Letter: Pinochet's progress

Sir: Whilst I fully endorse Mr Straw's decision to allow General Pinochet to be extradited to Spain, there are all too many on the left whose reaction to the general's fate can be read as sanctimonious ("That he will be made to face his past is uplifting", 10 December). These are the very people who have glossed over the widespread abuse of human rights in former and still existent communist states.

There are now groups working for the arrest and extradition of Cuba's Fidel Castro so that he may stand trial for the murders committed by his regime.

Will Harold Pinter and Ken Livingstone join them or will they be like so many leftist intellectuals of the past who reserved their invective for an Orwell, a Camus or a Koestler who knew and said openly that the firing squad and the torturers could also be composed of Communists?

JOHN NORMAN

London N12