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Freedom Collection

Interviews with Genaro Arriagada

Interviewed December 27, 2024

Chile is a very small society. If I were to list of my university classmates who were murdered, there would be many.

We had profound differences with Socialist and Communist party members, but they had been our university classmates. We had been political adversaries but we accepted each other. Consequently, the number of people that I know that were tortured is peculiar for a small society like ours.

Fortunately, I was not a victim of that. I was not a victim. Even though I was one of the most prominent critics during those years. I think it was due to the fact that the [Pinochet] regime defined its enemy as the parties of the Marxist left. The regime attacked them without any concern for their dignity or their rights.

For those people, the price for being involved in politics was the risk of assassination. On the other hand, we Christian Democrats had our offices and newspapers seized. The party was banned. But the price for our involvement in politics was not our lives.