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Crime and Maybe
Punishment in Latin America
Miren Gutiérrez*
ROME, (IPS) - It has taken
up to three decades, but some
Latin American leaders suspected
in politically motivated
assassinations and death squad
massacres may soon face justice
following three unrelated
developments in Chile, Colombia
and Peru.
Former Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet was accused last month
in the assassination of two
political rivals in the 1970s;
in Peru a prosecutor sought a
35-year prison sentence for
former intelligence chief
Vladimiro Montesinos on charge
of masterminding massacres 15
years ago, and in Colombia
former senator and justice
minister Alberto Santofimio was
arrested for the assassination
of a presidential candidate in
1989.
In Colombia and Chile, accounts
of the killings have circulated
long before the new accusations.
"These three events are highly
significant because they
publicly state that impunity
will not be the order of the
day," Margaret Power, professor
of history at the Illinois
Institute of Technology told IPS
in an email interview from
Chilean capital Santiago. She
has written extensively on
Chilean politics.
"Although the wave of military
dictatorships that swept across
much of South America beginning
with the military coup in Brazil
in 1964 no longer rules, the
standard practice has been to
ignore those who committed the
crimes and to, instead, talk
about looking to the future and
reconciliation," Power said.
"The fact that three separate
justice systems in three
distinct countries, each one of
which has very different
political histories and
socio-economic conditions, have
advanced on the course of
bringing those accused of
committing political crimes to
justice is remarkable and sets a
very important precedent for
future trials," she said.
Retired Chilean general Manuel
Contreras who has now named
Pinochet in these killings
headed DINA (the National
Intelligence Directorate) from
its creation in 1974 until it
was dissolved in 1978. DINA is
commonly believed to have
carried out many of them.
Contreras declared in a written
statement put out by his lawyers
May 13 that Pinochet was
directly responsible for the
assassination of Orlando
Letelier in Washington in 1976,
and of Gen. Carlos Prats and his
wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos
Aires in 1974. The political
rivals were killed in similar
car bombings.
Gen. Prats, who had commanded
the armed forces in the earlier
socialist government of Salvador
Allende 1970-73, was writing a
book about the coup that brought
Pinochet to power. Prats's
papers were stolen from his home
at the time of the attack. It
was the beginning of a string of
murders and disappearances of
Chilean exiles.
One of the perpetrators of the
attack, Michael Townley, was
later caught and convicted for
the killing.
Letelier, a former foreign
minister in Allende's government
was imprisoned right after the
coup. He was released in 1974.
He left to work at the Institute
for Policy Studies in Washington
where he was killed two years
later along with his assistant
Ronni Moffitt.
Former Chilean vice-president
Bernardo Leighton and his wife
Anita were machine-gunned on a
Rome street in 1975. Leighton
recovered, but his wife was
paralysed.
In 1995 Contreras was tried,
convicted and sentenced to seven
years in prison. He is currently
serving a second sentence over
the disappearance of leftist
activist Ángel Sandoval in 1975.
In an affidavit sent to the
Chilean Supreme Court in 1997,
Contreras had said that no major
DINA missions were undertaken
without Pinochet's authorisation.
But this is the first time he
has named Pinochet as directly
ordering the elimination of
Letelier and Prats. He has also
provided information now on the
fate of 580 victims of forced
disappearance ('desaparecidos').
Mark Ensalaco, director of
international studies and human
rights at the University of
Dayton in Ohio in the United
States, and author of the book
'Chile under Pinochet:
Recovering the Truth' says that
while the veracity of all
information offered by Contreras
is questionable, DINA could not
have acted without the knowledge
of Pinochet. After these murders
and disappearances, DINA members
were never investigated; they
were promoted instead.
It is estimated that 3,000
Chileans were "disappeared" or
murdered by security forces, and
that more than 27,000 former
political prisoners were
tortured under the Pinochet
regime 1973-1989.
Pinochet is under investigation
for human rights crimes
committed under 'Operation
Condor' launched jointly by the
military governments that ruled
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in
the 1970s and 1980s. The
operation sought to track down,
capture and eliminate left-wing
opponents.
In 2001, a court ruled that
Pinochet was mentally unfit to
stand trial in a case involving
executions of political
prisoners. In July 2002, the
Supreme Court upheld that
ruling. Pinochet is 89.
Power says the military has paid
a price in its own way.
"Pinochet is discredited and,
indeed, the whole Chilean
military is tarnished," she
said.
She pointed to recent
indications of this. "Civil
society's response to the deaths
(of military recruits in a
recent snow blizzard), its
willingness to blame the
military...and the alacrity with
which it blamed the officers who
survived is a symbol for how
much of Chilean society views
the military. It no longer
trusts or respects it," she
said.
"This, I believe is the ongoing
price that the Chilean military
must pay for its murder of
Chilean citizens during 17
years, for its refusal to
acknowledge that fact and take
responsibility for it...in
short, Pinochet and the Chilean
armed forces as a whole may
never stand trial, but I believe
that much of Chilean society has
already passed a verdict on
them."
Colombian Advance
In Colombia, former senator and
justice minister Alberto
Santofimio was arrested May 12
for his role in the 1989
assassination of leading
presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galán.
Santofimio was implicated by the
testimony of John Jairo
Velásquez alias 'Popeye', the
man who led hit teams for drug
kingpin Pablo Escobar, and the
only person convicted for the
crime.
