On July 9, in a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Appeals Court ruled that Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet suffers from dementia that makes him mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of covering up the murders of 75 leftists.
The killings were committed by forces under his command in what is known as the "Caravan of Death", a trail of politically motivated executions across Chile in the months following Pinochet's bloody 1973 coup. The decision can be appealed, but the drawn-out appeals process almost guarantees that the 85-year-old former dictator will never be prosecuted. "I think, unfortunately, that this is as far as the Pinochet case goes", prosecution lawyer Juan Bustos told reporters.
The appeals court decision sparked celebrations by Pinochet's supporters and protests by his opponents. Police arrested several anti-Pinochet demonstrators in front of the Supreme Court building on July 10. On July 14, Carabineros police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse a group of demonstrators who were protesting the court decision outside the presidential palace, La Moneda. Police arrested about 10 of the demonstrators.
On July 9, just minutes before the Santiago Appeals Court halted the Pinochet trial, Judge Juan Guzman made official his decision that five former members of Pinochet's notorious political police, the National Intelligence Department (DINA), must face trial for kidnapping, homicide and "illicit association". Guzman the same judge who has been handling cases against Pinochet made the ruling in a case named for Villa Grimaldi, a detention centre where opponents of Pinochet's regime were routinely tortured and many were disappeared. The five ex- officials are former DINA chief Manuel Contreras and former agents Miguel Krassnoff, Marcelo Moren, Basclay Zapata and Osvaldo Romo. According to Guzman's ruling, the DINA "was in practice a secret organisation that acted above the law".
On July 10, Argentinian federal judge Rodolfo Canicoba charged former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1981) in connection with "Operation Condor", an operation through which the military governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay cooperated in their "dirty wars" against leftists and other opponents in the late 1970s. Canicoba charged Videla, who is already under house arrest for his role in the kidnapping of the children of political prisoners, with belonging to an "illicit association". Also implicated in the case are Pinochet, Contreras and retired brigadier Pedro Espinoza from Chile, and Paraguayan former dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Videla is now the first former dictator to be charged for his part in Operation Condor.
[Edited from Weekly News Update on the Americas.]