[The Guardian]
Rightwing fan club tinkers
with Chile history
Nick Hopkins attends a rally
of Thatcherites and imported
Chileans sniffing Marxist
plots
Wednesday January 20, 1999
In retrospect, the organisers
of the Pinochet press
conference may regret inviting
200 vocal supporters of his
all the way from Chile.
Whether it was the sight of so
many eminent British
historians of the rightwing
persuasion gathered at a
London hotel, or the
excitement of a free flight
from Santiago, the claque's
whooping and hollering quickly
reduced yesterday's event to a
boisterous political rally.
Even Paul Johnson, the Daily
Mail commentator, found their
enthusiasm a little hard to
take. "It is a tradition of
British press conferences not
to applaud," he mumbled. His
call for decorum was made in
vain.
He and Lord Lamont were feted
by the Chileans, but they
reserved their biggest cheer
for Robin Harris, an aide to
Baroness Thatcher.
It was his pamphlet, The Tale
of Two Chileans: Pinochet and
Allende, that the press
conference was launching. It
had been written to set the
record straight, said Mr
Harris, who is a former head
of the Conservative research
department.
Far from being a brutal
dictator, Augusto Pinochet had
"saved" Chile from the Marxist
Salvador Allende. Gen
Pinochet's police force, the
Dina, might have murdered and
tortured people, but there was
no evidence the general had
been involved, said Mr Harris.
He wanted to explode the "myth
of sainthood" which surrounded
President Allende, who, Mr
Harris alleged, had committed
suicide in 1973 during the
military coup. The president
had lived in luxury while his
people had starved, said Mr
Harris, and Gen Pinochet had
seized power reluctantly.
Lord Lamont, who appeared
slightly surprised when Mr
Johnson introduced him as "a
very distinguished" former
chancellor of the exchequer,
said he had met the general on
Monday evening and found him
in excellent spirits - "as you
would expect of the good,
brave and honourable soldier
that he is".
"Bravo, Bravo!" shouted the
crowd.
And so it continued.
Mr Johnson pointed out that
the demonisation of Gen
Pinochet had been the most
successful and mendacious
propaganda exercise of the
20th century - "the last great
triumph of the Soviet
machine," he boomed.
Gen Pinochet could be accused
of bad management and bad
judgment, but nothing else.
"There have been countless
attempts to link him to human
rights atrocities, but nobody
has provided a single scrap of
evidence."
Then there were questions from
the floor.
How many were killed or
tortured? asked one
journalist. And were their
deaths acceptable, a price
worth paying to crush the
left?
There was a moment of quiet;
the panel fidgeted.
Mr Johnson broke the silence.
Avoiding the first question,
he said that he believed the
general had saved many
thousands if not hundreds of
thousands of lives by
preventing a descent into
chaos.
And neither did Mr Harris
appear to know how many people
had died.
