Augusto Pinochet dies at 91

‘Tata’ remained controversial
In his last years, the white-haired “tata” (grandpa) as his friends called him, stayed out of the public eye, but could not escape controversy. His reputation as a ruthless but corruption-free strongman crumbled in the bank accounts scandal.

At the time of his death, courts were probing whether the wealth was legitimate and going after the general for tax fraud.

Outsiders were often surprised to find that more than a third of Chileans loved the unrepentant patriarch and devout Roman Catholic, who in a rare 2003 television interview said he was a democrat and felt like an angel.

Supporters argue Pinochet put Chile on track to become Latin America’s model economy. In the 1980s, he let U.S.-trained economists guide the economy, selling off state companies and cutting government spending, which ushered in a decade of expansion in the 1990s.

“It may take several future generations for people to understand my father and give him the place in history he deserves ... and recognize him as a great man who gave everything for his country,” Pinochet’s eldest son, also named Augusto, told Reuters in 2003.

Others say future generations will condemn the man who is said to have once boasted that not a leaf stirred in Chile without his knowing it.

“He will go down in history alongside Caligula and Idi Amin as a byword for brutality and ignorance,” said Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, niece of Salvador Allende, who killed himself during the Sept. 11, 1973, coup that launched Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Never answered in court
Pinochet became the most recognized of the Latin American dictators of the era, such as Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza and Paraguay’s Alfredo Stroessner.

In 1988, he finally bowed to domestic and international pressure and went ahead with a plebiscite he had written into the constitution.

Chileans voted him out of power and he ceded office in 1990 to a center-left government run by returned exiles. After a period as head of the military, he retired from the army in 1998 and took a lifetime seat in the Senate, a post he also put into the constitution.

Later that same year while in London for back surgery, Pinochet grabbed world headlines when Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon issued an extradition warrant for him in hopes of trying him for crimes against humanity.

British police arrested Pinochet in a London clinic and held him under house arrest for 16 months until the British government released him on grounds of poor health.

Chile argued Pinochet should be tried at home. He returned in 2000 to face an avalanche of criminal suits.

Seclusion, declining health in later years
Since the mid-1990s, Pinochet led a mostly secluded life between his heavily guarded Santiago mansion and his countryside residence. He rarely appeared in public other than for checkups at the Santiago army hospital.

Associates said he lost interest in politics and rarely paid attention to news. During family gatherings he would remain mostly silent, looking frail and tired.

His health declined steadily. In 1992 he received a pacemaker. He suffered from diabetes and arthritis and had at least three mild strokes beginning in 1998.

He is survived by his wife, Lucia, who headed a volunteer women’s organization dedicated to helping the poor, two sons and three daughters.

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