"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist
due to the irresponsibility of its own people."

-- US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

Pinochet: Repression and Lawsuits to Silence the Facts of his
Atrocities

From: http://www.btinternet.com/~donald.macdonald/chile1.htm

On numerous occasions since the hand-over to a civilian president in
1990, those who have suggested that General Pinochet be prosecuted,
have themselves been threatened, attacked, arrested or imprisoned,
and actions against human rights violators have been frustrated.
Among these events are:

26.09.90 Three journalists are jailed by military courts for 'offence
to the armed forces'.

26.01.91 The Supreme Court suspends Judge Carlos Cerda for refusing
to invoke the Amnesty Law to dismiss a case relating to the
disappearance of 13 persons.

23.09.92 Pinochet announces that he intends to file a criminal
complaint against a former Army Intelligence Service (DINE) officer
who blows the whistle on continuing phone-tapping operations.

03.03.93 A book entitled Ethics and Intelligence Services is
confiscated and its author, a retired Naval Captain, is arrested.

28.05.93 Armed soldiers in camouflage uniform appear near the Moneda
Palace in a calculated threat to the continuation of human rights
trials. Military courts subsequently close (dismiss) 14 cases and the
Supreme Court applies the Amnesty law to 7 others.

23.09.93 The Supreme Court upholds the decision of a military court
to apply the Amnesty Law to close the investigation of the
clandestine cemetry at Pisagua, where 19 bodies of disappeared
prisoners were discovered.

10.93 The Supreme Court refuses an application by the Chamber of
Deputies for a special prosecutor to investigate the assassination of
General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires in 1973.

19.07.95 Pinochet sues Arturo Barrios for libel after the student
leader calls for criminal charges to be filed against the General for
human rights violations. Barrios is jailed briefly.

05.10.96 Communist Party General Secretary Gladys Marin is jailed for
two days on charges of defamation after calling Pinochet 'a
psychopath who reached power by means of intrigue, treason and crime'.

04.06.97 Pinochet threatens to sue members of Congress who criticised
the Army in the case of the murder of Army conscript Pedro Soto Tapia.

However, on January 20 1998, Pinochet for the first time faced
criminal charges, when a Court of Appeals judge agreed to hear a
criminal complaint of genocide brought by the Communist Party, and in
March eleven Christian Democrat deputies filed a constitutional
accusation against Pinochet charging him with threatening national
honour and security by his actions as Commander-in-Chief of the Army
between 1990 and 1998. The Chamber of Deputies subsequently defeated
the motion by 62 votes to 52.