Amnesty International Report 1995 - Chile

Two journalists and a human rights lawyer were prosecuted by military courts. Cases of torture by the security forces were reported. Military courts continued to close investigations into past human rights violations, but at least 18 officers were convicted for such crimes by the civilian courts. At least eight people died in circumstances suggesting they might have been victims of extrajudicial executions. President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, who was elected in December 1993, took office in March 1994 and replaced Patricio Aylwin. Tension between the government and the military over past human rights violations resurfaced in April, when General Rodolfo Stange, Director General of the carabineros, refused a government request that he should resign after a civilian court recommended that he be prosecuted for obstructing an investigation into the murder of three members of the Communist Party in 1985 (see below). The Corporación Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación, National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation, continued to be informed of people who "disappeared" or were killed under the former military government which ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. The Corporation's mandate was further extended until the end of 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1993). By the end of 1994 the total number of people who had been killed or "disappeared" under the military government was officially acknowledged to be more than 3,000. Seventy-three bodies exhumed from clandestine graves in a Santiago cemetery were identified during the year. Most had apparently been extrajudicially executed. Among them were officials of the late President Salvador Allende's government who had been arrested by the security forces immediately after the September 1973 military coup (see Amnesty International Report 1993). None of those responsible for the killings was brought to justice. A proposal to extend the scope of the death penalty introduced in 1992 had not been considered in Congress by the end of the year (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The government signed the Inter-American Convention on the Forced Disappearance of Persons in June, but had not ratified it by the end of the year. In mid-January Juan Andrés Lagos and Francisco Herreros, director and editor respectively of El Siglo magazine, were briefly rearrested. They faced trial by a military court for publicly accusing the police of corruption in 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). They were released on bail and had not been tried by the end of the year. In April Héctor Salazar Ardiles, a human rights lawyer, was charged by a military court with inciting sedition because he had criticized carabineros for their role in the 1985 killing of three members of the Communist Party (see below). The case was closed in October by the Military Appeals Court but was reopened in December. In October a military court recommended that navy captain Humberto Palmara Iribarne should be imprisoned for up to three years, for publishing a book dealing with the military's role in human rights violations. His appeal was under review at the end of the year. All but one of the 10 remaining prisoners convicted under the former military government of politically motivated offences were released (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Some were sent into exile. Six other people with outstanding arrest warrants from that time were arrested after they presented themselves to the authorities. Three, including Sergio Buschmann, had returned from abroad. They were still awaiting a decision on their petition for release at the end of the year. At least 120 people were serving prison sentences for politically motivated offences committed since the end of the military government. In February, 42 of them were transferred to a high security prison in Santiago. Many were tortured and ill-treated during the transfer. For example, Ariel Sáenz was seriously injured by prison guards who reportedly kicked and beat him with sabres and batons while he was lying on the floor with six other political prisoners. Ariel Sáenz, whose injuries were confirmed by a doctor, was released on bail in September. He had been arrested in November 1993 and tortured by members of investigaciones, the civilian police. At least 11 other cases of torture by the security forces were reported. On 12 March Patricio Fuentes Zamorano, aged 16, was arrested without warrant at his home in Santiago by carabineros. He was forced into a vehicle and taken to a nearby detention centre, where he was allegedly beaten to confess to a crime he did not commit. Later that day he was taken back home and beaten again in front of relatives. His 13-year-old sister Silvia Fuen-tes Zamorano was also beaten. Patricio Fuentes Zamorano was released without charge a few days later. Hugo Fernández Eguiluz, aged 73, was arrested without warrant in Santiago by carabineros on 7 April. He was taken to a police station, where he was reportedly beaten and semi-asphyxiated with a plastic bag. After his release without charge later that day he required medical treatment for his injuries. On 29 April Valeria Baquedano Parra was arrested without warrant by carabineros in Santiago together with her three daughters and her grand-daughter. They were taken to a police station, where Valeria Baquedano Parra was beaten and sexually molested in front of her relatives, allegedly because her husband had lodged complaints against some of the officers from that police station. She was released days later without charge. Few of those responsible for these and other cases of torture and ill-treatment were suspended or prosecuted. However, eight members of the police were under investigation at the end of the year in connection with the arbitrary arrest and torture of Tania María Cordeiro Vaz who was arrested in March 1993 and released without charge in March 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). In November the UN Committee against Torture addressed the case of Chile. While acknowledging that there had been improvements, the Committee recommended effective measures to end the practice of torture by some branches of the security forces, especially the carabineros, and the adoption of legal reforms to limit the scope of military jurisdiction in cases of human rights violations. At least 18 people, many of them officials, were sentenced by civilian courts for human rights violations committed under the military government, despite the fact that military courts continued to claim jurisdiction over human rights cases, and to close cases covered by the 1978 Amnesty Law (see Amnesty International Report 1993). In April the Supreme Court ordered the reopening of the case of Carmelo Soria, a Spanish-Chilean UN official tortured and murdered by government officials in Santiago in 1976. The case had been closed under the 1978 Amnesty Law by a military court in December 1993. In October a court of appeal sentenced two former police officers and a civilian for the 1974 abduction and "disappearance" of two Mapuche Indians near Temuco. The court ruled that the 1978 Amnesty Law was not applicable. The law has been applied to officials responsible for human rights violations committed before 1978, but the court ruled that the crime of "disappearance" continues until the whereabouts of the victim are established. In March a civilian judge sentenced 16 people, including police officers on active duty, for the 1985 abduction and killing of three members of the Communist Party (see Amnesty International Reports 1986 and 1993). His investigation was hampered by six high-ranking police officers including General Rodolfo Stange. The six were prosecuted by a military court, on the recommendation of a civilian judge, but the charges were dropped in June. At least eight people died in circumstances suggesting they might have been extrajudicially executed by members of the security forces. Religious community workers Ricardo Meneses Traipe and Jaime Guarda Rocco were shot at close range and killed by two reportedly drunken carabineros in the streets of Santiago on 22 October. The officers were suspended and were awaiting trial at the end of the year. Three carabineros were indicted in January for the killing of José Araya Ortiz in September 1992, but the case was transferred to military courts in November. Amnesty International continued to call for full investigations into human rights violations and for those responsible to be brought to justice. The organization also continued to call for the abolition of the death penalty.