The Tyrannical Generals: Augusto Pinochet and CH Park

March 4, 2000

Pinochet, an ex-despotic ruler who overthrew the democratically-elected government of Chile in 1973 under the sanction of US government (Nixon and Kissinger) and committed mass-killing and disappearance of over 3,000 dissidents, was allowed to leave the Great Briton under the assumption that the General was unfit to stand trial that the Spain government requested the extradition on charges of torture and disappearance of their nationals.
He was detained under house arrest for 17 months while recovering from back surgery in London.

The ex-dictator, who was diagnosed brain-damaged, too sick to stand and on a wheel-chair bound while in England, rose to embrace the commander in chief of Chilean army on his own when he arrived in Santiago and recognized every friends and military officers and there were no signs of illness that were the basis for his release.
His sudden recovery from sickness seems to be miraculous and evangelical since Lazarus as the despot has received a hero’s welcome by his coterie of military officers.

His put-on shows were shrewd enough to make British government a laughingstock.

Pinochet’ regime had many similarity in the governance of national affairs with the corrupt military government of tinpot dictator, Gen. CH Park.
They were both career military officers, had snatched power by putsch, committed atrocities against their people with arbitrary arrest, torture, imprisonment, forced disappearance, homicide, exiles, abduction, intimidation, etc.

Pinochet has betrayed and murdered his president 18 days after he was appointed the commander in chief of the army
Park was a graduate from Japanese Military Academy who has pledged to fight for the Emperor and remained loyal to Japan until Japan surrendered while his people suffered greatly from Japanese colonialism.

Pinochet ordered his infamous secret police, DINA, to detain, kidnap, and torture anyone who stands against his regime and thousands of men and women disappeared without trace.
Park committed the same atrocities under the command of KCIA and Military Security Command and the prisons were flooded with students, professors, labor leaders, and ordinary people who valiantly protested against his tyranny and hundreds of detainees were met with various forms of tortures and long-term jail sentences that resulted in suspicious deaths.

Surprisingly, two generals seem to share the same destiny even after their departures from power…Pinochet enjoys the immunity from criminal process as a senator for life and an amnesty decree that covers crimes committed from 1973 to 1978 in Chile.

Park was rehabilitated and resuscitated in the grave by DJ Kim who desperately seeks for the support of the region where Park hailed from and he would be remembered as a national hero who brought forth the economic prosperity through the banditry in the Vietnam War.

In Chile and South Korea, there exists a high degree of consensus, that during the past military regime the violation of the human rights was necessary condition for laying the foundations of a economically prosperous nation… that is, the public take the General’s brutality for granted as peccadillo that some one has to pay the price to achieve the material satisfaction.

The only consolation in which the families of victims from both Pinochet and Park rejoice is the principle that those who commit human rights violation in one country could be tried in elsewhere.
This principle would apply to Gen. DH Chun and TW Roh who massacred hundreds of young men and women during their dictatorship, although they were pardoned by another corrupt bozo who was bribed with boxes of cold cash.

Pinochet still faces criminal complaints in Chile for kidnapping, murder and torture, all of which were lodged in 1998 and 1999 and the cases are in the preliminary stage of investigation by the judge of Santiago Appeals Court.

However, in South Korea, no one seems to bother to inquire about anything that is related to the conviction of Chun and Roh: two crooks have not paid the fines and they still keep the Swiss accounts. Not surprisingly, DJ Kim still invites them for the Christmas party.