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.