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TechnoratiChile: Old Soldiers Ready to Tell Secrets of Coup
SANTIAGO, Chile — Hundreds of former military draftees are making a provocative offer to Chile's government: They will reveal details of crimes committed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship — but only if their safety is guaranteed.
![[In this Sept. 11, 2008 file photo, relatives of dissidents who disappeared under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet hold their pictures during the 35th anniversary of the military coup led by Pinochet in Santiago. (AP Photo/Roberto Candia, File)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/chile_dirtywarsoldierstotalk.jpg "chile_dirtywarsoldierstotalk.jpg")
The draftees fear that if they reveal where the bodies are buried, they will face prosecution by the courts or retaliation by the superiors who ordered them decades ago to torture and kill political prisoners.
The information they once promised to carry to their graves has become both a heavy psychological burden and a bargaining chip. By offering confessions, the former draftees hope to improve their chances of securing benefits from pensions to psychological treatment.
"We were executors and witnesses of many brutalities and now we're willing to talk about them for our own personal redemption," said former soldier Fernando Mellado, who is organizing a Sunday gathering of draftees outside Chile's presidential palace.
"So if there is any opportunity in which we can testify, maybe anonymously, then we'd be happy to oblige."
Mellado leads the Santiago chapter of the Former Soldiers of 1973 and has been working with similar groups across Chile to figure out whether and how to turn over the information. He is calling on draftees to tell what they know.
Of the 8,000 people drafted as teenagers from Santiago alone in the tumultuous year when Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende's government and cemented his hold on power, Mellado believes "between 20 and 30 percent are willing to talk."
Chilean security forces killed 3,186 people during the dictatorship, including 1,197 who were made to disappear, according to an official count.
In nearly two decades of democracy since then, less than 8 percent of the disappeared have been found, said Viviana Diaz of the Assembly of Family Members of the Disappeared Detainees.
Hundreds of recovered remains, some just bone fragments, have yet to be identified. Only those who buried the bodies know where other common graves lie.
Diaz, for one, hopes the former draftees start talking, even if they do so outside the courts. "People have come to us and all we tell them is, 'It doesn't matter that you don't reveal your identity, just tell us the location, details.'"
Chilean law allows for a "just following orders" defense for former soldiers who submit to the mercy of the courts, naming names and providing information that could help resolve some of the thousands of crimes committed under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule.
The defense "theoretically applies and exists" in Chile, and judges can even have people testify in secret, said attorney Hiram Villagra, who represents families of the dead and disappeared.
But most former soldiers fear the consequences for themselves and their families. Some worry that judges who rose through the ranks under Pinochet might protect their former superior officers instead.
In a lengthy interview with The Associated Press, Mellado said the former draftees also are victims — forced into service as minors and made to do unspeakable things or be killed themselves. He said many have told him of horrifying crimes they want to get off their chests.
One confessed to shooting an entire family. Another — now an alcoholic who sleeps in the street in Santiago — said he was forced to drown a 7-year-old boy in a barrel of hardening plaster. Others describe harrowing torture sessions, and loading bodies onto helicopters to be dumped at sea.
"Our mission was to stand guard outside, and listen to their screams," said former draftee Jose Paredes, who described his service at the Tejas Verdes torture center in an AP interview. "They would end up destroyed, torn apart, their teeth and faces broken."
"There are things that I've always said I will take to the grave," Paredes said, his grizzled face running with tears as he named a half-dozen officers who he said gave the orders. "I've never told this to anyone."
The Chilean government has made several high-profile efforts to resolve dirty war crimes, but Mellado said former draftees who wanted to testify were turned away: the Defense Ministry sent them to civilian courts, while civil authorities considered them to be military.
Villagra agrees the time is overdue for the soldiers to seek redemption — and sent a message of support for Mellado's efforts to gather their testimony.
"Clearly there is no desire from our part for these soldiers to carry the burden of guilt of the officers, who were the ones who made the decisions," Villagra said.
An AP review found 769 current and former security officers, most of them military, have been prosecuted for murders and other human rights violations. Almost all deny committing crimes. Only 276 have been sentenced.
Much of the evidence came from former prisoners. Testimony from former soldiers could do much to resolve these cases.
