WASHINGTON — Justice never sleeps. Or rather the free-floating
moralism that is the left never sleeps. The other day a Chilean
judge, Juan Guzman Tapia, decided that an 89-year-old man was
competent to stand trial for human rights abuses, though it has
been fourteen years since he left office, and when he did he handed
his thitherto troubled country over to democrats and eventual
prosperity. The 89-year-old man is, of course, General Augusto
Pinochet, and his human rights abuses are not even reported in the
newspapers as “alleged” human rights abuses. For the New York
Times on Tuesday Guzman’s decision was front-page news — in
fact, the day’s major news story with a color picture of Guzman
embraced by Pinochet’s emotional opponents. The photograph
dominated three columns! In the body of the Times’ story
the word “communist” never appeared, only “Marxists.” For all the
untutored reader might know Pinochet’s victims might have been the
country’s librarians or butterfly collectors.
That word, “Marxists,” appeared in a quote from Pinochet who
said a year ago on a Spanish-language television show: “everything
I did I would do again. Who am I supposed to ask for forgiveness?
They are the ones who have to ask me for forgiveness, them, the
Marxists.” The old boy came to power in 1973. For six months before
he took over politicians and private citizens in large numbers had
been imploring the military to deliver Chile from President
Salvador Allende, a romantic and incompetent Marxist
pseudo-intellectual who spent his last year in a drunken haze while
economic chaos spread. For the next 17 years Pinochet, his
military, and his secret police waged war against leftists, usually
within Chile but occasionally abroad through a series of political
assassinations. Pinochet’s political assassinations were not as
numerous as those practiced by Soviet satellite countries. Nor was
his war as bloody as General Francisco Franco’s war against
communists and other leftists in the 1930s, but it was brutal
enough to offend civil libertarians everywhere, including me.
Yet, like Franco, he did return his country to democracy. How
many communists have done that? Moreover communism accounted for
scores of millions of innocent victims in the twentieth century.
Pinochet’s regime allegedly accounted for 4,000, not all of them
peace-loving progressives. How many has Fidel Castro murdered,
tortured, and jailed? Today Castro remains a bloody tyrant and far
more of a problem beyond his shores than the General with the
absurd sun-glasses and the eighteenth century uniforms ever was.
Finally, when Fidel ultimately croaks he will have left what was
once the most prosperous country in Latin America in a heap. Are
any of Pinochet’s present-day tormentors demanding Castro’s
prosecution for crimes against humanity?
There are two points worth noting here. One is that the left —
whether communist or simply glassy-eyed reformist — never tires in
hunting down its enemies. The other is that its enemies are always
on the right — or at least the perceived right. The old Soviet
Bloc countries are filled with retired brutes who did far more
damage to the civil liberties and the prosperity of their countries
than Pinochet ever did. There is no effort to prosecute these
enemies of freedom commensurate with the effort against
Pinochet.
If indeed the prosecution of Pinochet would elevate regard for
human rights worldwide I would be among the first to celebrate
Judge Guzman’s decision. Yet it is not the opponents of Pinochet
who have made great strides in the elevation of human rights
worldwide. Rather it has been North Americans and Europeans, most
notably the English-speaking peoples. Right now those people are
leading the world in a struggle against tyrants who, unlike an
89-year-old retired general, can actually shoot back. How prominent
have Pinochet’s opponents been in the struggle against
Islamofascism and the sadistic Saddam Hussein? The answer is not
very. In fact, many of those cheering for Pinochet’s neck today
blithely lump Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W.
Bush into the same category they reserve for Pinochet.
There is a great deal of posturing about civil liberties and
justice in the campaign against Pinochet. There is also something
else. It is difficult to explain but it is observable. The left
worldwide reserves its hostility for people on the right and for
America and its allies, who are the real guarantors of the rights
of man.
