The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Tory MP has "huge admiration" for Augusto Pinochet

Andrew Rosindell declares his support for the brutal dictator.

By Alex Hern Published 15 June 2012 16:12

Chilean crossing a street in Santiago, behind a military tank which is on its way to the Presidential Palace, Santiago, 30 June 1973. Photograph: Getty Images

Trigger warning for sexual violence and rape. This post contains graphic descriptions of acts of torture.

Political Scrapbook has been running a series of posts on Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, mostly focusing on the £36,000 of free travel he has claimed in the last year alone, as varies countries paid for his trips to the Cayman Islands, Taiwan, Lebanon, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and more. But today, they've revealed his astonishing comments about the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet.

Defending one of his councillors joining the "Augusto Pinochet Fan Club" on Facebook, Rosindell told the Romford Recorder that:

Pinochet ousted a communist regime in Chile that was butchering its people. Compared with the rest of Latin America during the ‘70s and ‘80s, Chile turned into a free society where people were able to prosper.

If [the councillor] happened to join a group, then so what? I would happily be a member of that group. I have huge admiration for General Pinochet.

These are some of the actions of the man Rosindell has huge admiration for:

In January 1974, Chilean Air Force troops deposited the body of a seventeen-year-old boy, an MIR party member, in a town south of Santiago. Part of the boy's abdomen had been subjected to vivisection. Both his legs were broken, and also his left arm. His entire body was covered with holes made by cigarette burns. He had also been castrated. . . There were a lot of women as badly beaten up as the men were. They bad also been brutally raped; they had internal ruptures and were bleeding profusely. One kept moaning. The torturers had inserted a sharp object in her vagina, and it had cut through the peritoneum. Some of the people there said they had recognized the interrogators: they were Navy infantrymen trained at the American bases in Panama. [Robinson Rojas Sandford, The Murder of Allende and the End of the Chilean Way of Socialism]

The methods of torture described in the preliminary reports from COPAHI, the "Cooperative Committee for Peace in Chile" are the following:

Application of electrical current in various parts of the body, usually the gums, genitals and anus.

Blows.

Blindfolding or hoods.

Burning with acids or cigarettes.

Immersion in gasoline or water.

Whipping in general.

Incarceration in unhealthy conditions or with vermin.

Being forced to participate in or witness sexual activities [62].

Being rolled over rocks.

Being forced to witness torture.

Ingestion of excrement.

Rack.

Hanging by the neck.

Deprivation of water for a week.

Deliberate fracture of a wounded arm.

Being thrown from a height blindfolded.

Knives inserted under fingernails or toenails.

Cutting on the hands.

Being exposed naked to the sun.

Not identified (caused death). [María Eugenia Rojas, La represión politica en Chile: los hechos]

In some camps, routine sadism was taken to extremes. At Villa Grimaldi, recalcitrant prisoners were dragged to a parking lot; DINA agents then used a car or truck to run over and crush their legs. Prisoners there recalled one young man who was beaten with chains and left to die slowly from internal injuries. Rape was also a reoccurring form of abuse. DINA officers subjected female prisoners to grotesque forms of sexual torture that included insertion of rodents and, as tactfully described in the Commission report, "unnatural acts involving dogs." [Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability]

"I have huge admiration for General Pinochet".

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28 comments

Sat, 2012-07-21 15:57 — mnafdja (not verified)

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Thu, 2012-07-05 03:45 — ahmadnasr89

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Mon, 2012-06-18 16:23 — Mary Bolton (not verified)

It seems that neoliberal, technocratic toffs might get edgy when they realise that the not insignificant number of paleo-conservatives amongst their ranks are actually visible from the outside. Yes you, Tory-boys: you look like fsking Neanderthals. Ha ha ha. Dim right wing.

Mon, 2012-06-18 15:22 — Firemanfritter (not verified)

It's important from time to time to be reminded of the Tory record of rewriting history through the abuse of their control over the state and the press. Tories are the enemy of any decent person with a shred of humanity. They are war criminals, anti-libertarian fascists and greedy. They should be treated like the scum that they are by any decent person. There's a good feature in the Guardian today about Dennis Skinner's refusal to drink in the commons' bar. Mind you, Skinner is one of the last leftists. The Labour party is essentially Tory, as is the Guardian both there to subjugate the working man. Labour and most of it's politicians should be treated with the same contempt as a Tory.

