JANUARY 31, 1990 Forty-nine political prisoners escape from Santiago's Public Jail. Initially using rudimentary tools such as spoons and later fabricating a sophisticated ventilation device, political prisoners carve a tunnel extending underneath the prison and emerging near the Mapocho River 100 meters beyond the jail.

MARCH 11, 1990 Patricio Aylwin takes office as President.

MARCH 11, 1990 Presidential pardons benefit 47 political prisoners, convicted by the military regime. However, by the end of 1990 the situation of 230 others, many of whom had been jailed without a sentence, remains unresolved.

MARCH 12, 1990 Seventy thousand people attend a mass rally led by President Aylwin at the National Stadium. During the event, Aylwin announces his government’s official stance in pursuit of truth, justice and reparations with regards to past human rights violations.

APRIL 25, 1990 The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission is created with a nine-month mandate to document what the Justice Ministry's decree terms "the most serious human rights violations" committed by agents of the State of Chile during the period of military rule. Known as the Rettig Commission for its president, attorney Raul Rettig, the eight people who comprise the group are to verify existing denunciations and receive new ones related to cases of illegal executions, disappearances and death as a result of torture or from acts of political violence. They are also asked to formulate recommendations as to what measures should be taken to ensure that human rights are never again violated in Chile. Their responsibilities, however, do not include investigation of the hundreds of denunciations of torture presented before courts of law in previous years, nor is the Commission vested with judicial authority of any kind.

JUNE 2, 1990 The remains of 19 disappeared are discovered in an illegal burial ground in Pisagua where they were buried clandestinely in the first years of the military regime.

AUGUST 18, 1990 Human remains are exhumed in Aguila Sur, in Paine, where it is believed about 10 cadavers were buried in the early days of the regime. Special Prosecutor German Hermosilla headed the investigation. The Association of Relatives of the Disappeared had testified to the Rettig Commission that there at least eight clandestine cemeteries in Paine and Huelquen.

AUGUST 22, 1990 Chile ratifies the American Convention on Human Rights and withdraws reservations noted by the former military regime regarding the UN Convention Against Torture. The government also recognizes the competency of the Human Rights Commission of the OAS to hear cases governed by the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights.

AUGUST 24, 1990 Chile's Supreme Court unanimously upholds the constitutionality of the 1978 Amnesty Law in a decision that leads plaintiff's attorney Alfonso Insunza Bascunan to declare that human rights cases in Chile for events occurring pre-1978 are for all practical matters over.

SEPTEMBER 4, 1990 Former president Salvador Allende is accorded the state funeral in Santiago's General Cemetery, that he had been denied 17 years earlier by the military regime. Thousands turn out to pay last respects to Allende on his second burial. Allende was first buried on September 11, 1973 in a relative's tomb, in the presence only of his widow, daughter, and nephews.

SEPTEMBER 6, 1990 Pinochet becomes the center of a scandal involving Army-issued checks to his son, Augusto Pinochet, for the acquisition of the Valmolval company, which manufactures arms for the Army. More than 50 Concertacion deputies sign an official petition to be sent to the Ministry of Defense asking for more information about the checks, which total about US$3,000,000 and were dated January 4, 1989. A congressional commission is formed to investigate.

SEPTEMBER 9, 1990 The memorial to the disappeared and executed is inaugurated at the Santiago General Cemetery.

SEPTEMBER 21 - 26, 1990 Three journalists are jailed by order of the military courts for "offense to the armed forces." Charges against Juan Pablo Cardenas were eventually dropped and he was released. Juan Andres Lagos and Alfonso Stephens were released on bail. By the end of 1990, 30 journalists had been the subjects of legal actions brought by the military courts for the same offense.

JANUARY 3, 1991 The Military Court finds Army Captain Pedro Fernandez Dittus guilty of negligence in the 1986 burning assault on two young people by a military patrol, and sentences him to 300 days of remitted prison. Nineteen year-old Rodrigo Rojas died as a result of the burns while Carmen Gloria Quintana was left permanently scarred on 60 percent of her body. The verdict, which finds Fernandez negligent for failing to get medical attention for Rojas and absolves him of any responsibility in the Quintana burning, upholds an earlier decision made by a Santiago military judge.

