Old allies' support for Pinochet wanes

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Boston.com
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Globe Staff | February 13, 2005

SANTIAGO -- Before police dragged him away to prison last month for the 1975 murder of an opposition activist, the former chief of Chile's disbanded secret police angrily called on former General Augusto Pinochet to stand up and ''answer for everything that took place in Chile."

''I completed my mission in accordance with his orders," retired General Manuel Contreras, 75, said indignantly. Contreras, a loyal enforcer of the repressive dictatorship, denounced the boss he once revered for being a ''traitor" and breaking ''the code of honor among soldiers" by evading responsibility for thousands of killings in the 1970s and '80s, which have landed dozens of his subordinates behind bars.

The stunning condemnation, carried on state television, was a sharp reminder of the increasing isolation and vulnerability of the once all-powerful dictator.

Until recently, Pinochet enjoyed the blind devotion of those who supported the 1973 coup that ousted an elected socialist president and brought a right-wing military regime to power for 17 years. But as more military retirees are investigated every day for human rights violations during that period, resentment in their ranks grows of the 89-year-old Pinochet's assertion that he is mentally unfit to stand trial.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2005/02/13/old_allies_support_for_pinochet_wanes/