By IPS Correspondents
SANTIAGO, Nov 23 2005 (IPS)

Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) was placed under house arrest Wednesday, just two days before his 90th birthday, in connection with an investigation of secret accounts holding millions of dollars in the Riggs Bank in Washington and other financial institutions.

“We hope this is the start of a process in which Pinochet will end up being tried and convicted in human rights cases,” the president of the Group of Families of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD), Lorena Pizarro, told IPS.

Pinochet’s age “should not be a new excuse for him to be absolved or for him to not be put in prison. There are many elderly people in prison, and in this case we are talking about someone who was responsible for genocide, for crimes against humanity,” argued Pizarro.

She pointed out that Paul Schäfer, a former German Nazi army corporal who headed Colonia Dignidad, a sect and agricultural commune founded in southern Chile by German immigrants, is in prison even though he is 83 years old. He was captured in Argentina last March.

Prosecuting Judge Carlos Cerda, who is handling the “Riggs case”, ordered Pinochet’s arrest Wednesday on charges of tax evasion, the use of false passports, submitting a false sworn statement, and falsifying government documents.

The judge ruled that the former de facto ruler was to remain under house arrest in his suburban estate on the east side of Santiago, and bail was set at 23,000 dollars.

In the next few days, Pinochet might also face charges for “Operation Colombo”, a communicational ploy to cover up the forced disappearance and murder of 119 leftists in 1975, coordinated with the dictatorships ruling Argentina and Brazil at the time.

Judge Víctor Montiglio, who is in charge of the Operation Colombo case, brought Pinochet face to face last Friday with another retired general, Manuel Contreras, who headed DINA – the dictatorship’s secret police, which was responsible for a number of human rights abuses – from 1974 to 1978.

The press reported Wednesday on that meeting, which was described as “historical,” because Pinochet had not seen Contreras, once his closest associate, in 10 years.

Contreras, who has served years in prison for human rights crimes, has accused Pinochet of being disloyal and of eluding his responsibility as the highest-level commander of the de facto regime and of DINA.

The former dictator apologised to Contreras for making false statements about him in previous testimony before Judge Montiglio, attributing them to a “misunderstanding” and “confusion.”

Pinochet had earlier told the judge that he removed Contreras as head of DINA because Contreras had supposedly offered to deposit money abroad in August 1977.

In last Friday’s meeting, Pinochet repeatedly claimed he had memory problems in response to questions from the judge and in order not to contradict Contreras, which could suggest he is attempting to revive his image as a senile old man, which has got him off the hook in several human rights cases in which he was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

But things are becoming more and more complex for the elderly former dictator, because a team of neurologists and psychiatrists from Chile’s forensic medical institute examined him two weeks ago at Montiglio’s request and determined that he is fit to stand trial.

On Sept. 15, the Supreme Court ruled that Pinochet was too senile to be tried in a case involving nine homicides and a kidnapping (forced disappearance) committed under Operation Condor, a coordinated plan that emerged in late 1975 among the military governments that ruled Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s, aimed at tracking down, capturing and eliminating left-wing opponents.

In July 2002, a trial against him involving 57 murders and 18 kidnappings carried out in October 1973 by a special army mission known as the “Caravan of Death” was blocked on the same grounds.

Pinochet, who seized power in a bloody Sept. 11, 1973 coup d’etat that overthrew socialist President Salvador Allende, was also absolved on Mar. 24 by the Supreme Court in the murders of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert, who were assassinated by DINA in Buenos Aires in 1974.

On Sept. 14, the Supreme Court stripped Pinochet of the immunity from prosecution he enjoys as a former president in the Operation Colombo case, considered a forerunner of Operation Condor.

The resolution Judge Cerda handed down Wednesday in the Riggs case is based on a Jun. 7 appeals court ruling that stripped Pinochet of immunity to allow him to be investigated for the origin of 20 million dollars held in secret bank accounts abroad.

Pinochet’s wife Lucía Hiriart and his youngest son Marco Antonio have also been arrested, as have two former associates, in connection with the accounts in banks in the United States and other countries.

Former defence minister Michelle Bachelet, the ruling centre-left coalition’s presidential candidate, said Pinochet’s arrest would come as a harsh blow to anyone who had ever believed in his honesty.

“The question of honesty has to do with military honour,” said the candidate, the frontrunner for the Dec. 11 elections.

“The important thing is that there is no one above the law in this country, and that the justice system works – and will do so in an agile and timely fashion in this case, we hope – so that all Chileans can find out if these charges (against Pinochet) effectively mean that he is guilty,” Bachelet added.

President Ricardo Lagos’s spokesman Minister Osvaldo Puccio said the former dictator’s prosecution and arrest “show that in this country the institutions apply the law and take measures with total autonomy.”

For her part, Pizarro, the president of the AFDD, noted that Cerda’s decision to charge Pinochet and have him arrested came after the team of medical experts found him fit to stand trial and after his face to face meeting with the former head of DINA, which could open up the possibility that he will be tried, convicted and sentenced for human rights crimes.

According to the report released by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1991, 3,190 Chileans were killed by the security forces during the dictatorship, including 1,198 victims of forced disappearance.

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