Valech Commission

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The Valech Commission (after its chairman Sergio Valech Aldunate ; officially: Comisión Nacional de Prisión Política y Tortura ) is a truth commission that was founded by President Ricardo Lagos in 2001, ten years after the transition to democracy in Chile, to investigate the political arrests and Torture was convened during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship . On November 29, 2004, the Commission presented its 638-page final report, which is freely available (in Spanish).

task

The commission investigated the human rights violations that were committed during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973–1990) after the military coup d'état against the democratically elected government of the Socialist Partido Socialista de Chile of President Chile , Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973 . The Army Commander-in-Chief, Augusto Pinochet, had risen to become an undisputed leader soon after taking power. The military had dissolved almost all the democratic institutions on the day of the coup and started to systematically wipe out its political opponents. In addition to their murder, torture was a key instrument of power.

The report is considered to be one of the few reliable sources on the extent of this torture. In view of the still dominant position of right-wing parties and the military, who continue to support or play down the dictatorship, all data and figures should be viewed as the lower limit. For example, all victims of torture from the 1980s who had been formally convicted by law were not accepted as victims by the commission. The Valech Commission dealt only with torture; the more than 3,100 political murders were investigated by the Rettig Commission in 1991 .

Members

The members of the commission were:

  • Sergio Valech Aldunate (President of the Commission), Catholic Bishop
  • María Luisa Sepúlveda Edwards (Vice President), social worker and human rights expert
  • Miguel Luis Amunátegui Monckeberg , lawyer
  • Luciano Fouillioux Fernández , lawyer
  • José Antonio Gómez Urrutia , former Minister of Justice
  • Elizabeth Lira Kornfeld , psychologist
  • Lucas Sierra Iribarren , lawyer
  • Álvaro Varela Walker , lawyer

Results

Purpose of torture

As in most authoritarian dictatorships, torture in Chile had two fundamental goals: On the one hand, the victim should be made to “talk” himself and be prevented from further opposition work (if he had done this at all beforehand). But more important to the military was the general spread of horror. Along with political murders and the “ disappearance ” of people, all opponents of the regime should be systematically intimidated and civil society and grassroots democratic organizations wiped out.

Extent of torture

In Chile, torture was carried out from at least the morning of September 11, 1973 to March 10, 1990, ten days before Pinochet's departure, for almost 17 years. The Valech Commission has recognized 27,255 political prisoners , including 13% women, although the actual number could be a few 10,000 more. 94% of them were tortured. Torture took place in all regions of Chile and in all major cities. It was mainly carried out in concentration camps, prisons, barracks and on ships.

Methods

Soldiers, the military and secret service agents used a wide range of torture methods (see also the section “ Reports from the victims ”). A (far from complete) selection:

Phases

September to December 1973

Former train station - on the right remains of the former concentration camp of the Pinochet regime

Immediately after the coup, most of the victims (torture and murder) occurred. On September 11th alone, 2,131 people were arrested for political reasons; by the end of the year there were 13,364. 43% of the victims were arrested by carabineros (police officers) and a further 30% by soldiers of the army (the rest mostly by members of the air force and navy or secret services). The victims were mainly members and sympathizers of the government, left-wing parties and trade unions. Most of the arrests took place in factories, universities and government, left-wing parties and trade union buildings. Often, almost everyone present was arrested. Public buildings such as stadiums, conference halls and schools were converted into concentration camps . The most famous case is the Estadio Nacional , in which more than 40,000 prisoners are said to have been rounded up. There was also a concentration camp in Pisagua and the infamous Colonia Dignidad was also used for torture. Given the extent of the torture, it is hardly worth mentioning that the prisoners were denied contact with a lawyer or his family, as well as being denied trial, and the families were kept in the dark about the whereabouts of the " disappeared ". The end of this “first phase” was initiated by the closure of the concentration camp in the Estadio Nacional in November. At the same time, the largest secret prison "Londres 38" was opened and the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional was founded informally , the most important secret service in the period from 1974 to 1977.

DINA: 1974 to 1977

After three months, repression and torture became significantly more professional. There were at least 5,266 political prisoners in the next four months. DINA was officially founded in June 1974 and received its own budget. Instead of mass arrests, individual members and supporters of MIR , the Socialist Party and the Communist Party (roughly in this chronological order) were captured and tortured. During the torture itself, medical staff were more and more often present to prevent death (too early). Instead of visible concentration camps, torture was increasingly carried out in smaller secret prisons, between which the prisoners were often transported back and forth. Instead of military vehicles as in the beginning, the torturers used private trucks or refrigerated vehicles. One of the torture sites is located at 8800 Simón Bolívar Street in Santiago. This barracks is the first that we know today that it was operated specifically to destroy political opponents. In 1976 important figures of the secretly working Communist Party were killed here. The exact location of the barracks only became known in 2007 through a statement by Jorgelino Vergara. As a result of his testimony, more than 70 former secret agents were identified by name and convicted of crimes against human rights. Jorgelino Vergara worked as a servant, el mocito, in the barracks. In 2012 the book "La Danza de los Cuervos" by Javier Rebolledo was published, in which Jorgelino Vergara repeats and supplements his statements. After a fatal assassination attempt on Orlando Letelier and an American companion in Washington in 1976, DINA was officially dissolved at the end of 1977 under pressure from the USA .

