Venezuela is living in the world General Pinochet's arrest created

On the appalling reason Nicolás Maduro will never give up power

Watching the last vestigial bits of Venezuelan democracy shrivel up and die this week, I find my mind keeps going back to one very specific moment: October 16th, 1998. 

That was the day Chile’s infamous former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, was arrested in London for his role in the mass human rights abuses. 

The indictment of General Pinochet felt like a turning point in history, and it was. He was arrested far from home, in the UK, on an arrest warrant from Spain based on the theory that human rights abuses were subject to ‘universal jurisdiction’: they can be prosecuted anywhere, no matter where the underlying crimes took place. Pinochet’s arrest seemed to herald the end of impunity for human rights abuses in Latin America. In an instant, the world became a much less safe place for former dictators. A new era of universal jurisdiction seemed to be dawning, the end of sweetheart deals to let the region’s worst people get away with raping and murdering those who opposed them. 

Surely, the sight of a man who had been all-powerful in Chile just a decade earlier having to answer for his crimes would send a loud message.

Surely the arrest would make it plain that times had changed, that abusing human rights was simply too risky in a world where you could never outrun the long arm of international justice. Pinochet’s arrest sent an electric jolt through Latin America’s body politic. I, for one, was genuinely thrilled.

Thinking back, I realize it never occurred to 23-year old me that this new doctrine might have unintended consequences. The possibility just never crossed my mind. High on the feeling of righteousness you get from seeing bad people punished, it never for a second occurred to me that prosecuting Pinochet might end up making it harder to get rid of dictators in the first place. I never really considered the idea that without the possibility of a comfortable exile, a dictator who might otherwise look for a face-saving way to reinstate democracy might feel forced to hang on to the bitter end. And it sure as fuck never occurred to me that this dynamic might one day play out in my own country, Venezuela, the place I was looking forward to returning to right after I finished my degree.

And yet here we are, a quarter of a century later, in the world that the Pinochet prosecution created. And one thing I was right about: that arrest really did change the world. It really did end the old practice of guaranteeing old dictators safety and golden exile in some compound in Costa Rica or some chateau in the Côte d’Azur in return for them getting the hell out of dodge. 

But did that mean that all of them would behave better as a result? 

No…not at all.

Pinochet’s arrest came six weeks before the election that would bring Hugo Chávez to power in Venezuela, and with it, the slow, gradual unraveling of Venezuela’s democratic institutions.

That process took a quarter of a century to achieve. It culminated last Sunday, when the final taboo was broken and the government just straight-up stole a presidential election the dictator had lost by a proper landslide.

Why would Nicolás Maduro do that? Why would he brave near-universal condemnation to steal, and be seen to steal, an election he had lost by a 2-to-1 margin? 

Because in the world the Pinochet arrest created, a leader with a human rights record like Maduro’s has no good alternative to hanging on. No promise of a golden exile can be credible to Nicolás Maduro. In a way, his hand is forced.

As I watch the unspeakable tragedy unfolding back home, with more and more kids getting rounded up and jailed just for demanding their votes be counted, I think back on the deluded 23 year old who celebrated Pinochet’s arrest.

The kid I was would, I’m sure, have abhorred the realpolitik asshole I’ve become. Trying to explain that the theory of universal jurisdiction would end up leaving Venezuela under the boot of a dictator who couldn’t give up power would’ve gotten nowhere with him.

And yet, here we are. Nicolás Maduro will not give up power because in the world Pinochet’s arrest created, it is not possible to give him an exit ramp he can trust. In the world of universal jurisdiction for human rights abuses, human rights abusers’ best option is to keep abusing human rights. By hanging on to power to the bitter end, he’s acting appallingly, but not irrationally.

It’s an appalling thought. 

But it’s true.