Elias Vera Alvarez
Clarín
There’s a disgusting effort afoot to rehabilitate Pinochet-era torturers, said Elias Vera Alvarez. Last month, Cristián Labbé, the right-wing mayor of a district in Santiago, held a rally to honor Miguel Krassnoff, a brigadier general who personally tortured people during the 1973–90 dictatorship. Krassnoff is serving 144 years in prison for his role in kidnapping, torturing, and killing scores of leftists. Labbé, who was a police officer during the Pinochet years, claims that his hero has been unjustly convicted for his patriotic efforts in a war against a Marxist enemy. But it was, of course, not a war; it was “an armed force acting against an unarmed citizenry.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Labbé, Krassnoff, and their ilk had a “deep hatred” for those who held political beliefs different from theirs. They truly believed that leftists “deserved to be tormented and killed in the most sadistic ways possible,” including by electric shock and dismemberment. Now, in a breathtaking example of doublethink—or outright hypocrisy—Labbé this week condemned victims’ relatives and human-rights activists who protested his event, calling them “intolerant.” Such a “degree of dishonesty and cynicism” can only be achieved by the morally loathsome or the “pathologically deranged.”
-
Lisa Cook and Trump's battle for control the US FedTalking Point The president's attempts to fire one of the Federal Reserve's seven governor is represents 'a stunning escalation' of his attacks on the US central bank
-
'Three Pads' Rayner: a housing hypocrite?Talking Point As real estate moguls go, the Deputy PM is 'hardly Donald Trump'
-
Sudoku medium: August 30, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
Malaysia: Hiding something or just incompetent?feature It is “painful to watch” how Malaysia has embarrassed itself before the world with its bungled response to the missing plane.
-
Tunisia: The only bloom of the Arab Spring
feature After years of “stormy discussions and intellectual tug-of-war,” Tunisia has emerged as a secular democracy.
-
Australia: It takes two to reconcile
feature To move beyond Australia’s colonialist past, we Aborigines must forgive.
-
Israel: Ariel Sharon’s ambiguous legacy
feature Ariel Sharon played a key role at every major crossroads Israel faced in his adult life.
-
South Africa: Trying to live up to Mandela
feature That South Africa was prepared for the death of Nelson Mandela is one of his greatest legacies.
-
China: Staking a claim to the air and the sea
feature China has declared an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that includes a set of islands claimed by Japan.
-
China: Is our aid to the Philippines too meager?
feature China donated $100,000 to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, but later increased the amount to $1.6 million.
-
Philippines: A calamitous response to calamity
feature “Where is the food, where is the water? Where are the military collecting the dead?”