UK helped protect wealth of former Chilean dictator Pinochet

[Hannah Bell]

Journalist Hugh O'Shaughnessy has written extensively on Latin American affairs for more than 40 years...Writing in the Independent on August 23, he drew on a recent report issued by the Chilean police task force, Brilac.

Brilac charges heavy British involvement in enabling Pinochet to conceal the whereabouts of his wealth. Estimated to be as much as £1 billion, this was largely obtained through Pinochet’s role as an arms procurer. He enjoyed the closest, secretive relations with major British arms corporations over decades...

The details on the collaboration of sections of the UK financial sector with Pinochet serve to confirm the closeness of the dictator’s relationship with the highest echelons of the British establishment. Pinochet was a regular visitor to the UK in the 1990s as a guest of Britain’s biggest arms firm, BAE Systems.

Pinochet could count on the friendship of many influential figures in the British ruling elite, who were fully supportive of the bloodbath he carried out in Chile. Following his death, the right-wing Daily Telegraph commented on his 16-month period of house arrest in Britain. “While there, the general played host to a stream of well-wishers, from Chilean officers to right-wing British journalists and Tory politicians, including Norman Lamont, the former chancellor, and Lady Thatcher herself.”

On his return to Chile, Pinochet continued to benefit financially from his close relationship to Britain’s banking and business elite. In 2005, BAE Systems was identified from US banking records as having secretly paid Pinochet more than £1 million the previous year.

An investigation by the Guardian, with assistance from the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, established that some of the funds were documented “as being paid through a front company in the British Virgin Islands, which BAE has used to channel commission on arms deals.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/pino-s03.shtml