JANUARY 12, 1991 A massive funeral is held to pay tribute to the 16 campesinos killed in Paine in October of 1973. The 16 bodies are transported from Santiago to Paine accompanied by hundreds of people. The procession began at the Medical Legal Service in Santiago where the bodies of the campesinos had remained concealed for over 15 years without knowledge of their family members.

JANUARY 26, 1991 The Supreme Court suspends Judge Carlos Cerda without salary for two months for refusing to invoke the amnesty law to close a case related to the disappearances of 13 persons.

MARCH 3, 1991 A doctor accused of having participated in torture sessions is shot dead alongside his wife in the city of Rancagua. Doctor Carlos Perez Castro, a major in the Army and a medical surgeon, had been accused by human rights organizations to have been linked to the CNI, and in 1984 was sanctioned by the Medical Association after he admitted to assisting CNI personnel in their torture sessions by examining prisoners to confirm "their normal health conditions" after torture.

MARCH 4, 1991 The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission formally presents its findings. The three-volume, 2,000-page report concludes that at least 2,025 persons suffered serious human rights violations resulting in death or disappearance at the hands of agents of the state during the period of military rule. The Commission also reports that another 90 were killed by civilians for political motives, and 164 more had died as a result of "political violence." President Aylwin formally asks relatives of the victims for forgiveness, and calls for gestures from the military acknowledging the pain and suffering inflicted. Human rights advocates express concern that those responsible for the crimes be brought to trial.

APRIL 1, 1991 Jaime Guzman, senator for the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and ideologue of the military regime, is gunned down outside the Catholic University campus in Santiago by members of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotico Front (FPMR). Guzman was author of the Constitution of 1980 and founder of the right wing UDI party. On March 17, 1991, Guzman described the Rettig Report as "superficial, distorted and false in its interpretation of history."

APRIL 16, 1991 The government accuses the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR) of violating the State Internal Security Law and orders a judicial investigation of the organization. Acting Interior Minister Enrique Correa declares that the government's objective is to eliminate terrorist groups who break the law and threaten national unity.

APRIL 19, 1991 The government creates an anti-terrorist agency called the Coordinating Office of Public Security. Attorney Mario Fernandez is designated the head of the new entity which will "assess and propose measures in strategic planning in the areas of violence and terrorism" to the President by way of the Interior Ministry, and "coordinate, in those same areas, the security and public order activities of the Chilean Carabineros Police Force and the Chilean Investigations Police in their respective areas of competence." The organization aims to propose courses of action for collecting information.

APRIL 23, 1991 The last fugitive in the Letelier case is arrested. Virgilio Pablo Paz, wanted in the assassination of former Chilean Chancellor Orlando Letelier, is finally detained in Florida, USA by FBI agents.

MAY 5, 1991 The Chilean Commission on Human Rights launches a national education campaign on human rights and truth. The campaign aims to promote awareness of the contents and consequences of the Rettig Report.

JUNE 2, 1991 A faction of the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez associated with the Communist Party renounces armed struggle and becomes a strictly political movement.

JUNE 7, 1991 A Former left activist turned informant testifies to aid location of the disappeared. Marcia Alejandra Merino Vega, known as "la Flaca Alejandra," declares for four hours before Judge Nibaldo Cabezas Lopez regarding the disappearance of numerous leftist activists in 1973 and 1974. Marcia Merino was a prominent MIR activist at the University of Concepcion in the early 1970s. Following her arrest and torture after the 1973 military coup, she collaborated with the DINA secret police to identify party activists. Numerous of those she identified were later disappeared.

JUNE 20, 1991 Fifty-one political prisoners, many of whom have never been sentenced, end a 23-day hunger strike demanding that the government expedite the handling of their cases. The hunger strike began May 29 in Santiago's Santo Domingo jail as well as the prisons in Valparaiso, Chillan, Rancagua, Concepcion, and Temuco. Later political prisoners of Santiago's Penitentiary joined in. At least six strikers had been hospitalized by the time the effort was called to a halt.

JUNE 1991 The Supreme Court closes the investigation into the 1973 Calama executions and clandestine burials of 26 persons, upholding a military court decision to apply the amnesty law.

JULY 31, 1991 The Senate approves the creation of the National Office of Return charged with assisting exiles and their families returning to Chile.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1991 The exhumation of unmarked graves in Patio 29 begins. Forensic experts begin exhumation of 127 remains from unmarked graves in the Santiago General Cemetery's Patio 29. The remains correspond to persons illegally executed during the early years of the military regime.

