The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, signed a decree that launches the National Search Plan for victims of forced disappearance during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). There were 1,469 victims during this period, of which only 307 have been found and identified so far. The president’s plan is to hold the State accountable through a permanent national policy that transcends the governments that take power.
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Chile is approaching the 50th anniversary of the 1973 coup d’etat and with this date that revives the pains of the dictatorship, proposals arrive to advance in reparation for the families of the victims.
This Wednesday, August 30, the Chilean president gave way to the unprecedented policy of searching for victims of forced disappearance under a great National Plan.
An announcement that came as a balm for many families, since they were the ones who bore almost all the responsibility for the searches for the missing.
In that process Only the remains of 307 people have been found and the whereabouts of the other 1,162 registered victims are still unknown. The majority were workers and peasants of about 29 years of age on average.
“This figure should hurt us and make our blood burn, because it reflects the magnitude of the debt we have as a State and as a society,” Boric stated when launching the National Plan for the Search for Truth and Justice, the first official initiative of this guy.
The measure, which is going to be deployed with state money, It aims to reconstruct the journey of the victims after their arrest and disappearance.
It will be the first time in almost half a century that the families of the victims will have a technical and professional team to keep track of their loved ones. A mechanism that vindicates the struggle of surviving family members who have made all types of protests, from hunger strikes to legal appeals that they took to court.
On social networks, the Presidency of Chile published the objectives of its plan. The list is headed by clarifying the circumstances of the disappearance of the victims, followed by the step that seeks to guarantee access to information for family members and, finally, the implementation of reparation measures and guarantees of non-repetition.
According to the president, one of the goals is to “locate, recover, identify and return the mortal remains of people who are victims of forced disappearance.”
We take charge as a State, not just as a Government, to move all barriers to clarify the circumstances of disappearance and/or death of the victims of forced disappearance, Boric stated during the ceremony outside the presidential palace of La Moneda, an event that was not attended by members of the right-wing opposition.
For his part, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights of Chile, Luis Cordero, stated in an interview with ‘The New York Times’ that “the State separated them from their families and it is the State that has to be responsible for the reparation, punish those responsible and sustain the search.”
“A pact of silence since the dictatorship”
The relatives of the victims raised their voices at the event, which is part of the commemorative date of the International Day of Victims of Forced Disappearances, to remind the Chilean Government that the main obstacle of the entire process has been the lack of collaboration of the Forces. Armed. The families denounce that it is a “pact of silence” that the uniformed men have made since the dictatorship to date.
“No other government had this political will that was necessary so that this ordeal not only belongs to the relatives, but also to the entire society and the State that made our relatives disappear,” said Gaby Rivera, president of the Group, at the ceremony. of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees.
“I have the conviction that democracy is memory and it is the future, and it cannot be one without the other,” said the Chilean president during an emotional ceremony in which he remained visibly moved. Boric was surrounded by politicians, human rights activists and relatives of the victims.
The process also includes accountability to Chilean society for any progress achieved during this search process. In addition, reparation measures were promised and there were commitments to guarantee non-repetition by the commission related to this type of crimes.
With EFE and Reuters
Source: France 24
