Pinochet to be cremated after military funeral

SANTIAGO, Chile, Dec 12 (Reuters) Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet will be cremated today after a funeral at the military college in Santiago where he began a career that made him infamous around the world for human rights abuses.

Some 3,000 relatives, friends and top Chilean military officers were expected to pack a patio on the college grounds to bid farewell to a man who ruled Chile from 1973-90.

Pinochet, who died on Sunday at 91, continued to polarize public opinion in his native Chile in death.

More than 3,000 people were killed in political violence during his dictatorship, 28,000 people were tortured and hundreds of thousands of Chileans went into exile.

The center-left government has denied Pinochet the full state funeral usually reserved for former presidents. President Michelle Bachelet, who was tortured during Pinochet's rule, will be represented by her defense minister.

The general's youngest son, Marco Antonio Pinochet, described the president's decision not to attend as petty and said the government was ''incapable of taking a noble stance at this moment in history.'' The military said up to 60,000 people had flocked to the college in the past two days to see the body of Pinochet as it lay in state in a glass-topped coffin.

''The greatest number of people was last night ... when we had around 11,000 people inside the college,'' Col. Jorge Rojas of the Chilean military police, told local television today.

Pinochet's remains will be cremated at an undisclosed location.

His son has said the family do not want a burial because they fear Pinochet's enemies would vandalize his grave.

Local media said the cremation would take place in Concon, a coastal town 90 miles (140 km) west of Santiago and close to the port of Valparaiso, where Pinochet was born on November 25, 1915.

Media said the body would be taken there from the capital by helicopter after the funeral, which was to start at 1100 hrs.

At the same time, a group of Pinochet opponents are due to march through Santiago to a statue of Salvador Allende, the socialist president deposed by Pinochet in a swift and violent coup on September 11, 1973.

Allende committed suicide -- with a gun given him by Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro -- as the Chilean military moved in on his palace, and remains a potent figure for leftists.

More than three decades after the coup and nearly 17 years after Pinochet relinquished power, the general's death still has the power to move some Chileans to joy and others to tears.

His supporters say his coup was necessary to save Chile from chaos, communism and possible civil war.

They also highlight the free-market reforms of the Pinochet era, saying they laid the foundations for long-term political and economic stability that have made Chile a model in the region.

Pinochet's opponents regard him as a murderer who escaped justice and should have been tried for human rights abuses.

REUTERS SHB RN1902