Can We Try Pinochet Now?

Posted on December 11, 2006 in Atrocity

Twice in history, a corpse has been put on trial by its successors. The most laughable incident involved the trial of Pope Formosus who was tried by his successor Stephen VI. Stephen prosecuted Formosus, asking him question after question and crying out to his audience “See! He cannot answer!”

The other such trial featured the cadaver of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, who was exhumed from his crypt at Westminister Abbey three years after his 1658 demise and ritually executed. His body was thrown into a pit and his head ended up on the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, in Cambridge.

General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (here, too) is dead, but Randy Paul is one who believes we should take out the garlic and the wooden stake to be sure that he stays in the ground. I think that if there is a candidate for posthumous trial and execution in these times, Pinochet ranks with His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular* as one.

The Chilean Constitution prevented the dictator from being tried in his lifetime. Spain tried a few years ago, on the grounds that he swept up a few of its nationals during his CIA-backed reign of terror a few years ago. The English, however, would not extradite him, so he returned home to die of a heart attack this week.

Not so long ago, a Wisconsin man attempted to beat charges of bestiality by claiming that a carcass is not an animal. Could it be argued that a corpse is not a retired dictator so the survivors of the coup against Salvador Allende receive some justice? Some people just don’t deserve a decent burial. They deserve to be mixed with nitrates and used for fertilizing hemp.

Here’s a run-down of blogging reactions to the torturer’s death.

* Check out this song.