Madam, - Your report on the death of General Pinochet (December 11th) mentioned the occasion when former President of Ireland Mary Robinson shook hands with Gen Pinochet on her state visit to Chile in March, 1995.
Mrs Robinson later complained: "I had no expectation that I was going to meet Pinochet, and it was with great dismay that I saw that he was attending the dinner . . . I did not show any pleasure in meeting him."
It was widely known in Santiago at the time that the former dictator would attend the banquet held in her honour by President Frei. It was not widely known that she would prevent camera crews from recording her look of displeasure as she indulged in a second famous handshake.
Prior to the banquet the internationally known human rights activist, Carmen Soria, wrote to President Robinson requesting a meeting. She explained that her father, Carmelo Soria Espinoza, a United Nations diplomat of Spanish extraction had been abducted, tortured and murdered by Pinochet's secret police DINA in 1976. Her request was refused, although her letter was never officially acknowledged at the time.
In January 1997, the office of the Secretary to the President wrote to me acknowledging the fact that they had received the letter from Carmen almost two years earlier but "the constitutional requirements of her office mean that it would not be appropriate for her to intervene". Carmen had never requested an intervention and other visiting heads of states had no problem in meeting with the human rights activist.
The writer, Peter Ryan, said that he would write to Ms Soria and convey apologies "that a formal response to her letter did not issue at the time". Soria never received the apology. Yours, etc,
JOHN T KAVANAGH,
Braemor Road,
Dublin 14.