Beyond their press and government deceit they warp election results through manipulation of voting intentions through poll predictions. Poll predictions should be illegal, just as they are in Greece after a set date in the election. I would go one step further and ban them altogether - they manipulate election results.

People need to be allowed to think for themselves. It has come to the point where those protesting at the soldiers' returning from the front as war criminals (though most of them unwitting) are treated as criminals themselves. It is the warmongering degenerates who need bringing to book Andrew Rosindell is one of them who also lionises dead war criminals like Pinochet

Mon, 2012-06-18 13:45 — Andybbn (not verified)

And we vote for these people?

Mon, 2012-06-18 10:59 — Kleanu (not verified)

Good job!
jocuri gratis online copii

Mon, 2012-06-18 08:35 — representingthemambo (not verified)

Not that surprising really. Rosindell is a horrible, horrible man with utterly foul views.

He needs to be picked up on one thing though:

"Pinochet ousted a communist regime in Chile that was butchering its people."

They were democratically elected and were behaving as such. To suggest otherwise is a lie. Par for the course with Rosindell though......

http://representingthemambo.wordpress.com/

Sun, 2012-06-17 22:09 — kenelmist (not verified)

Cameron: throw this idiot out of your party.

Sun, 2012-06-17 19:57 — p j wall (not verified)

I`d expect nothing else from a tory!, Thatcher thought her mate Pinochet was a hero.
Thatcher and her brand of tories also appeased South Africa(some would say supported) during it`s evil apartheid regime during the `80s`, which brought Shame to this country!.
I dread to think what these idiots would of been saying in the `30s`?.

Sun, 2012-06-17 14:25 — www.barometerbisnis.com (not verified)

do you think too much, it can be said that mere wishful thinking. not too sweeping is [...] [more]

Sun, 2012-06-17 11:23 — Barry Ewart (not verified)

Pinochet the mass muderer and Thatcher"s friend. There is a progressive m class and a vaccuous m class - the vaccuous are socialised into voting Tory - they have an ignorance of w class life, trades unions, the Labour Party, Left politics etc. and all of their predjudices ate fed by the right wing press and status to this group is parmount. Labour may have the best philosophy in the World but the Tories just appeal to the base instincts of the vaccous - low taxes, low council tax. Labour needs to try to convert the vaccous m class into being progressive. This Tory MP is just a political twit who has fallen for the right wing propaganda hook, line and sinker! In memory of the young socialists thrown out of planes over the sea by the Pinochet murderers I quote Paulo Freire, "To the oppressed and those who fight on their side."

Sun, 2012-06-17 06:06 — fred the shred (not verified)

Margaret Thatcher was a great admirer and friend of Pinochet - indeed offering him sanctuary in this country.

Sat, 2012-06-16 21:34 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

Everyone's entitled to an opinion. We ought to be big enough in spirit not to mind what other people think. Also as we can see from the RAIN ( not verified) comment before mine; the same kinds of atrocities happen all over the world and throughout history to lots of individual members of the public, whilst general improvements to their society at national level are supposed to be being made.

Too often as it happens in countries that are changing the way they govern from the dictatorship model to something they actually want, nobody knows what's going on, misinformation abounds and ordinary members of the public and our public space get taken over by the military/terrorist/ media war machine that's costing so much money to maintain - only to be used so inappropriately.. causing so much trouble.

Why is it always the same horrific story and the same type of blame game?

Sat, 2012-06-16 16:36 — BagLady (not verified)

The man's a fool. He is repeating Margaret Thatcher's very words.

Sat, 2012-06-16 13:41 — Candice Moore (not verified)

No surprise. The Tory Pinochet future is heading our way.

Sat, 2012-06-16 10:36 — George Hallam (not verified)

"Pinochet ousted a communist regime in Chile that was butchering its people."

That is an interesting description of the Allende government 1970-73.

The lesson seems to be that being non-violent and legal doesn’t win you any better treatment than implementing a full-on, no-holds-barred, dictatorship.

If anything people like Rosindell are much more likely to kill if you abjure dictatorial methods.

Sat, 2012-06-16 08:55 — Jon Coe (not verified)

Your side did worse than my side jibes are resort of malicious kids in a playground. We know that fascism and communism produced totalitarian states that butcher human beings in huge numbers. All those acts were dreadful to a point where words are insufficient to capture the horror.

