Baroness Thatcher at home with
General Pinochet and his wife
Pinochet plays host to a grateful friend
THE setting had the look of the day-room in a superior old folks' home in the
Home Counties: comfortably if blandly furnished and not a personal
knick-knack to be seen.
General Augusto Pinochet hovered inside the door of his Wentworth
residence, hardly daring to look to the outside world into which he is
restrained from venturing beyond about three feet.
He is a big, ponderous man who leans on a stick but is otherwise
surprisingly upright for 83.
A black Jaguar crunched up the drive and a vision in green emerged.
Baroness Thatcher, elaborately coiffed as ever, stepped out, looking petite
beside the Chilean bulk. They shook hands briefly and rather formally,
although in the days of the Falklands conflict they were said to be on
Augusto and Margaret terms.
Lady Thatcher shook hands with the general's wife, Lucia. General Pinochet
took his guest's arm and guided her into the sitting-room, where he and his
wife sat together, an interpreter by their side. Lady Thatcher sat opposite,
also with an aide. For two old buddies who once ganged up against
Argentina's General Galtieri, they were being decidedly formal.
"It is an honour for me for you to be here in this very simple house," the
general said through his interpreter. "It is a small house but it is full of love
and gratitude to you." The baroness beamed.
"I'm glad you're comfortable here," Lady Thatcher replied. "I know how
much we owe to you for your help during the Falklands campaign." She
listed the help Chile had given.
Then the Thatcher gratitude gearbox moved into overdrive. "We are very
much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile. You set up a
constitution suitable for democracy. You put it into effect. Elections were
held, and in accordance with the result you stepped down. So we have two
reasons to thank you."
It had been a brief photoopportunity of the kind staged when heads of state
exchange ornate platitudes carved by folk artists in the mountain regions of
their respective countries. Between General Pinochet and Lady Thatcher,
however, the exchanges seemed more sincere. They have the shared
experience of democracy finishing their career.
Lady Thatcher, of course, was removed by a less democratic process: while
the general heard the braying of the multitude, the baroness heard the burr of
dagger blades on Tory grinding wheels.
Her visit yesterday was a happy diversion for the general. His usual routine
is to rise early, breakfast lightly, read the British and French newspapers and
then surf the Internet for news of Chile.
On her return from Wentworth, Lady Thatcher stood on the steps of her
offices in Belgravia and defended her old friend once again. Her cheeks
flushed with excitement, she addressed the assembled journalists in her
familiar imperious manner. "We should be grateful for the tremendous help
he gave the British Forces at the time of the Falklands war. Without his help
we would have suffered a lot more casualties."
As the crowd of journalists was swelled by bemused passers-by, she went
on: "General Pinochet has restored democracy in Chile and that is very
important. He set up a new constitution. He did all the organisation, and held
a democratic election. He stood as a candidate. He was not elected so he
stepped down, all in keeping with democracy."
She said that in the law lords' decision on the former dictator's extradition,
being sought by Spain, "the overwhelming majority of cases are inadmissible
in our courts. If there's any resulting jurisdiction it should be by the people
of Chile in the courts of Chile."
Ignoring journalists' questions, she turned on her heel and disappeared
inside. She seemed to have forgotten her husband, Sir Denis, who appeared
a few minutes later and had to rap loudly on the door to be allowed in.
Judge Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge seeking the extradition of
General Pinochet, said yesterday that he had proof of more than 40 cases of
torture and assassination against the former dictator since 1988. The law
lords ruled on Wednesday that the general was not answerable to human
rights abuses before 1988, the year a UN convention on torture became part
of British law.
Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd.
