General Augusto Pinochet was one of the 20th century's most significant military dictators for ruthlessness in dealing with his left-wing opponents, political guile and his capacity to survive the eventual transition to civilian rule in Chile.
These qualities returned to haunt him towards the end of his long life, as international law caught up with him and legal and political obstacles that gave him immunity from prosecution were dismantled. New information about corruption has further disillusioned all but his most devoted and ideological followers.
Dr Salvador Allende's socialist-communist government was elected in 1970 on a broad programme of political, economic and social reform. Over the next three years it attracted worldwide attention, sympathetic and hostile, at a time when it was expected to set a model for political change not only in Latin America, but in Europe and elsewhere. Left-wing reformists hoped for, and their right-wing opponents feared, the success of a model combining socialism with democracy when Soviet-style communism was becoming discredited in the Cold War.
The Chilean armed forces grew increasingly alarmed with this experiment over the next three years, encouraged by Washington and the CIA who were determined it should not succeed. Genuine progress, growing social conflict and widespread economic uncertainty attended its unfolding. When the coup occurred Pinochet had only recently been appointed army chief-of-staff by Allende, who agonised about his safety during it. Such characteristic guile was then combined with savage and ruthless action against left-wing leaders. At least 3,000 of them were murdered or disappeared, while tens of thousands were jailed, tortured or exiled in the next 10 years. This outcome was denounced internationally on the left and by liberals; but it was regarded as necessary to save Chile from a deeply misconceived reformist communism by many right-wing leaders and movements.
Having been a cockpit of radical change Chile then became a laboratory for "free market fascism" inspired by resurgent US neoliberalism under Pinochet's dictatorship during the 1970s and 1980s. Trade unions were disempowered, unemployment and levels of poverty soared, state-owned businesses were privatised and the economy was thrown open to international capital. It took at least a decade and several changes of course before a new economic and social equilibrium emerged which allowed for a gradual relaxation of political repression. Pinochet gained kudos from this long transition, but deserves little or no credit for it.