NOVEMBER, 1991 Eugenio Berrios, a chemist for the DINA secret police disappears from Chile after Judge Adolfo Banados, special prosecutor in the Orlando Letelier assassination case, orders him to testify regarding his relation to former DINA agent Michael Townley. Berrios, who developed the lethal sarin gas, is believed to have operated a chemical laboratory in the basement of Townley's house, and has been linked to the death of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria. He is last seen alive on November 15, 1992, in Uruguay, alleging to have fled from kidnappers and seeking police protection. On June 8, 1993, the Uruguayan government confirms Berrios had been abducted by military officials from that country. In April 1995, Berrios' body, with bullet wounds in the head, is discovered on a beach.

MARCH 3, 1993 Retired Naval Captain Humberto Palamara is arrested in Punta Arenas for publishing a book entitled "Etica y Servicios de Inteligencia" (Ethics and Intelligence Services), which is confiscated. Navy Commander-in-chief Jorge Martinez Busch justifies the confiscation of the book as necessary to protect the confidentiality of classified information. Jailed for a period of 10 days, Palamara is accused of disobedience and failure to fulfill military duties. In October 1994, a military court sentences Palamara to three years in prison.

MARCH 10, 1993 The Senate Human Right Committee extends to 60 days the time period for denunciation of human rights violations not documented by the Rettig Commission, whose work is continued by the National Reparation and Reconciliation Corporation. At the conclusion of this period of time, the Corporation's mandate is extended until December 1993. A series of congressional acts continues to extend it until January 1997, when it becomes simply the "program for the continuation of Law 19.123," still operating as of mid-1998.

MARCH 11, 1993 Former DINA agent Michael Townley is sentenced to 18 years imprisonment by an Italian court for having acted as middleman in the 1975 assassination attempt against Chile's former vice president Bernardo Leighton and his wife, Ana Fresno.

MARCH 13, 1993 An armed commando of the Lautaro Movement (FRPL) attacks two soldiers on guard duty in a residential area in East Santiago. Two weeks later, Carabinero police arrest the second-in-command of the FRPL and kill a woman member of the organization during a shoot-out in Santiago. Norma Vergara was wanted in connection with the assassination of three detectives in September, 1992.

MARCH 28 , 1993 Brazilian psychologist Tania Maria Cordeiro is arrested in Rancagua for alleged terrorist activities. Cordeiro, whose 12 year-old daughter is arrested alongside with her, is raped, beaten and tortured with electric current by Investigations police. Cordeiro remains in police custody until March 1994, when all charges against her are dropped.

MARCH 30, 1993 Two Carabinero police officers are arrested and held incommunicado as suspects in the triple murders of three Communist Party members in 1985. Sergio Saravia and Jorge Candia are suspected of participating in the throat-slitting murders of Jose Manuel Parada, Santiago Nattino, and Manuel Guerrero.

MAY 4, 1993 Gerardo Roa Olivares files a legal suit against Francisco Martorell, author of the banned book "Impunidad Diplomatica," and against the newspaper El Siglo, for printing the banned book chapter by chapter. The book alleges that Roa covered up disappearances during the military regime. On the following day, the Journalists' Guild organizes a march in support of a protective writ filed earlier in the day in defense of free circulation of all forms of mass media.

MAY 7, 1993 Three political prisoners reject exile as an alternative to imprisonment in Chile. Jose Donoso, Jose Ugarte, and Carlos Rios, whose jail sentences were commuted for exile, ask President Aylwin to reconsider his decision.

MAY 28, 1993 Heavily armed soldiers in camouflage fatigues appear in the vicinity of La Moneda and the Armed Forces building while President Aylwin is out of the country. The menacing stance, which came to be known as the "boinazo" in reference to the black berets worn by the Army Special Forces surrounding the presidential place, is understood to be in repudiation of human rights trials underway and of the possible resumption of investigations into the alleged fraudulent dealings between Pinochet’s son and the Army. Human rights organizations such as the Christian Churches Social Assistance Foundation (FASIC) consider this show of military defiance to be behind the subsequent closure by military courts of 14 human rights cases and seven cases in which the amnesty law was upheld by the Supreme Court. Army pressure persuades Aylwin to promote legislation, the so-called "Aylwin law" that, among other things, assures anonymity for informants who come forward with information on the disappeared. Later in the year a storm of protests from relatives of human rights victims and much of the Concertacion, who perceive it as an impunity statute, forces the government to withdraw the legislation on September 2.

