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<text>
<title>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992: Chile
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Americas Watch: Chile
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> The government of President Patricio Aylwin intended, in its
second year, to put the issue of human rights "to rest" as a
source of national conflict. In March 1990, the Aylwin
coalition had taken office on a platform of commitment to human
rights, and the president in particular had distinguished
himself in his pronouncements on the issue. At the same time,
the government faced the necessity of reducing civil-military
tensions, living with the former dictator General Augusto
Pinochet as the continuing commander of the army, and returning
the society to a state of calm after the fear and divisions of
military rule. During 1991 human rights did not disappear from
national debate indeed, both past abuses and new violations
surfaced regularly in the press and in official statements--but the issue, from the government's point of view, was largely
resolved.
</p>
<p> The government's sense of resolution was due, in large part,
to the report produced by the nine-member National Commission
on Truth and Reconciliation, also called the Rettig Commission
after its chairman, lawyer Raúl Rettig. The immense and
detailed report, released on March 4 with a live televised
speech by President Aylwin, was the product of a politically
heterogeneous commission which for nine months had interviewed
survivors throughout Chile and reviewed the substantial archives
compiled by human rights organizations. The report reached
conclusions about 2,279 cases of political execution and
disappearance during the period of military rule from 1973 to
1990, and offered profiles of the two generations of secret
police (DINA and CNI) that carried out the repressive policy.
Acts of violence by armed opposition groups, when these led to
death or physical injury, were among the cases examined.
However, the vast majority of crimes exposed by the report,
including systematic torture that led to death, were traceable
to official forces--a combination of military and police
intelligence units in the first year of military rule, and after
that the security police composed of military and civilian
agents. The report contained a chapter which quoted the victims'
relatives on the subject of their long ostracism and suffering,
and concluded with policy recommendations. Among these was the
recommendation that research continue regarding the 641 cases
on which the commission had not been able to reach conclusions
due to insufficient evidence. (In addition to the 641 cases the
commission could not resolve, it noted 508 on which it received
information but which fell outside its mandate, and 448 in which
information amounted to little more than a victim's name. "New"
cases dating from the military period also continue to be
denounced for the first time, though in small numbers.)
</p>
<p> The Rettig Commission had been given a mandate that was in
certain ways limited. It was authorized to uncover the truth
about executions and disappearances by state agents, and
executions and physical injuries by armed opposition groups.
But it was not empowered to examine cases of torture not
causing death, in part because the incidence of torture was so
widespread during so long a period that this research would have
been interminable. It could not name perpetrators of abuse, even
when these were well known, because it was felt that the
commission should not usurp the authority of courts to
determine responsibility. However, the commissioners attempted
to give the clearest possible picture of the conditions under
which crimes were committed, such that perpetrators'
institutional identification is often included in the report,
even if their names are not. Many of the forms of abuse typical
of the Pinochet era--forced exile, invasion of the home,
brutal suppression of public assemblies, erratic censorship--are mentioned in the opening section of the report but did not
fit within the commission's mandate.
</p>
<p> The report is a generous and dignified document which does
not soften the edges of the events it describes while placing
them in a coherent social and political framework. And as
remarkable as the report itself was President Aylwin's manner
of presenting it. In his March 4 speech to an anxious nation,
the president offered his vision of the report's significance.
He spoke of forgiveness and the entire society's burden:
</p>
<p> "[O]ne must begin by specifying who are the offended parties
called upon to forgive and who are the offenders to be
forgiven. I cannot forgive for another. Forgiveness is not
imposed by decree. Forgiveness requires repentance on one hand,
and generosity on the other."
</p>
<p> "When agents of the state were those who caused so much
suffering, and the relevant organs of the state could not or
did not know how to avoid it and punish it, nor was there the
necessary social reaction to impede it, the state and the
entire society are responsible, whether by action or omission.
It is Chilean society that owes a debt to the victims of human
rights violations." (Full text reprinted in El Mercurio,
Santiago, March 5, 1991.)
</p>
<p>In his capacity as representative of the society, the
president then asked pardon of the victims and requested of
"the Armed Forces and forces of order, and all who have had
participation in the excesses committed, that they make
gestures of recognition of the pain caused and cooperate in
diminishing it." (Full text reprinted in El Mercurio, Santiago,
March 5, 1991.)
</p>
<p> Unfortunately, with few exceptions, the import of the
president's speech was lost on the civilian right as well as
the army, the honor of which Pinochet defended in a speech
responding to the report. Neither the country's former ruler nor
his former civilian followers shouldered their burden of
responsibility. Indeed, as late as October 22, when German
Chancellor Helmut Kohl fleetingly mentioned past abuses and
reconciliation in a speech to the Chilean Congress, most
rightist legislators walked out.
</p>
<p> The Rettig Commission's report did have the effect of
stimulating debate about the past and vindicating the
reputations of the victims. Then, a mere three weeks after its
publication, Senator Jaime Guzmán, a major rightist figure and
General Pinochet's closest civilian advisor, was assassinated,
and the nation's attention was refocused on terrorism. Proposals
for reparation ceased to be newsworthy; a planned national
campaign of local meetings to reflect on past abuses and
reconciliation was shelved; victims' concerns became marginal
once again.
</p>
<p> Some reparatory suggestions have been followed. There is
legislation pending on compensation for survivors. An
institution may be created to follow up on unresolved cases,
although a portion of the parliamentary right is seeking to
weaken it. An ombudsman is to be appointed as citizens'
protector against abuses of authority. And at the commission's
recommendation, about 230 cases were transferred to the civilian
courts, some for the first time and many after having been
reopened because of the commission's new findings.
</p>
<p> However, the prospects for those cases are not encouraging.
Apart from the milestone represented by the commission's
report, the impediments to truth and justice in cases of past
abuse remained unchanged in Chile during 1991, with one sole
exception. The commission's report delivered a large portion of
the truth, to be sure, but the commission could not establish
such crucial information as the perpetrators' identities and the
whereabouts of missing bodies; such information may be possible
to establish only in court. In all but one case, there was no
advance toward the prosecution of military personnel, or even
civilian members of the security police, for crimes of the past.
A 1978 amnesty law, decreed by the military government to cover
the peri