Human Rights in Chile
Marjorie Agosin’s claim
[“Patchwork of Memory,”
May/June, 1994] that the arpillera
(testimonial tapestry) workshops
ended because of the “state of
absolute silence with respect to
human rights in Chile today” does
not hold water.
The end of the arpilleras coin-
cides with the opening up of new
channels of expression for human
rights and other issues. It is no
longer necessary to smuggle
anonymous arpilleras out of Chile
for the world to know of the torture
and killing that happened there.
Today in Santiago’s General Ceme-
tery, a proud monument names
those murdered by the Pinochet
dictatorship. During 1994, the
funerals continued, as many of the
remaining unidentified bodies were
dug up, identified, and given proper
public burials-with extensive
media coverage. Human rights
activists are working to turn Villa
Grimaldi, a torture center during
the dictatorship, into a peace park.
After the former head of General
Pinochet’s secret police, Manual
Contreras, was convicted for his
role in the 1976 assassination of
Allende’s former foreign minister,
Orlando Letelier, in Washington,
D.C., Chile was gripped in public
debate over whether a special
prison should be constructed for
such human rights violators. In Jan-
uary, 1995, Minister of Public
Works Ricardo Lagos offered his
resignation after refusing to sign
the construction order, saying that a
separate facility for military per-
sonnel found guilty of human rights
abuses amounted to giving them
special privileges.
Agosfn claims that “the suspen-
sion of the arpillera workshops is
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simply a microcosm of what has
happened to the grassroots organi-
zations more generally,” but she
leaves out the other half of the
story. Paired with the political
demobilization of the opposition
social movements in the late 1980s
and early 1990s is the democratiza-
tion and reconstruction of tradition-
al social organizations such as
mothers’ centers and neighborhood
councils. During the dictatorship, the government repressed the soli-
darity workshops, forcing them to
look to the Catholic Church and
non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) for support. Today the gov-
ernment supports the creation of
microenterprises and productive
workshops with credit and training
in market analysis, quality control, and accounting.
The logic and structure of the
opposition movements fell apart at
the time of the transition to democ-
racy for good reasons: much of the
opposition moved into government, the massive human rights violations
stopped, and the economy
improved. Many poor women
stopped participating in solidarity
workshops because they or their
husbands found real jobs, as unem-
ployment fell from some 30% in
the early to mid-1980s to (official-
ly) around 6% in 1994.
It is true that the transition to
democracy opened up more space
for social and economic organization
than for political expression. Com-
plex issues such as the relationship
between the political parties and the
social movements, the widespread
desire for stability, and the retreat of
the “common enemy”–embodied in
General Pinochet-point to the chal-
Continued on page 47
Addendum
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4
lenges of reconstructing civil society
in democracy.
While many activists feel nostal-
gia for the solidarity and unity that
existed during the dictatorship,
Marjorie Agosin’s implicit asser-
tion that life was better during the
dictatorship is absurd.
Stephanie Rosenfeld
Institute for Food and
Development Policy/Food First
Oakland, CA
Marjorie Agosin responds:
Ido not believe that fascism is
better than democracy. I do want
to point out, however, that Chile
today is a “controlled democracy,”
whose interests still reflect the
goals of Pinochet, capitalism, and
the promotion of a new con-
sumerism-all of which are alien
to Chilean culture.
Despite human rights documents
such as the 1991 Rettig Report,
perpetrators of human rights abus-
es during the dictatorship enjoy
freedom and impunity in Chile
today. The fact that the majority of
the Chilean Senate approved the
construction of a special military
jail to house General Contreras and
the fact that Minister Lagos’ resig-
nation was not approved suggest
the government’s friendship and
even complicity with the previous
military government.
I disagree with Stephanie Ros-
enfeld’s assertion that a new form
of expression for the defense of
human rights has emerged. Grant-
ed, the smuggling of anonymous
arpilleras is no longer necessary.
Chile still, however, needs a main-
stream forum to acknowledge the
horrific years of fascism, make
human rights abusers accountable
for their actions, and provide
redress for their victims.
I still believe that the closing of
the arpillera workshops reveals a
state of indifference to the issues of
human rights and military amnesty
among Chile’s civilian population
as well as among the country’s
government officials.
I believe that the government
has created new workshops not
simply to promote the craft of
poor Chilean women but to assure
that these crafts are devoid of
political content, and that
women’s political awakening and
the power of their grassroots
expression are pacified and con-
tained.
I don’t deny that I long for the
spirit of solidarity present during
the years of Pinochet-a solidarity
which targeted the overthrow of
his regime of terror; a solidarity
committed to protecting the funda-
mental human rights of all Chilean
citizens, not only those who live in
upscale Santiago neighborhoods.
Tragically, there are Chileans
who are still totally unaware of the
arpilleras and the desperate
courage of the women who made
these tapestries under the dictator-
ship. How sad and naive of
Stephanie Rosenfeld to believe that
by simply erecting a monument in
their memory, the government has
acted responsibly and with concern
for those who were assassinated as
political prisoners and for the
mothers of the disappeared. Rather
than erecting a memorial in a
cemetery, those of us who survived
the pitiless human destruction of
that phase of our nation’s history
should erect a living monument of
determination to tackle the enor-
mous tasks ahead.
Many of us know in our hearts
that we face arduous tasks that go
beyond pardoning the pardoners of
murderers. Our challenge is to
nurture the growth of a new Chile
in which every Chilean can recov-
er the true spirit of reconciliation
and democracy, a Chile which will
weave the welfare of all classes of
Chileans into the fabric of its soci-
ety and government, not only the
welfare of those wealthy and pow-
erful enough to be granted special
accommodation.
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