Velásquez told local media that
he was present at a meeting with
Escobar and Santofimio when the
politician said Galán should be
killed. Velásquez quoted
Santofimio as saying: "Pablo,
kill him. If (Galán) wins the
presidency, he will extradite
you."
At the time Santofimio was
running for the Liberal Party
nomination for the 1990
presidential election, but his
rival Galán was far ahead in the
polls.
For Escobar (shot and killed by
the police in 1993), the
assassination of Galán meant
eliminating a candidate who
would likely extradite drug
traffickers to the United States
to stand trial.
Escobar's cocaine cartel known
as Medellin fought a bloody war
during the 1980s to force the
government to impede
extraditions. Cartel killers
murdered judges, cabinet
ministers, an attorney general,
journalists and police officers.
Hundreds more Colombians died in
bomb attacks.
Galán was shot while campaigning
south of capital Bogota. Galán's
campaign manager Cesar Gaviria
ran in his place and was elected
president.
Santofimio was arrested in 1995
and spent four years in prison
for accepting bribes from the
Cali cartel. He was questioned
over the assassination of Galán,
but never tried due to lack of
evidence. He faces 40 years in
prison if now found guilty of
the assassination.
"The positive message is that,
in spite of the time that has
passed, justice has arrived,"
the Colombian newspaper El
Tiempo wrote in an editorial May
14.
Peruvian Progress
In Peru nobody has any doubts
who was behind the Barrios Altos
and La Cantuta killings; but no
one has as yet been convicted.
On May13, anti-corruption
special prosecutor Pablo Sánchez
Velarde announced that he is
seeking a 35-year prison
sentence for Peru's former
spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos
for masterminding the
extrajudicial execution of 15
people -- including an
eight-year-old boy -- in Barrios
Altos in 1991, and for the 1992
'disappearance' of nine students
and a teacher of La Cantuta
university.
Montesinos is alleged to have
ordered the 'Colina Group' death
squad to carry out the murders.
In the Barrios Altos case, the
victims were partygoers mistaken
for Maoist Shining Path
terrorists. In the La Cantuta
case, the victims' bodies were
secretly mass buried under a
layer of calcium oxide at one
location and later removed and
incinerated.
Montesinos was the de facto head
of the National Intelligence
Service (SIN) during Alberto
Fujimori's presidency 1990-2000.
Montesinos is facing trials on
corruption and human rights
charges.
In 2001, attorney-general Nelly
Calderón formally accused
Fujimori of a hand in these
killings. The criminal charges
against Fujimori were filed
after a unanimous decision by
the Peruvian Congress to lift
his immunity as former head of
state.
A few days later, Supreme Court
Justice José Luis Lecaros issued
an international warrant to
Interpol for the arrest of
Fujimori in Japan. But four
years later, Fujimori is still
in Japan, and Montesinos has yet
to be convicted of any crime.
"There have been positive steps,
but at the same time they are
insufficient and slow," Ernesto
de la Jara, director of the
Institute of Legal Defence told
IPS in an e-mail interview from
capital Lima. "The worst thing
is that the final outcome is
still uncertain."
De la Jara says Peru has set up
a Truth Commission that replaced
a "distorted and extended
'truth'" with a truth that has
more to do with reality. Peru
came back to the Inter American
Court of Human Rights and
accepted its decision of
cancelling Fujimori's 1995
amnesty, and the Constitutional
Court declared most of the
anti-terrorist legislation
promulgated by Fujimori
unconstitutional.
Of the 47 cases the Truth
Commission recommended for
investigation, he said 15 are
been looked into by public
attorneys and 30 are in the
courts. All members of the 'Colina
Group' are in prison.
New Trend
Power says there are several
factors behind these changes.
The negative impact of
neoliberal economic policies
"has fuelled anger, resentment
and organisation...these
movements have, in turn,
pressured the governments of
their countries to redress the
crimes committed by the
militaries in the past," she
said.
Another factor is "the emergence
of strong, deeply-rooted social
movements" and their connection
with the struggle for human
rights. "They have demanded
transparency in government,
honesty, the rights of citizens,
both economic and political, and
they have proven themselves
willing to fight to obtain
them."
Finally, she points to "the
election of and alliance between
progressive governments in much
of South America." Many of them
were themselves victims of the
military dictatorships that
ruled their countries, she said.
Ensalaco from the University of
Dayton admits that he never
thought justice could be
possible. "I am a bit ashamed of
that conclusion now. Courageous
victims, judges, and activists
have made it possible...I am
thrilled that the bravery of
some very courageous individuals
can defeat those who once held
absolute power."
But de la Jara says that "from
ten to 20 years after the crimes
took place...the judicial cases
are still starting. There is no
single sentence in relation to
human rights, although there is
hope that the Colina Group case
ends in one."
A scheme to compensate the
victims of human rights abuses
in Peru is "insignificant", he
said. There is no political will
to incorporate military law into
common jurisdiction or to fight
for human rights with the
resources and teeth needed to
confront past abuses and set up
preventive measures, he said.
"It is clear that the circle of
impunity is not closed, either
in Peru or in the region. Either
we secure a consistent string of
(judicial) successes of
increasing weight or there will
be a regression."
*Miren Gutiérrez is IPS Editor
in Chief.
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