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| Latin America |
| Chilean Indicted in Filmmaker’s Slaying |
| 2003-12-12 |
| SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - A retired security officer has been indicted in the slaying of an American filmmaker whose execution in the early days of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship became the basis of the film "Missing." Rafael Gonzalez, 64, is the first person formally charged in the 1973 killing of Charles Horman. He was arrested Wednesday on the orders of Judge Jorge Zepeda. The judge is handling a criminal suit filed by Horman’s widow, Joyce Horman. Other indictments are expected to follow, said her lawyer, Sergio Corvalan. According to court papers, Horman was arrested on Sept. 17, 1973, two weeks after the bloody coup led by Pinochet. He was taken to Santiago’s main soccer stadium, which had been turned into a detention camp for Pinochet’s suspected political opponents. His body turned up months later at a location that has not been disclosed for legal reasons. However Corvalan said Horman was not one of those killed at the stadium. An official report by the civilian government that succeeded Pinochet in 1990 stated that hundreds were detained and tortured at the stadium and at least 48 were executed, including several foreigners. The Horman case was the subject of the 1982 film "Missing," directed by Constantine Costa-Gavras and starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. Horman was an idealistic, addled leftie who should have been home doing something pointless and stupid. But I don’t want any American in the world whacked by another government for any reason. Gives others bad ideas, it does. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 "It still suprises me that the Left can't let go of ... Chile." Why surprise? The Left still hasn't let go of |
| Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) 2003-12-12 3:00:53 PM |
| #1 It still suprises me that the Left can't let go of what happened in Chile. Lots of bad s*** was happening all across Latin America around that time (not to mention Eastern Europe and SE Asia), but Chile came out of the Pinochet years as a prosperous civil society, and that I suspect is the real sin in the eyes of the Left. For what its worth, I was a politically aware teenager at the time and clearly recall the Left's attitude of 'history in on our side'. Pinochet's coup occured at the highwater mark of the Left's influence and it represented a turning point and the start of their decline into todays impotent fury. In a sense the Pinochet regime is a scapegoat for the Left's historic failure. And this I suspect is the reason they can't let go of what happened in Chile. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2003-12-12 4:50:37 AM |