[NYTr] Chile, 30 Years Later - Returning to the Scene of the Crime

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Aug 17, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/bliss08172007.html

Chile, 30 Years Later

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

By SHEPHERD BLISS

"Speak to the judge's heart," the comforting Chilean human rights
attorney Sergio Corvalan suggested, after hearing about my continuing
pain over Frank Teruggi's terrible death in September, l973, at the
hands of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. So I did. It was good
counsel.

"Frank was like a younger brother," I confided to Judge Jorge Zepeda's
staff in early August this year. "I want to tell you about the sweet,
nonviolent, idealist person that he was." I feel that I was heard by
the attentive law clerk taking careful notes.

If I were to speak to the judge again, I would add something like the
following: "Frank was a man of peace and an anti-war activist. He was
trained in and engaged in nonviolent actions. Frank was one of
thousands of young people who went to Chile to participate in an
historic moment of a country choosing peaceful solutions. Frank saw
himself as part of that struggle."

On another September 11, 1973, Gen. Pinochet--with the proven support
of U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger--toppled the democratically elected government of Chilean
President Salvador Allende.

I worked in Chile as a Methodist minister in l971 and returned this
year for the first time. I had been summoned back to testify in the
kidnapping, torture and execution of my good friend, whose case is
slowly making its way through the legal system.

Two U.S. citizens, Charles Horman and Frank, were executed that
September. They were among thousands killed by the Pinochet junta. Tens
of thousands were tortured and many were desaparecidos (disappeared),
whose families still do not know what happened to them. Horman's case
is more known because of Costa-Gavras' Oscar-winning film "Missing,"
which portrays his story and also mentions Frank.

Pinochet became Latin America's most notorious dictator-the model of
evil. He exported his state terrorism elsewhere in South America
through Operation Condor. Pinochet wounded Chile and its people, though
a few continue to sing his praise. He did succeed in bringing order
with his authoritarian rule. One can still enter some homes and offices
in Chile and see photos of Pinochet.

Pinochet's knife went to the heart and soul of Chile. Many people
merely want to forget what happened under Pinochet. But such
forgetfulness makes it difficult to build an authentic future based on
historic memory.

My recent time in Chile convinced me of two important facts: Frank was
not killed by a patrol for violating a curfew, as the military
contends, but was executed intentionally at the National Stadium where
he had been imprisoned. In addition to that crime, its still ongoing
cover-up is a second crime. The brutality of the Pinochet dictatorship
and its continued impunity has created what international law considers
"a crime against humanity."

After the judge and his staff met with Frank's sister-Janis Teruggi
Page, who was in Chile for the first time--and myself, articles about
our testimony appeared in the daily La Nacion and in the Santiago
Times. Our presence seems to have stimulated heightened attention to
Frank's case and moved it forward after so many years of scant
activity. The Teruggi case does not stand alone. Work on such high
profile cases can help the many other families seeking information and
justice, according to attorney Corvalan.

The Chilean press identified four retired generals who allegedly
facilitated the killings of Teruggi and Horman: Gen. Augusto Lutz, Gen.
Sergio Arellano Stark, Gen. Herman Brady, and Gen. Cesar Benavides.
Several Navy intelligence officials who had been monitoring the
movements of Teruggi and Horman were also identified.

"We are now receiving a huge amount of new information which should
reveal what happened in the National Stadium," Corvalan is quoted in La
Nacion Aug. 2.

Pedro Alejandro Matta was one of the many inspiring exiles I
interviewed who has returned to Chile. The United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees wrote the following about Matta in a document
entitled "Prominent Refugees." "Matta was arrested, taken to two
different torture centers and then imprisoned for over 13 months. He was
never brought before a court of law or charged with any crime." He was
eventually granted asylum in the U.S. After fifteen years in exile and
the fall of Pinochet, he returned to Chile in l991.

Matta took Frank's sister and I to some of Chile's notorious torture
centers. "I'm going to give you a collective history," Matta began at
Villa Grimaldi, which has since been turned into a peace park. I could
tell from Matta's eyes and demeanor that this trip differed from the
others on which he had guided us during the previous week.

"The Chilean coup was one of the most violent events in the history of
Latin America," Matta began. "The bombing of the Presidential Palace
spread out over the entire country. Helicopters with machine guns fired
on the poblaciones (shanty towns of poor people). The junta declared an
internal war on half the population-a search-and- destroy mission
against unarmed civilians. This produced a massacre. When the jails
were full, military bases were used. Then sports stadiums." Matta
proceeded to give a day-by-day account of torture at Villa Grimaldi, a
large private residence that the military took over.

Even with many years as a professional journalist listening to other
horror stories, Matta's details were almost unbearable to hear. The
only way I could force myself to listen was to bow my head and take
copious notes; I have still been unable to fully read them. In 2000
Matta wrote a booklet-"A Walk Through a 20th Century Torture Center:
Villa Grimaldi, Santiago de Chile, A Visitor's Guide," which is
available from p.matta at vtr.net.

As I listened to Matta and toured the torture center, I also thought
about Frank. Images of his terrible death have returned over the years.

"Impunity" was a word I heard often in Chile; it literally means
exemption from punishment. Pinochet established an Amnesty Law in l978
to protect the criminal behavior of his dictatorship that has made it
difficult for courts to convict military or police officials of their
crimes. Pinochet's Constitution still governs Chile.

In December of 2004--after interviewing 35,000 survivors of human
rights abuse-a Chilean commission reported that torture was a habitual
practice of the dictatorship. Some of those survivors have entered a
bank or other office to find themselves facing their torturer. The
names of some torturers are known, but they have not all been charged.
Such impunity keeps the trauma alive.

Here in the U.S. our current president and the head of the "Justice"
Department take actions that indicate they feel above and beyond the
law.

Chile may seem a long ways from the U.S. and Frank's execution may seem
long ago. But it is important that U.S. citizens pay attention to the
matter at this historic and challenging moment in our history. Chile
contains lessons for U.S. citizens, including understanding the Iraq
War today. By studying Chile, we may better understand what is
happening in the U.S., as our civil rights diminish and torture occurs
in Guantanamo and elsewhere.

Among the issues raised in Chile today are the following: When to judge
and when to forgive? How can a nation deal with collective trauma?
Remembering or forgetting? When to seek justice and when to seek peace?
These are not simple questions. It is one thing to think about them
abstractly from a distance, another to be in the middle of them.

Restorative justice is what a close colleague of Frank's in Chile in
the early 1970s, Dr. Mishy Lesser, who now works in the Boston area as
an educator, advocates, "Restorative justice is a set of principles
used for addressing conflict and harm. It focuses on what needs to be
done to repair harm and who is responsible for that repair. Offenders
have personal obligations to victims and the community at large.
Restorative practices heal the people and relationships that were
violated, and thus they provide an opportunity to offenders to right
the wrong."

Justice is an end in itself. It would benefit the families of those
tortured, executed, and disappeared, as well as the society as a whole.
It also deters future tyrants. Authentic justice should not be
sacrificed, in my opinion, for a false harmony. It is long past time to
bring the generals and others responsible for the deaths of Frank
Teruggi, Charles Horman, and thousands of others to justice. Some of
their names are known and they should be tried.

Futures must be built upon the past. Though those pasts cannot change,
our understandings of them and learning from them can evolve.

[Shepherd Bliss is a semi-retired college teacher who has contributed to
20 books, most recently to Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, edited
by Maxine Hong Kington (www.vowvop.org). This semester he is teaching
two courses: "War and Peace" and "Nonviolent Communication." He can be
reached at: sb3 at pon.net]