Why did these new democratic regimes not seek justice? Why did they allow the crimes of the past to be buried, or at least to go unpunished? I well recall the comment of a very high Argentine official when I asked him that question in the late 1980s. "You Americans don't really understand," he replied. "You never think that one may have to choose between democracy and justice. It does not occur to you. But that is the choice we must make, and we choose democracy."

Did he mean that he believed his country's new and fragile (there were indeed several coup attempts) democracy might not survive an effort to "do justice" by punishing everyone in uniform who had been involved in human-rights abuses? Perhaps; perhaps he was alluding to military blackmail, to threats of coups that would follow mass arrests of officers. Perhaps this was the price the military exacted for leaving power and staying out of it. But maybe not; maybe he was arguing instead that democracy required a form of national reconciliation that did not permit such trials, which examine not only which general ordered what but which neighbor informed on whom, which journalist, which clerk, which brother and husband and wife. So the decision to avoid "justice" in favor of "reconciliation" may be a well-founded one. This seems to be the East European conclusion.

And anyway, who gets to make that decision? In the late 1980s, when as a State Department official I watched Latin Americans wrestle with these problems, one thing was clear to me: whatever the rights and wrongs, these decisions were for the Latins to make. How could a foreigner, an American, tell Brazilians or Czechs or South Africans where to find the right balance? We would not live with the result, as we had not in those past years lived with the oppression. Who were we to judge? Foreigners, especially well-wishers, no doubt have the right to urge, cajole, advise, criticize, and celebrate. But do we have the right literally to judge: to impose our conclusions on citizens of another land who have reached a different conclusion?

Today, in the Pinochet case, we and other foreigners are saying that we do have the right to judge. Whatever arrangements the Chileans may have made, whatever amnesty they may have decided upon, it does not bind us. And the moral justification is, as we have seen, the argument that justice must be done and that the doing of it will be the best deterrent to such crimes in the future.

The argument for the deterrent effect of prosecution does have some force. Surely it would weigh on the mind of the prospective human-rights abuser that for the rest of his life he would be vulnerable to seizure and prosecution wherever he went. Would his old age, he would have to ask himself, be a never-ending effort to avoid detection, a life of furtive escapes? But what precisely would that deterrent deter: human-rights abuses, or the relinquishing of power? Would it not equally suggest to the tyrant that his best bet was to stay in power, to die with the presidential sash across his chest? Having negotiated with several dictators about their departure from power, I can confidently assert that future safety is indeed a frequent concern of such men. If we are unable to pledge it, will they not hang on until the last bloody moment?

Take a concrete example. Early this year negotiations began between Colombia's new president and its guerrilla groups. The bloody, decades-long conflict there both promotes and is fueled by drug trafficking. It is greatly in our interest that this conflict end on any decent terms, not only on humanitarian grounds but in the hope of breaking the links between the guerrillas and the traffickers. Colombians, of course, have a far greater interest in ending the conflict.

Unquestionably, in the talks the guerrillas will seek some assurances about their future. Will they lay down their arms knowing they might then be seized and jailed? They will not, and some form of amnesty must be negotiated, as it was when another Colombian group, the M-19 guerrillas, disarmed after peace negotiations in 1990. Let us suppose that Colombia negotiates such an amnesty and enacts it into law. The guerrillas come down from the mountains and stop the shooting; Colombia enters a period of relative tranquility. And then a judge in some other country—Spain, say—steps in and tries to seize a former guerrilla leader who has left Colombia for medical treatment. Would this be wise? Would it promote peace in Colombia? More to the point for right now, if Pinochet is extradited, will it not make reaching a negotiated settlement with the Colombian guerrillas that much harder?