Chile's Violent Past Still Being Unearthed

En español: El Violento Pasado de Chile Sigue Siendo Desenterrado

With the approach of presidential elections to be held in December 2005, Chile’s center-left coalition government and its right-wing opposition appear to be approaching an agreement to put an end to investigation of human rights abuse cases stemming from Pinochet’s regime and to declare the end of the country’s 15-year transition to democracy.

We can feel nothing less than fear and outrage in the face of this compromise with those who profiteered from that terrible period. Countless cases of torture and disappearance remain un-investigated, untried, and un-prosecuted, while perpetrators of these crimes lead normal lives, undisturbed amidst the larger population of the country.

Pinochet and his family are being held accountable for tax evasion, and are being questioned about the sources of the multi-million-dollar fortune which the dictator amassed during his time in power. Many members of the right-wing parties who have supported Pinochet’s actions all these years as justified during a time of "war", have publicly withdrawn their staunch support of the former dictator in the face of his financial misconduct. Chileans are now faced with an aberrant scenario in which a politically and economically powerful sector of the population acts as if economic crimes are more serious, or at least more deserving of being prosecuted, than those involving torture, disappearance, and killing of human beings. It is in the context of this scenario that the following account of events which have recently been unfolding in Curacautín, Chile and which scream for immediate investigation by the government of any democracy in their own right, deserves to be widely distributed in order to ensure that government reaction – long-delayed in spite of our repeated calls for help - finally materializes in a manner befitting a true democracy.