Chile goes in search of those who disappeared under the dictatorship
Chilean President Gabriel Boric on Wednesday announced a national search plan for more than a thousand people who disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).
So far, the main obstacle in the search for the missing has been the non-cooperation of the armed forces.
AFP
President Gabriel Boric announced Wednesday that for the first time the Chilean government will support research to find more than a thousand people who disappeared during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). A military coup.
For decades, the search was almost exclusively the responsibility of families, and only 307 remains were found. The fate of another 1,162 people is unknown. “Justice is long overdue,” President Boric said, launching the National Program for Truth and Justice, the first official initiative of its kind.
“Knowing the whole truth is the only way to build a freer and more respectful future of life and human dignity,” he said at a ceremony attended by right-wing opposition forces outside the presidential palace. Funded by the government, the project aims to reconstruct the trajectory of victims after they have been detained and disappeared. Most of the disappeared were laborers and farmers in their mid-thirties.
More than 3000 massacres
“No other government has the political will to ensure that this ordeal is not only worrying for the loved ones, but for the entire society and the state where our loved ones are missing,” responded Gabby Rivera, president of the Prisoners’ Relatives Association. He disappeared during the ceremony.
On September 11, 1973, on August 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet organized a CIA-backed military coup against socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile, democratically elected three years earlier, and imposed a military dictatorship marked by bloody repression until 1990. About 40,000 people were tortured and 3,200 were killed or are still missing.
So far, the main obstacle in the search for the missing has been the non-cooperation of the armed forces. Family associations claim that they have all the information but refuse to give it in the name of “silence agreement”.
In the late 1990s, the military provided information on about 200 prisoners who were allegedly thrown overboard. Augusto Pinochet died in 2006 having never been punished for the crimes committed by his regime.
AFP
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