Ding, Dong, Pinochet is Dead

Augusto Pinochet is dead, and good riddance. His death reminds me of the crucial difference between the approaches of Chileans and South Africans in the 1990s. When the ANC rose to power, it had worked with the National Party and other factions to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC contained within it provisions whereby applicants could testify and if they met certain conditions could receive amnesty for gross violations of human rights. The same was not the case in Chile, where the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (or the Rettig Commission) had to operate within the framework of a blanket amnesty that ensured that neither truth nor reconciliation would emerge.