Chile's Gen Pinochet dies at 91

Read the BBC article here.

I wasn't going to comment on the death of this man, but I don't have it in me to keep quiet about this. I can't help but think of Slobadon Miloseciv and his timely (or untimely?) death and the lack of justice that surrounded the loss of this man. I feel the same as I did then for Pinochet's death.

I won't say I'm happy he's dead and that such a man should have died a long time ago. I'm not going to say that, because death it's a thing to be celebrated. But at the same time I in no way feel sorry or saddened by this death. This death, to me, is only about justice.

When Pinochet overthrew a democratically elected man in 1973 and created an environment of fear and oppression he did two things: he "saved" a country from Marxism (in the eyes of many) but he oversaw some of the worst human rights violations the world has ever seen. During his 17 year rule over 3,000 individuals were killed or "disappeared" and never seen or heard from again.

Disappeared. Gone. I've read stories about this, heard accounts, watched videos of mothers crying and screaming for the return of their loved ones. How is it possible to be walking down the street one moment and then be gone the next? You tell your friends you're going out for a bit and then never return. It's those that were "disappeared", not just in Chile but in many Latin American countries, that haunt people to this day. The hope that people have for the return of a loved one...there's nothing like it. It will always remain until closure is given.

But regardless, I hope that Pinochet's death will help the country move toward peace and a reconciliation with the atrocities that have happened in the past years.

Yet how does a country get over something like that? Does it move on? Ignore the stories of torture, disappearances, murders? Or does it address what happened and then move on? Is it even possible? What kind of justice can there be if the man most blamed is gone?