Monitor: All the News of the World The Sunday papers consider the fate of General Pinochet

WE ARE already showing the General more compassion than the justice system would normally dispense to a man wanted for murder.

He is not chained to his bed. Unlike the victims of his regime, he did not disappear in the middle of the night; he will not have electrodes attached to his testicles; he will not be dumped from a helicopter with his stomach slit open; his family will not be murdered and buried in mass graves.

Human rights are universal. What we expect for ourselves we should demand of others. We have to use the laws and opportunities that come to hand. It is the least atonement we can offer to the victims of our Century of Torture.

(Andrew Rawnsley)

The Observer

IT IS right that there should be no hiding-place for torturers and mass murderers. But is it equally right that there should be no amnesty for dictators who hand over power voluntarily and help create a stable democracy? If the answer is yes, this will merely encourage them never to give up power. The people will then be the losers. Fiasco is turning into farce. Only Lady Thatcher has said what needs to be done without prevarication - that he should be allowed to return home.

The Sunday Times

IF THE British Government thinks I'm going to give three cheers for their ethical foreign policy when it locks up a frail man of 82, I won't.

If Pinochet hadn't come along, Chile would be in the same boat as Cuba - badly run by another nasty man with a dodgy record on human rights, Fidel Castro.

Yet if Castro turned up in London, some of those cheering loudest about Pinochet's arrest would be queuing up to kiss his backside.

What's ethical about that? (David Mellor)

The Mail on Sunday

WHEN THE incapacitated General finally leaves this country for Spain, or his home in Chile, the Government will no longer be able to behave like a student union having a row over a motion on Latin American human rights.

In truth, the Pinochet affair has shown new Labour in its most unflattering light. To send the General home now might preserve the Anglo-Chilean alliance and strengthen the Prime Minister's relations with Chile. But it would cause furious resentment among his activists.

If the Prime Minister is struck by a sudden burst of compassion for the General, he will pay a political price.

(Matthew d'Ancona)

The Sunday Telegraph