MAY 29, 1993 Santiago's former public prison opens to the public before being finally demolished. Visitors were given guided tours, which showed the galleries and the block that was occupied by political prisoners during the military regime.

SEPTEMBER 23, 1993 The Supreme Court upholds a military court decision that invoked the amnesty law in the Pisagua case, related to the investigation of a clandestine cemetery near this town and the execution of 19 persons between 1973 and 1974.

OCTOBER 28, 1993 The military regime's last woman prisoner is released after seven and a half years in prison. Belinda Zubicueta, aged 31, had been condemned to thirteen years in prison by the military courts for allegedly participating in an assault on a bakery, which resulted in the deaths of a police officer and a member of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front. Arrested April 28, 1986, she regained her freedom through a presidential pardon.

OCTOBER 21, 1993 Seven people are killed and 16 wounded when police pursue alleged terrorist suspects onto a bus on a busy thoroughfare in Las Condes. Aylwin initially defends the police action and only when it is confirmed that all but four of the victims were bystanders does he ask the Supreme Court to name a special prosecutor.

October 1993 The Supreme Court refuses to appoint a special prosecutor to the Prats case, as is requested by the Chamber of Deputies. The case involves the 1974 assassination in Buenos Aires of former Army Commander-in-Chief Carlos Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert. Upon a request from the late general’s daughters, the Chamber's Human Rights Commission had initiated an investigation in May 1993 into whether Chileans had been involved in the crime.

DECEMBER 1993 Judge Marcos Libedinsky closes the case related to the assassination in 1976 of Carmelo Soria UN official and Spanish citizen, upholding a decision from the military court to apply the amnesty law. The case had been reopened in 1991 following the Rettig Commission's conclusion that DINA agents kidnapped and killed him. Civilian court judge Violeta Guzman refused to hand over the case, but on November 16, 1991 the Supreme Court overrules her and assigns jurisdiction to the martial court. Pressure brought to bear by Spain compelled the high court to assign Libedinsky to the case.

December 11, 1993 Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle is elected president, carrying 58 percent of the vote in the second presidential elections of the past 20 years. In the Chamber of Deputies, the Concertacion retains its 70 seats over the rightist coalition Union Por el Progreso's 50 seats. However, in the Senate the political coalition is still unable to offset the eight non-elected "designated senators," appointed by the military regime to serve until 1998.

February 20, 1994 The Maximum Security Prison (CAS) opens, and 42 political prisoners are transferred there. Amnesty International confirms that many are mistreated and tortured during the transfer.

June 1994 Chile signs the Inter American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons. However, by mid-1998 it is still not ratified by Congress.

March 27, 1994 The last political prisoners arrested during the military regime have their prison sentences commuted to exile. A week earlier, Hector Maturana, Hector Figueroa, Juan Ordenes, and Miguel Angel Colina, all charged in the assassination attempt against Pinochet, had left Chile for Europe after their sentences were also commuted to exile.

April 1994 The Supreme Court reopens the Carmelo Soria case.

MAY 1, 1994 The status of "Chilean exile" is no longer warranted, announces the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Given the "normalization" of the situation in Chile, refugee status for Chileans abroad is not justified, according to the UNHCR declaration. The National Office of Return reports that 700,000 Chileans remain outside the country, while 45,000 have returned since the inauguration of the first democratic transitional government.

JUNE 15, 1994 Sergio Buschmann returns to Chile and is immediately arrested. After defying an arrest order against him since his 1987 escape from prison, he is jailed in the Maximum Security Prison.

OCTOBER 8, 1994 General Rodolfo Stange announces he will leave his post as director of Carabineros police on October 14, 18 months after President Frei solicited his resignation for his alleged participation in covering up the triple homicide of the Communist Party members in 1985. Fernando Cordero Rusque is named as his successor.

OCTOBER 14, 1994 Forensic experts at the Medical Legal Institute confirm the identities of 13 disappeared who had been illegally buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. Among the remains of the 104 persons exhumed from 125 graves by court order in 1991 are five former members of president Salvador Allende’s GAP bodyguards.

