Searching for truth and justice
By Natalie Santoro
SANTIAGO, Chile — In a country which still celebrates the anniversary of the military coup which ousted the democratically-elected Salvador Allende government in 1973 with a public holiday, it is not surprising that the families of the detained and disappeared are still seeking truth and justice.
On September 11, 1973, interior minister Augusto Pinochet Ugarte unleashed a coup which overthrew the Popular Union government and resulted in the deaths of Allende and many of his supporters. Ruling by decree, Pinochet, who assumed the presidency in 1974, banned left parties and prohibited nearly all political activity.
Between 1973 and 1990, many people disappeared (see box). Most, if not all, of the detained and disappeared were leftists.
The Group of Families of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD) formed in 1975, primarily to defend the lives of their loved ones, who they believed and hoped were still alive.
One group member, Viviana Diaz, told Green Left Weekly, "I believed that my father, who disappeared 22 years ago, was still alive. My initial actions were to look for him at the police stations, hospitals and jails."
After some time, however, the group's members, including Diaz, came to believe that most of their loved ones were probably dead. Accordingly, they began to demand answers as to the whereabouts of their relatives, and to demand justice.
Their actions included street protests beginning in 1977, eduction campaigns, international delegations to the United Nations and hunger strikes. Their campaign slogan became "Donde estan?" ("Where are they?").
In 1978, the AFDD formed a folk group which continues to convey their message through music.
On July 14, 1977, 26 members of the AFDD initiated a hunger strike at the Economic Commission for Latin America. The strike ended on July 23 when an agreement was reached between the UN and the military junta in Chile to investigate the disappearances. No investigations were carried out.
Similarly, no investigations occurred after the Catholic Church intervened during a hunger strike by 100 people in April 1978. This hunger strike was a response to Pinochet's decree in April 1978 providing an amnesty for crimes against humanity committed between September 11, 1973 and March 11, 1978. The decree remains in place today.
The AFDD's actions and campaigns continued throughout the military regime without success. Throughout this period, members of the AFDD were arrested, interrogated and harassed. Diaz believes that they were always released only because of the international attention they received.
In 1980, a new constitution, largely the work of conservative law professor Jaime Guzman, was presented by Pinochet to the Chilean people.
The constitution provides for a 120-member chamber of deputies, and a 46-member senate, eight of whom are appointed by the president. A plebiscite in 1980 approved the constitution, and Pinochet's presidency until 1989.
In 1988, Pinochet negotiated his resignation in exchange for total immunity for crimes he committed during his presidency and a position as a life-long senator. A further condition was that the civilian president must choose Pinochet's replacement from a list provided by the military.
In multi-party elections in 1989, the Concertacion para la Democracia, a coalition of 17 parties, defeated Pinochet's successor, Hernan Buchi. The process of democratisation has not, however, met the demands of the AFDD.
On January 25, 1990, the AFDD met with the new president, Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin Azoca, to present their demands. Following the meeting, Aylwin set up the National Commission of Truth and Reconciliation.
Diaz says that the commission investigated only a limited number of cases and, after nine months of work, the conclusion in its report was merely that the disappeared had been detained but that it was not clear who was responsible for their detention or what happened to them after they were detained.
Following the release of the report, Aylwin made an address to the nation in which he asked, on behalf of Chile, for forgiveness for what happened after the 1973 coup.
Diaz says the plea was made to stop people from looking at the past but that the AFDD will not stop taking action until the disappeared-detained are found, properly buried and justice has been served.
The current president, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, elected in 1993, has also failed to address the group's concerns. In particular, he, like Aylwin, has not attempted to repeal the 1978 amnesty for those responsible for human rights violations during the regime.
Diaz explains this inaction as a "complicity of silence" by the right-wing parties which, together with Pinochet and his Senate appointees (known as the Military Bench), hold the balance of power in the Senate.
On August 19, the right wing took another step to rewrite history. On that day, Pinochet and the president of the Senate, Andres Zaldivar, formally agreed to replace the September 11 holiday with a "national day of unity" on the first Monday of September. The agreement will almost certainly be approved by the parliament.
Diaz said, "For us, there can be no day of national unity for as long as there is no justice, and the truth is not known. We do not have anything to celebrate; the day is for many of us marked by pain and anguish."
The AFDD, she said, will continue to campaign until the truth is told and those responsible are brought to justice. "No a la Impunidad!" (No to amnesty!).