Taking Note

Morality and Power POLICE AND SOLDIERS WERE LIBERALLY DE- ployed in downtown Santiago last February 15 when Maj. Sergio Cea, Chile’s military prosecutor, went face-to- face with Bishop Sergio Valech of the Vicariade la Solidari- dad. But under the glare of TV lamps and the gaze of reporters, the major was clearly uncomfortable. He had come to the Vicarfa to confiscate the files of the medical clinic it runs for people who fear arrest should they seek treatment elsewhere. The brief encounter between the nervous func- tionary of a dying regime and the serene representative of implacable and irreproachable opposition was symbolic of the birth of a new era. It is a story worth remembering as Chileans prepare to go to the polls on December 14. Pinochet always had it in for the Vicaria. Part of the Catholic archdiocese of Santiago, it was set up in 1976 to provide legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses at the hands of the security forces. Under the dictatorship, the Church alone retained autonomous moral authority: Every other institution-unions, political parties, congress, the courts-had been disbanded or compromised by the regime. The Vicarfa quickly became a lightning rod channeling the moral outrage of the Chilean people. After 1982, when outrage overcame fear and overflowed into massive protest, the Vicarfa’s work became all the more important, defending and assisting the hundreds wounded and tortured as the dictatorship moved to crush all opposi- tion. In April 1986, the Vicarfa’s clinic treated a young man with gunshot wounds, Hugo G6mez, who was later accused of participating in a robbery in which a policeman was killed. The Vicarfa personnel who saw G6mez-a lawyer, Gustavo Villalobos, and a doctor, Ramiro Olivares-as well as two other doctors who work with the Vicarfa, were arrested, accused of failing to report the wounded man. Villalobos and Olivares were held for three months and released, then Olivares was re-arrested and held for over a year. Declaring that the Vicarfa was implicated in the case, Maj. Cea’s predecessor, Col. Fernando Torres Silva, de- manded all of its medical files for 1985 and 1986. The Vicarfa sued, claiming the right and duty of professional confiden- tiality-which is codified in Chilean law. Torres then sought all the Vicarfa’s financial records, through private banks and tax offices, and tried to initiate an audit. And he ordered con- tinual interrogations of its personnel-all the while using whatever information he obtained to mount a vociferous campaign linking the Vicarfa to a “terrorist network.” W HILE THE CASE WORKED ITS WAY THROUGH the courts and Col. Torres presented his Roger Ailes- style brief, the Chilean people became jurors in another case, as Pinochet put his own regime on trial. His defeat in the October 1988 plebiscite transformed the panorama and suddenly conferred enormous significance on the Vicarfa’s files. They contain the most comprehensive documentation of the dictatorship’s crimes: details of many of the 15,045 government murders since 1973, the 2,200 disappearances, the 155,000 arbitrary detentions, the 164,000 forced exiles–damning evidence should trials of the officers re- sponsible ever be held. Although it is unlikely the govern- ment could doctor the files or make them disappear by seizing them–copies have undoubtedly been smuggled out of the country-Pinochet became all the more intent on slan- dering the Vicarfa to undermine the credibility of its records. On January 31, the Supreme Court rejected the Vicarfa’s final appeal, conceding only that, since the Vicarfa is a place of worship, Maj. Cea, who had by then replaced Col. Torres, would have to seize the files in person. Spontaneous demon- strations were dispersed with nightsticks, while thousands flocked to sign petitions of support. Three days after the court’s decision, 130,000 signatures had been collected and messages of support had arrived from around the world. Ten- sion rose higher still as protests continued and on February 5 Attorney General Ambrosio Rodriguez announced that he had “lists of communists” on the Vicarfa staff. HE BRUTAL MIGHT OF PINOCHET’S STATE was vested in Maj. Cea on the morning of February 15, as evidenced by the show of military strength in the streets. So was the force of law, a powerful factor in this nation of lawyers. Bishop Valech had only the courage and support of the thousands of Chileans who, in one way or another over 16 years of dictatorship, never stopped resisting. Maj. Cea left the Vicaria about 20 minutes after he arrived, saying only that Bishop Valech had refused to hand over the files for “reasons of conscience.” The Bishop put it this way: “If the stance I adopt in accordance with my conscience turns out not to coincide with the dispositions of the law currently in force…I am prepared to accept the personal consequences.” Over the following month, the Vicarfa payroll was requi- sitioned, staff were forced to undergo lengthy interrogations, veiled threats were made, the campaign of innuendo contin- ued. But the game was up. The Bishop was not arrested, and in a marvelous show of chutzpa he named Gustavo Villalo- bos, the lawyerjailed in the case, to be the Vicarfa’s executive secretary. Slowly, quietly, the government backed down. NOW THE ISSUE WHICH HAS HAUNTED AR- gentina and Uruguay hangs over Chile. Should the torturers and assassins responsible for Pinochet’s criminal empire be prosecuted-even if this risks a coup? Or should “pardon and mercy…take precedence over justice and truth,” as the head of the Chilean Bishops Conference said recently? In June Pinochet proposed an “amnesty,” “to end all this pettiness,” and stop “those who are making money off human rights.” By October he had turned to threats: “The day they touch any of my men, the rule of law will be ended.” This sparked nearly universal condemnation. However, centrist politicians are waffling, including front-running presidential candidate Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin. The Church hierarchy is returning to evangelism, “to leave room for the politicians,” as one activist put it. But Bishop Valech is unequivocal: “One should never fear the truth,” he said not long ago. “The truth frees us from a lot of ghosts and calms passions.” As for punishment, “society needs sanctions which are educational, exemplary and pre- ventative.” The Vicarfa, it seems, not the politicians, will continue to be Chile’s moral authority-the guarantor that the dead will not be forgotten.