CNI: 1977 to 1990

The DINA agents continued to torture, however, now under the name Central Nacional de Informaciones . By 1990 another 3,625 people had been captured and tortured for political reasons. The main victims are now members and supporters of the military opposition such as MIR, Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez and Mapu-Lautaro , but also representatives of the peaceful opposition, which appeared on a massive scale from 1983 onwards. Due to international and domestic political pressure, the regime tried to legitimize the torture with security laws. However, the facts did not change: Pinochet was tortured until the last month of his dictatorship.

Reports of the victims

The commission report lists dozens of testimonies from victims of torture. Because these are only available in Spanish , some have been translated and compiled here.

Man, captured in September 1973, Marine Hospital in Punta Arenas ("Palacio de las Sonrisas"):

Later, during the interrogation, a person kept coming up to the chair from behind and slapping both hands on the ears at the same time (the so-called “telephone” [el teléfono]), causing a brief loss of consciousness.

Man captured in September 1973, Río Bueno Commissariat ( Region X ):

... sometimes before the interrogation they hammered my fingernails on both hands, one after the other, until they were all completely inflamed and therefore numb, so that all of my fingernails fell out.

Man captured in October 1973, Estadio Nacional in Santiago :

I was interrogated and tortured three times in the locker rooms of the Estadio Nacional cycling stadium. They blindfolded me, hit me all over, and told me that I would never see my wife and children again and that they had violated them, especially the youngest, who was three years old. I stood, they hit me, apparently with the back of their hand, forced my breath off and made me throw up. They kicked me against the wall and my nose kept bleeding. I had to sit down and they grabbed the parts of my body where they said they would torture me with electricity. They hit my ears with terrible hand slaps.

Man captured in October 1973, 3rd Commissariat in Rahue , Osorno :

On September 19, they took us out of the cell one by one to hit us. A policeman hit me hard on both of my little fingers with a mallet and then later pulled my fingernails with insulating pliers At that moment the Sargento X (name deleted) came in, took the pliers out of the policeman's hand and began to pull out my beard with them ... all of a sudden, driven by pain, I managed to bite this person's hand and a Policeman hit me in the face ... I lost consciousness and when I came to, I noticed that I was bleeding profusely from my head and mouth and nose ... later I realized that I was missing eight teeth ... they took them to me with the pliers pulled ... or knocked out, I don't know.

Man captured in May 1974, Isla Dawson ( XII Region ):

... later my left wrist was tied to an electric oven that slowly burned me for 15 to 20 minutes ...

Man captured in September 1973, Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA) in Santiago :

Blindfolded, I was seated on a chair, modeled on an electric chair, with my feet, hands and upper body tied; the electric wires attached to the temples, once the torture started, I lost control of my head and mouth, I know this because I bit my tongue in two, as did the insides of my cheeks; the pain and panic were unbearable and the fear had devastating effects on my personality. I was dragged back into the hangar, completely naked. When I got there, my fellow prisoners weren't allowed to help me onto my mattress ...

Woman captured in September 1973 in military facilities of the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar in Valdivia :

... I felt a stinging in my body that got stronger and more painful and my muscles contracted, I bit my tongue, bleeding, my heart seemed to stop once and then beat furiously. I collapsed, they beat me until I reacted, they turned the power on again; i think i lost consciousness. I woke up on a pile of straw feeling sick, everything ached and tasted blood and metal in my mouth. I hear someone approaching, listening to me with a stethoscope and saying to someone else: "That's enough for today, give you two 10 milligrams of Valium and water!"

Woman captured in January 1975 at Villa Grimaldi in Santiago :

I realized with horror that they knew about every step I took. ... they told me countless times that I disappeared without leaving the slightest trace and that I would never see my two sons again. They knew their names, the school they went to, and their schedules.

Woman captured in September 1973 at the Estadio Nacional in Santiago :

I was pregnant and was tortured, raped and sexually abused by a group of soldiers.

