The greatest challenge facing the new Chilean President, Mr Ricardo Lagos, will be the probable return from London of the former dictator, Gen Augusto Pinochet, possibly as early as this week, writes Paddy Woodworth.
Last-ditch efforts to extradite Gen Pinochet to Spain were continuing last night, but seem unlikely to succeed. Spain yesterday passed a demand for new medical tests to the British Home Office from investigating magistrate Mr Baltasar Garzon. However, the Spanish Foreign Ministry made it clear it would not challenge a decision by British Home Secretary Mr Jack Straw to free the general on health grounds without those tests being carried out. The European Court of Human Rights yesterday rejected a request from Spanish victims of Gen Pinochet's regime to block his release.
Mr Lagos was opposed to Gen Pinochet facing trial in Spain, on the grounds that it violated Chilean sovereignty, but has promised that civil actions against him in Chile can proceed. The former dictator would return to a country very different, and much less intimidated, from the one he left 16 months ago. If he is prosecuted, Mr Lagos has promised to amend the constitution, drafted by the general himself, to remove his immunity. A Pinochet trial in Chile would undoubtedly cause considerable tensions, but Chilean democracy is probably now secure enough to take the strain.