International Herald Tribune
Editorial/Opinion
Friday, October 23, 1998
CONFIRM THE TREND AND PROCEED AGAINST PINOCHET
By Aryeh Neier
New York - If Augusto Pinochet had following the case of Szymon Serafonowicz, he might have known that a visit to Britain could land him in trouble. Mr. Serafinowicz, then 84, was arrested by Britain authorities in July 1995 and charged with complicity in Nazi crimes committed in Belarus, his homeland, some 53 years previously.
A year and half later, the charges had to be dropped because Mr. Serafinowicz had Alzheimer' s disease. But the point was made. Britain is prepared to exercise universal jurisdiction to bring to trial those believed to have committed genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, no matter how long ago or how far away.
It follows that Britain should accede to the Spanish request to proceed against General Pinochet.
Before Pol Pot' s death in April, the United States proposed that the Khmer Rouge leader be shipped to Canada, another country that has authorize its court to exercise universal jurisdiction, for his crimes in Cambodia.
Israel tried Adolf Eichmann. Belgium had tried Rwandans for crimes in connection with the 1994 genocide. Several European countries have tried those accused of crimes in the wars in former Yugoslavia.
No such prosecutions are possible in the United States because it lack implementing legislation, but Washington recognizes universal jurisdiction and permitted extradition of a Ukrainian-American, John Demjanjuk, to stand trial in Israel for crimes at the Treblinka death camp in Poland during World War II. (He was acquitted.)
The arrest of General Pinochet reflects a growing trend internationally to hold officials who committed great crimes accountable.
An amnesty law covers General Pinochet, but he decreed it himself in 1978 for the crimes committed since the September 1973 coup when he seized power. The Chilean Congress had no part in the adoption of the amnesty law, because it had been abolished by general Pinochet.
When civilian government was restored in 1990, it was under a constitution written by General Pinochet that perpetuated his command of the armed forces, and with an explicit threat of reprisals against democratically elected officials who might pursue prosecutions of military officers.
Under any circumstances, an amnesty is not valid basis for challenging international law that authorizes or requires governments to bring to justice those responsible for certain crimes. In the Pinochet case, the amnesty decreed by him for his own benefit and accepted in Chile under threat from him is particularly deserving of contempt.
Chile did establish a National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation that meticulously documented the crimes of the Pinochet years. Among them were 957 "disappearances."
These were abductions by military men, torture of the victims to get them to reveal information about others, murder, clandestine disposal of the bodies and then denial to relatives of any knowledge of their whereabouts. The scale of these disappearances warrants their classifications as crimes against humanity, one of the grounds on which international law permits governments to invoke universal jurisdiction.
Bringing General Pinochet to trial for crimes against humanity would provide a measure of justice for the many victims and their families. And it would send a powerful message to the many officials around the worlds who continue to commit such crimes.
The message would be that their crimes are not subject to a statute of limitations, and that the number of safe havens for those committing such crimes is diminishing. It would confirm the increasing resolve to do justice of an international community that has set up criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and is establishing a permanent International Criminal Court.
The writer is president of the Open Society Institute and author of "War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror and the struggle for Justice." He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
