Is army taking Pinochet bullet?

The military may have admitted some responsibility for human rights abuses, but Oscar Mendoza wonders if there is an ulterior motive There was political commotion throughout Chile last week after the country's military at last admitted some responsibility for gross human rights violations during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. The unprecedented - albeit limited and contested - admission revealed by President Ricardo Lagos marked another milestone in the country's difficult road to overcoming the bloody legacy of Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule.

The report was submitted only days before Pinochet finally subjected himself to medical tests at Santiago's Military Hospital to establish his fitness to stand trial, as ordered by the courts. Investigating judge Juan Guzmn has set January 23 as the date for the pre-committal interview.

The report gives information about all cases of disappeared persons included in the main court cases against the general, with one exception. Critics see the report as a ploy to let the general claim that, as the victims were killed, he should be able to claim immunity under the 1978 amnesty legislation he passed.

Lagos received a report from a special commission charged with making progress with initiatives aimed at national reconciliation. The Forum for Dialogue on Human Rights comprised representatives from his administration, the military, human rights lawyers, and civic organisations of high standing, such as the Catholic Church. The forum had arrived at a deadline of January 5 for receiving information from the armed forces on the whereabouts of the so- called disappeared.

The brief report referred to the cases of 180 identified detainees who were summarily executed but whose remains were disposed of secretly by the military after the September 1973 coup that overthrew Socialist Party president Salvador Allende.

The information provided by the military confirmed allegations made by victims' relatives over many years. It was confirmed that the bodies of dozens of close Allende aides - many of whom had survived the bombing of the presidential palace - and other opponents of Pinochet were thrown from military helicopters and planes into the sea, rivers and mountains.

Reactions have been predictably mixed. Government politicians, such as senator Alejandro Foxley and former minister Edmundo Perez Yoma, have claimed that the report makes a significant contribution to national reconciliation. But relatives of the disappeared, Communist Party and Socialist Party leaders have cast doubt on the authenticity of the information. Cynicism among relatives grew rapidly as specially appointed officials gave them details of the report. President Lagos spoke to Viviana Diaz, president of the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees. He also spoke to the widow of Arsenio Poupin, who was a personal friend of Lagos and a deputy minister under Allende captured at the presidential palace after the socialist president's death.

Diaz, whose father Victor was a member of the last Communist Party leadership in clandestinity, had initially given a cautious welcome to the report. But she and her organisation became more sceptical as the details emerged. Victor Diaz was arrested in May 1976 shortly after the rest of the communist leadership in a secret-police (DINA) operation known as the case of Conferencia Street. All of them are among the disappeared and the case is one of the main ones being considered in the courts against Pinochet. It has been established that the general himself headed the DINA command structure.

According to the military, Victor Diaz and his comrades were thrown into the sea some weeks after their detention but well before the date the Diaz family lost track of him in October 1976, months later. Viviana Diaz told a press conference: "How do the military prove to me that their bodies were thrown into the sea? How did it happen? They have to tell me." Close to tears, she went on to state the association's bitter criticism of the Chilean judiciary, following her interview with Supreme Court justice Alvarez: "We pointed out to him everything they did not do in the past. The courts accepted the information of the Ministry of Defence. They washed their hands of our relatives, leaving them defenceless, tortured, killed, eliminated and they did nothing. Now, they must investigate and start with the last detention centre where our dead were held."

Human rights lawyer Carmen Hertz said of the report: "It is a fraud, a lie and an insult to the relatives and to society at large." Hertz's husband Carlos Berger is one of the disappeared in the notorious Caravan of Death case, involving Pinochet. Investigations carried out over many years have demonstrated that Berger was shot in October 1973 then buried in a clandestine grave with another 12 detainees and the army detonated the bodies. The latest report states that their bodies were also thrown into the sea, which contradicts witness statements and previously gathered forensic evidence.

But perhaps the case that contradicts the military report most emphatically is that of Domingo Blanco, Allende's chief of security. He was arrested outside the presidential palace on September 11, 1973. According to the military report, Blanco was killed on September 13 and his body thrown into the sea on the same day 10 miles from the port of San Antonio.

However, documentary evidence exists in the form of log entries by the police and the prison governor of Santiago Public Jail that Blanco was transferred there on September 15. The prison officer on guard duty that day has declared in the judicial investigation that, as he was processing Blanco for internment in the prison, military personnel removed him forcibly.

With the can of worms the military admission has already opened up, Pinochet is sure of a rough ride in the weeks to come.

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.