Life is Tough For Former Dictators

Lucía Pinochet Hiriart, daughter of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, tried unsuccessfully to get asylum in the U.S. and now apparently the U.S. embassy in Chile is about to provide a response to her claim that the U.S. rejected her request only because it was desperate to maintain good relations with Chile as the rest of South America shifts more to the left. (For a quick description of the case in English, see this or this).

Now, I agree the U.S. government did not want her to stay too long, but her argument presupposes that she had a valid petition to begin with. Her father embezzled money, gobs of it, and she got a share, which of course she did not pay taxes on. Her claim (like her father’s) is that it is a leftist plot cooked up to further discredit him and his family. I believe that about as much as former intelligence chief Manuel Contreras’ claim that the detained-disappeared really are still living in Europe and pretending to be dead (yes, he really did make that claim).

It just goes to show that life is hard for former brutal dictators. And given his advanced age (he will be 91 later this year) he is becoming the Strom Thurmond of former brutal dictators.