The Pinochet Affair - State Terrorism and Global Justice

This work tells the epic story of the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London in October 1998, and the events surrounding it. It begins with Pinochet's violent military coup against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. It probes the sociopathic, paranoid and authoritarian tendencies that led him to murder thousands of people in Chile while authorizing acts of international terrorism in Argentina, Italy and Washington D.C. In response to his brutal reign, a human rights movement was forged that played a critical role in finally ousting the dictator in 1990. But even out of office, his power was such that he suppressed all efforts to prosecute him, until his detention in London. The book describes the clash between the politicians who sought to cover up and wash their hands of Pinochet, and the judges, lawyers and human rights organizations. And it discusses the implications of the affair for an international regime of justice...