I joined the Cooperative Committee [for Peace] in April 1974. My first days surpassed everything the human mind could have imagined. The first thing I had to do to understand the situation was to read testimonies, the files that had already been gathered in those first few months of the dictatorship.
And what I read was absolutely inhumane. It was absolutely foreign to what is, or what should be, a civilized society or one that believes itself to be civilized.
It is unthinkable to act against members of the opposition who are detained, defenseless, blindfolded, restrained, and confined, committing the kind of torture that was used during the dictatorship.
That was my first knowledge of this. Truthfully, they were very hard days. I was barely 23 years old, and thus had little experience. Even today, forty years later, with more life experience, I think I would still be surprised in the same way I was as a 23-year old reading those testimonies.
It was unthinkable that Chilean soldiers were going to commit the torture they committed back then.
And, interestingly, this knowledge and its intensity and knowing the tremendous suffering that an important segment of the Chilean people was experiencing were a spur to become more strongly involved in the movement.
say “interestingly” because, without a doubt, the situation was high risk. I became involved along with other people. We weren’t many: [some stayed away] out of fear or for different reasons. There were very few of us who became involved in the day-to-day defense of human rights.
And we did it openly, showing our faces and using our names: visiting concentration camps, filing criminal charges before the courts using our first and last name, visiting prison rooms, police stations, etc.
But that was the strength one was given. Noting the suffering meant a strength that moved one to act. Even forgetting the personal risks that undoubtedly were real and certain.
I think torture leaves an inerasable footprint, first of all in the tortured. I do not doubt that the tortured suffers a mark that perhaps is not always visible. Torture not only has a physical effect, it also has a very relevant psychological effect.
I was a member of the Commission Against Torture, created by the government of President Ricardo Lagos. We counted at the least thirty-three thousand persons who were subjected to torture.
[Ricardo Lagos Escobar (1938 – ) is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006.]
I have no doubt that there were many more but our work was restricted by time. The effect is more than individual. It affects society, confidence, and the ability to look toward the future with tranquility and without any fear.
Álvaro Varela Walker is a Chilean attorney and human rights activist. He was born in 1951.
Varela studied law at the University of Chile. He became student body president and was active in politics. He supported Salvador Allende, a leftist who was elected president of Chile in 1970. In 1973, Allende’s government was overthrown by a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. As the universities in Chile came under control of Pinochet’s military regime, he was expelled.
In 1974, he began working as an attorney for the Committee for Cooperation for Peace, an ecumenical initiative of the Catholic Church to catalog and defend against human rights abuses committed by the dictatorship. In 1976, Pope Paul VI established the Vicariate of Solidarity (La Vicaría de la Solidaridad) under the leadership of the Archdiocese of Santiago, where Varela continued his human rights work. In addition to publicly denouncing the human rights abuses of the regime, the Vicariate provided legal assistance to 250,000 Chileans and became a target of the military government.
After the restoration of democracy in 1989, Varela served as a member of the Valech Commission (the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) chaired by Catholic Bishop Sergio Valech, which investigated the human rights record of the Pinochet regime. The Commission found that there were more than 38,000 people detained by the regime. The Valech Commission built on the work of an earlier Rettig Report, which had determined that more than 2,200 people were executed by the Pinochet regime. The Valech Commission provided an accounting of the abuses of the military regime, as well as determining reparations to its victims.
Spanish conquistadors led by Pedro de Valdivia conquered Chile in 1541. The country’s capital, Santiago, was founded in the same year. Throughout the 277 years of Spanish rule, there was resistance by indigenous groups, such as the Mapuche.
In the early 19th century, an independence movement began in Chile with the establishment of a national front. The front maintained power from 1810 until 1814, when Spain reestablished control of the colony. Many leaders of the pro-independence movement reorganized in Argentina. In 1817, the exiled rebel independence leaders regained control of Chile and formally declared independence on February 12, 1818.
While initially under the leadership of authoritarian General Bernardo O’Higgins, Chile later established a tradition of democratic rule that largely continued until the 1970s. In 1970, prominent Marxist leader Salvador Allende won power in democratic elections. While the economy initially boomed under Allende, domestic opposition and international pressure, especially from the United States, led to increasing difficulties for the government.
On September 11, 1973, a military coup overthrew Allende and installed General Augusto Pinochet as president. Allende committed suicide as troops advanced on the presidential palace.
The sixteen years of Pinochet’s military dictatorship were marked by significant human rights violations and the abolishment of civil liberties. The dictatorship jailed dissidents, prohibited strikes, and dissolved the national congress and political parties. Thousands were tortured and killed; many more were forced into political exile.
In 1980, the Pinochet regime promulgated a new constitution. It included a provision calling a referendum in 1988, allowing voters a yes or no vote on whether to prolong Pinochet’s tenure as president. The referendum campaign saw massive opposition efforts to encourage voter turnout, with nearly the entire democratic opposition united against the military government. While the Pinochet regime belatedly began making reforms, 56 percent of the population voted “no” to continuing the dictatorship, setting the stage for a return to civilian rule.
In 1989, Chilean democracy was fully restored by a democratic election to choose a new president, the first free election in nearly twenty years.
Since the return to democracy, Chile has implemented significant economic and political reforms, including a free trade agreement with the United States. Although there have been major strides in promoting equality and human freedoms, the human rights violations of Pinochet’s dictatorship still haunt many people. The Rettig and Valech Reports investigated and documented the human rights violations and torture under Pinochet’s government, but many Chileans continue to demand greater accountability for those responsible.
Freedom House’s 2014 Freedom in the World report categorized Chile as “free” with an overall freedom rating of one, with one being the freest and seven being the least. The country also received ratings of one in political rights and civil liberties. However, in the 2014
Freedom of the Press report, the nation was categorized as “party free” due to a lack of diversity in the media.