No
one can really understand what being tortured means
until that fateful moment when you find yourself
naked, blindfolded and tied up at the mercy of your
captors. Your entire life is confined to that fragile
moment when darkness becomes your enemy, yet at
the same time, is your only ally, a refuge from
madness. There is neither past nor future, only
the present of screams, fury and impotence when
you find yourself defenceless at the mercy of the
torturer’s rage and coldness. You never know
when he is going to hit, shout, kick, hang, electrocute
or kill you. You wait in darkness, disoriented,
trying to guess where the next blow will come from,
your heart escaping through your dry mouth hoping
that your bones will resist the incessant pounding.
You just try to stay alive, breathe madly after
every electric shock, because you scream so much
and so loudly that you feel that even the earth’s
entire air supply will not be enough for you. But
you keep on screaming amidst an explosion of a thousand
colours that burn your flesh and shake you body.
You can’t control electricity, you can’t
tame electricity, but amidst the bewildering storm
of sparks and death rattles you can dream of green
unicorns and the first time you made love right
by the sea. Then it becomes somewhat easier to dream
of the day when no human being would ever torture
another human being just because he thinks differently.
Unfortunately today, 30 years later, I’m not
sure this will never happen again in my homeland.
Because, although for the first time in three decades
it has been officially recognized that thousands
of Chileans were tortured by the military dictatorship,
not a word has been said about bringing those torturers
to justice. So, what will prevent them from doing
it again? After a year’s work, a special commission
set up by the Chilean government, after pressure
from human rights organizations, issued a report
about Torture and Political Prison in Chile during
the dictatorship that ruled the country between
1973 and 1990. The truth is that it was an open
secret that at least 300 thousand Chileans had been
detained and tortured during that period, the report
only makes official such a reality, although only
35 thousand people came forward to testify before
the commission. Many of those who did not testify
are still afraid of their memories or simply did
not believe in the commission’s work
35 thousand people tortured whose names have been
consigned in the report, but not a single name of
any of the torturers is included. We know their
names, we know the places where they tortured and
we know which branch of the armed forces they belong
to, therefore, there is no valid reason whatsoever
to withhold their names. It is an offence to the
victims of the repression, to all those defenceless
men and women, to the 90 children who were tortured,
to those who died under torture and to those of
us who survived, to keep silent while the torturers
laugh while they read the report. Because there
is no doubt that they enjoyed what they did, they
rejoiced at human suffering, they enjoyed beating
people up, frightening people, executing people.
Noone told me this, I was there, I know they loved
crushing bones and raping women of all ages. They
loved the power they held over other human beings
for 17 years.
The horror of the torture chamber will never go
away, the military did not only torture individuals,
but also the very soul of our nation. They did not
only torture somebody for a few hours or a few days,
they destroyed their life forever. It was a crime
against mankind and those responsible for this crime
must be brought to justice, anything else simply
amounts to impunity. It is not enough for the military
to admit for the first time that they did indeed
torture, because we already knew that. It is not
enough either for them to express their sorrow for
what happened or ask for forgiveness - which they
have never done – for the only acceptable path
is for justice to be done. Each and every one of
those who tortured must be tried and sentenced to
prison.
The government has stated that they value the army’s
courage for admitting that torture constituted an
institutional practice. How can it be courageous
to admit the obvious after 30 years of lies? It
is shameful on the part of president Ricardo Lagos
to issue such a statement. It is also shameful that
the government has proposed to compensate torture
victims with a life pension of merely 180 dollars
a month. Pain cannot be measured in monetary terms,
however, the meagre figure offends rather than compensates
for 30 years of suffering. It is even more offensive
for the minister for finance to point out that these
pensions will cost the government 60 million dollars
a year and this will imply “painful budget
readjustments”. Or, as the president did, to
state that with this amount of resources in 10 years
the government could build a brand new highway.
So, not only were we tortured, but we are made to
feel guilty of the fact that we will receive money
depriving our countrymen of a new highway!
Why not compare these 60 million dollars a year
with the military budget? The Navy is acquiring
4 new warships from Holland; the Air Force is getting
new F-16 from the United States. Are these war machines
more important than helping torture victims whose
lives were destroyed by the same people that will
use them?
The fact is that the report looses a substantial
and fundamental part of its historical validity
if it reduces compensation to financial help, even
if the announced pensions are eventually raised
by parliament. The only true and acceptable compensation
for torture victims is justice.
Tito
Tricot is a Sociologist and the Director of the
Center For Intercultural Studies, Ilwen, Chile
