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A BLOW TO IMPUNITY: KEEP PRESSURE ON
PINOCHET CASE
Nearly three decades of hard work by human rights activist
is finally paying off. Retired Chilean General Augusto Pinochet,
believed responsible for the torture, murder and disappearance
of over 3, 000 Chileans, is in serious legal and political trouble.
He faces over 100 charges of murder and torture in his oven
country, and on May we, a Chilean court revoked Pinochet's parliamentary
immunity that shielded him from prosecution.
This incredible turnaround for justice over the past year has
spurred positive political change in Chile and weakened the
military's power within institutions. Sustained pressure from
the Clinton administration is absolutely vital to support this
process in Chile, while U.S. citizens must continue to push
the U.S. government to declassify more documents, continue investigations
and pursue the indictment of Pinochet in the United States.
The "Pinochet ricochet" has also had an impact internationally
on other human rights violators. Certain generals in Guatemala
have canceled European vacations for fear of getting arrested
abroad for genocide. In Senegal, a former Chadian dictator accused
of 40,000 political killings in his own country, has been placed
under house arrest.
The Long Road to Justice
In September 1973, the Nixon administration encouraged, supported
and financed the overthrow of democratically elected Socialist
President Salvador Allende in Chile. The military coup ushered
in the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship and the murder and disappearance
of thousands Chileans, with thousands more tortured and forced
into exile.
The killings were not limited to Chile. In September 1976,
while former Allende Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier drove
through Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C., a bomb ripped through
his vehicle killing him instantly. Ronni Moffitt, his American
assistant and passenger, bled to death from a metal shard lodged
in her throat.
In the 17 years after the coup international banking institutions
lauded the "miracle" of the Chilean economy while
Gen. Pinochet tried to destroy one of Latin America's strongest
democracies, which has been blessed with a long tradition of
peaceful elections and an established judicial system. Pinochet
left a legacy of military impunity through an amnesty law exonerating
military officials for the years of greatest violence, and the
Constitution of 1980, which is still in place. He tried to guarantee
the military's power over future elected governments and ensure
that he and other military officials would never be held accountable
for their crimes.
A civilian government was finally elected in 1990, but Pinochet
continued to overshadow political life, hampering a democratic
transition. Few in Chile dared to challenge seriously the military's
institutional impunity at that time. So the work had to be done
abroad. It was the dogged pursuit of the Letelier murder and
other cases by family members and international human rights
activists that eventually led to an autumn for the military
patriarch.
In the U.S. the Letelier investigation resulted in the arrest
and conviction of several military officials, some of whom are
key witnesses today in the case building against their former
commander-in-chief. In Spain, family members of a victim tried
another legal strategy. Carmen Soria, a Spanish citizen whose
father was murdered in Chile in 1976, took her case before the
Chilean court in 1990. As expected, it was thrown out because
of the amnesty law. But this case and the murder of other Spanish
citizens led Spanish judges to consider an innovative legal
strategy. Maybe Pinochet couldn't be brought to justice in his
own country, but if he had given orders to murder Spanish citizens,
could he be held account-able before a Spanish court?
Bust in Britain Spurs Activists
With the London arrest, human rights activists intensified
international efforts to bring Pinochect to justice. In the
U.S. and Chile, this pressure led to several legal breakthroughs.
In June 1999, the Clinton Administration finally declassified
thousands of documents on human rights abuses in Chile. The
U.S. Justice Department also reopened a long-dormant grand jury
investigation aimed at indicting Pinochet for the Letelier murder.
By March 2000, nearly 7,000 documents had been released and
thousands more are expected by the end of this summer, according
to the Institute for Policy Studies. Meanwhile in Chile, the
London arrest dispelled the myth of Pinochet's untouchability.
Tenacious Chilean Judge Juan Guzman found a loophole to circumvent
the amnesty law and began argued successfully that if a person
was still "disappeared," and their body had not been
found, then their case was still open.
Just before Pinochet's arrest, one Chilean had dared to file
a case against the General. By May 2000, more than one hundred
others had followed suite. Many of the cases involve victims
from the caravan of death" case in which at least 75 political
prisoners were taken from jails in 1973 by an elite squad, tortured
and executed. Two important generals have been implicated and
the Chilean press reported in March that one of them had fingered
Pinochet as ultimately responsible.
Political analysts agree that Pinochet's forced absence from
Chile allowed two key changes to occur: it opened the way for
a Socialist president to take power and it brought the discussion
of human rights violations into the public realm. While Pinochet
was fuming in England, Ricardo Lagos was elected president.
Lagos assumed the spotlight when in 1988 he worked to defeat
a referendum that would have extended Pinochet's power. He has
pledged to help his country complete the transition from dictatorship
to democracy and remove non-elected top military brass from
the Senate.
The absence of the military's supreme leader also seemed to
have an impact within the armed forces. In August 1999, Chilean
military leaders agreed to participate in an unprecedented dialogue
with political leaders over how to deal with the enduring problems
of the Pinochet dictatorship. One of the items under discussion
is the formation of some kind of Chilean truth commission. Talks
are still underway.
Grassroots groups also stepped up their activity. Former torture
victims organized "La Funa," and group that publishes
the names of unpunished torturers. Citizens also began to publicly
challenge the military draft and question the military's secret
budget.
The Homecoming
On March 3, 2000, Pinochet returned home to n airport welcome
by top army commanders and a large phalanx of elite special
forces wearing black berets and full combat gear. The army greeting
enraged many human rights defenders, but the welcome mat wasn't
out long. Just 10 days after Pinochet's arrival, the Chilean
Supreme Court granted a U.S. Justice Department request, announcing
it would subpoena 46 officials of the Pinochet regime to testify
as witnesses for a U.S. investigation.
