The Chilean government announced yesterday that it will propose a bill to partially lift the secret of the report prepared two decades ago by the Political Imprisonment and Torture Commission, known as the Valech Commission, to clarify the identity of opponents imprisoned and tortured during the military dictatorship. (1973-1990).
The lifting of the secret is a historic demand by the relatives of the victims of the regime of General Augusto Pinochet and seeks to facilitate the work of the officials who will carry out the national plan to search for disappeared detainees announced last week by the Government.
"The purpose is to be able to meet one of the objectives of the plan, to trace the trajectories of each of the people detained and made to disappear," said the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Luis Cordero.
Paradoxically, while the world remembers the Chilean dictatorship as one of the bloodiest in recent history, a part of the population of that country –according to different surveys– today refuses to condemn the Pinochet regime, in a reaction that has much to do with to do with the increase in insecurity in the country (because of drug trafficking) and the progress of the economy.
According to the AP agency, a survey carried out in July by the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP) Foundation indicates that 66% of those surveyed agreed with the statement that before worrying about human rights, what the country needs it is a strong government. Four years ago, that percentage was just 32%.
Other polls show that up to a third of Chileans still today justify the coup against a democratically elected government, despite the fact that it trampled on human rights, suppressed elections and liquidated its opponents.
On the other hand, the presidents of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, will travel to Chile to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1973 coup, reported the Chilean Foreign Ministry. The ministry announced that the Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, and the President of the Federal Council of Germany, Peter Tschentscher, will also participate in the September 11 commemorative event.
September 11 marks 50 years since General Augusto Pinochet led a coup against the government of socialist President Salvador Allende (1970-1973), who committed suicide in the La Moneda presidential palace before being caught by the military . The coup began a cruel 17-year dictatorship that left a balance of more than 40,000 victims, including at least 3,200 murdered opponents, of whom 1,469 were victims of forced disappearance.
The Chilean government has organized for that day a large citizen event in a square next to the presidential palace and previously the president, Gabriel Boric, will tour the La Moneda presidential palace with the invited heads of state and government. The former presidents of Colombia, Ernesto Samper and Juan Manuel Santos, will also attend the ceremony; from Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla; from the Spanish government, Felipe González, and from Uruguay, José Mujica.