24 Comments so far
Show AllChile of the early Seventies remains the canary in the coal mine for the imposition of the crazed, fundamentalist "free market" economics of the most dangerous economic philosopher of the 20th Century, Milton Friedman. This evil little man with his "Chicago Boys" started the Western world down the path to the out of control cowboy capitalism that plagues the planet now. Friedman and his gang had no prior laboratories to work their "magic" so they needed to show their muscle by tossing out legally elected governments in order to impose their facistic economic structures. We are in great danger now with governments either being overthrown (Chile, etc) or hollowed out (The U.S., South Africa, Russia). Arresting and punishing the perpetrators of the atrocities in Chile is important; it's important to remember what got us there. Think Richard Nixon telling Richard Helms, CIA director, to make Chile's economy "scream."
"the tumultuous year when Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende's government"
I think they mean the year the USA overthrew Allende's government, and had over 3000 people murdered on 9/11/73.
I think 9/11/01 was karma.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Another Serptember 11, more lives lost or deestroyed. When will we ever learn? Probably never.
Poet
Don't forget monster Kissinger. He is involved in Allende's death. Another Zionist part of US politics.
I agree with ray. Can't be. He got the Nobel Peace Prize.
Joe
No sympathy from me for those shits.
In the words of that iconic figure of gringo justice, Robert Blake, in his 70s role as Baretta:
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
Blake didn't do the time for the murder of his wife, but the chileno murderers were not child actors....
National Security Archives webpage on Chile -7,500 documents so far
History held Hostage
The CIA's Refusal to Declassify the Covert record on Chile
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20000817/
Henry Kissinger's name is probably all over those documents. I also would not be surprised if Bush senior's name is there as an up and coming CIA executive thug.
The same Henry Kissenger who received a Nobel Peace Prize.
When Bush is running around the world, speaking at $1,000 a plate dinners and Cheney is blatantly appearing to tell the world that everything he did was just and right and that the real traitors are those who opposed such things as governmental genocide, surveillance of Americans, wars of convenience, abrogation of the Constitution ("Just a goddamned piece of paper!" GWB) and the theft of the US Treasury to support his owners, I don't see much hope.
Obama protects them, prosecutes and widens their wars, and tightens the government's grip on the population.
Living in the Obamanation is little different from being Bushwhacked and I don't see much chance of improvement. Remember, politicians are all bought and paid for by the handful of billionaire parasites that run most of the world. Those are the people who pay them and whose orders they follow. We the People have nothing to do with government excerpt to pay for it and provide cannon fodder.
I disagree. If a million American slugs would stop complaining, get up off their backsides, and go to D.C., they could shut down the gov't, just by refusing to leave. We must make a serious commitment to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
VERY WELL SAID. What a profound insight !
in fact this is the most PROFOUND TRUTH of all - in the matter of nations and what kind of government they are willing to tolerate or put up with , EVEN with governments and leaderships that have crossed boundaries SO FAR beyond any ethical measurement by anyone's instincts , and therefore WHAT people ARE going to DO.
i give the example of my home country - the philippines - which really "began" the recent decades' trends of MASSES of populations forcing their governments BACK to at least certain boundaries...OR ELSE...even if the people would still be willing to be patient "once again" after such things.
Marcos - after 20 years of tyranny and looting the country - with the backing of the USA - was simply TOLD "GO" by the tens of millions of citizens ...who certainly had NO Illusions about things getting instantly much better , especially economically after he was gone.
they had NO illusions and still do not that politicians are corrupt to a great extent in their great majority.
BUT at a certain POINT in their history - they decided:
"ENOUGH" - and simply massed together and his Army couldn't do a THING because they saw - the people were READY and WILLING to die and shed blood for it if the army provoked them further....
and the appeal of people - for the army to lay down their arms peacefully and no longer support the dictatorship - and at least help to try open a different page...even if NOT necessarily the "solution to all things" or even MOST things - but at least REMOVE from power a TYRANT....
eventually won out.
even just as a POLITICAL statement to leadership -- and to remind leadership that even as they would continue to enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary people - there are limits EVEN TO THAT - especially if it comes with fascistic, police state repression as marcos had tried to firm up more and more.
