Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

PINOCHET, AUGUSTO, CASE AGAINST
to member governments, the Security Council has the power to make decisions that
member governments must carry out under the UN Charter.
Pianist, The. A major motion picture produced in 2002, starring Adrien Brody
(b. 1973) and directed by Polish/French filmmaker Roman Polanski (b. 1933). The Pianist
is the true story of a Polish Jewish pianist of renown, Wladyslaw Szpilman (1911–2000),
and his quest for survival during the Holocaust. The film was based on Szpilman’s memoir
of the same name, published in English in 1999 and subsequently adapted for the
screen by Ronald Harwood (b. 1934). Much of the film concerns Szpilman’s life in the
Warsaw Ghetto and afterward, and in this it is reminiscent of other ghetto-related movies
such as Schindler’s List (1994), which was, in part, about the Krakow Ghetto, and Uprising
(2001), which was about the Warsaw Ghetto. What makes The Pianist unique within the
genre, however, is the degree to which Polanski sought to recreate the physical environment
of the Warsaw Ghetto as accurately as possible. In order to achieve this, filming took
place at a number of sites in central and eastern Europe, with many scenes filmed in and
around Warsaw itself.
The Pianist was a phenomenal success both critically and commercially. It won three
Academy Awards, for Best Actor (Brody), Best Director (Polanski), and Best Screenplay
Adaptation (Harwood); two BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television) Awards
(UK), for Best Film and Best Director; the Palm d’Or at Cannes; and a raft of other awards
and nominations around the world. The Pianist brought the Holocaust to the screen for a
new generation of moviegoers in the twenty-first century.
Pinochet, Augusto, Case Against. In October 1998, General Augusto Pinochet
(1915–2006), former dictator of Chile (1973–1990), was arrested in London on charges
of “crimes of genocide and terrorism that include murder.” His arrest was initiated by a
Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón (b. 1955), who issued an international warrant for
Pinochet’s arrest. The initial warrant demanded Pinochet’s extradition to Spain for the
torture and murder of Spanish citizens. Ultimately, seventy-eight people of various
nationalities who were kidnapped in Chile and ultimately “disappeared” between 1976
and 1983 were added to the warrant. It is estimated that some three thousand people were
both murdered and “disappeared” during this period.
Just twelve days after Pinochet’s arrest, the British High Court overturned the Spanish
arrest warrant on which the British police had acted. The court ruled that Pinochet could
not be prosecuted for crimes committed during his rule, and the British court did not have
the jurisdiction to arrest a non-British citizen for crimes committed in another nation. At
the same time, though, the judges ordered Pinochet to remain in custody until prosecutors
had an opportunity to appeal the ruling. In late March 1999, the Law Lords, a sevenmember
panel in Britain’s House of Lords, found that Pinochet “does not enjoy immunity
from prosecution for human rights crimes committed under his regime.” In their 6–1
decision, the Law Lords did concur, though, with Pinochet’s lawyers that the former dictator
could not be prosecuted for crimes allegedly committed prior to 1988 (which was the
point in time when Britain signed the International Convention Against Torture). The
result of that decision was that while Pinochet, as a former chief of state, “is immune from
prosecution for the thousands of terrible abuses he allegedly directed before Britain signed
the international treaty against torture in 1988, he still can be prosecuted under that
treaty in any signatory country” for abuses perpetrated after that date. Because Spain
constituted such a signatory, there was speculation that Pinochet would be extradited to
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