It has been 46 years since the military coup that swept away the “pacific way to socialism” with fire and blood and ended with the lives of over 40.000 people, victims of the dictatorship of Pinochet. Among them, over 3000 were executed or disappeared between 1973 and 1990, according to the reports of the Valech committee. Almost half a century later, there has not been a trial or punishment to those responsible of the political genocide of our people.
A conciliation policy
A few months after the agreed end of the dictatorship, the “National Truth and Reconciliation Commission” was created, with the purpose of investigating the crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship. The Rettig Report only accounted for executions and disappearances. In total, it recognized 2,279 deaths at the hands of security forces during the Pinochet dictatorship. Afer that, the Valech Commission -in honor of the former bishop of Santiago, Sergio Valech- was originally created in 2003 to expand the information on the repression. In November 2004, it presented a report with over 30,000 victims, 28,459 illegal detentions, torture, executions and disappearances. The second report of the Valech Commission recognizes more than 40,018 victims of the dictatorship. After 18 months of work and 32,000 complaints, the commission only considered almost 10,000 of them valid. Survivors will receive a monthly “reparation” pension.
The policies of the governments of the former Concertación (former Nueva Mayoria with the Communist Party) and the right wing after the dictatorship, have only tried to reconcile and trivialize collective memory, through reports that attempt to achieve “peace and reconciliation” in a country that suffered the most heinous violations of human rights that our history can tell. Through scholarships and cash subsidies, they try to stop the collective memory that year after year goes out to the streets to say that our memory is still intact.
46 years after, there have not been trials of those responsible for the torture. Many of them have died without being prosecuted and others have not spent a day in jail, while they have enjoyed scandalous benefits. There is also the case of the former torture centres, none of them were recovered by survivors as centers of memory. Like the case of the Sexy Venda house, where there was sexual political violence, which was sold to a real estate company under the silent and complicit protection of the chilean State, despite having declared it a national historical monument and, according to the law, its modification was prohibited.
We do not forgive or forget, no to impunity!
The chilean State, protected by the capitalist conglomerates and political parties, has kept the inheritance of the dictatorship intact by protecting privileged torturers and genocides, as well as maintaining the entire neoliberal plan of privatizing education, health, AFP, among others that have been expanded since the 90s, under the Pinochet Constitution. The numbers of those killed in “democracy” continue growing as well, like Camilo Catrillanca, Macarena Valdés, Rodrigo Cisternas, among many killed by the State and its repressive forces.
In this context, every September 11 is centred around the memory, but mainly the need for justice that will not be found under this regime that questions and denies the crimes and tortures that happened and continue in the present day. Memory and justice should not only be commemorative, but the prelude of a change to turn everything around on the path of social transformation.
No to impunity: Trial and punishment with common jail to those responsible!
For the opening of the archives of the dictatorship!
No to the sale of Venda Sexy!
For the recovery of the former torture centres!
Camila Millaray – Movimiento Anticapitalista