THAT"S where the americans are completely LACKING at.
they are SO frightened of their own "leaders" and government agencies - and their corporate rulers that they can not even really COUNT:
COUNT the way ecuadorans or bolivians said about the "ruling class" trying to repress them some more:
"WHAT CAN THEY REALLY DO IN THE END? they are FEW ....WE are MANY"
THAT is what americans have given up ON.
and therefore they have given up THEIR collective power.
they are so frightened of doing what the FRENCH did TO their nobility --
STRIP THEM of their power entirely. americans are like SNAILS....crawling inside their own shells of "personal security" and FEAR of getting out -- and see they are ALL the SAME acting like SNAILS...and compliantly letting themselves be CRUSHED under the boot...
while their masters Sweep them up, Gather them in a pot , boil them alive and EAT THEM like so much 'a la carte' snack of escargot!!! and they don't even realize that's JUSt for APPETIZERS for their masters.
I will also ADD this:
the USA and most americans say and accuse china is , for example, a demonstration of a TOTAL TYRANNY of "one party" - the communist leadership...citing, for example: the State apparatus of spying, policing, authoritarian dictat, internt control...etc....
and YET what americans do not realize is - in contrast to the USA
the Communist party, powerful as it is, and whatever the merits of demerits based on their own notions of how society is to be ordered and preserved for their national interests --
\
IS ACTUALLY FRIGHTENED of the 1.3 BILLION chinese citizens and will CERTAINLY NEVER try to provoke the chinese citizens in their masses - OR ELSE have the SAME power that brought THE COMMUNISTS to power
TURN AGAINST the party ITSELF.
there are many examples of that :
the earthquake showed the lack of stronger infrastructure - killing hundreds or thousands...the party INSTANTLY went out of its way to ensure the discord and any consequence of not "taking care of the people" did NOT grow larger...and improved the conditions...
a "mere" small instance of pollution by factories in a couple of towns in china that was poisoning townsfolk and CHILDREN ....the party RUSHED to "clean up" LEST the population REVOLT!
while the chinese are , quite obviously , weighing what "fights" are WORTH fighting and which ones are merely to be "watched" but watched INTENTLY ...because they HAVE shown their capacity (simply by building UP the communist party itself all these decades as their nationalist revolt against foreign dominance) to USE their collective power against even the most powerful leaders --
when the Communist party tried to MANDATE putting total spying technology (from the USA) into every computer -
what did the chinese population do? they actually LAUGHED AT IT - and to show they were NOT exactly as intimidated as one would think -- simply used their SAVVY to SABOTAGE the spying!!! and literally make fun and criticise the party .
the government backed OFF! because it was reminded "YOU ARE IN POWER ONLY AT OUR TOLERANCE -- we brought YOU to power -- we CAN bring you down"!
n the USA -- there are FAR MORE crises CAUSED by the government and its corporatocratic fascist tyrants :
the COLOSSAL bailouts of THIEVES like no one in history has ever seen the kind of --
the literal HOLLOWING OUT of the economy
ENTIRE communities , industries, millions of homes, savings, investments, futures, jobs, LOST and NEVER to be regained as if SOME "foreign enemy" INVADED and RAVAGED america....SPYING, "disappearances"..Torture, etc. etc. etc.
and waht DO americans do? they SHRUG! and they QUAKE .
what a bunch of idiots.
You are right.
A good book on the subject of how brazen these crooks have gotten is now out:
In her new book, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses and Backroom Deals From Washington to Wall Street, Prins lays bare the whole fetid corpse of the burst mortgage bubble.
Geithner makes Madoff look like Mother Teresa. This guy is a very serious felon. The book details how EVERY subprime mortgage and past due student loan could have been paid off with the trillions that was, instead, given to Goldman Sachs and others that were moaning and groaning about how our "economic system" needed the bailout. It was grand larceny, embezzlement, fraud and conspiracy on steroids.
And these assholes are the bacKbone of support for our politicians and CIA murderers who finance revolutions creating Pinochet type tyranny for the sake of profit. It's all connected by the fetid stream of fecal effluvium coming from people like GEITHNER, Paulson, Summers and Rubin. Politicians like Bush, Clinton and Obama are just hired help.
1. Why do the draftees feel the need to confess horrific crimes after more than three decades? To me they are as crazy and evil as those who ordered them to commit those crimes. And were they really ordered to commit them?
