Legacies bind Castro, Pinochet in their twilight

SANTIAGO/HAVANA, Dec 7: Fighting serious illnesses in their old age, Cold War icons Fidel Castro of Cuba and Augusto Pinochet of Chile are united in stubborn adherence to their opposing and now largely unfashionable ideologies.

In Havana 80-year-old Castro, leader of Cuba for more than four decades, handed power to his brother on July 31 after an operation and has not reappeared in public. Despite official denials, many Cubans believe he is terminally ill.

Pinochet, 91, military leader of Chile from 1973 to 1990 and now pursued by courts for human rights and financial crimes, was recovering after a heart attack nearly killed him on Sunday.

Their Cold War battles shaped an era and they forged global reputations. Castro took power in 1959 in a revolution that overthrew US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Castro's Chilean ally, socialist Salvador Allende, was toppled by Pinochet's US-backed 1973 coup.

Both have been called despots by their critics but Castro's passionate supporters admire him for standing up to US imperialism while Pinochet fans say he saved Chile from Marxism.

''They have a lot of similarities. They aren't democratic, they ruled for a long time, they both radically transformed their countries, and they had influence well beyond their own countries,'' said Chilean political scientist Patricio Navia.

''Their legacies will be around for a long time, but both countries will be much better off after they are gone,'' he said.

The contrast between the two leaders was noted on the streets of Santiago.

''We were in a bad way when Pinochet took over the country.

If he had not acted the way he did we would have been another Cuba,'' said retired construction site foreman Hernan Diaz.

Diaz said his family suffered under Allende, who killed himself during the coup with a submachine gun that was a gift from Castro.

In Havana, even critics of communist rule recognize Castro put Cuba on the world stage.

''Whatever you say about Fidel's absolute control over Cuban society and his economic mistakes, he left his mark on the 20th century with his brilliant political skills,'' said dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe.

RETRENCHING COMMUNISM, JUSTIFYING ABUSE

Rather than softening in his old age, Castro retrenched orthodox communism in his last years and has had a revival of international support recently as the Latin American left resurges. Pinochet has accepted political -- if not criminal -- responsibility for abuses during his regime, but he says everything was justified ''to make Chile a great place and prevent its disintegration.'' The two had a mutual, but distinct, penchant for uniforms. Castro favored drab, olive-green fatigues while Pinochet's ornate dress garb was replete with gold braid and scarlet trim.

Both leaders built police states. Dozens of Pinochet's agents were convicted of assassination and torture and Castro's government has not hesitated to jail dissidents. But there are no credible reports of disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture in Cuba since the early 1960s, according to human rights groups.

The two met when Castro visited Allende in Chile in 1971 and Pinochet was commander of the Santiago garrison.

''He had a lot of charisma with civilians because he's pretty macho, attentive with the ladies. But I didn't like him much,'' Pinochet told an interviewer in the 1990s.

Even Pinochet detractors recognize that his free market reforms laid a groundwork that the center-left adapted to turn Chile into a model of economic stability. And even many Castro supporters accept that Cuba's uniquely consumerism-free economy has become a basket case since Soviet Communism collapsed.

Though Cuba's model is not being copied in other countries, new left-wing populist presidents such as Bolivia's Evo Morales and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez look to Castro for inspiration.

''One day, there will be many Cubas and many Fidels in Latin America,'' Morales said last week on a trip to Havana to pay homage to the ailing Castro.

REUTERS