Within just a few weeks, retired military officials began to
reveal grisly details of executions to the Chilean press. For
25 years, Pinochet's military colleagues have maintained a solidarity
of silence about their former commander in chief's responsibility
for the violence. But in recent months at least five generals
and four dozen former high-ranking officers have been indicted,
and the military's clan-like solidarity seems to be disintegrating
in the midst of an every-macho-for-himself scramble. Army officers
have anonymously sent documents to Chilean reporters implicating
Pinochet in key cases.
The Chilean military still has an important toehold in civilian
institutions like the Senate through several designated senators
and conservative political allies. According to military analysts,
however, there is a window of opportunity for the new president
to gain more control over the Defense Ministry. Rising military
costs, two years of low copper prices and some of the expense
of Pinochet's detention in the U.K. have drained military coffers.
The institution is in a weak position financially and the army's
secret budget had become a public issue.
A generational change is also taking place in the army as younger
officers begin to move up in the hierarchy and an old guard
retires. It is a hopeful scenario. When military leaders publicly
grumbled in May about the court decision to revoke Pinochet's
immunity-the type of grumbling that coup rumors are made of-President
Lagos publicly chastised military leaders and adamantly defended
the independence of the judiciary. It is another sign that since
Pinochet's arrest in London, civil institutions like the presidency
and the judiciary have been strengthened as the army loses some
of its omnipotence.
The Chilean Supreme Court could still restore Pinochet's immunity
and the legal proceedings may drag on for year. Political Analyst
Roger Burbach writes that: "The very length of the process
will help rather than hinder those who want to 'de-Pinochetize'
Chile. Every court decision will provoke a public response-and
Pinochet's life will not be an easy one."
Always a Chilean
Just five days after Pinochet's immunity was revoked in May,
the Washington Post reported that federal officials uncovered
new evidence that could help indict Pinochet for conspiracy
to murder vocal critic Orlando Letelier in 1976. The evidence
is that an angry Pinochet intervened to strip Letelier of his
Chilean citizenship just 10 days before he was murdered. "I
was born a Chilean, I am a Chilean, and I will die a Chilean,"
Letelier said in Madison Square Garden speech after hearing
the news that his citizenship had been revoked.
It is a case that has come back to haunt both the aging general
and U.S. policy makers. Federal officials refer to the car bombing
as the worst case of international terrorism ever committed
in the U.S. capital. The chances of Pinochet ever being extradited
to the United States seem remote because of an extradition treaty
between Santiago and Washington.
However, an indictment-like the 1998 arrest in London-would
have symbolic value and increase the pressure on Chilean authorities
to try him in his own country for human rights abuses. The pursuit
of Pinochet indictment in the United States is also important
to stop impunity at home and prevent future foreign policy debacles
like the CIA's support for the bloody 1973 military coup that
put Pinochet in power. It has already given former government
officials like Henry Kissinger (a foreign policy architect during
the Vietnam War) and retired Col. Oliver North (Contragate),
something to think about.
On March 26, 2000, the New York Times reported that the Pinochet
rulings "have more quietly raised some eyebrows among former
American officials who now wonder whether they too could some
day be extradited-let us say, if the U.S. lost its position
as the world's sole superpower-and tried any time any judge
in the world accuses them of human rights violations."
North, interviewed by the NYT, admitted that "It limits
my travel to certain countries."
Written by Trish O'Kane of the Latin American Working Group.
Suggested actions:
Carmen Soria, a Spanish citizen, helped to bring Pinochet to
justice by pushing the case of her father's in Spanish courts.
It was this type of legal action that led to Pinochet's arrest
in London. U.S. citizens were also murdered by the Pinochet
regime and we must demand that out own government fully disclose
all that is known about any crimes and properly investigate
them.
Journalist Charles Horman and college student Frank Teruggi
were arrested and executed in Chile by the Chilean military
according to declassified State Department documents. In a 1976
memo made public in October, the U.S. State Department admitted
that "U.S. intelligence may have played a part in Horman's
death."
1. Ask the State Department to keep maximum diplomatic pressure
on the Chilean government to vigorously investigate Horman and
Teruggi's deaths.
2. Press the Justice Department to offer law enforcement resources
and expertise to the Chilean government for investigation of
human rights violations. Ask your senators and congressperson
to write to Attorney General Reno, calling for assistance to
resolve such crimes.
3. Stay informed. Subscribe (it's free) to Pinochet Watch,
a bi-weekly online newsletter published by the Institute for
Policy Studies (IPS). Also check out IPS' web page, which has
a highly informative news section on the Pinochet campaign at
www.ips-dc .org, hit "Project," and go to "Bring
Pinochet to Justice."
Addresses:
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
The State Department
2201 C Street NW
Washington DC 20520
Attorney General Janet Reno
The Justice Department
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20530
The Honorable _________
U.S. House of
Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable _________
U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510
General Assembly guidance:
In 1994, the 206th General Assembly stated that it "stands
in solidarity with those who are deprived of their human rights,
recognizing that the whole church is called into a community
that challenges those who violate the God-given dignity of others."
In 1983, the 185th General Assembly; stated that "a clear
focus on the 'human rights' question, in the United States and
around the world, forces us to look not only at the issues and
instances but also at the role of the United States. We must
see our nation not only as it would be, a champion for human
rights, but also as it is, consciously or unconsciously, a participant
in the violations of the human rights of many."
Help Us Help You!
Presbyterians are encouraged to support the mission priorities
of their congregation and presbytery. However, the Washington
Office continually designs new programs that aid local social
justice ministries. To support the work of the Washington Office,
you may send a contribution to Mission Funding, Extra Commitment
Opportunities, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202.
Designate the Washington Office, ECO #865714.
Be sure to visit our web site at www.pcuse.org/pcusa/nmd/wo
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