Marcus Gee
Globe and Mail
August 8, 2000

It has been a bad week for former dictators.

Last Tuesday, the Chilean Supreme Court voted secretly to strip Augusto Pinochet of his immunity as a senator, clearing the way for a possible trial of the general for murder, kidnapping and torture. The court is expected to make the ruling public today.

Last Thursday, prosecutors visited former Indonesian president Suharto at his house in Jakarta and handed him an indictment for corruption. He may face trial as early as this month for embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from the state.

Though anticipated for weeks, these events must have come as a bitter shock to the two former leaders. Neither believed when he left office that he might some day end up in court and, for a while, it seemed both were right.

Gen. Pinochet did everything in his power to make sure that he would never face justice. Before stepping down, he insisted on a constitutional guarantee of immunity. As senator for life, he could never be prosecuted or so he believed. But, in May, the Court of Appeals ruled that there was enough evidence linking him to atrocities committed during his dictatorship to render his senatorial immunity invalid. The Supreme Court apparently agrees.

Suharto did not have the time to put together a sweetheart deal such as Gen. Pinochet’s. He was swept from power in a few chaotic days in May of 1998. He thought he was safe because the man who succeeded him — vice-president B. J. Habibie — was an ally. On top of that, there was an understanding among the nation’s political class that pursuing Suharto for his corruption and human-rights atrocities would open old wounds at a time when the country badly needed reconciliation. A similar understanding prevailed in Chile. Far more important to spend time building the future, it was said, than unearthing the old bones of the past.

But in both Chile and Indonesia, that consensus has begun to unravel. When Gen. Pinochet wiggled off the hook in Britain, where he was arrested in 1998 and held until five months ago, victims of his crimes redoubled their efforts to bring him to justice. Scores of human-rights cases are making their way through the Chilean courts, many launched by families of people who were “disappeared” during the Pinochet years.

In Indonesia, meanwhile, student protesters and human-rights activists are determined to ensure that Suharto does not enjoy a comfortable retirement. With the help of an energetic attorney-general, they have pushed the Suharto corruption case further than anyone thought it would go. Human-rights charges may be next.

Is this really fair? Not altogether. Both Gen. Pinochet and Suharto can fairly say that were given to understand they would not be prosecuted if they stepped down. They can also argue that whatever misdeeds they may have committed should be weighed against their accomplishments. Gen. Pinochet ended a chaotic Marxist experiment and put the country on the road to prosperity. Suharto transformed a poor and anarchic land to one of the developing world’s big success stories.

But the thirst for justice is not always a rational impulse. Try telling someone who has had electrodes attached to his genitals in a Chilean torture chamber that he should give Gen. Pinochet credit for the rise in the gross national product. Try telling an unemployed factory worker in Jakarta that he should forget about the billions pocketed by the Suharto family and their cronies.

It is an old truth: Unavenged souls never rest; victims of injustice never forget. Every dictator must now accept that, whatever deal he thinks he has struck, justice may one day catch up with him.

That knowledge may prevent some despots from giving up power. Why should Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic step down if United Nations prosecutors will arrest him the moment he leaves the country? Why would China’s leaders let democracy take hold if they know they might be put on trial for the massacre at Tiananmen Square? Tomorrow’s justice may block today’s freedom.

But it may block today’s atrocities, too. Dictators who know they may face justice in the future are less likely to abuse their citizens. What is happening to Suharto and Gen. Pinochet is a warning to dictators everywhere: The days of impunity are over. Beware.

E-mail: mgee@globeandmail.ca