And Justice, When?

When General Augusto Pinoehet ar-
rived in Valparaiso last March to hand
over power to Christian Democrat Patri-
cio Aylwin and a coalition of opposition
parties, crowds lining the streets screamed
“Murderer!” and threw eggs and toma-
toes. For relatives of victims of human
rights abuses, that moment was “like a
liberation,” according to one member of
the Organization of Relatives of the De-
tained and Disappeared (AFDD). After
almost a year of democratic government,
however, that exaltation has faded, as the
fundamental problems of human rights
violations remain unresolved.
A number of obstacles left in place by
the Pinochet regime, including nine sena-
tors “designated” by Pinochet and a
Supreme Court fiercely loyal to the poli-
cies of the former military government,
have imposed severe limitations on the
Aylwin administration in this arena. The
government has chosen to pursue a cau-
tious strategy of negotiation and concili-
ation with the armed forces and the right
wing in Congress, to the frustration of
Thomas Klubock is a doctoral candi-
date in history at Yale University. He is
currently conducting research in Chile.
as well as impressive international
contacts.
The majority of the returnees have
not been so fortunate. Reinsertion into
Chilean society and culture has been
slow and uncertain. According to head
of the Christian Social Aid Foundation
(FASIC), Claudio Gonzilez, many
former exiles “keep one foot in the
door of the country they’re coming
from.” While statistics are unavailable,
it is clear based on several accounts that
a fair number of former exiles who
ventured home to Chile chose not to
remain.
“The Golden Exile”
There is a certain lack of sympathy
and even resentment for returnees,
implied in such expressions as “el ex-
ilio dorado” (“golden exile”), or “la
marrequeta debajo del brazo” (“loaf
of bread under one arm,” an old saying
which now refers to those who return
with financial support from abroad).
many human rights activists.
While the systematic repression of the
dictatorship has ended, human rights vio-
lations continue to be a problem. In Sep-
tember, two journalists-Juan Pablo
Crdenas, editor of the leftist weekly Andli-
sis, and Andr6s Lagos, editor of the Com-
munist Party’s El Siglo–were jailed for
several weeks by a military court for print-
ing “subversive” articles critical of the
armed forces. And in October, human
rights groups revealed 20 cases of torture
since March, most committed by carabin-
eros, a public security force over which
the government exercises little control.
Two hundred and seventy political
prisoners still remain in Chile’s jails.
Government action in this area has been
“extremely cautious and timid,” accord-
ing to one human rights group. After tak-
ing office, President Aylwin pardoned a
number of prisoners detained for “acts of
conscience,” but did not extend the par-
dons to those accused of “acts of blood,”
whom the government plans to retry in
civilian courts.
Aylwin put forth a series of judicial
reforms, known as “leyes Cumplido”
(named for the justice minister), which
would eliminate the death penalty, re-
strict the reach of military justice, modify
the system of classifying crimes, and
reduce sentences. These reforms have been
blocked by the right-wing-dominated
No doubt many former exiles do bring
personal savings, short-term grants, and
other resources, particularly those who
come from Western Europe and North
America. Far greater, however, are the
number of returnees from Eastern
Europe and other countries of Latin
America, who arrive with few posses-
sions and must rely on family networks
in Chile for assistance, placing an acute
strain on many families.
In addition to tensions generated
from the perception that former exiles
are economically better off is the more
profound question of “Who suffered
more: those in exile or those who re-
mained in Chile through the years of
dictatorship?” While the question is
admittedly absurd, it underlies much of
the tension inherent in society’s reck-
oning with the phenomenon of exile
and return. On the one hand, former
exiles tend to feel guilt for having
“escaped” the day-to-day repression.
On the other hand, political activists
who remained often harbor anger, a
Senate. A constitutional reform expand-
ing President Aylwin’s power of pardon
and amending the dictatorship’s “Anti-
Terrorist” law, now being negotiated in
Congress, could also lead to the eventual
freedom of many prisoners. Recently,
groups of political prisoners engaged in
hunger strikes and their family members
occupied a public jail to protest the gov-
ernment’s policy and demand the imme-
diate release of all political prisoners.
The government’s principal human
rights initiative has been the National
Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
created last April in the wake of a series of
discoveries of clandestine mass graves.
The Commission’s report will document
the most serious human rights violations
of the dictatorship, those that resulted in
death, but it is not empowered to establish
responsibility or to implement its recom-
mendations. The word “justice” is nota-
bly absent from its title.
