In Brief: The News of this Tuesday

Yesterday was a very interesting and productive day. The tapes have not all been transcribed and translated so I will update later today, however here is a quick review of what I did.

First, I had a meeting with Julio O., who works with an organization called Comision FUNA. Take a look at the website, because even though it's in Spanish, it's pretty easy to get a sense of what its all about. First, this was another amnesty-like story. The building is in a not-so-great part of Santiago. Julio had described to me that he worked for a magazine and that we would meet at the offices there. So I went to "Diagonal Paraguay" (it sounds a big like Harry Potter) and found a building that was so dilapitated and barred on the outside, I couldn't imagine there was life, let alone production, on the inside. However, I was, as usual, wrong. I entered the offices of "El Siglo," a communist magazine that has been publishing since 1940. While I was waiting I read some articles about Marx's genius economic concepts and the crime that is American Imperialism. Perhaps most delightful is that the tottering woman who got me a cup of coffee also gave me an invitation to a July 26th gathering of the Movimiento Chileno de Solaridad con Cuba (history people know that July 26 is the anniversary of Fidel's attack on the Moncada barracks, which turned his followers into the July 26th movement.) I still haven't decided if I'm going.

Anyway, the Comision FUNA is a group that is organized with the goal of denouncing former military torturers who are still living in the community and have not yet been brought to justice. Essentially, they get signs and organize parades and demonstrations in front of the houses of military men who are known to have tortured during the military regime. Once someone has been "Funao" (denounced publicly/outed/discovered, however in more colloquial speak), Julio explained to me that many of the neighbors will resist to residing next to a living reminder of the terror that reigned Chile and the justice that still lacks today. Comision Funa doesn't have official ties to the government, effectively working as their own brand of justice meted out to those who the courts haven't reached yet.

Julio, in addition to being an adept spokesperson for Comision Funa, was very knowledgeable about the military procesos in general and was able to give me an updated list of all the procesos as of April 2006, which was very helpful.

In the evening, I went to Willie L.'s apartment near Metro Salvador to meet with Willie (who I interviewed on Friday) and two of his friends, Roberto and Daniel, who were both ex-prisioneros politicos. I took a picture of each of them. These are the faces of the armed branch of the Unidad Popular (Salvador Allende's party) who were "dispuesto" to defend President Allende if necessary (they were rounded up on September 11th, 1973 the day of the coup so they never had the opportunity) This is interesting because I read Willie's deposition about his experience being tortured and one of the details included was that the militares kept telling him they had found materials to make bombs and other armaments in the house where they had been arrested. I asked him last night if they military men were lying. He said no, they were not. There were, in fact, bomb making materials and other weapons because they were prepared to fight for Allende. Here they are now (I will add soon pictures from the Chilean newspapers of 1973-they are making copies for me-that show pictures of them then-as "mutinous prisoners of war"):

Roberto was exiled to London after being offered a deal (offered to him by a member of the US Army who was stationed in Valparaiso during the dictatorship..hmm) where he taught at the London School of Economics and later returned to Chile. He now lives in Vina del Mar. He does a very good Sean Connery impression - I have it on tape.

Daniel I. is the Secretary General of the Committee of Ex-Political Prisoners of Chile. He had audience with Spanish Judge Balthasar Garzon on a visit to Spain and is giving me the report he compiled and gave to Judge Garzon (which is incredibly interesting with respect to international norms). He was a political prisoner for just over two months but was never sent into exile. When released he worked clandestinely against the military government. Now he is studying law and is very helpful in explaining to me what the different legal terms mean.

And this is Willie L. He was a political prisoner from the day of the coup until he was exiled to the United States. He lives in Seattle now but is spending time in his apartment in Santiago to work on his cases pending v. the government of Chile and to work on the human rights cause. When he returns to the US, he hopes to meet with some senators to have the US pressure the Chilean government to follow the International norms for compensating past political prisoners. We both became US citizens in 1984.

And that's the wrap up for this Tuesday, I will give more transcript details later.

By The Numbers

No, I don't suddenly think I am TIME magazine. I hope some the the statistics I provide are more helpful than misleading. It will help me to sort out some of the facts to try to construct the basic numerical details of what I am studying and a by product will be your increased understanding. I think.

In 1973, on the doubly infamous September 11th, General Augusto Pinochet took over the Chilean government by becoming the head of the military junta that had stormed the presidential palace, La Moneda. Among other repressive branches of the armed forces in Chile, Pinochet created the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), a secret police force, for the purpose of surgical repression, detention, torture, and frecuently disappearance.

