We Won’t Forget

by digby

The problem with letting bygones be bygones for war crimes is that some people who suffered might just rise to prominence and be unwilling to let things go:

Gen. Augusto Pinochet died this month without ever being held legally accountable for human rights abuses that occurred during his dictatorship. But his subordinates are now facing a new threat: President Michelle Bachelet is pushing to invalidate an amnesty law that for nearly 30 years has exempted them from prosecution on murder and torture charges.

General Pinochet originally decreed the amnesty in April 1978, four and a half years after he seized power in the coup that overthrew an elected president, Salvador Allende. According to official reports of government commissions, his dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of at least 3,200 people, the bulk of which occurred before the amnesty edict, and the torture of 28,000 more.

“This government, like other democratic governments before it, maintains that the amnesty was an illegitimate decision in its origins and content, form and foundation,” Ms. Bachelet’s chief of staff, Paulina Veloso, said in an interview at the presidential palace here. “Our conviction is that it should never have been applied at all, and certainly should never be used again.”

The modern free-market Chile that the wingnuts claim is Pinochet’s finest accomplishment is not quite ready to admit that all the killing, disappearing and torturing was worth it. After all, President Michele Bachelet was one of the people they tortured.

Accountability is a necessity for democracy to work. There are many ways to do it, from war crimes trials to truth and reconciliation commissions. But it must be done and it must be done publicly. If you sweep it under the rug it will fester and ultimately make a society very ill. Fair, open inquiry under the rule of law is required for a free society to move forward after a period of authoritarian, illegal rule.

There are lessons to be learned here.

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