Santiago — On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état against then President Salvador Allende, the Chilean government has launched a plan aimed at clarifying the circumstances of the disappearance of more than 1,100 people during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
In a ceremony at La Moneda Palace on Wednesday, President Gabriel Boric signed a decree to launch the so-called National Search Plan. Boric said that, to date, the whereabouts of 1,159 Chileans are unknown, among them women and children with or without a stated political affinity who disappeared during the regime.
“From September 11, 1973 until the end of the dictatorship, almost 1,500 Chilean men and women were subjected to this extreme and brutal form of violence, and with them also their families,” Boric said in front of dozens of relatives of the victims, activists and cabinet ministers.
The program, the brainchild of the current administration, aims to become a permanent and “systematic policy” to find out what happened to some 1,469 people, of whom 1,092 correspond to the detained and disappeared, and around 377 people who were executed for political reasons but without the bodies having been handed over.
Over the last three decades, only 307 victims of forced disappearance in Chile have been identified.
“Justice has taken too long,” Boric said.
This is one of the biggest efforts by the head of state to clarify what happened to the disappeared and dead left by the dictatorship. The program has been announced less than two weeks before the 50th anniversary of the coup that overthrew Allende, and which ushered in one of Latin America’s bloodiest dictatorships.
It is estimated that at least 3,200 people were killed or disappeared between 1973 and 1990 in Chile.
“What we are doing today is a gesture of democracy, because it is an act of state that assumes the memory in a way in which we are not mobilized by rancor, but by the conviction that the only possibility of building a future that is freer and more respectful of life and human dignity is to know the whole truth,” said the president.
For the creation of the plan, dozens of meetings were held in Chile, with the participation of more than 770 people.
“We are convinced that concrete public policies and funding such as the one we are launching today are necessary to have robust democracies that can project themselves courageously into the future,” added Boric.
What does the Search for Truth and Justice Plan entail?
The National Plan for the Search for Truth and Justice announced by Boric was endorsed by the Interministerial Committee of Ministers of Human Rights on July 28, 2022.
According to a minute concerning the policy, the objectives are thus:
- To clarify the circumstances of the disappearance and/or death of the victims and their whereabouts
- To guarantee access to information and participation of family members and society in the search process for victims of forced disappearance
- Implement reparation measures and guarantees of non-repetition of the commission of the crime of forced disappearance
Retired military officer accused of Pinochet-era murder commits suicide
Just one day before the signing of the decree to initiate the plan, news was published regarding the suicide of a retired Chilean military officer, Hernán Carlos Chacón Soto, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Monday for the kidnapping and murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara on September 16, 1973.
Also convicted for Jara’s death were Raúl Jofré González, Edwin Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Bethke Wulf and Juan Jara.
Chacón’s death occurred a few hours after the death of the Communist Party leader, Guillermo Teillier, due to health complications, and for which Boric decreed two days of mourning and made a speech.
Referring to Teillier, Boric said “he died as a worthy man, proud of the life he had lived (...) There are others who die in a cowardly way [alluding to Chacón] so as not to face justice. There are human differences”, he said.
His statements were considered disrespectful by some right-wing political leaders, however.
“Would he be capable of telling the family of the person who took his life the same thing he said in public using a platform that does not correspond to him? I don’t think so,” said José Antonio Kast, leader of the Republican Party and a former presidential candidate who lost out to Boric in the elections in a program broadcast on social networks.