Between 1973 and 1976, the most intense repression took place. The Rettig Commission (Informe Rettig) documented approximately 3,000 cases of death at the hands of the Chilean military (allegedly 2,000 were murders, 1,000 were disappearances-no body, probably dropped in the ocean).

The dictatorship was in power until a plebiscite in 1988 decided that Pinochet was not going to continue on for another term in the presidency. 1989 brought new Presidential elections and the new President Patricio Aylwin took over in 1990. Pinochet was still Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces (until 1998) and a Senator for Life.

By 1992, Aylwin had declared that a special commission headed by Senator Rettig (The Rettig Commission) would investigate the disappearances and deaths during the dictatorship. The report confirmed that approximately 3,000 people had been disappeared or murdered by Pinochet's armed forces however it did not include legal action.

Over the course of the 1990s, judges and lawyers tried to present human rights cases to the courts however most of them were dismissed through the invocation of the Amnesty Law of 1978 which protected the armed forces from being tried and convicted of disappearance cases. Bear in mind that Pinochet was still an active political figure with lots of influence over the courts and judges.

Also during the 1990s were investigations of the National Intelligence Directorate's (DINA) involvement in international cases by international judges. These cases included carbombings and assasinations in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Washington, DC. The complicity extended to multiple countries in South America and it is well documented that high officials in Washington were aware of what became known as the Operation Condor.

In 1998, Pinochet was detained in London following the extradition request of a Spanish Judge (Balthasar Garzon) who wanted Pinochet extradited to Spain for crimes involving Spanish citizens. It is notable that extradition requests were made by numerous countries whose nationals had been in Chile during the dictatorship and been subject to repression. Eventually Pinochet was released back to Chile after British judges declared he was not fit to stand trial.

Pinochet's return to Chile was met with renewed fervor in the fight for human rights. Many more claims were made and more cases came before the courts. The exact cause and effect is complicated because there were other changes (see previous blog), like the composition of the Supreme Court, which largely affected the ability of human rights crimes to be sucessfully brought before the court.

To give a very very basic look at numbers by the end of 2005 (courtesy of FASIC.org) There were 405 cases in process at the end of the year which included 1,240 victims (many victims were in the same unique case against the same generals). There had been 600 accused army generales and militares. 115 of them have been convicted.

I am still trying to flush out the meaning of these numbers. For example, it is known that about 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared. If we are just looking at these numbers, it means that about 1/3 of the cases have been brought before the courts. However, the Valech Commission recently documented approximately 30,000 cases of torture (people held as political prisoners but not killed.) I know that it was more difficult to prosecute torture cases because they fell under the Amnesty Law of 1978 so I don't know if a new wave of convictions may come or if there are some torture cases included in the 600 accused generals. I know of torture victims who have lawyers and are in the process however I can't tell if they are the vanguard. So, as most statistics indicate, there is progress, but still so far to go.

Of course, there are many questions about what would constitute complete justice. I don't know how many people are not looking to prosecute because they need to rid themselves of the memory. I don't know whether the number of 30,000 tortured means 30,000 people testified before the committee or if by the people that testified they were able to deduce that 30,000 must be around the right number based on where people said they were and how many other prisoners were also there.

I'll try to be clearer soon.

Nelson Caucoto (Part I)

The following transcript (statement) is from an interview that I had yesterday with human rights lawyer Nelson Caucoto (his name I write out in full because thousands of other hits on Google will appear before my blog.) The interview was conducted in Spanish. The text below is my translation (it was tape recorded, so this is not paraphrased). The primary question was how justice has advanced and/or changed in Chile since 1990. His response was lengthy. What follows is just the first part of the answer as I have yet to transcribe and translate the rest:

Until 1990, there wasn't any change, and when Chile entered the process of democratization, the justice continued exactly the same, as it did for many years more. The change began in 1997 as a product of internal changes in the Supreme Court; a change of ministers [note: same as justices]. I don't remember if it was President Aylwin or President Frei, I think it was an iniciative of Alywin's.

We had [previously had] a Supreme Court that was very Pinochetista; that had been assigned by Pinochet, and was very friendly with the militares. They applied the amnistia, la prescripcion.

I believe it was Presidente Aylwin who had the idea to change the composition of the court. But how could he change it? The president can't do this in Chile. However this didn't stop him from finding an intelligent way of changing it.

In this time they promulgated a law, a simple presidential resolution that permitted the the ministers to retire from the Corte. If they retired they were given a "premio" (award) of about 100 million CLP which is about $200,000 US. This was very effecitve because there were many ministers in the Supreme Court who retired with this award. Therefore, after leaving their seats, space was opened so that other ministers could fill them. This was a very intelligent way of getting them out of the court.