OCTOBER 23, 1994 Thirty-seven political prisoners are transferred to the CAS maximum security prison from Santiago’s ex-Penitentiary and San Miguel men’s prison, bringing the number of political prisoners in the CAS to 82.

NOVEMBER 21, 1994 The International Association Against Torture reports 29 cases of torture in Chile in the period mid-1992 to May 1994.

JANUARY 19, 1995 Congress approves the construction of the Punta Peuco prison, a special facility for human rights offenders. In exchange for the rightist opposition parties’ support of the project, the government guarantees that until March 1998 no modifications will be made to the Military Justice Code, regarding arrest and imprisonment of military personnel.

MARCH 16, 1995 Attorney Nelson Caucoto files legal action before the Inter American Human Rights Commission (OAS) against the State of Chile for the abduction and disappearance of Eduardo Chanfreau, by DINA agents in July 1974.

MAY 30, 1995 Judge Adolfo Banados sentences former DINA chief Manuel Contreras and former DINA operations chief Pedro Espinoza to seven and six years of prison respectively in the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit. Espinoza enters Punta Peuco shortly after sentencing, but Contreras evades imprisonment until October 1995, pleading for leniency on account of alleged illnesses.

JUNE 24, 1995 Manuel Contreras is sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison by a Roman court for ordering the 1975 assassination attempt against Bernardo Leighton and his wife Ana Fresno. The ruling is confirmed July 9, 1996.

JULY 19, 1995 Pinochet sues Arturo Barrios, former university student leader and president of Socialist Party Youth, for defamation and injuries. During a rally in June, Barrios had declared that criminal charges should be filed against the commander-in-chief for human rights violations committed during the military regime. Barrios is jailed briefly and the Supreme Court stands by the suit.

AUGUST 13, 1995 For the first time in Chilean court history the State is ordered to pay damages to the family of a man tortured to death by military personnel. The Appeals Court of La Serena awards US$263,000 to the family of truck driver and Christian Democratic Party member Mario Fernandez Lopez, killed October 17, 1984.

August 23, 1995 A government-sponsored bill to expedite human rights cases and locate the disappeared enters the Senate, despite objections from senators of the right and the Armed Forces. The bill comes three months after DINA chiefs Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza are convicted for the assassination of Orlando Letelier and as the Armed Forces press for guarantees that there will be no more convictions for human rights violations. A compromise agreement between Interior Minister Carlos Figueroa and Renovacion Nacional senator Miguel Otero proposes an amendment to the bill providing that persons involved in human rights crimes would only be asked to testify but could not be tried or arrested and their identities would be kept confidential. Concertacion members of Congress and human rights advocates reject the agreement as a "punto final law" and legitimization of the amnesty. President Eduardo Frei eventually withdraws the proposal in early 1996.

October 30, 1995 The Supreme Court upholds prisons sentences for 16 Dicomcar (Carabineros police intelligence) agents , including active duty police, in the 1985 abduction and murder of Santiago Nattino, Manuel Guerrero and Jose Manuel Parada, known as "Caso Degollados."

DECEMBER 12, 1995 A clandestine grave containing the remains of three persons is unearthed in the Peldehue Military Base, north of Santiago near Colina. Two of the three bodies were later identified as belonging to persons disappeared after the 1973 military coup.

JULY 5, 1996 The Audiencia Nacional, Spain's highest court, accepts a suit filed by Union of Progressive Attorneys (Union Progresista de Fiscales) for the disappearance and death of Spanish citizens during the military regime. The legal action charges Augusto Pinochet, and former Junta members Jose Toribio Merino, Gustavo Leigh, Cesar Mendoza, Fernando Matthei, and Rodolfo Stange. The Chilean government rejects the jurisdictional competency of the Spanish court and of Judge Manuel Garcia Castellon to hear the case.

OCTOBER 5, 1996 Gladys Marin, secretary general of the Communist Party, is jailed two days in Santiago, on charges of "defamation" to Army commander-in-chief Augusto Pinochet. A speech by Marin at the Monument to the Disappeared and Executed in the General Cemetery, in which she labeled Pinochet "a psychopath who reached power by means of intrigue, treason and crime," gives rise to the suit.

DECEMBER 31, 1996 Four Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front members make a dramatic escape from Maximum Security Prison (CAS) in a helicopter lift.

