re: #246 sagehen

But they approve of Pinochet throwing people out of helicopters.

French general Marcel Bigeard was “credited” with perfecting the air drop method of suspect disposal in Algeria in the 1950s. The French Algerian army was the first to use helicopters on a really large scale, having more than 400 of the machines on hand in 1958, and they got pretty creative while they were at it.
The bodies sometimes washed up on the beaches, an unpleasant interruption to many a seaside holiday. They were known as “Bigeard shrimps.”

Over the course of the Battle of Algiers, the 10th Parachute Division arrested about 24,000 Muslims of whom about 4,000 “disappeared”, as those who were murdered were euphemistically described.

Bigeard himself was never prosecuted and, like many French officials with dubious records, went on to a series of high posts in government. He died in 2010 at age 94.