2. On September 11, 1973 in Santiago de Chile, Salvador Allende was assassinated due to a military coup backed by the CIA, which then, installed Pinochet in power. The overthrow of Allende by the CIA was done mainly to prevent the nationalization of the copper industry, among other industries, in Chile. (Something that the article does not mention).
They confess to heal.
Committing atrocities is traumatic - not so much as being subject to them, but traumatic and damaging nonetheless.
Crazy and evil? Sure, that's why they need to heal.
Were the ordered to commit their crimes? Usually, but one obeys in voluntude and invents in execution.
9/11/73 - somewhere in those confessions someone will find more about Allende, the fall, and much about the aftermath. And we ought to read these things closely. I have heard better analysts than I compare recent conditions in the US to Weimar Germany, but in some ways, el Pinochetismo seems a closer bond.
After all, the guys who arranged it are still running the US -- in many cases the very same individual people.
Well said. This new information could help bury the CIA and expose many of the enablers here in the USA.
I'm sure the CIA is scrambling for "buy em' or bop em' money as we speak. Prison is too good for the CIA wall/war street mob.
The real criminals are those who ordered the torture and executions. Those who had to carry out the orders or be shot themselves or at least be discharged with disgrace can be blamed, but 'there, but for fortune go you or I'. If you blame those common soldiers, then why not blame our fighting men, who are responsible for carrying out orders that have resulted in thousands of Iraqis and Afghans being murdered--ugh. I mean suffering collateral damage. They should definitely go after the perpetuators, and using the testimony of common grunts is absolutely necessary.
let kissinger be brought to chile to explain why the chilean and american navies were doing joint maneuvers on september 11, 1973, when the cia backed chilean generals sent planes to bomb the presidential palace of salvador allende, chile's duly elected president. the torture that followed allende's overthrow and general pinochet's succession was a signal to all latin americans that if you go against the us, be prepared to pay a big penalty;just like when woodrow wilson told the mexicans before he invaded,"we are going to teach you to elect good leaders". the american fear was that latin america might take its resources into its own hands and actually do something for their own people, rather than just provide cheap materials for the american economy. that's why tiny cuba was so reviled by the american right. what has the us actually done to help latin countries? very little,as the countries of haiti, el salvador, domincan republic, grenada, have the highest rates of poverty in the world. all were invaded by the united states. now the united states is building six new military bases in columbia,which will serve to reassert its regional dominance. chavez will be made out to be more dangerous than he is, and the us will probably try to lure him into a conflict.
let kissinger be brought to chile to explain why the chilean and american navies were doing joint maneuvers on september 11, 1973, when the cia backed chilean generals sent planes to bomb the presidential palace of salvador allende, chile's duly elected president. the torture that followed allende's overthrow and general pinochet's succession was a signal to all latin americans that if you go against the us, be prepared to pay a big penalty;just like when woodrow wilson told the mexicans before he invaded,"we are going to teach you to elect good leaders". the american fear was that latin america might take its resources into its own hands and actually do something for their own people, rather than just provide cheap materials for the american economy. that's why tiny cuba was so reviled by the american right. what has the us actually done to help latin countries? very little,as the countries of haiti, el salvador, domincan republic, grenada, have the highest rates of poverty in the world. all were invaded by the united states. now the united states is building six new military bases in columbia,which will serve to reassert its regional dominance. chavez will be made out to be more dangerous than he is, and the us will probably try to lure him into a conflict.
The same Henry Kissenger who received a Nobel Peace Prize.
As much that can done to bring to justice the top and mid-level of those who perpetrated these horrific crimes in Chile should be done. If the price for this to be done means safety, judicial and physical, for conscripts who wound up there mostly as a consequence of their date of birth, so be it.
Hopefully they are sincere.
My personal opinion (also from an experience from personal, family tragedy about an eldest brother that was tortured by the marcos regime) - is : if one could - people should STILL forgive.
yes - perpetrators need to be punished , pay their debts to society - but if society can also find a way to forgive - it should. ..in the last, even if dwindling, hope that through forgiveness , perpetrators might find some good still left in them.
but that's just my personal view.
You are too nice, teddy. I would like to see these confessors expose the truly evil higher-ups behind what went on. You know, the ones who now live in villas and get international honors.
Joe