Quote Originally Posted by Scurvy
I'm not sure i like all this "i'm happy he died" stuff though, death is never good
On the other side of the world you'll find people with the same idea, but only because they had the hope that Pinochet would finally reveal were are their missing relatives and parents.
Quote Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good
I wonder if Castro will receive the same denouncement when he finally kicks the bucket. As far as I can see, he's a worse offender than Pinochet - at least Pinochet stepped down, sort of.
No, he won't. In this side of the planet he'll receive a modarate praise. But Pinochet has also his support, even inside Chile, as we've our own supporters of the Junta here also. The arguement of this people is usually that the dictators didn't order the illegal enprisonments, the tortures and the killings at the rate "other people" say they did. For example here (with one of the greatest numbers) the number of missing people reaches 76.000, in Chile I believe it's 5.000, however in both cases they say that the number is not greater than 3.000. Some people also deny the sistematic character of this processeses.

One thing is truth, however, in both cases the dictatorships brought a new culture to both countries, the human rights culture.
Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
He benefitted a certain class in Chile, for sure - and it can be argued that his economic policies set the country up to be one of the most prosperous in South America.
Yes that's truth. Here the same thing happened, only that the benefitted class in my country were the land owners (between others, like the Catholic Church), wich didn't improve the economy at all. But Chile benefitted more by allying themselves with USA and Great Britain.

There's one thing that repulses me more about Pinochet than any other thing, he never recognized that what he had done was morally wrong, he never asked for the forgiveness of the thousands of people suffering in his country, instead he went to England and was received with open arms by the political class. At least Tatcher did thank him for his support. Seeing him say that he had nothing to regret the other night was pathetic and I almost puke also.