Additionally, an ammendment was introduced which added seats to the court. I don't remember if it was three or four ministers, however these ministers were not judges but rather they were lawyers and distinguished professors of law that came from outside of the judicial power to occupy a seat in the court. And this was very very beneficial for the cause of human rights because for the first time people who were not "contaminated" were in the cout. And then the court began to change their opinion about human rights.

Also, in this time [1997] there was another change and this was that the supreme court began to specialize en "salas" (rooms, courts); a civil court, a constitutional court, a mixed court, and a penal court. In the penal court they integrated ministers from outside the judicial system, which affected a tremendous change and created a penal court of at least 5 members very inclined to further the human rights cause. These ministers were the ones who permitted that the lower tribunals continued their actions in prosecuting human rights. Also, the penal court opened a whole lot of cases and permitted the tribunales to further investigations. This signified a tremendous advance, a beginning and a change in justice for Chile.

In addition to this, the detention of Pinochet in London also provoked a reaction on the domestic level y fundamentally from judges who started seeing the importance of international law, the potential of international law.

Pedro M. (Part I)

I had an interview with Pedro M. at 10 am this morning at his house in Ñuñoa (have fun pronouncing that), one of the comunas of Santiago. Ñuñoa is a bit to my south I suppose. In general, it is more residential, but still very much a part of the Santiago taxi and bus routes and is reached by all the major roads which intersect the more pedestrian-trodden parts of the city. I arrived there by taxi and was greeted at the gate by two yapping dogs with little plaid dresses on (which I preferred to the growling and salivating horse-dog in the yard next door.) Pedro M. met me at the gate and welcomed me into his home.

He is the director of Trinity College's study abroad program in Santiago and, while at his house, I met an exchange student who was staying there. We sat down to discuss and I began trying to frame the problem/question. It's getting harder. With more information, I am no longer sure what my question is or should be, so while I hope to get more focused, I find myself giving longer winded explanations of the different frameworks I am looking at. Of course, for those who have experienced first-hand what I am discussing, it gives more opportunity to interrupt me with sidebars. Well, "sidebar" makes the topic sound diminutive. The interruption was more like a central artery. Pedro got up to get me a guide to Villa Grimaldi. What he handed me was a self-authored "visitor's guide" to a 20th century torture center.




In his guide, Pedro M. gives an in-depth history of the villa's past:

Built around 1835 on an estate in the foothills of the Andes overlooking Santiago Valley, the main house was constructed of adobe and thick oak beams supporting of roof of Spanish tiles. On the west side of the house ran an elegant gallery supported by twelve classical columns. On the east side looking to the majestic Andes, another gallery, smaller than the first, served for dining and entertainment...

The writing goes on to state that:

During the Allende years, Villa Grimaldi became a place where progressive-thinking Chileans and other Latin Americans met at conferences and gatherings to exchange ideas and experiences. Prominent figures who came included Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel Prize Laureate; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian writer who later would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature; Osvaldo Guayasamin, Ecuadorian painter; Claudio Arrau and Roberto Matta, Chilean pianisht and painter, respectively.

However, in May of 1974, Villa Grimaldi turned into a torture center for those who were detained during the worst years of the repression and "would become the most infamous interrogation, torture, murder, and disappearance center in Chile under the code name Cuartel Terranova."

As well as diagrams of different methods of torture used at Villa Grimaldi (whose pictures and descriptions I am sparing you), the guide has a map of the Parque por la Paz, which now occupies Villa Grimaldi's former location. The map of the park is overlaid on a map of the Villa when it was in operation. Below is the map of the Peace Park (zoom in-click- for better detail) which the different numbered points describing what used to be at each location:


In this next photo is a map of Villa Grimaldi when it was in operation as a torture center. If you compare this picture to the one above you can see what each number refers to:

I haven't been to Villa Grimaldi and I don't think I will visit. Although it is within Santiago city limits it is very difficult to get to (involving a car for sure) and people who have gone say it is a bit of an odd trip without someone who knows more about the subject coming along.

We continued the discussion as Pedro M. gave me a brief history of his experience with the dictatorship. He was a law student at the University of Chile in 1973 when the coup took place. While in the law school, he was a leader in the Socialist Youth, an organization whose name has surfaced frequently as I find out what people were involved in that led to their arrest. He was arrested by DINA (Direccion de Inteligencia Nacional), the secret police established in 1973 when the coup took place, in May of 1975 and held in Villa Grimaldi for 13 months where he was tortured and interrogated. He was never charged and never given a tribunal. He was released from prison when the Organization of American States (OAS) met in Santiago in July 1976. In 1976 he emgirated to the United States where he had already been granted asylum and recognized as a political prisoner (A UN mandate had created a refugee relocation program at the start of the dictatorship combined with work by Vicaria de la Solidaridad to keep meticulous records of who was arrested and disappeared, which meant the US could already documented and recognized prisoners.) He testified before the UN Commission of Human Rights when he arrived in New York and later moved to San Francisco.

Pedro M. returned to Chile in 1991 at the start of democratization. He came back with the goal of rebuilding democracy. He wanted to make testimony. He wanted to find lost friends (and companeros from prison) and he wanted to find first truth, and second, justice.

Instead he found a society that wanted to "look forward and not back." He found a "viel of forgiveness" had swept the country. He found a double-speak about past human rights violations ("excesses") and those murdered ("presumed disappeared") and the respressive power of the dictatorship ("military regime").

He has made it his charge to investigate the past violations, recreate history, take testimony of victims and fight for trials against the military personnel who perpetrated the crimes against humanity 30 years ago.

Two by Sea

We were inspired enough on Tuesday to go for the coast. At first we set out for Valparaiso, fully planning on returning the same night. The bus system is very efficient for short distances. The trip to the coast is only about an hour and a half.


Valparaiso is a very busy port city and apparently a "cultural center" in Chile. The wikipedia "definition" is a pretty nice description and works for my tired fingers: see here. We arrived just a couple hours before the sun began to set which gave us enough time to walk from the bus station to the water (quarter mile?) and have a stroll along the shore (cement) and get a bite of seafood (I ate french fries). We didn't thoroughly comb through the city, but I had really just wanted to smell the salt water anyway:


As the sun was setting we got on the Valparaiso Metro which in Valpo is an above ground train which runs vaguely along the shoreline. You can see the tracks in the bottom of the above photo. We arrived in Viña del Mar just after dusk:

We walked down towards the hotel:

Or during the day:


We had a room on the third floor at the "bow" of the hotel. They really took the boat motif seriously:

Our view spanned in two directions(these three photos start at the left and span to the right of our view):

1.

2.

3.

Well that was during the day on Wednesday, but on Tuesday night we hung out on our balcony after strolling a little around the prettier parts of Vina del Mar.

And then there were the rocks in the morning:

And also they were selling avocados at the copy shop. Brooks made me pretend to be taking a picture so he could show you them:

And finally we went for a walk through this castle that was just beyond our hotel on the shore. Here is a picture from balcony of our room:

Look carefully at where the water can pass between the tower and the main building of the castle. We were standing in that bridge area, watching the waves crash in beneath us, through the glass floor:

And Brooks protected the top turret:


And then we headed out.

Above it all

My delightful weekend was washed away by some Chilean bug I got (I think it was the seafood mush-pastel de jaiba, however there are multiple suspects which include the Chilean national drink: the pisco sour, pictured so artistically and innocently in my previous post.) No importa. Out of commission Saturday. Day of rest on Sunday. Getting my legs back Monday morning, so that by Monday afternoon, I was on top of the world:


And so was Brooks (recovering from Cabin Fever):


To get an idea of where we are, I found a pretty decent map of the city of Santiago here. My apartment is approximately half-way between the intersection of Av. Providencia and Av. Pedro de Valdivia and the intersection of Av. Providencia and Av. Vitacura. The main activity centers of "downtown" are pretty well triangulated by La Moneda, The Museum of Precolombian Art, and The University of Chile (all marked by red squares.) However, it is all very busy and cosmopolitan south of the thin river you can see running through the city (I don't think it is a river so much as sewage water running through a cement half-pipe, it's truly disgusting.) Anyhow, the park with the hill that we are on top of is in the Parque Metropolitano which you can see is the green blob in the more northern part of Santiago. In these pictures we are looking south over Santiago, and, of course, over the Andes behind the city. Note while the Andes are south of the city, they are also west (and a bit north.) They are really everywhere. See google earth.


I know my mountain pictures are just soo boring, but it was very cool feeling a little closer to my mountains. So here is better eye-to-eye (eye-to-knee really, but better than eye-to-ankle):


Up at the top of this hill is the Virgen (i'm not spelling it wrong) [female-catholic-name] that protects Santiago by being lit all night by immense lights. Here she is:

We came up to the top of the hill on a contraption called a funicular some boxes on a very steep rail. It worked. On the way down we took a gondola to the other side of the hill. I feel like I'm doing Switzerland and Santiago a la vez:

On Monday night we went to Las Condes and found a Thai restaurant which was absolutely delicious (so good it needed italics). And then crashed, because I was exhausted. But not too exhausted to go to Valpo and Vina on Tuesday...

