WASHINGTON, December 11 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Augusto Pinochet, whose repressive rule in Chile was admired by anti-Communists but was a cause celebre for international leftists, evoked equally strong international reactions after his death on Sunday.
In Spain, home to many exiles from Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, a few hundred mostly Chilean demonstrators chanting anti-Pinochet slogans and drinking champagne gathered in Madrid's Puerta del Sol to celebrate Pinochet's death.
"I'm very happy but also very sad because Pinochet escaped justice," one woman told Spanish state television, referring to the failure of prosectors to bring him to trial on human rights charges.
Pinochet, who died on Sunday aged 91, polarized Chile during his military rule and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges in what many people saw as a test case for bringing former dictators to trial.
"The first thing that I experienced when I heard about Pinochet's death was an overwhelming recollection of all of the grief, pain and agony," said Joyce Horman, the widow of Charles Horman, the U.S. journalist who disappeared during the coup in Chile and whose story is depicted in the 1982 film "Missing."
"I was also heartened to think of all of the efforts so many people have made who worked so hard and so long to expose the crimes of this man," she said, speaking through fresh tears.
Pinochet was never convicted of any crime, but many military officers and former members of his secret police were convicted of torture, assassination and kidnapping.
"It will pass into history that human rights violators must worry about being 'Pinocheted.'" said Francisco Letelier, 47, the son of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, who was assassinated in Washington by Chilean agents in 1976.
"This was a message to tyrants that that they can no longer sit on privileged thrones that exist above the reach of international law," Letelier said, alluding to the legal troubles that dogged Pinochet until his death.
Other Pinochet opponents were more frustrated.
"The victims must be frustrated that his death has come before he himself could be condemned," said Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who issued an extradition warrant against Pinochet when the general visited London for medical treatment in 1998.
That warrant set off a 16-month legal battle -- with Garzon accusing Pinochet of crimes against humanity including genocide and torture -- that ended up with Pinochet's release from house arrest on health grounds.
Playing Cold War politics, the US government backed the 1973 coup in which Pinochet seized power, ousting socialist President Salvador Allende, who killed himself during the coup.
But the Bush administration remembered Pinochet by extending sympathy to his victims and their families.
"Our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families," Tony Fratto, spokesman for US President George W. Bush, said in a statement.
More than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared during Pinochet's rule, but many Chileans loved him and said he saved the country from Marxism and laid the foundation for the country of today, a model of political stability during the last 16 years of democracy.
"He left the country in shape. Democratic governments that followed not only accepted it but reinforced it (the liberal economic model), and the transition to democracy was smooth, one of the smoothest in Latin America," said Arturo Porzecanski, professor of international finance at American University in Washington.
Pinochet's government backed Britain under Margaret Thatcher during the 1982 Falklands War against Argentina, and Thatcher also pressed for his release after he was arrested in London in 1998.
"Lady Thatcher was greatly saddened to hear the news of Mr. Pinochet's death and sends her deep condolences to his widow and his family," a spokesman for the former prime minister said.
bdnews24.com/mhb/1238 hrs
