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CHILE: Another Chance for
Reparations for Pinochet Victims
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO (IPS) - Over the next six months, a new
commission will receive testimony from victims of the
1973-1990 dictatorship of the late General Augusto
Pinochet, who have not qualified for reparations since
Chile's return to democracy.
A bill signed into law in December by President Michelle
Bachelet that created the National Institute for Human
Rights also established an advisory commission to
certify victims of forced disappearance,
politically-motivated murder or imprisonment and torture
under the dictatorship.
The commission, which will be active for 12 months, will
be an extension of the work of two previous commissions
created after this South American country's return to
democracy.
The previous bodies were the 1991 National Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, known as the "Rettig
Commission" because it was chaired by the late lawyer
Raúl Rettig, and the 2004 National Commission on
Political Imprisonment and Torture, called the "Valech
Commission" after its chair Sergio Valech, a retired
bishop of Santiago.
The Rettig Commission documented 3,197 cases of people
who were killed or forcibly disappeared, while the
Valech Commission, created by former socialist president
Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) certified 28,459 political
prisoners and torture victims.
As soon as the regulatory decree is published in the
official gazette - sometime before Feb. 15 - the
six-month period will begin for victims or their
relatives to present their documents at the new
commission's Santiago office, regional government
offices, or Chilean consulates abroad.
In the first week of March, Bachelet is expected to
preside at the installation ceremony for the new
commission, which will be comprised of the same eight
members who sat on the Valech Commission.
The commission's secretariat, made up of about 60
lawyers, psychologists, social workers and other
professionals, will collect testimony for the first six
months. Then the eight commissioners will work on the
accreditation of the claims in each individual case
during the following six months.
Victims who qualify will be eligible for monetary,
medical, educational and housing benefits provided as
reparations.
A web site (www.comisionrettig.cl) has been set up to
get the word out about the commission, and a toll-free
telephone number (800 411 400) was created for making
appointments.
The Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago,
inaugurated Jan. 11 by Bachelet, will be an important
source of documentary evidence for the commission, as it
maintains records of human rights violations committed
during the dictatorship.
It is likely that about 7,000 cases that could not be
certified five years ago by the Valech Commission will
now be presented again, the executive secretary of the
new commission, Claudio Herrera, told IPS.
Lawyers estimate that between 200 and 300 new cases of
killings and forced disappearance will be registered,
said Herrera, who stressed that no upper limit has been
fixed for the number of people to be included on the
commission's lists, in spite of rumours to that effect.
"Everyone who meets the criteria will be certified," he
said.
Herrera said it was highly unlikely that the reparations
process would be upset by the Mar. 11 swearing-in of
rightwing president-elect Sebastián Piñera, who is
backed by two parties that include among their members
individuals who directly participated in the Pinochet
regime.
"There should be no problems" with the certification of
victims and their receipt of compensation when Piñera
takes office, because "the institutions are already in
place and carrying out their work," he said.
Organisations representing victims' families, and human
rights lawyers, have expressed concern over what might
happen to the ongoing trials of former military
personnel and civilians accused of committing murder,
forced disappearance and torture during the military
regime.
Senate president Jovino Novoa, of the ultra-conservative
Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party, which supports
Piñera, announced that he is in favour of invoking the
1978 amnesty law issued by Pinochet, which blocked the
prosecution of those implicated in certain crimes
committed between the Sept. 11, 1973 coup d'état and
Mar. 10, 1978.
In practice judges have begun to disregard the amnesty
law, but it has never been repealed, in spite of a
ruling to that effect by the Costa Rica-based
Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
During his electoral campaign Piñera denied leaked
reports that he had promised, at a private meeting with
about a hundred retired members of the military and
security forces, to speed up the "interminable" trials
for human rights violations and apply the statute of
limitations.
Government spokeswoman Carolina Tohá rejoined that
"there is no statute of limitations for crimes against
humanity."
The future of the Interior Ministry's Human Rights
Programme, which provides free legal representation in
the courts for relatives of victims of the dictatorship,
is also uncertain.
Piñera's supporters have said the programme will be
strengthened. A report released Sunday by Supreme Court
judge Sergio Muñoz, the national coordinator for cases
of human rights violations during the dictatorship, said
that 1,135 cases detailed in the 1991 Truth and
Reconciliation Commission Report have not yet been
investigated by the justice system.
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