Augusto Pinochet, the President of Chile, passed away December 10 at the age of 91. General Pinochet deserves to be remembered for having rescued his country from becoming the second Soviet satellite in the Western hemisphere, after Castro’s Cuba. Typical media reports, such as this AP article, portrayed him as a dictator "who terrorized his opponents for 17 years after taking power in a bloody coup." But the truth is very different. Pinochet came to power in 1973 after leading a coup against Chilean President Salvador Allende. Socialists and communists speak of Allende as practically a paragon of virtue and decency. The truth is that Allende was a Stalinist communist who was leading a revolution to convert Chile into a totalitarian communist country. Allende led communist forces who terrorized Chile, murdered innocents, stole land, destroyed the economy, and ended the rule of law. Socialists and communists never tire of praising Allende as "democratically elected." That much is true enough. Allende was elected democratically, and worked to transform his country into a dictatorship. But, Allende was stopped before it was too late. The coup took place on September 11, 1973. While it was not peaceful, it wasn't the hardly bloodbath that socialists and communists portray. The coup was over within a few hours; about 400 combatants were killed. Allende committed suicide with a gun given to him by Fidel Castro. Then there is the claim that Pinochet "terrorized his political opponents." This is rather like claiming that Giuseppe Garibaldi "terrorized his political opponents" without pointing out that his "political opponents" were fighting a war against him. The difference is that while the Austrians were perhaps the best people in the world at the time, Pinochet's "opponents" were communist terrorists who were seeking to overthrow his government and impose communism on Chile. In a struggle to avoid the establishment of a Communist dictatorship, it is undoubtedly true that many or most of those who died or suffered were preparing to inflict a far greater number of deaths and a vastly larger scale of suffering on their fellow citizens. Had there been a General Pinochet in Russia in 1918 or China in 1949 the people of those countries and of the rest of the world would have been incomparably better. People have an absolute right to rise up and defend their lives, liberty, and property against a Communist takeover. They must act quickly and decisively to remove what threatens them. That is the nature of war. Had socialists and communists not attempted to impose their totalitarian dictatorship, there would not have been any need to use force and violence to prevent them. Contrary to the attitude of so many of today’s intellectuals, Communists do not have a right to murder tens of millions of innocent people and then to complain when their intended victims prevent their takeover. After the coup, communists launched a terrorist campaign to overthrow Pinochet's government. The resulting conflict amounted to a small-scale civil war. During the seventeen years of Pinochet's government, about 2300 people died on both sides of the conflict, almost half within the first few months of the coup. As late as 1986, the government intercepted an arms shipment big enough to arm 5000 terrorists and Pinochet narrowly survived an assassination attempt involving 70 terrorists. Pinochet promoted liberty. He cut taxes and cut spending. The effect of these reforms was to make Chile’s the most prosperous and rapidly progressing economy in Latin America, Thereafter, he used his power to set limits, for example, on economic policy debates with frequent warnings that he would not tolerate a return to statist measures. In almost no time, Chile's economy had recovered, and soon it experienced new levels of prosperity. Pinochet was a consistent target of the left. While he was in power, they demanded sanctions, divestment, condemnation, and more. In fact, if any comparison applies, Pinochet may well be one drawn from antiquity, namely, that of Cincinnatus, who saved the Roman Republic by temporarily becoming its dictator. Like Cincinnatus, General Pinochet voluntarily relinquished his dictatorship. He did so after both preventing a Communist takeover and imposing major pro-free-market reforms. After he gave up power, socialists and communists "human rights" kept attacking him. In 1998, he was arrested in Britain on a warrant issued by a socialist Spanish judge. This was completely illegal, but Pinochet spent the next four years under house arrest. His health deteriorating, Pinochet returned to Chile, where he spent the last four years of his life. How can it be that Pinochet is pursued? Yassar Arafat was a lifelong terrorist and dictator of the Palestinian territories. He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. He pioneered many forms of terrorism. Yet he was actually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was the most frequent visitor to the White House under President Clinton. There was never a socialist or communist campaign to put him on trial either. This list could go on and on. We think about how the left treats Xi Jinping, the communist president of China. General Pinochet was thus one of the most extraordinary presidents in history.
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