Woman captured in October 1975 in the Arica Regiment in La Serena :

I was five months pregnant when I was captured. ... electric torture on the back, vagina and anus; the nails of fingers and toes were pulled; blows many times to the neck with batons and rifle butts; fake executions, they didn't kill me but I had to listen to the bullets go in right next to me; I was forced to take medication; they injected me with Pentothal with the warning that under hypnosis I would be telling the truth; Trapped on the floor with legs apart, rats and spiders were inserted into my vagina and anus, I felt them bite me, I woke up in my own blood; they forced two prison doctors to have sex with me, both of whom refused, and the three of us were beaten up; I've been taken to places where I've been raped countless times over and over, sometimes having to swallow the rapists' semen, or getting their ejaculate smeared on my face and all over; they made me eat excrement while punching and kicking me on my back, head, and hip; I have received electric shocks countless times ...

Man captured in December 1975 at Villa Grimaldi in Santiago :

... they brutally beat me for several minutes with their fists, feet and hard objects in front of my wife and my mother. My mother was taken away (she was later released) and the abuse continued on my wife. Confused by our silence, he ordered, "To 'the grill' [la parilla]"… They let me hear my wife's torture for half an hour. ... they tore my clothes off, took me to a room with metal bed frames, tied me to one of them, made cables and electrodes with hooks and nails on my feet, hands, nose, ears, gums, anus, penis and the Testicles and began to torture me with electricity generated by a crank generator.

Woman captured in September 1973 in Fuerte Borgoño in the VIII Region :

... they blindfolded my eyes with cotton and tape and put a black hood on my neck, they tied my hands and feet and dipped me into one of these 250 liter oil barrels, the ammonia, urine, excrement and salt water contained; So they would submerge me until my breathing and lungs failed, and they would repeat this over and over again, along with beatings, what the torturers called "submarino".

Woman, Región Metropolitana , 1974:

After I was raped by the torturers, I became pregnant and had an abortion in prison. I suffered electric shocks, “colgamientos”, “pau-arara” [ parrot swing ] , “submarino”, fake shootings and burns with cigarettes. They forced me to use drugs, raped me, had sex with a dog, and introduced live rats into my vagina and entire body. They forced me to have sex with my father and brother who were also trapped. I also saw and heard their torture. They made the “phone” [“el teléfono”], they laid me on the “grill” [“la parilla”], and cut me in the stomach with a jatagan . I was 25. I was trapped until 1976. There was no trial.

Girls, age 14, Region VII , 12 days in prison, 1973:

... Then one of them took off his pants and took out his penis and forced me to make it stiff with my mouth. Then came the other and then the next. In total there were three soldiers to whom I had to mouth it, the last one came in my mouth; I don't know who they were because they were masked. The only thing I know is that my life was never the same again when I was still a student. That's why I have never been able to go to school again ... the only thing I know is that I can't forget anything.

Woman, V. Region , 1974:

The torture lasted about 12 hours each time. They did the same thing every day. I was three months pregnant. I received blows in the abdomen. ... They faked me to be shot and raped me. They tore out my little finger nails and burned my body. I heard them torturing other prisoners and they made me hear a tape of children screaming and telling me it was mine. They made me eat feces. Because of the torture, I suffered a spontaneous miscarriage in X [omitted]. I have never received medical care.

Man captured in May 1988, Cuartel General de Investigaciones (General Mackenna), Región Metropolitana :

... they came into our house, beat my family, destroyed the house looking for weapons, they beat me in front of my family, they put a hood on me and pushed me into a car. We arrived at the barracks, where they put me in a narrow room, where they handcuffed my hands and feet, then the torture began with beating on the temples, electricity in the mouth and ears, beating on the legs, later because If they failed, they beat me with their fists, then brought in a compañero and tortured him in front of my eyes to make me talk. That was the first day ...

literature

  • National Commission to Investigate Political Imprisonment and Torture (Ed.): “There is no tomorrow without yesterday”. Coming to terms with the past in Chile (abridged German edition), Hamburg: Hamburger Ed., 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Final report of the Valech Commission (Spanish, PDF, 17 MB), accessed on April 9, 2015
  2. ^ Final report of the Valech Commission on Torture in Chile (Spanish), especially p. 351 ( PDF ( Memento of August 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ); 1.2 MB).
  3. ↑ http://radio.uchile.cl/noticias/158309/
  4. ↑ a b c Final report of the “Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura”, 2005, p. 227 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  5. ↑ Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 229 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  6. ↑ Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 230 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  7. ↑ a b Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 234 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  8. ↑ Final report of the “Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura”, 2005, p. 237 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  9. ↑ Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 243 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  10. ↑ Final report of the “Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura”, 2005, p. 237 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  11. ↑ Final report of the “Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura”, 2005, p. 245 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  12. ↑ Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 250 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  13. ↑ a b c Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 253 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))
  14. ↑ Final report of the "Comisión Nacional de Prisón Política y Tortura", 2005, p. 228 ( PDF ( Memento of February 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ))