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...