The New York Times

Sunday, August 22, 1999

Dictators Face The Pinochet Syndrome

By BARBARA CROSSETTE

UNITED NATIONS

A new malady is stalking the presidential palaces

and bunkers of the world. Call it the Pinochet

Syndrome. Last week, it surfaced in Austria and

Indonesia

The Austrian case involved Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, regarded as the N 2 man in Iraq after Saddam Hussein. A

Vienna city councilman, Peter Pilz, discovered that Mr.

Ibrahim, who is accused of directing the mass murder of

Kurds in 1988 and torturing and killing other Iraqi citizens, was in a Vienna hospital for treatment. Following the precedent set by a Spanish judge who was able to have Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile arrested while in London last year for medical care, MMr. Pilz filed a criminal complaint with Austrian authorities on Monday.

Less than 48 hours later, Mr. Ibrahim made a hasty exit and Austria, to the consternation of human rights groups, let him go. So did Jordan, since Mr. Ibrahim had to

pass through Amman on his way back to Iraq. From now on, however, Mr. Ibrahim may have to settle for hospitals

in Baghdad.

In Jakarta, a leading newspaper said the Pinochet Syndrome also haunts President Sunarto of Indonesia, who

was forced from office last yeear after three decades of autocratic rule. Mr. Sunarto, who is under investigation by the new Indonesian Government, has been living at his

home in relative peace. But he is 78 years old and seriously ill, having suffered both a stroke and intestinal bleeding in the last month.

Like other strongmen who tolerate inferior health

care for everyone but themselves, Mr. Suharto had been

expected to seek medical treatment in Germany, as he has

done in the past. Not likely, people close to his family told The Jakarta Post. A host of people would be waiting with warrants.

If the trend continues, says Reed Brody, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, former dictators will

have almost nowhere to go, in sickness or in health.

Some might even feel less secure about where they are

now, with human rights lawyers showing a new, post-Pinochet interest in pursuing them.

Human Rights Watch has compiled a list of ex-tyrants

who have fled their battered countries for what they

thought were safer addresses. Idi Amin of Uganda is still

in Saudi Arabia; Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti is in

France and one of his successors, Raul Cedras, is in Panama; Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner is in Brazil, and His-san Habre of Chad is in Senegal.

The spread of the Pinochet Syndrome, says Human Rights Watch, "shows how far we have come from the days when despots could terrorize their own populations, secure in the knowledge that at worst they would face a

tranquil exile."