Pinochet Must Pay For His Crimes -- It's Something Personal
Tito Tricot
<[log in to unmask]>
October 1998
It hasn't rained for a long time in Chile. The fields are dry and
the lakes are running low. But no one is thinking about the
country's drought since General Augusto Pinochet was arrested
in London this month. Rightwing politicians and the Armed
Forces were astonished. The Left and Human Rights activists
were sceptical. I was delighted. Yes, because for the first time
in 25 years the greatest murderer in Chilean history was about
to pay for his crimes.
I am happy, yet at the same time sickened by the actions of
those who claim that the dictator's rights are being violated.
By those who state that the ageing General's rights were
violated when the British Police kept him two hours
incommunicado. Two hours!!! Is this a sick joke? He kept a
country under a permanent state of terror for 17 years, he
detained, tortured and killed thousands of Chileans and none of
those who today talk about Human Rights did anything for the
victims of the repression.
For designated senator and former commander in chief of the
Navy, Jorge Martinez, this is nothing but "an international
conspiracy". For the Chilean government the British action
constitutes "a legal aberration". There is certainly a legal and
political dimension to the case, but there is also a personal
dimension. Something which neither the current Chilean
government nor Pinochet supporters care about. But I do,
because I cannot forget the horrifying screams for help of
Patricia who was repeatedly raped by a gang of "brave" Chilean
marines. She was only 15, at the time of the coup. She was
arrested, like many of us, simply for being a supporter of the
Popular Unity government. I will never forget the night she
tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall. Did
any of the rightwing members of Parliament whom today so
wholeheartedly defend Pinochet do anything for her?
Did any of them defend my legal or political rights when I was
brutally tortured at the Naval Academy in Valparaiso? Where
were they when I was stripped naked, blindfolded and
electricity applied to my genitals? I certainly did not see any
of them when I left the hospital in a wheelchair only to be
taken to the War Academy and tortured again. Yes, this is a
personal problem, for the coup did not only mean the end of a
unique social and political process, but also the end of a dream
for a whole generation of Chileans. It shattered our dreams and
instilled fear in our hearts: fear of the police, of the army, of
our neighbours. Fear of being arrested, of being killed, of
losing a job, of being expelled from school or university. Fear
of living and fear of dying.
Terror became our permanent companion, terror made my
mother's hair to go grey from one day to the other, because she
couldn't find me. She had to go through the Calvary of not
knowing where I was being held, whether I was alive or dead.
She had to go through the humiliating and agonising journey of
knocking at the soldiers; doors asking questions that always
remained unanswered. The general's actions were cruel and
inhuman, taking great joy in the suffering of my people. Our
lives were filled with concentration camps, torture centres,
curfews, kidnappings and disappearances, mass rapes and mass
graves. Our lives, my life, changed dramatically after the coup,
that's why this is so personal. Because my wife was five
months pregnant when arrested by a special secret police unit.
Where were the now vociferous Pinochet supporters when she
was sent to a men's prison and kept in solitary confinement.
Did they ever think about the suffering of our baby? He was
born with mild brain damage, but of course the rich
politicians, businessmen and lawyers who complain about the
treatment of Pinochet, never helped him.
That's why this is personal. Also because we had to endure
many years in exile, because our children were born abroad and
then went back to Chile to live their own exile. Ireland was a
place of refuge, but it was never home. We lived in England, but
it was never home. It was exile, that slow and painful way of
withering away from your family, friends, past and present.
Above all it was the realisation that you were not part of your
country's future. So we came back, but the military had
changed the country's trees and lakes, they had moved the
mountains and the sea. Nothing was the same. But nothing
mattered, because we were home at last. We were happy, until
the night the secret police broke into the tranquillity of our
home, ransacking the place, stealing the little we had and
shattering the peace of the neighbourhood. Nothing had changed.
They terrorised my pregnant wife and the little being in her
womb. "It is war", they shouted, before ripping away my
clothes, tying my hands behind my back and putting a hood over
my head. They took turns in beating me up, I could feel their
stale breath, their joy when their fists or kicks met the flesh.
I stood there, naked, tied up, blindfolded and defenceless, but
proud. Yes, proud, because I was better than they were, because
I had nothing to be ashamed of. They were the raving animals
while I was more humane than ever before, conquering fear in
the name of freedom. But what do they know about ideals,
ethics or morality, they who have been trained in the "art" of
killing. The pain ... my entire body, it got increasingly hot in
that room, the torture session went on forever. Was it still
nightime, was the sun already coming out, were people living
their homes to work, were little children going to school
unaware that in a dark basement cell yet another human being
was being tortured by a group of cowards? I will never know
the answer to these questions, all I know is that at one point I
was taken to another room, tied to a chair threatened with
being executed before tiny electrodes were fixed to my wrists
and genitals. It was electricity. You feel it coming, travelling
throughout your body like a million pins pinching your flesh,
your bones, your kidneys, and your brain. It is a painful
explosion of shiny colours that comes out of your mouth in the
form of a scream that you cannot control. It is as if somebody
else is screaming in the room; it is not your scream, it is not
your body, but it is your pain. You swallow electricity and you
vomit electricity. It hurts, and they know it. That's why this is
personal.
Also, because they broke my back, because I spent four months
with a plastercast from my neck to my waist, not in a private
clinic, not in a hospital, but in prison. Because ten years went
by before I could get a job, because my first wife died without
knowing what true democracy is. Because I was separated from
my children and it hurt.
President Eduardo Frei has called upon the Chilean people to
remain calm. But, you know what? I don't want to remain calm,
for this is personal, this is between Pinochet and I. I want the
whole world to know that he is a murderer, a terrorist, a
criminal, an animal. I want the whole world to know that I feel
deeply embarrassed by the civilian government's defence of the
dictator. It sickens me that two European countries have
finally arrested Pinochet, because our own judicial system
was unable or unwilling to bring him to justice.
I don't care whether he is 80 or a 100 years old. He must pay
for his horrendous crimes. We will never rest until him and all
those responsible for crimes against our people are brought to
justice. It is not only a legal or political problem, it's
personal, because I was lucky, because I survived, because it is
my duty to pay homage to all my sisters and brothers who fell
in the struggle against the dictatorship.
Bill Bartlett
Tasmanian Co-operative
Housing Development Society
27 Emma St
Bracknell Tas. 7302 Australia
PH: (0363) 973155
"A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is
to be the law of the future as it has been of the past."
**LEWIS HENRY MORGAN**
"For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of
human beings ... would learn to think for themselves; and when once they
had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged
minority had no function, and they would sweep it away."
**Emmanuel Goldstein**
"TO ARMS! Capitalists, parsons, Politicians, Landlords, Newspaper
Editors, and other Stay-at-home Patriots. YOUR COUNTRY
NEEDS YOU IN THE TRENCHES! WORKERS, FOLLOW
YOUR MASTERS!!" Written in 1915 by Tom Barker. He was
subsequently imprisoned for this poster.
>>>The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation,
should be one uniting all working people of all nations, tongues, and
kindreds.<<<
Abraham Lincoln.
>>>I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half<<<
Jay Gould, railroad magnate, before the
1886 strike on his southwestern system.
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