RELEASING PINOCHET

March 2000
		After 17 months under house arrest in Britain on alleged human rights abuses, Augusto Pinochet is back in Chile. Should he have been set free? Mark Falcoff from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and Harley Shaiken, director of The University of California at Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies, respond to your questions.

Forum introduction Don't Chileans have the right to have their grievances against Pinochet redressed? Should human rights organizations dictate who gets prosecuted for what? Should we care about Pinochet's medical condition? Is sovereign immunity too important to be tampered with? How do Chileans feel about Gen. Pinochet?

James Barlow of Perth, West Australia asks: Is sovereign immunity [like that which has been given to Pinochet] an important democratic convention that shouldn't be tampered with?   Mark Falcoff responds: I am not a lawyer and cannot say.   Harley Shaiken responds: The British House of Lords emphatically rejected the questionable notion advanced by General Pinochet's lawyers that he in fact was entitled to sovereign immunity as a former head of state. The Law Lords were quite clear, and in my view correct, in stating that those accused of crimes such as torture are subject to prosecution for these crimes no matter who they are.