The Commission is expected to rec-
ommend some form of formal public
recognition of the victims of the dictator-
ship and government reparations for their
family members. According to its secre-
tary, Jorge Correa, the Commission’s
report by itself “will not be sufficient to
produce national reconciliation, but it will
establish the truth to make possible future
political solutions.” The Commission
received testimony for more than 4,000
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6sense of abandonment and betrayal
toward those who left.
“After ten years in Stockholm I
returned to Chile and began working
with a local human rights committee,”
one former exile recounted. “For over
a year I worked practically every day
with the group, doing everything from
stuffing envelopes to rallying against
the dictatorship. Not one person ever
asked me about my life in Sweden. I
was completely silent about my experi-
ences. Then one day in an organizing
meeting I began to explain how our
solidarity group in Stockholm carried
out a particular task, and a woman
shouted at me: ‘We’ve had it up to here
with your talk of how everything is
done in Sweden!”
Many laws currently discriminate
against the vast majority of former exiles
and their families. These include high
tariffs on household possessions accu-
mulated over the years in exile and
brought back to Chile, refusal to recog-
nize educational degrees and profes-
cases of executions and disappearances.
For many, its most important function has
been to provide victims and family
members the opportunity to come for-
ward and testify. One AFDD member
noted that “the people who have gone [to
testify] have felt that in one way or an-
other they have begun to vindicate their
family member; for the first time…an
organization of the state listened to us
with respect.” But for the relatives of the
disappeared the “result of the work of the
Commission is not going to be what we
demand….Those responsible for human
rights violations will not be named…and
will not be brought to justice.”
What action the courts will take on
Commission’s final report-presented to
Aylwin on February 9, but not expected to
be made public until March-remains the
critical, and still unanswered, question.
Pinochet’s 1978 amnesty decree, upheld
in a widely assailed Supreme Court deci-
sion in August, is a fundamental obstacle
in trying cases of human rights abuse.
Currently human rights activists and
the parties of the governing coalition are
considering taking legal steps in Congress
(a “constitutional accusation”) against
the Supreme Court, but have thus far
failed to gain the administration’s sup-
port. Another option, a plebiscite, falls
outside the Aylwin administration’s stated
parameters of working by negotiation and
sional experience gained abroad, and
denial of conventional access to educa-
tion, housing and health care. Last
August 14, the Chilean Senate estab-
lished an Office of Returnees as part of
the Ministry of Justice to oversee revi-
sion of these laws. Headed by human
rights lawyer Jaime Esponda and as-
sisted by a staff of 18, it will also
attempt to mitigate legal headaches for
foreign-born spouses and children. The
Office of Returnees plans to coordinate
job reinsertion programs, scholarships,
and psychological counseling.
Esponda has sought guidance from
the 15-member national coordinating
body of institutions already engaged in
assisting returning exiles, including the
Committee for the Return of Exiles
(established in 1979), the Chilean mis-
sion of the office of the United Nations
High Commissioner on Refugees, the
national committee of World Univer-
sity Service, FASIC, PIDEE and oth-
ers. They generally praise Esponda’s
efforts, but worry that while the will
conciliation within the structure left by
the dictatorship, and is unlikely.
Human rights groups face another
problem: diminishing popular concern.
The protests that followed the first dis-
coveries of clandestine graves have slowly
dwindled, as reports of mass executions
and disappearances have become almost
routine. After 16 years of dictatorship,
people feel a mixture of “apathy, fatigue
and bitterness,” according to a member
of the AFDD. The relatives of the disap-
peared fear that as time passes, popular
may be there, the money to implement
needed programs is not. Since the fall of
the dictatorship, the country’s human
rights groups have lost much of their
funding, particularly from the Euro-
pean governments that formerly housed
exiles.
Though the Aylwin administration
has sought repatriation support from
these same sources, Esponda and oth-
ers recognize that aid for returnees does
not rank high on the administration’s
list of budgetary priorities. “Frankly,”
says Claudio Gonzalez of the Church-
based FASIC, “given our limited re-
sources, our work will focus on the
problems of those who stayed in Chile,
primarily the political prisoners.” In-
deed, with the fate of the remaining
prisoners and other human rights injus-
tices still unresolved, Chileans have a
great deal yet to reconcile. Sixteen years
of dictatorship left a bitter legacy. The
experience of returned exiles thus far
suggests that rooting it out will not be
easy.
pressure will fade and the impunity of the
guilty will remain unchallenged.
The critical moment, everyone agrees,
will arrive when the president makes public
the Commission’s final report. Though it
will contain no surprises, it will provide
an opportunity for human rights activists
to rekindle the movement, which, in turn,
may allow Aylwin to push through his
package of judicial reforms. For the
moment, the question written all over
Santiago’s walls, “And justice, when?”
remains unanswered.