A Continuacion...

After exploring Las Condes a bit (where there is another Starbucks that is two floors and has free wi-fi as well as a place called Mundo del Vino where we found some delicious wine), we went to lunch at a little bar that is supposed to be one of the five best restaurants in Chile. It is called Liguria. It was a fun experience just for the ambience.


Inside, you can see on the right how the bottles of wine on the wall reach the cieling:

Here is a better photo of the wall behind the bar. The rest of the walls were filled was culture/sports memorabilia.


The restaurant consisted of the floor you entered in on (where the bar is) and then two split levels where people ate in a more restauranty atmosphere. It was lucky we got there just before 2, because soon after we arrived the place filled and people had to wait a while for tables.

In the early evening, we went to the horse races. It was at a very elegant stadium that you can sort of see in my photos.



At night we went to Club de Jazz which is supposed to be one of the best jazz clubs in Latin America (see here.) It was a very cozy bar-club with a live band that started around 11pm. Here are a couple pics:


And finally, the only benefit of being really sick at 7 AM (no, not from the jazz club, it seems I had the flu) is that I finally got a picture of the mountains when the sun is rising:

Yes, I'm alive: here's proof

I know I have been absent from blog for a little while. Brooks and I have been wandering around Santiago, going to museums, different restaurant destinations and trying not to let the smog get us down. Anyway, here are some pictures from some recent explorations. Below, you will see me sipping on some raspberry juice (jugo de frambuesa) and next to be is the national drink of chile: a pisco sour, which we have seen just about everywhere. It seems to genuinely be what they drink regularly. It's a little sweet for my taste. This lunch was at a place called Lomit's where locals go to get a barros luco which is a stake and cheese sandwich (and overflowing steak and cheese sandwich.) Brooks enjoyed it.

Yesterday, we went to the museum below La Moneda which we saw the other day. It is a museum of Chilean Cultural History. There is a large section on Chilean film history and then couple rooms that deal with mesoamerican art, which is interesting because it is from Mexico and Central America rather than Chile. The architecture is cool. It is below ground with opaque glass which allows light to get in from the plaza above. It is very much like the Louvre and the Museum of (Modern?) Art in Washington DC, where there is a very modern, stark atrium area below ground:


From that museum we headed over to the Mercado Central, which is next to Rio Mapocho. Inside is a seafood market that smells absolutley awful. But our guidebooks say you can't miss it for lunch. So, we first did a walk through of this incredibly busy market, with people yelling at us the whole time to come sit and eat in their respective restaurants.


In the end, we settled on our guide-recommended Donde Augusto where we ordered some very slimy looking things. And what I thought was crab cakes was actually crab-slop (crab pie? crab casserole). It was interesting. What was pretty cool was the view we got from the upper floor where they seated us. You can see the bustling inside of the market below:



From the Mercado, we headed to La Piojera (piojo means "louse" or "filth"), which is a local bar that was going to be destroyed before it was saved by protesters. So this is the nondescript entry door on a little side street near the Mercado Central:

You walk through a little, wet and back-ally type entry until you come to this small courtyard, then straight for the door of the bar:

Inside (I dont know if you can see it well) is a dirty little bar that is filled with locals. We looked somewhat ridiculous there. At each table it seemed that people had each already consumed 2 or 3 forties of beer. There was a small mariachi type band walking around serenading the tables and the locals.

We ordered some "classic" drinks that were recommended. One was the chicha, a type of Chilean cider. And the next: a terremoto. Terremoto is the word for earthquake. This drink (that I am sipping below) consists of some really, really low-grade wine (think grapes sitting in Grandpa's cellar for like 15 years and became wine on their own) and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was...intense. You couldn't drink it very fast.


We walked back from that part of the city to the Museo de Arte Precolombiano, which was basically more of what we had seen below La Moneda, except a more broad look at all the different groups of indigenous across Latin America. Before getting to the museum, we walked by the tribunales de justicia (courthouse). Look carefully: is it ironic that their justice building is seriously cracking?

And finally, the Museum of Pre-Colombian Art. They didn't allow photos inside, but here is a picture of me in the courtyard:


Today, we went to Las Condes, a more northern/western part of the city. We had lunch in a local pub and this afternoon we are going to some horseraces and then to a jazz club. Tomorrow we will probably go to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar and hopefully stay in a hotel next to the ocean which should yield some nice pictures since the sun is actually/finally out. And I finally wrote.