MARCH 15,1997 The partial remains of murdered Army conscript Pedro Soto Tapia are discovered in San Felipe. Prior to his disappearance three months before, Tapia had complained of physical abuse suffered by Army recruits.

MAY 6, 1997 The right political party UDI protests the publication of El Rodriguista, a magazine representing the viewpoints of the FPMR.

MAY 8, 1997 The Paris family files a suit for the murder of Enrique Paris, personal physician of Salvador Allende who was with Allende in La Moneda when the presidential palace was bombed by the Air Force in September 11, 1973. He was subsequently arrested and in 1994 his remains were found in the unmarked graves of the General Cemetery’s Patio 29. In September, the family of Eduardo Paredes, Investigations Police Director during Allende's government, also files a lawsuit against the state for his murder following the coup. His remains were also identified in the Patio 29 findings.

MAY 15, 1997 Deputy Nelson Avila denounces use of torture to extract confessions in the case of the murdered Army conscript Pedro Soto Tapia. Army intelligence officers are presumed to be responsible for the interrogations of the four conscripts but the government denies the soldiers were submitted to torture. On May 19, the "Circle of Friends of the Army" request that a press ban be issued for the case.

MAY 19,1997 Former president Patricio Aylwin announces he will not testify in Madrid in the case pursued by Spanish tribunals for human rights crimes committed in Chile against Spanish citizens during Pinochet's military regime.

MAY 21,1997 The Senate approves a proposal to return property confiscated post-1973 by the military from individuals and organizations.

MAY 22, 1997 A third police search of Colonia Dignidad fails to locate Paul Schaefer leader of the German colony known to have served as a detention camp in the early years of the military regime. Schaefer is wanted on several counts of sexual abuse of minors, among other charges.

MAY 26, 1997 Charges are dropped against three Army recruits accused in the death of fellow conscript Pedro Soto Tapia after key testimony indicates that Soto's body was blown up with dynamite. The next day a fourth and last suspect is released for lack of evidence. Released conscript Dagoberto Contreras claims he had been beaten under military custody and forced to make a false confession to involvement in the alleged crime. On June 2, special prosecutor Manuel Silva Ibanez declares Soto Tapia may have committed suicide as was initially claimed.

JUNE 4,1997 Pinochet publicly expresses outrage over the Soto Tapia case, stating that the Army "will not tolerate any more lies" and announces a possible suit against Congress members who have criticized the Army's role in the case.

JUNE 7,1997 Villa Baviera residents attack members of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared (AFDD) as the women conduct a peaceful demonstration outside the gates of the former Colonia Dignidad community. The 50 AFDD women were protesting the disappearance of their relatives allegedly taken to Colonia Dignidad during the first months of the military regime.

JUNE 17,1997 The Concertacion fails to pass a constitutional reform bill eliminating the designated senator positions entrenched in the regime's 1980 Constitution. This is the third time in five years such a reform is blocked by the Senate.

JUNE 18,1997 Amnesty International (AI) issues a critical report of Chile's human rights situation. Entitled "Chronicles of Terror and Dignity," AI's annual report verifies at least 20 cases of torture and mistreatment by police during the past year. The report also highlights the continued impunity of those responsible for human rights violations during the military regime citing the common practice in courts of sealing cases of disappearances and extra-judicial executions that took place during the period.

JULY 9, 1997 Osvaldo Romo, former agent of the military regime's DINA secret police, is sentenced to 20 years in prison for one of over 100 human rights cases he is linked to. Judge Lilian Medina sentences Romo as the individual responsible for the abduction and disappearance of Gloria Lagos Nilson in 1974.

JULY 16, 1997 Seven members of one FPMR faction are sentenced for bombings that occurred in Antofagasta the previous year. The members of the group, who blew up a high tension tower on the anniversary of the military coup on September 11, 1996, received sentences ranging from three to 12 years.

AUGUST 8, 1997 The Supreme Court rules to expands its investigation into the former Colonia Dignidad to include 112 cases of disappeared between 1975 and 1977, when the DINA secret police may have transported the 112 persons to that compound.

AUGUST 19, 1997 Judge Manuel Silva Ibañez closes the investigation into the death of Army recruit Pedro Soto Tapia after five months of proceedings, without any suspects and no known cause of death.

