The unprecedented initiative of the Chilean president Gabriel Boric tasking the State with clarifying what happened 1,162 people were lost during the military dictatorship (1973-90), a few days after its 50th anniversary of being overthrown by blood and fire, became another period of bitterness on the right. Salvador Allende. “I believe democracy is the memory and the future. And one cannot exist without the other,” he said while presenting to nearly 500 people, some of whom are relatives of oppression victims. The Plan to Search for Truth and Justice. Boric did this in Plaza de Constitución, in front of the La Moneda palace, which was the target of the Sea Harrier bombs on September 11, 1973. And he regretted that conservative forces from this space filled with symbolism had decided not to attend the ceremony.
The young president said, “It’s time to fix the absences, and I also allow myself to regret those absences that upset us so much, but there are also absences at this ceremony,” he added: “andIt’s time to agree on something very basicNo context, no further explanation, that is, we will never again disrupt democracy through violence, and we will never violate human rights because another person thinks differently, nothing more”.
The project was released on August 30. International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance. Beyond the anniversary, the government is trying to create a cutoff point for the past with its policy. “state one committed these crimesIt is the state that must take the responsibility. “Something that seems so trivial to any of us makes a huge difference,” said Luis Cordero, Minister of Justice and Human Rights.
painful numbers
An estimated 3,200 people were assassinated between the day of the coup and the beginning of the democratic transition in 1990, when General Augusto Pinochet was still at the head of the army and was the guardian of the legacy of the dictatorship. It is unknown what happened to the estimated total of 1,162 victims. With the initiative of the left power, it is aimed to determine how the victims of the regime, who were considered missing, were caught and executed. “It is designed to enable the creation of validation indicators for each stage,” Cordero explained.
Innovation compared to the past, the role of military institutions. “The Armed and Order Forces provided specific information in the context of these forensic investigations.” He also assured that “there are people in the country who have knowledge” and that it is now important to make it public. Cordero urged the holders of these secrets, all linked to the repression, to “distribute” their data, thereby facilitating investigations.
disagreements
The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup is the subject of tension between the left and the right, as questions about how to interpret the causes of September 11 projected to this day. Boric did not ignore them and referred to the recent Supreme Court convictions for those responsible for human rights violations. “Justice took too long. In the meantime, we should also appreciate the brave judges and those who continue to push until today, but considering that in the last days of August 2023, sentences denouncing the advisers of La Moneda or the material perpetrators of such crimes. One wonders also about Víctor Jara, it’s the state’s duty to ask if that’s how justice is.” According to Boric, “Just because something happened on the way doesn’t mean we have to forget it”.
On Tuesday, the president made a more specific reference to the suicide of 86-year-old General Hernán Chacón Soto, who was arrested to serve his sentence in the Jara case. Boric spoke of “cowardice” and provoked him 24 hours later: the anger of the far-right José Antonio Kast. “Whoever uses a platform to insult someonehe is a coward“Cast power Republicans, who were hegemonic in the Constituent Council that was supposed to draft the Magna Carta, demanded that the president apologize to the Chacón Soto family.
A personal critique of an Army commander
Discussions about what happened 50 years ago also include those in uniform. Former Army Commander-in-Chief Ricardo Martínez Menanteau, during the promotion of his book ‘An Army for All’, stated that the policy of elimination carried out by the military authorities “One of the biggest insults to ‘military values (behavior)’Yesterday, today and always”.
Martínez Menanteau, as the commander of this weapon, said he was convinced that “the actions of the Chilean Army in the recent period of its history should be reviewed”. In his view, “it was clear that a break with a section of society persisted, largely due to the era of military rule.” According to him, “although strict monitoring of high-level orders in the different structures of the military is the norm” and a “legal and regulatory obligation” is established regarding these provisions, “you can’t force a subordinateTo comply with an action “unless protected by law”. That didn’t happen.
“The main responsibility falls on those in the highest positions. The former commander said they were unable or unwilling to stop decisions that led to behavior that was completely against the moral values of military action. In the middle of his speechtraitorJaime Ojeda Torrent, a former soldier convicted of being complicit in 15 murders in the first instance in the Death Caravan Trial, in the operation carried out in the north of Chile, immediately after the coup that led to the disappearance of Chile, said: 97 people.