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Museum to Chile's Pinochet sickens victims
12 Dec 2008 21:28:14 GMT
 Source: Reuters
SANTIAGO, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Family and friends of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet quietly inaugurated a museum in his memory on Friday, replete with uniforms and medals he wore, to the horror of victims of his rule.

Among items displayed at the new Pinochet Foundation museum in an upscale quarter of the capital, Santiago, are the last uniform he used as commander in chief of the Chilean Army along with dozens of his medals.

"I am happy because this is a way of doing some justice to what he represented and what he did," said Lucia Hiriart, his widow, flanked by family and some former ministers and retired military. The event was low-key.

Pinochet led a bloody coup against the socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973, ushering in 17 years of dictatorship in which 3,000 people died or disappeared and around 28,000 were tortured.

Victims of his rule, some of whom complain the wheels of justice turn too slowly in Chile, were disgusted.

"Any monument to a dictator is shameful to the memory of all those who fell in the fight against the dictatorship," said Tito Tricot, an academic who was tortured and had his spine broken during Pinochet's rule.

"It is a reflection of what is going on in this country, of a negotiated, agreed transition, in which justice has not been done," he added. "It is offensive to me. Shameful."

Pinochet died of heart failure on Dec. 10, 2006, at the age of 91, without having faced a full trial for human rights abuses committed during his rule. (Reporting by Esteban Medel, Pav Jordan. Editing by Simon Gardner)


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