CHILE /SEARCH FOR TRUTH : ‘Heart of Horror’ Being Probed as Panel Studies Pinochet Years

A presidential Commission for Truth and Reconciliation is looking into the “heart of horror,” as a Chilean newspaper editor wrote recently, by researching fatal human rights violations under the 16 1/2-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

A source close to the commission said it will document up to 4,000 disappearances of detained persons and deaths by summary execution, torture and terrorism. And sometime near the end of this year or the beginning of next, it will deliver a report that could cause unrest in the Chilean armed forces, which turned power over to an elected civilian administration last March.

Pinochet, who continues to head the army, has repeatedly voiced concern that the commission’s work could “affect my institution and my people.” His concern apparently centers on fears that information gathered by the commission will lead to the trial of military officers for atrocities or even to illegal reprisals.

“If one of my men is touched, the rule of law will be broken,” he has warned.

The commission is not empowered to make formal charges or to try anyone. But it already has turned over some of the information it has gathered to the courts.

Protected Under Amnesty

The main safeguard for officers accused of excesses is an amnesty decreed by the military government that covers the first five years of military rule, when most of the disappearances and killings occurred. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the amnesty is legally valid.

The commission, appointed by President Patricio Aylwin in April, is making the most complete compilation yet of testimony, legal documents, government files, press reports and information collected by human rights organizations on political killings and disappearances during the Pinochet years. The material, which is being computerized for cross-checking and analysis, will include cases of anti-government terrorism as well as official brutality.

In announcing appointment of the commission, Aylwin said its purpose is to contribute to public awareness of the causes behind “a wound still open in the national soul that cannot be healed by trying to forget.”

In a recent opinion poll, 62% of Santiago residents interviewed said they believed only “a small part” of human rights violations under the Pinochet government were known.

The commission will also recommend “measures of reparation” for victims and official action for preventing similar violations in the future.

The eight-member panel is headed by Raul Rettig, who has been a national senator and a president of the Chilean Bar Assn. The secretary, lawyer Jorge Correa, said the staff of 55 is made up mostly of young lawyers and legal interns who are working in teams to interview witnesses and relatives of victims around the country.

Massive Interviews

About 3,200 people are being interviewed for information on about 2,700 killings or disappearances, Correa said. He estimated that 20% of those to be interviewed had not previously offered information to officials or human rights organizations, partly out of fear.

Miguel Otero, a conservative senator who supported Pinochet’s government, said there is no question excesses were committed under the military regime, but he said the violence originated in ideological struggles dating from before the late President Salvador Allende’s Marxist-led Administration, deposed by Pinochet in 1973. Otero said that, in commissioning the study, “the error was limiting it to the period of the dictatorship.”

He said his party, National Renovation, had been concerned that the commission would be used for political propaganda, with “a daily media show of denunciations and accusations.” But he acknowledged the panel has exercised “discretion and seriousness.”

Alejandro Gonzalez, executive secretary of a Roman Catholic Church human rights organization called the Vicariate of Solidarity, said that official clarification of the truth about injustices can serve as “a form of moral rehabilitation for the victims.”

Commission secretary Correa agreed but predicted that bitterness will persist. “This is a problem with which the country is going to have to live for many years to some degree,” he said. “There is no good solution.”