MOSCOW -- Chilean officials said Thursday that former East German leader Erich Honecker is no more than a 'guest' of the Chilean Embassy in Moscow and cannot be granted political asylum.
Honecker, 79, sought refuge in the embassy Wednesday upon hearing that the government of the Russian Republic wants to extradite him to Germany, where he is accused of responsibility for the deaths of some 200 people who tried to flee East Germany to the West.
There was a certain irony to Honecker holing up in the Chilean Embassy. In the autumn of 1989 thousands of East Germans seeking escape from Honecker's rule found refuge in Western embassies in Berlin while trying to flee their native land.
Honecker's uncertain status in Moscow has resulted in a kind of tug- of-war over his fate, with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev protecting the man he whisked out of the collapsing East Germany, while Russian and German leaders have urged his extradition.
In Santiago, Chilean Undersecretary of Foreign Relations Edmundo Vargas said Honecker is merely a 'guest' of the Chilean Embassy in Moscow and could stay until authorities there clarify his status.
But Vargas emphasized that his government could not grant political asylum to Honecker because he is not considered 'someone being persecuted politically' because Germany has accused him of 'common crimes.'
A Chilean Embassy representative refused all comment except to confirm that Honecker was in the ambassador's residence as 'a guest.' When pressed, the Chilean official acknowledged that the ambassador was in Chile, not the Soviet Union.
Honecker turned to Chile for help because he has a daughter in Santiago, its capital, who is married to a Chilean. And Chilean Ambassador Clodomiro Almeyda, a longtime socialist leader in his native country who was in the Cabinet of Marxist President Salvador Allende, has described Honecker as 'a friend for many years.'
After Allende was toppled and killed in the 1973 military coup, Almeyda was given asylum by East Germany, where he lived from 1976 until 1987, and now was apparently seeking to pay Honecker back.
Almeyda called one of Honecker's daughters in Berlin and told her, 'We are not handing over your father. I am trying everything I can so that he can travel to Chile,' according to the Berlin daily newspaper Bild.
But Aylwin has his own reasons for rejecting asylum. He considers himself a personal friend of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and recently consolidated that friendship in a visit to Germany.
Pinochet is still influential in Chile and holds the post of army commander. He would certainly frown at seeing a former hard-line communist end up in Santiago as a refugee.
Honecker himself issued a statement from the Chilean Embassy in which he said he was being 'persecuted for political reasons.' The independent news agency Interfax quoted him as saying, 'The process against a head of state, who carried out his duties in keeping with the constitution, is a breach of legal norms.'
Honecker said he wanted asylum in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet news agency Tass reported that he had appealed to Gorbachev to let him stay despite the Russian government decision that he had to go.
German Embassy spokesman Enno Barker said, 'The German Embassy in Santiago was officially notified by the Chilean government late (Wednesday) that Honecker is staying in the Chilean Embassy. ... We have asked the Soviet and Russian authorities to see to it that he is returned to Germany.'
However, Barker noted that Germany has been asking for Honecker's return for months to no avail. 'We do not care whether he is a guest, asylum-seeker or a personal friend of a Chilean diplomat,' he said. 'We wish Honecker would leave the embassy and come back to Germany.'
Honecker was forced to resign as East German leader on Nov. 18, 1989, in the peaceful East German revolution and was spirited off to Moscow by the Soviet military nine months ago.
The action prevented his arrest on charges of murder for allegedly giving the 'shoot to kill' order that led to the deaths of some 200 people who tried to flee hard-line communist East Germany between August 1961, when the Berlin wall was built, and November 1989, when it fell.
