The arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in October 1998 was a wake-up call to tyrants everywhere. The two subsequent rulings by the British House of Lords rejecting his claim of immunity forged legal history. This book traces the legal proceedings in the Pinochet case from the investigation in Spain, through the October 1999 ruling by a London Magistrate that Pinochet could be extradited to Spain, to the final decision to release Pinochet for health reasons. By including the full text of the British judicial decisions as well as the arrest warrants, translations of the key Spanish court rulings, excerpts from the legal arguments put forward by all sides, and commentaries by participants in the case and legal scholars, this volume gives the reader an understanding of the factual, political, and legal context of this historic prosecution.

Chronicles the human drama and tragedy of events in contemporary Chile in light of fourteen years of brutal dictatorship

In this unique memoir, renowned poet, fiction writer, critic, and activist Marjorie Agosin writes in the voice of her mother, Frida, the daughter of European Jewish immigrants, living in Chile in the years before, during, and after World War II. Frida recounts stories from her family's Jewish/Chilean history: of her father, who had to leave Vienna in 1920 because he fell in love with a Christian cabaret dancer; of her paternal grandmother, who came to Chile later with a number tattooed on her arm; and of her great grandmother, an immigrant from Odessa, who learned to speak Spanish in Chile and loved the language so much that she repeated its harmonious sounds even in her sleep. Frida's stories of the past soften the realities of present times, when some immigrants from Germany still display portraits of Hitler m their homes and Jews still remain, after two generations, strangers in their own land. These stories are permeated with the shadow of faraway war in Europe, which haunts Frida's dreams and is a vivid presence in the everyday life in this Chilean town. For Frida the cross and the star of the title come to define two worlds that are for her distinct, yet inexorably entwined. Agosin's poetic reflections reveal a culture and a landscape little-known outside of her native land, explore the boundaries of "voice", and create a moving testament to endurance and to the power of memory and of words.

'This is an excellent, quick and powerful read, accessible to everyone' Publishers WeeklyOn October 16th, 1998, the world awoke to amazing news: General Augusto Pinochet, Chile's former dictator, had been arrested by Scotland Yard in England & was awaiting extradition to Spain on charges of torture & genocide. What ensued became one of the most important human rights trials of the last fifty years: for the first time in the twentieth century, a former Head of State was being judged by a foreign court.Renowned author Ariel Dorfman, obsessed for twenty-five years with the malignant shadow General Pinochet cast upon Chile & the world, followed every twist & turn of the four year trial in Great Britain, Spain & Chile as well as in the U.S., the country that had created Pinochet. Told as a suspense thriller, filled with court-room drama & sudden reversals of fortune, the book at the same time addresses some of today's most burning issues, made all the more urgent after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. What are the limits of national sovereignty in a globalizing world? How does an ever more interconnected world judge crimes committed against humanity? What role do memory & pain & the rights of the survivors play in this struggle for a new system of justice? But above all, the author, by listening carefully to the voices of Pinochet's many victims, explores how can we purge ourselves of terror & fear once we have been traumatized, and asks if we can build peace & reconciliation without facing a turbulent & perverse past.From Dorfman's emotional reconstitution of the many phases of Pinochet's trial, both in London & in Santiago, there slowly emerges a picture of a victory, both for the people of Chile & for people the world over, serving as a prelude to the prosecution of other Heads of State - such as Milosevic in The Hague - but as a warning to many powerful men around the world - like Henry Kissinger - who felt they would never be held accountable for sufferings inflicted on faraway civilians.

El Norte Grande of Chile is the world's driest desert, a vast, barren expanse where a person can live an entire lifetime without ever feeling a single drop of rain, where rivers vanish into the sands and trees are all but unknown. But this forbidding landscape has many stories to tell an observant, inquisitive traveler. Someone like Ariel Dorfman. Renowned as a poet, essayist, novelist, and playwright, he combines eloquence, passion, and personal experience with a sure sense of place and a keen eye for the telling detail that brings history to life -- for this account of his journey through the desert is also a chronicle of modern Chile. Like an archaeologist, he sifts through shards of memory to recreate a world that no longer exists but still casts a long shadow over his native land. Ghosts are at the heart of his tale, from the ruined boomtowns where great nitrate fortunes were built to the seaside prison where Dorfman's old friend Freddy Taberna spent his last night before being executed in 1973 after the overthrow of Salvador Allende's government. In these pages, long-abandoned mining communities are summoned up in their glory days, when the mansions of mineral millionaires were built on the punishing labor of workers forever in hock to the company store. Nor are these the only ghosts. In this sweeping book, Dorfman also examines the oldest mummies in the world, visits an observatory at the top of the world that scans the light from long-dead stars, and sifts through the remains of indigenous villages buried under tons of sand. Skillfully interweaving present and past, memoir and meditation, fascinating history and colorful family lore, Desert Memories gazes across the seeming emptiness of el Norte Grande, finds a complete and compelling world, and conjures it up with the kind of elegant simplicity that only the most sophisticated of travelers can achieve.

In 1825 Captain Francis Bond Head retired from the army to take up a post with a mining company to survey and report on mining opportunities in Chile and Argentina. This mission earned him the nickname "Galloping Head" as a result of his travels back and forth across the continent and gave him the material for this book, which was much admired by Charles Darwin on his own journey from ocean to ocean six years later.