AUGUST 27, 1997 The State Defense Council (CDE) appeals a Criminal Court ruling which forces the state to award US$600,000 in damages to Carmen Gloria Quintana for the 1986 burning attack by a military patrol, which left her permanently disfigured. The CDE appealed the ruling on the basis that the state is not responsible for the "quasi-crime of serious injury."

SEPTEMBER 4, 1997 A FPMR escapee is arrested in Zurich, Switzerland. Patricio Ortiz Montenegro, one of the four FPMR members who escaped from Chile's maximum security prison in December 1996, is arrested upon a petition by Chilean government authorities, but has a right to appeal his arrest in Switzerland. On September 6, Chilean civilian and military authorities formally request Ortiz' extradition.

SEPTEMBER 11, 1997 Ninety people are arrested in Santiago during demonstrations to commemorate the 1973 military coup. Hundreds of people are subject to tear-gas attacks by Carabineros police as they gather before the memorial to the disappeared in the General Cemetery.

SEPTEMBER 23, 1997 The Military Public Prosecutor requests that the Supreme Court instruct lower courts to apply the 1978 amnesty law shielding military personnel from prosecution in human rights cases. On October 10, The Supreme Court recommends that all Chile's lower courts rapidly resolve over 100 pending cases of human rights violations which allegedly took place during Pinochet's military regime. The recommendation, however, stops short of a full-fledged order to adhere to the amnesty law.

OCTOBER 27, 1997 Spanish judges defend their jurisdiction to judge human rights violations against Spanish citizens in Chile during the military regime. The Spanish Association of Judges for Democracy rejects claims by the Chilean government that Spain lacks the jurisdiction to judge crimes committed in Chile, even though Spanish citizens were affected.

OCTOBER 28, 1997 The Inter-American Human Rights Commission reproaches the Chilean judiciary for its failure to resolve human rights cases. The government takes issue with the memorandum and the Supreme Court disregards it.

OCTOBER 29, 1997 Fourteen conscientious objectors' petitions for exemption from mandatory military service are rejected by an Army Board. It is the first time an organization is created to challenge the Chilean military's refusal to accept conscientious objector status for exemption from military service.

NOVEMBER 4, 1997 President Frei vetoes the promotion of Brigadier Jaime Lepe because of the officer's links to the 1976 assassination of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria. Lepe is a close collaborator of Pinochet and a former officer in the DINA secret police and had been recommended for promotion to general by the Army high command the week before.

NOVEMBER 18, 1997 Colonia Dignidad loses a legal case with Amnesty International (AI) as the Provincial Court of Bonn, Germany rejects a lawsuit brought 20 years ago by the colony against AI. The ruling means AI can publish a pamphlet drafted in 1977 which sustains that opponents of the military regime were systematically tortured in the German compound.

NOVEMBER 19, 1997 The Supreme Court reverses an amnesty law ruling for the first time in a human rights case. A military court had previously decided to close the case investigating the 1974 arrests and disappearances of two young Socialist Party members, Rodolfo Espejo and Gregorio Lopez.

NOVEMBER 19, 1997 The death of DINA secret police chemist Eugenio Berrios is officially certified by Uruguayan legal authorities through a writ sent to the Supreme Court.

DECEMBER 7, 1997 Americas Watch issues a favorable report regarding human rights in Chile, stating that it has progressed substantially in the area. The report, however, includes a note of caution regarding freedom of expression in Chile.

DECEMBER 11, 1997 Almost four million potential voters do not participate in the Congressional elections by not registering, by abstaining or by annulling their vote. Out of a voting population of 9.4 million eligible to vote, only 5.7 million vote on Congressional election day.

DECEMBER 22, 1997 An FPMR member dies in shoot out with police in Santiago. Believed to have been a key member of the FPMR, Francisco Diaz Trujillo is killed in an armed confrontation with a police patrol.

DECEMBER 23, 1997 The National Security Council and President Frei complete the selection of the six remaining designated senator positions for March 1998. The Armed Forces name former admiral Jorge Martinez Busch, former Air Force commander-in-chief Ramon Vega, ex-Carabineros police chief Fernando Cordero and former Army general Julio Canessa. President Frei names former Interior Minister Edgardo Boeninger and former university chancellor Augusto Parra. As he announces his designations, Frei states his opposition to the institution, imposed n 1980 by the military regime's Constitution.

