On the eve of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup, on September 11, 1973, in the Plaza de Constitución in front of La Moneda in Santiago, the left-wing Chilean President Gabriel Boric presented the plan to seek truth and justice in front of about 500 participants, including Many relatives of political prisoners disappeared and were executed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). It was an emotional ceremony in which Boric, together with the Minister of Justice Luis Cordero – who applauded – signed a decree to make the program a permanent and systematic policy of the state to search and identify 1,092 people.
The search plan is the Boric government’s most important 50th anniversary project and was prepared months in advance. The aim is to know the circumstances and transit route of those imprisoned, disappeared and executed by the Pinochet dictatorship and to track and compare the data with the hundreds of judicial investigations still ongoing in court. Chileans.
Relatives and friends of missing people carried their photos during the ceremony.CRISTOBAL VENEGAS
During the 17-year dictatorship, at least 3,200 people were murdered or disappeared. According to information collected by the Ministry of Justice, 1,469 people were victims of enforced disappearances, 1,092 of whom were missing persons in custody.
There are still 377 people executed whose bodies have not been returned to their families, while only 307 victims of enforced disappearances have been identified. “This number should hurt us, it should make our blood burn, because it shows the extent of the debt that we have as a state and as a society,” the president said. “With this public policy that is permanent, we as a state, not just as a government, take responsibility to do everything in our power and overcome the barriers of what we have been told is possible, given the circumstances to clarify the disappearance. and/or death and the final destination of compatriots who are victims of enforced disappearances, in accordance with the obligations of the State of Chile and international standards,” he added.
It’s not about resentment, it’s about building a future with dignity. It’s not about the past, it’s about the future. Today we present them #NationalSearchPlan As a state, to take responsibility for clarifying the circumstances that happened to the victims of enforced disappearances… pic.twitter.com/eSs7xkhxTn
— Gabriel Boric Font (@GabrielBoric) August 30, 2023
In his speech, Boric recalled recent Supreme Court rulings, including that of Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, in which seven former soldiers were convicted of his kidnapping and murder. “Justice has taken too long. By the way, we must pay tribute to the courageous judges and those who continue to advocate today, but if we consider that yesterday, not metaphorically, in the last days of August 2023, judgments condemning material authors of such crimes were issued by the advisers of La Moneda or by Víctor Jara one also wonders, and it is the duty of the State to ask, since they do not teach it in the classrooms of law schools: if there is justice, when is it not? If it is convenient, it is better that it happens. “I didn’t get there, but something happened along the way, and just because it happened doesn’t mean we have to forget it.”
In this context, the President highlighted the search plan. “That is why we are here today and say that what we are doing today is a gesture of democracy because it is an act of state that will be remembered in a way in which we are mobilized not by resentment but by conviction , that “the only way to build a future that is freer and that respects life and human dignity is to know the whole truth.” And he added that these are not just gestures, but “concrete public measures with funding,” because “we are convinced that they are necessary to have robust democracies that can look boldly to the future.”
Alicia Lira, President of the Group of Relatives of the Politically Executed, gives a speech.CRISTOBAL VENEGAS
During the ceremony, the President was preceded by the leader of the Disappeared Prisoners Group, Gaby Rivera, and the Group of Relatives of Politically Executed Persons, Alicia Lira. Both emphasized the role of the Boric government. Rivera recalled that after the coup and the crimes of the agents of the dictatorship, “there was never any explanation or the slightest consideration towards the families” on the part of the State, for which he appreciated “the political will” of the current government. “The State made the family members disappear and the state must take responsibility. And if we have to stay there for another 50 years, we will stay there,” Rivera said.
The search plan was unveiled on August 30, International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
A divided country
The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup has sparked a series of clashes between left-wing and opposition politicians in Chile. On August 22, for example, there was an episode of shouting and insults between right-wing parliamentarians and left-wing government parties in the Chamber of Deputies.
This is because UDI parliamentarians, together with the Chile-Vamos bloc of the traditional right, supported by the votes of the Republican Party, the extreme right, favored the reading in the chamber of an old declaration dated August 22, 1973. 20 days before the coup, which denounced the “serious violation of the constitutional and legal order of the Republic” by the Allende government and called on the Ministers of the Armed Forces and Carabineros to “put an end to everything immediately”. Situations.” “actually means that violate the Constitution and the laws.”
On July 15, during his first trip to Europe, Boric announced in an interview with Cadena SER that he would call on Chile’s political parties to sign a joint declaration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the coup. The idea he put forward is: “Let all political forces, regardless of our current position, agree that the problems of democracy must be solved with more democracy, not less.” Therefore, a coup is unacceptable. And secondly, that not even the greatest differences justify violating the human rights of those who think differently.”
Luis Cordero, Minister of Justice, with relatives of missing prisoners.CRISTOBAL VENEGAS
However, his approach was not accepted by the opposition, which assumed that the president wanted to convey a unified vision of the coup. “We are not available to sign an agreement written with the left hand, with a biased vision adopted by the Communist Party, with a vision of the past,” said the then chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the National Renewal . from the right. traditional, Frank Sauerbaum.
And as he concluded his speech introducing the search plan this Wednesday, the president returned to the point. First, he regretted “the absences at this ceremony because the presidents of all political parties were invited here and not everyone came.” And then he insisted: “I think it is time for us to agree on something that is very fundamental is, that requires no context, that requires no further explanation, namely that we will never again disrupt democracy through violence, never again.” Rather, we will violate another person’s human rights because they think differently, nothing more. And for those who interpret things, we are not talking about the past, but about what lies ahead, about the society we are building.”
The Boric government faced problems during the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the coup. At the beginning of July, the then presidential adviser, the writer Patricio Fernández, resigned from his position after he was accused by communist parliamentarians and human rights groups of having disconnected the coup from the criminal consequences for the population. Subsequently, the Minister of Culture, Jaime de Aguirre, who was responsible for coordinating activities, was removed from the cabinet.