The Compnay You Keep
by KevinDecember 10th, 2006
Remember this, and things like it, when the inevitable right-wing deification occurs when she finally passes on:
Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher is “greatly saddened” by the death of Augusto Pinochet, said a spokesman.
Chile’s former military leader, who has died aged 91 in hospital, backed the UK during the Falklands conflict.
Baroness Thatcher also pressed for his release after his arrest in London in 1998 over alleged human rights abuses.
Thatcher is greatly saddened by the death of a man who overthrew a democratically elected government and then proceeded to torture and terrorize his countrymen:
n Chile the repressive policy of the state, initiated by the military coup d’état of 11 September 1973, continued until 1990. This is clearly established in the Addendum submitted in November 1990 by Chile to the initial report to the UN Committee against Torture [2] : “This policy was characterized by very serious forms of human rights violations: executions without trial; executions following trials in which due process was not guaranteed; mass arrests of persons who were taken to concentration camps where they were subjected to very degrading conditions of detention and many of whom “disappeared”; widespread torture and ill-treatment[ ...]. This is the context in which the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment was situated during the previous regime.”
Torture was a policy used during the entire period of military government to instill widespread fear in the population and to eliminate real or alleged opposition. The Addendum states that although torture was used throughout “the entire term of office of the previous government” the practice of torture underwent a number of phases. By 1983, in reaction to national protest, this practice was directed towards public intimidation and extracting information as a matter of priority.
… Marcos Quezada Yañez, a 17-year-old student who was active in the Pro-Democracy Party (Partido por la Democracia). He was arrested on 24 June 1989 in the town of Curacautín, IX Region, by members of Carabineros, uniformed police, and taken to a police checkpoint. A few hours later he died. According to the autopsy report he died as a result of “shock, probably from an electric current”. In rejecting the official report that he had committed suicide, the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, taking into account the evidence gathered, was convinced that Marcos Quezada Yañez had died as a result of torture applied by government agents in violation of his human rights.
Unfortunately for Margaret Thatcher, you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep.
Categories: General |
I understand that this is a Family Values blog, so I shall refrain from making comments about the Grocer’s Daughter.
Except to ask, is she well?
Thatcher is alive. Who cares if she is well. Now that Pinochet is dead Thatcher is next on my list of those I will not mourn.
Malcolm