More on Pinochet...

Marc Cooper has more on what his death means for the healing of the South American continent. My favorite part is this:

"Encouraged by a Reagan administration in Washington and rising Thatcherism in Europe, these military regimes instituted a savage free-market capitalism, in many cases reversing decades of carefully constructed social welfare reforms. At gunpoint unions were outlawed, labor laws were abolished, universities were stifled, tuition was hiked, national health care and social security programs were privatized and these already unequal societies were rigidly stratified into rich and poor, strong and weak, the favored and the invisible."
...
"Burying Pinochet this week in itself won’t make this task any easier. In some odd ways it might make even make it more difficult. As long as he was alive, even in a gargoyle state, he was a grotesque reminder of all that has haunted the continent, all that has been left unresolved. Good, let’s bury him now and post an armed guard at his gravesite, making sure he again never rises. And then back to the work of healing what he has wrought."

Indeed.