Chile’s lower house approved Wednesday a declaration calling late dictator Augusto Pinochet “the most violent and criminal ruler” in Chile’s history and requested that the Ministry of National Defense refrain from exhibiting photographs of Pinochet and prevent any tributes to the deceased Generalissimo within the armed forces.
The legislators approved a text which reads that “according to background information provided by the U.S. government, the Lower House resolved to declare Augusto Pinochet as a dictator, the creator of a terrorist state, and the author of the premeditated assassination of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, which make him the most violent and criminal ruler that Chile has had in its history.”
According to declassified documents from the CIA, Pinochet ordered the car bomb attack in Washington, D.C., that killed Orlando Letelier – a Chilean leftist economist, politician and diplomat who went into exile following the 1973 coup against Socialist President Salvador Allende – as well as his colleague, Ronni Moffitt.
In one of the declassified documents, an official states that Pinochet, who was backed by the U.S., “decided to stonewall on the case to hide his involvement and, ultimately, to protect his hold on the presidency.”
Pinochet was arrested in the U.K. years after losing power but was never prosecuted for his crimes in Chile due to an immunity clause passed in the constitution that was approved during the military regime.
The dictator ruled Chile for 17 years and is estimated to have ordered the murder of over 3,000, jailing and torturing tens of thousands more. Pinochet died in 2006 without ever being prosecuted for the cases of forced disappearance, torture, rape, and murder under his command.
The announcement was done on the 28th anniversary of the 1988 plebiscite that ended General Augusto Pinochet’s rule.
The legislators also demanded the prohibition of any photographs of Pinochet in public institutions, with the exception of military museums.
— source telesurtv.net