Pinochet letter sheds light on rule

In a letter to Chileans published after his death, Gen. Augusto Pinochet said he wished he hadn’t had to stage the bloody 1973 coup that put him in power, and he called the abuses under his long regime inevitable. His fate was public shunning and unimagined loneliness, he said.

The former dictator, who died Dec. 10 at age 91, argued that the military takeover avoided civil war and a Marxist dictatorship, and said his 1973-90 regime never had “an institutional plan” to abuse human rights.

“But it was necessary to act with maximum rigor to avoid a widening of the conflict,” Pinochet wrote.

An official report said 3,197 people were killed for political reasons in the 17 years after Pinochet overthrew elected Marxist President Salvador Allende.