of right-wing conspiracy and "respectable" complicity to agitate for his release, as if the operation of democratic law were something to be ashamed of.
In this sinister agitation for the release of an unrepentant murderer, Holy Father, the Church should have no part; no more than she did in the days of your predecessor Pius XII of blessed memory, when supporters of the Nazi indicted of Nuremberg circulated a rumour that the Vatican had applied for clemency - and the Holy See officially replied to a British enquiry by quoting the Pontiff's previous statement that war criminals should expiate their crimes (7 October 1946). Most Holy Father, no code of law in the world prescribes, or can prescribe, a term of prescription for the crime of mass murder; the age of the criminal is no more a consideration than his nationality, rank, political position, or supposed religious views. If a horrible, evil old hypocrite tries to use his false and lying presumption of Catholic faith to shelter himself from the just reward of his crimes, his age should give him no more shelter than his membership of the Church he has stained by his still unatoned crimes. Quite to the contrary, the Church ought to encourage him to give himself up and face trial; in the hope that being brought by force, at last, with the evidence of his crimes, which he had tried for so long to conceal, should break through to some place in the darkness of his soul and produce, at last, visible convinction of his sin. For whether or not the law of Spain can ever get hold of him, another law and another court wait for him and will not wait long; and it is not the responsibility of the Church to help him go before the One Who made him, at least, with some comprehension of the evils he committed?
I have the honour to be,
Most Holy Father,
Your Holiness' most devoted, most obedient child
FABIO PAOLO EDOARDO VIGILIO BARBIERI
25 February 1999