Thomas Kruse wrote today:
------->>> "Hello! Today is decision-day in London. Folks: one (just one) of this century's Hitler's will either "get his" or get a plane ride home. Either way, I say this is a victory we should celebrate. For some weeks, the Pinochet was reduced to a fuming, pitiful figure, now publicly reviled the world over. Can you imagine?!"
Well, I'm rather pessimistic on the Lords' verdict about Pinochet. Nevertheless, even so there are chances that the tyrant won't never get a plane ride home.
I've just now received the information that several European countries will deny flight permissions to the Chilean Air Force hospital plane that is staying at Heathrow waiting for Pinochet. In a normal route back to Chile the plane would have to cross over France, Spain and Portugal, all of which had nationals among the victims of the dictatorship (or people with double citizenship, that is more common). These countries will so probably intercept the Chilean plane if it tries to fly over them, if the information is true.
Another alternative route would be through North America and, in this case, the plane would probably NOT be intercepted, but... ----what about a sudden popular mobilization to force the US and Canadian governments to deny flight permission too? Would it be possible? There are at least two US citizens who were murdered by the dictatorship in Chile (the US embassy kept silence over it, BTW) and it must be also remembered the terrorist attack against Orlando Letelier in the US soil, that also killed his secretary, the US citizen Ronni Miffit (do I write correctly her name?).
Or perhaps the plane will try to fly all the time over international waters "down the South American way". In this case (as well as in the normal route case) the plane would necessarily have to fly in a great extent of the journey over Brazil and to do a technical stop to refuel in some Brazilian airport. Even so Pinochet may not hear that old Carmen Miranda's tune but an aerial interception or even another order of arrest instead ! (temporary detention, better saying).
There has been rumored that the detention of Pinochet could be attempted by means of an urgent request by a federal prosecutor in the name of the Brazilian victims of Pinochet's dictatorship or by the aerial interception of the plane or the seizure of it when it stops in Brazilian soil. In the former case the detention must be ordered by a federal judge and in the latter case the interception or seizure would have to be ordered by the President himself.
Both possibilities are not wishful thinking, however having not great chances to take place, IMHO. Brazilian courts are more independent from the government than their Chilean counterparts (and are now free from military intervention too) and the Brazilian associations of magistrates lean to the left-wing, since the bourgeois democratic concept of Law is a left-wing one. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, however being now a neoliberal, lived as an exile in Chile (he went to France and US before the fall of Allende) and would like to see the tyrant behind bars.
Very recently several South American presidents met in Brasília together with king Juan Carlos from Spain. "Baby" Frei, the president of Chile who is so servile to the military, asked the presidents to join in a common declaration urging the immediate and unconditional release of the tyrant in the name of the Chilean sovereignty. He was so in a hurry that he dared the diplomatic blunder of proposing it in front of the king himself. Frei's shameful initiative immediately received a rotund "NO" from the host, the Brazilian president. A few hours after the gaffe, the Health Minister José Serra, a close ally of Cardoso and his disguised speaker, who also was an exile in Chile during the Allende's term, blatantly supported the prison and judgement of Pinochet in Spain. The Chilean government later denied such an awkward move.
In solidarity, Roberto
1848 / 1998: Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch !
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans (....) Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes Le grand PARTI DES TRAVAILLEURS. (L' Internationale)
Saudações de Roberto
1848 / 1998: Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch !
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans (....) Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes Le grand PARTI DES TRAVAILLEURS. (L' Internationale)