It also has served to identify the inconsistent partisans of the right and the left. For example, those who exalt the general and his work without ever admitting to a single uncomfortable doubt about the nature of dictatorship. Or the fanatical defenders of the moral reasons behind Pinochet's indictment, ``moral reasons'' that don't preclude their Jesuitic justification of Psycho-Castro's reign or soften their denunciations of the ``hegemonic interference'' of the United States whenever Washington weighs the possibility of sending troops to Rwanda or Bosnia to prevent genocide.

Does anyone remember the special session of the United Nations held in Rome three or four months ago? Its purpose was to draft a treaty that would create an international war-crimes tribunal, a permanent Nuremberg court. Among those in Rome who insisted the loudest on the need to create such a tribunal were the inconsistent voices of those who use the Pinochet affair to renew their credentials as progressives.

Their inconsistent voices in Rome convinced me that such a human-rights court would not help put an end to the impunity enjoyed by dictators and other enemies of humanity. That's because the idea lacks an element essential to any efficient judicial system: the agent of the law, the incorruptible and impartial officer who captures the accused and imprisons the convict. And that's precisely the element that the members of the United Nations don't want their tribunal to have. Should this surprise anyone? They know that the post of chief of gendarmes would go to the United States.

Nuremberg accomplished its objectives because the victors in a war tried the defeated. One can also terminate the impunity of war criminals and dictators by defeating them on the battlefield. Or by neutralizing the forces that protect them. In this way an effort could be made to capture the suspects indicted by this hypothetical international court.

But a tribunal that tries, judges, and sentences while lacking the means to punish the convict is not going to disturb the sleep of the unjust. Nor is it going to dissuade dictators and potential mass murderers.

That is why the debate about the so-called globalization of the penal law and its application to the violators of human rights reinforces my conviction that, except in unusual circumstances such as those in 1945 Germany or 1989 Romania, the victims of dictators and mass murderers cannot wait for the justice of a United Nations or a Baltasar Garzon.

Regrettably, we also cannot imitate the admirable example set by the Israelis. Israel has used intelligence agents to capture war criminals in their lairs, and then try and sentence them in Israel. It did so with Eichmann in Buenos Aires, undeterred by what the world might say about Argentina's sovereignty.

The Israeli option is not within the reach of most victims of dictators and mass murderers. But we still have the Tehlirian option, named after the young Armenian who assassinated Talaat Pasha, the Turk behind the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians. Soghomon Tehlirian executed the mass murderer on a Berlin street. In 1921 a German court absolved the patriot, whose family had been wiped out in the massacres organized by the Turks.

At present it is almost impossible for the victims to bring to justice Talaat Pasha's counterparts -- that collection of Cubans, Chileans, Rwandans, Cambodians, Iraqis, and riffraff from other ``jurisdictions'' who are savoring their impunity. Unless a Tehlirian can deliver the punishment those criminals deserve.