Back within the well-shuttered Carrera and gathering in its imposing reception area sheathed in black glass, Pinochet's many moneyed supporters toasted him with champagne, and his three fellow members of the junta from the navy, air force and gendarmerie.
In France, Patrick Touron, deputy director of the criminal research institute at the national gendarmerie, gave a press conference near the crash zone on Friday.
He has proposed a new paramilitary gendarmerie, but has not been clear about its role or financing and has yet to set out a plan to get the army off the streets, despite its mounting abuses.Firm government, but not a political monopolyThe PRI likes to claim that its long experience of government means it knows how to run the country.
It is known as a stronghold of militant Islam; it is also close to the Baraki district, which has a large gendarmerie barracks.
Necdet Ozel, who commanded the gendarmerie (and who is said to get on well with the government), was appointed the new chief of staff.
They were, and are, demanding the withdrawal of the gendarmerie from the region.
But his distant relative, General Hosni Bensuleiman, the head of the gendarmerie, has mobilised his troops to the site, just in case.
For all its recent successes against drug kingpins, the political defeat over the gendarmerie may come to haunt Mr Peña and his administration.
They have split into warring factions, and are imposing and ejecting mayors.Mr Peña entered office with one big new idea on security: speedily to set up a rural gendarmerie of at least 40,000 troops, retrained as policemen, from Mexico's unnecessarily large army.
The penchant for military-style responses is stronger in those continental European countries (and their colonies) where a paramilitary gendarmerie backs up a civic constabulary.
The TIHV says that even in 2004, "torture was applied systematically by police, gendarmerie and special units in interrogation centres".
