In 1974, when Pinochet's coup overthrew the legitimately elected government in Chile I was living in Skelmersdale New Town in Lancashire, England.  Thanks to the influence of the local trade unions, our community was enlarged that winter to include a number of families who had fled the military take over in Chile.  Most of these families did not speak much English so I did not get to know them on anything more than nodding and smiling terms.

However, there was an open faced, warm hearted, twenty-seven year old whose good command of English did allow me to get to know him - I am ashamed to say I cannot remember his name... so let's call him Pablo.

Pablo was a left of centre democrat of a strong individual libertarian bent which was unpopular with the more hard line socialists of the time.  He played guitar and sang and we duetted on Bob Dylan classics on a number of occasions.  I came to think of him as just another one of us ex-hippies, trying to make sense of the seventies.  It did cross my mind to ask him why he had felt the need to leave Chile, but I never felt close enough to him to ask him directly.  Then one day I met him at the swimming pool and questions became superflous.

As he climbed out of the water to greet me I couldn't help but notice three long half-inch wide scars that snaked diagonally across his back. They were accompanied by a series of irregularly patterned black and brown marks.  Pablos saw my unspoken question and smiled with his mouth, though his eyes darkened as he spoke:

"The scars are from the knives of my torturers.  The brown marks are cigarette burns and the black ones are where they attached the electrodes."
"Were you some kind of revolutionary leader?" I asked innocently.
"Nope, just a long hair like you!  Now come on, dive in the water's lovely!"

I had just learned to what depths the men under Pinochet's command had stooped.

If Pablo is still alive and still living in Britain I think I can guess how he feels about the possibility that at long last the General might be facing a justice far more civilized than the summary one he handed out to anyone his cronies did not like the look of back in 1974.