In Latin America, reconciliation has more than one meaning. When,
in 1990, Chiles newly-inaugurated president established an
official body to investigate the atrocities committed during Gen.
Augusto Pinochets seventeen-year rule, he called it a truth
and reconciliation commission.
By
including the concept of societal reconciliation in the commissions
name, Chiles civilian authorities sent an unmistakable public
message. Seeking to neutralize right-wing opposition to the governments
effort to document the militarys record of torture, killings,
and disappearances, they were implicitly promising that
when the commissions work was done, the country would move
on.
Reconciliation,
from this perspective, meant sidelining justice. It meant that the
countrys amnesty decree issued by Pinochet in 1978,
at the close of the military juntas worst period of political
repression would be respected. It meant that instead of allowing
prosecutors to prove the militarys responsibility for horrendous
crimes, the country would settle for a public report on the violence.
There would be truth, at last, but no consequences.
Thirty
years have now passed since the military coup that brought Pinochet
to power, and more than a decade has gone by since the release of
the Chilean truth commissions findings. It is now clear that
in Chile, as in several other countries that have experimented with
large-scale amnesties, the formula of truth not justice has failed.
True
reconciliation, these countries are now recognizing, cannot be based
on impunity. It requires justice, not amnesties. And it means seeing
truth commission reports as a point of departure, not an end point.
Only
the Bones Were Left
Ask
Angélica Mendoza de Ascarza how to achieve reconciliation,
and she will tell you to find her sons body and put his killer
behind bars. Mendoza, an indigenous woman from Ayacucho, Peru, heads
up a group of relatives of the thousands who disappeared
during the countrys violent civil conflict.
At
the end of August, Perus truth and reconciliation commission
released a nine-volume report documenting two decades of guerrilla
insurgency and military repression. The report concludes that more
than 69,000 people, mostly residents of impoverished rural areas,
were killed or disappeared between 1980 and 2000. Over
half of the deaths were caused by Shining Path, a barbaric guerrilla
group, while nearly 30 percent were caused by the military, and
most of the rest by government-backed militias.
Mendozas
son, a student, was arrested by the military on July 3, 1983. When
Mendoza testified before the truth commission in April 2001, a hearing
that I attended, she brought with her a yellowing scrap of paper
that is her last remembrance of him.
Dressed
in a traditional shawl and speaking in Quechua, Mendoza described
how thirty hooded men came to her house and took her son away. I
asked them why they were taking my son, she related, and
they said that he had to go testify, and that they would return
him to me at the gate of the jail. At that point, I grabbed my son
... I got to the door and clung onto my son, and they dragged us
both. They pushed me, they hit me, they stamped on me. They were
going to shoot me, and they took my son, put him in the army car
and carried him off. I screamed like a madwoman.
The
men brought Mendozas son to the local army base, from which
he managed to smuggle out a scribbled note. Holding the note in
her hands, Mendoza read it to the commission: Mom, Im
inside the base. Find a lawyer, some money, and please get me out
of here, Im desperate.
But
like thousands of others taken away in such circumstances, Mendozas
son was never seen again. Litigation, public denunciations, and
even bribery proved fruitless. Nor did Mendoza find her sons
body at any of the sites where corpses were dumped. We found
corpses with their eyes hanging out, with no ears, women whose breasts
had been cut off, she told the truth commission. The
soldiers guarded the bodies until the animals devoured them and
only the bones were left.
Justice
in Argentina and Chile and, Perhaps, Peru
The
tenacity that Mendoza showed in trying to fight off her sons
abductors is still apparent. But now Mendozas efforts have
a different goal: justice. She sees the truth commissions
meticulously-researched report not simply as an historical accounting,
but as ammunition for government prosecutors.
The
obstacles to justice are daunting. In Peru, as in other Latin American
countries in which official violence was widespread, a sweeping
amnesty law is still on the books. That law, passed in 1995 during
the authoritarian government of Alberto Fujimori, was intended to
shield military and police officials from prosecution.
On
the political side, too, the prospect of criminal trials has already
raised hackles. Former president Alan Garcia, who governed the country
from 1985 to 1990, is now Perus most powerful political figure.
Given that he presided over some of the worst abuses and did little
to prevent or punish them, he has no reason to want the justice
system to revisit these crimes. His political party was overtly
hostile to the work of the truth commission, and will likely try
to hinder future court investigations.
The
struggle for justice in Peru will undoubtedly be difficult, and
it may take many years. Still, reviewing recent events in neighboring
countries, Peruvians may be heartened to find that that the desire
for justice does not lose force over time.
In
Chile, where prospects for criminal accountability once seemed non-existent,
hundreds of former members of the armed forces have been charged
and now face trial. Among the defendants are twenty-two generals,
and forty colonels and lieutenant colonels. In the past year, the
Chilean courts have convicted several former military officers of
heinous crimes committed during the period covered by the countrys
amnesty decree. Ruling that enforced disappearance is an ongoing
crime, the courts have deemed the amnesty to be inapplicable. While
Pinochet himself escaped trial, he did so only on the humiliating
grounds of mental incompetence.
Events
in Argentina have been even more dramatic. Prosecutions of top-level
military officials, including members of the junta, have been ongoing
for the past several years. Now, with the election of President
Nestor Kirchner, the country has taken unprecedented steps to ensure
that dirty war crimes are brought to justice. Within
days of taking office on May 23, President Kirchner fired senior
military officers who had opposed human rights prosecutions, and
repealed a government decree preventing the extradition of such
defendants to third countries. Soon after, he successfully pushed
Congress to annul the countrys amnesty laws.
Reconciliation
not Impunity
In
Chile and elsewhere, those opposed to the prosecution of past abuses
warn of disunity and political polarization. Reconciliation, by
their definition, means amnesty, if not amnesia. But this view seems
far less persuasive now, with trials ongoing, than it did a decade
ago.
Societal
reconciliation is a commendable ideal. It should not be misused
as a cynical slogan, or a euphemism for impunity.
Joanne
Mariner is a human rights lawyer who works in New York.
Related
Chapters from Crimes of War: What the Pubic Should Know:
Crimes
Against Humanity
Death
Squads
Disappearances
Guerrillas
Jurisdiction,
Universal
Torture
Related
Links:
Discreet
Path to Justice? Chile, Thirty Years After the Military Coup
Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, September 2003
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