Global Policy Forum

By Gustavo González

As they await a court ruling that could re-open the human rights trial of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, the families of those who disappeared during the Chilean dictatorship (1973-1990) have organised a rally this Tuesday that will include special appearances by Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú and Argentine rock legend Charly Garcí­a .

The event to be held at the National Stadium in Santiago will be the culmination of the ''Caravan for Life and Justice'', which began in late September to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the ''Caravan of Death'', as the 1973 military operation is known, in which agents of the dictatorship travelled to detention centres around Chile assassinating political prisoners.

An estimated 60,000 people will take part in the rally, which is intended as a call to re-open the trial of Pinochet on charges of abetting 57 homicides and 18 kidnappings committed by the Caravan of Death, said Viviana Dí­az, head of the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD), Monday.

The Santiago Court of Appeals closed the case in July based on a diagnosis that the 85-year-old former dictator suffers ''moderate vascular dementia'', as indicated in a controversial report by court-appointed doctors.

In November, the Chilean Supreme Court is to issue a ruling on a petition to annul the Appeals Court's decision. The request was filed by the prosecution's lawyers, who allege that there were irregularities in the lower court proceedings because Pinochet was favoured by penal code reforms in July that had not yet entered into force in the Metropolitan (Santiago) region.

''The Judiciary must realise that it is faced with an important responsibility. We are staking our bets that justice will prevail. Pinochet is neither mad nor demented,'' Dí­az said.

The AFDD president stated that even if the annulment of the case is upheld, judge Juan Guzmán, who headed the investigations in the Pinochet case, should continue forward in the legal proceedings against Gen. Sergio Arellano, Brig. Pedro Espinoza and other retired army officers and subordinates who were involved in the mission that assassinated the political prisoners.

The Caravan for Life and Justice departed Sep 30 from the National Stadium, Chile's largest sports facility. The stadium served as a detention camp following the coup d'état of Sep 11, 1973 that overthrew the government of the constitutionally elected socialist president Salvador Allende.

At midday Monday, officials unveiled a plaque on the faí§ade of the stadium honouring the political prisoners who were assassinated at that facility in 1973.

Tuesday's rally at the stadium will also serve as a call for global peace, in the context of the international tensions generated by the Sep 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the U.S. and British military strikes against Afghanistan since Oct 7.

''We have always been against terrorism. In our country we had state terrorism, and all of us who were considered enemies of the dictatorship suffered its direct consequences for 17 years,'' said Dí­az.

''We are against all types of terrorism. We believe that it should not be harboured anywhere, but we cannot accept attacks against the population like we are seeing daily in the bombings in Afghanistan,'' added the human rights leader.

The Caravan for Life and Justice followed the same path as the 1973 Caravan of Death, passing through the cities of Talca, Concepción, Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt and Cauquenes, all located south of the capital.

After the first phase of the caravan was completed, the activists toured northern Chile, visiting the cities of La Serena, Copiapó, Antofagasta, Calama, Iquique and Arica, as well as the old saltpetre installations of Chacabuco, which also once served as a detention camp for the dictatorship's political prisoners.

The Chilean musical groups Sol y Lluvia, Illapu and Mamma Soul joined the human rights activists for the entire national tour, and are to perform Tuesday at the National Stadium alongside Charly Garcí­a.

''Our trip through Chile was successful, with very emotional events in which as many as 5,000 people participated, particularly young people. We left behind the seeds to establish human rights assemblies in each city,'' reported the AFDD leader.

During the Pinochet dictatorship - which lasted from Sep 11, 1973, to Mar 10, 1990 - there were 3,190 political assassinations and forced disappearances, of which 1,197 were the latter, according to the official report released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1991

. Dí­az said there were 72 cases in which victims' remains were found during the dictatorship, but the related investigations were halted by the application of Pinochet's 1978 amnesty law.

In another 105 cases, bodies were identified after Chile's democracy was restored in 1990, but so far the ones responsible for those deaths have not been brought to justice.

The remains of 60 people, presumed to be more victims of the dictatorship, are currently being examined in an attempt to identify them through DNA testing.

As far as dealing with the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship, the most recent actions of the Ricardo Lagos government and of the Judiciary were to designate nine judges whose sole mandate is to investigate the cases of the disappeared that have not yet been resolved.

Another 51 magistrates are to work giving ''preferential attention'' to these cases as well, under a schedule that sets a three-month deadline (extendable for another three months) to wrap up the investigations.

AFDD leader Dí­az said she is confident in the possibility of a further extension of the deadline, but stressed that more resources are needed to continue investigating the fate of the nearly 1,000 of the dictatorship's ''disappeared'' who have never been found.

The activist said progress in the investigations would also require greater political will on the part of the government, the Judiciary and the Chilean armed forces, especially after the disappointing results of the human rights dialogue panel - involving representatives from all these sectors - that met regularly from August 1999 to June 2000.

At the conclusion of the dialogue, the armed forces handed over information on the supposed fate of some 200 disappeared, but investigations based on that data have not produced results, Dí­az said.

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