How about a little moral equivalancy?

Speaking of hackery, I have a question: when elderly murderous tyrants are dying, what should journalists say about them? Are there rules? Is it, like "have respect for the anticipatorily deceased?"

The reason I'm asking is because two elderly murderous tyrants are getting close to the being returned to their maker (if you believe they had one and he'll take them), and the media doesn't refer to them in quite the same way.

Without getting into which tyrant was better, here's one:

Castro, who has ruled Cuba since 1959, was too sick to attend his belated 80th-birthday celebrations last week, and he is widely believed to be terminally ill. Citing "an acute intestinal crisis, with sustained bleeding," he temporarily transferred his powers as president and Communist Party first secretary to his younger brother Raul, the defense minister, on July 31. He has since been seen by the public only in videos and photos.

While last week's festivities and marches went on without him, Castro's Cuba also proceeded with life as usual, full of contradictions, aspirations and the countless hardships of el bloqueo ("the blockade"), the U.S. economic embargo against the island.

And here's the other:
SANTIAGO, Chile - Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year dictatorship carried out thousands of political killings and widespread torture, was fighting for his life last night in a Chilean hospital after suffering a heart attack early yesterday. But doctors said his condition was improving after an emergency procedure to restore blood flow to his heart.
Same day, same paper.

But if you read them both (and didn't know much history), you might think that General Pinochet was the only dictator who killed thousands. And that the only torture in Cuba is carried out by the United States at Guantanamo.

While Pinochet killed 3,000, Castro has him beaten by far. From the Miami Herald:

...[T]he Cuba Archive puts a human face on the people who have suffered at the hands of the revolution. The individual stories show the lie of Fidel Castro's benevolent society and counter the revolution's propaganda with facts.

The archive now lists more than 40,000 people who died or disappeared for political or military reasons. Most victims are documented by name and at least two sources. Some may quibble with the categories included. About 3,000 are people killed during the Batista period before Castro took power in 1959. More than 9,000 are Angolan guerrillas killed by Cuban forces in Angola.

Nonetheless, the data may be sorted in whatever manner makes best sense to those interested. In a post-Castro Cuba, new sources should provide opportunities to add to, correct and confirm what is in the archive.

According to the Rettig Human Rights Commission Report Pinochet's tally is 3,000 -- close to the number of people Castro killed before he even took power.

Castro killed ten times more people than Pinochet, yet the stories make it appear that Pinochet was ten times worse.

If only the newspapers could engage in a little moral equivalency!

What do I have to do? Design another T-shirt?

posted by Eric on 12.04.06 at 07:54 PM





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And in Pinochet's defence, those killed by his troops were by and large communist revolutionaries trying to impose a Castro style dictatorship by force of arms.

By our standards, living without the threat of communist revolution, it doesn't entirely justify widespread extra-judicial executions but, looking at the murderous and pernicious Castro regime, it does put them in perspective.

Reluctant as I am to embrace the bogeyman of my youth, there's a heroic quality to Pinochet. At a time when communist tyranny seemed the destiny of every South American country, he totally eliminated that threat in Chile, at the cost of being ranked alongside Hitler, Atilla the Hun and Pontius Pilate.

Kip Watson   ·  December 7, 2006 08:13 AM

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