I am not surprised that a Tory MP has a delusional view of history and spouts complete bo**ocks about the economic effects of Pinochet's regime. Open support for a mass murderer on the other hand suggests a deeper moral malaise on his part.

Sat, 2012-06-16 07:57 — Armin ius (not verified)

Pichochet was simply a tool used to get rid of a Marxist government during the Cold War. At (very) best a necessary evil but certainly not a figure to be admired by any right-minded person 20+ years after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Sat, 2012-06-16 06:15 — Finney (not verified)

Many former Labour MPs had a "huge admiration" for Stalin's Russia!!#

Is that it the best you can do?
See this is what i hate about Tories,When in the year 2012 and some of them like Andrew Rosindel come out with this rubbish of why the want to join the fan club of a fascist.
It makes any person want to vomit.He should be ashamed

Mon, 2012-06-18 16:08 — Yoshi (not verified)

Name me one Labour MP that admires Stalin Russia ?

Sat, 2012-06-16 07:49 — rain (not verified)

I can do better. Mass killings occurred under all Communist/socialist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll standing at a staggering figure of between 85 and 100 million. The highest death tolls that have been documented in communist states occurred in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin also in the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The estimates of the number of non-combatants killed by these three regimes alone range from a low of 21 million to a high of 70 million. There have also been killings on a smaller scale in North Korea, Vietnam, and some Eastern European and African countries. It makes any person want to vomit.

Sun, 2012-06-17 00:56 — James Robert Smith (not verified)

Hilarious. I've been reading these figures for decades now. They were lies and fabrications then and they're still lies and fabrications. Total manure.

Mon, 2012-06-18 15:49 — Sam Gisoad (not verified)

Yeah, funny thing. When Robert Conquest first published “The Great Terror” in 1968, a lot of people scoffed at the figures he placed on Stalin’s death toll. Then, when communism fell and the information came out that supported his work, his American publisher wanted to do a reprint; RC said that was great but he’d like them to change the title. His suggestion for a new one was “I Told You So, You F*****g Fools.”

Pinochet was a right wing dictator and murderer. There have been plenty. There have been plenty of left wing ones as well. Anyone who tells you that the ideology justifies the murders, or that right wing dictators murder BECAUSE of their ideology, whereas left wing ones murder DESPITE it, is a first class sh*t and not to be taken seriously.

Sat, 2012-06-16 12:16 — Schirt Trausers (not verified)

How many did Allende kill, again?

Fri, 2012-06-15 22:54 — Karlwasright

Remember Thatcher's support for the evil despot Pinochet ? Now that would be worth writing about. Shame no one of any importance in the mainstream media had the bottle to do so at the time.

A less than significant Tory MP, trying to big himself up with the lunatic fascist collective in the Conservative party, and/or the die hard Thatcherites. Cheap playing to the gallery, and best ignored as such.

Fri, 2012-06-15 20:48 — JG (not verified)

I'm sure there are more than a few other Tory MPs and Lords who also share an admiration for Pinochet.

Conrad Black, the media baron who tore up his Canadian citizenship to become a British Lord, and his rich cabal are all Pinochet admirers. Blacks' wife, Barbara Amiel, famously wrote a column in Canada's newsmagazine, Maclean's, praising Pinochet. Black, of course, in now a convicted (but unrepentant) felon, and to most Canadians' disgust was recently granted a residency visa for Canada after his release from a US prison. Barbara Amiel and Black and now happily living in their mansion near Toronto, no doubt doing what they can to bring about the next Pinochet... probably in Canada, this time, where the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been displaying blatantly undemocratic behaviour.

Fri, 2012-06-15 20:22 — rain (not verified)

Many former Labour MPs had a "huge admiration" for Stalin's Russia!!
Blows.
Blindfolding or hoods.
Burning with acids or cigarettes.
Immersion in gasoline or water.
Whipping in general.
Incarceration in unhealthy conditions or with vermin.
Being forced to participate in or witness sexual activities [62].
Being rolled over rocks.
Being forced to witness torture.
Ingestion of excrement.
Rack.
Hanging by the neck.
Deprivation of water for a week.
Deliberate fracture of a wounded arm.
Being thrown from a height blindfolded.
Knives inserted under fingernails or toenails.
Cutting on the hands.
Being exposed naked to the cold.