DECEMBER 29, 1997 The government scolds Pinochet for making threats to reveal "many things" about his opponents once he is named lifetime senator. Defense Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma calls Pinochet to meet with him to convey the government's displeasure with his controversial remarks.

DECEMBER 31, 1997 The Supreme Court strikes down a Military Court decision to close the notorious "Operacion Albania" case in which 12 FPMR members were killed in June 15 and 16, 1987 in alleged armed confrontations with regime security forces. The Supreme Court rules that military court judge Emilio Thimermann erred when he applied the 1978 amnesty law and resolves to appoint a special prosecutor for the case.

JANUARY 15, 1998 Forensics establish that a detainee died January 12 as a result of torture received during an interrogation session by Carabineros police. The Medical Legal Institute confirms that 55-year-old taxi driver Raul Palma Salgado went into cardiac arrest in the course of interrogation during which he received blows and other forms of torture following arrest. The forensic specialists say Palma's body bore multiple fractures and internal bleeding. Days later a witness comes forward, saying he saw Palma being tortured by Carabineros police. On January 20, Carabineros Investigations Police dismiss four officers implicated in Palma’s death.

JANUARY 17, 1998 Newly named Cardinal Monsignor Jorge Medina publicly expresses support for Pinochet, upsetting government officials who describe the remarks as "inappropriate."

JANUARY 20, 1998 Pinochet faces criminal charges as Court of Appeals Judge Juan Guzman Tapia accepts a criminal complaint of genocide against the Army commander-in-chief by the Communist Party (PC). It is the first time a court accepts direct charges against Pinochet for human rights violations committed during his regime.

JANUARY 21, 1998 Two journalists are jailed for making derogatory comments about former Supreme Court Chief Justice Servando Jordan. Rafael Gumucio and Paula Coddou are accused of violating the State Security Law after describing Jordan as "old, ugly" and having "a murky past." The libel suit is withdrawn on January 28.

JANUARY 27, 1998 The Organization of American Sates announces it will analyze a legal challenge by 11 Chilean lawyers to Chile's non-elected designated and lifetime senator positions.

JANUARY 29, 1998 The Supreme Court rebuffs a request from Spanish tribunals seeking information about human rights violations committed during the military regime. At the same time, retired Chilean Air Force General Sergio Poblete testifies before the Spanish tribunals leading the Spanish inquest that after the military coup he was tortured by his own colleagues and subordinates.

FEBRUARY 2, 1998 Government officials discount the US State Department's claim that police and prison operators in Chile continue to commit abuses. The claim is made in the State Department's annual international human rights report.

FEBRUARY 19, 1998 The European Union Parliament censors Pinochet's imminent move to a lifetime position in Chile's Senate arguing that such a decision is not in the best interests of Chile or democracy.

FEBRUARY 24, 1998 Manuel Contreras, former head of the DINA secret police, names Pinochet as directly responsible for DINA actions during the military regime period. Days later, Contreras says former US citizen Michael Townley and his Chilean wife Mariana Callejas are responsible for the 1974 car-bomb assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife in Argentina.

MARCH 6, 1998 The Army names Pinochet "Meritorious Commander-in-Chief" pledging the institution's absolute and permanent loyalty to their head, just days before his retirement.

MARCH 10, 1998 Pinochet steps down as Army commander-in-chief, at the age of 82, after 25 years as head of the institution, and 17 years as head of the military regime that ruled from 1973 to 1990. He is replaced by General Ricardo Izurieta Caffarena.

MARCH 11, 1998 Pinochet assumes lifetime seat in Senate. The retired general is sworn in at a strife-ridden ceremony, while thousands of protesters demonstrate their opposition to Pinochet outside Congress. Over 500 people are arrested and 34 wounded, including 12 police officers, during demonstrations against the former dictator in several Chilean cities.

MARCH 12, 1998 The Supreme Court rules not to apply the 1978 Amnesty Law in the case of the disappearance of 24 people from the town of Paine.

MARCH 13, 1998 Police are witnessed torturing a suspect in police headquarters by Chiloe Governor Jaime Moraga. Four Investigations Police officers, who beat and applied electric shock to Pedro Gaston, aged 18, are fired and indicted.

MARCH 15, 1998 Spanish television airs murder confession by Nelson Banados, a former Chilean soldier who says he was ordered to kill Spanish priest Joan Alsina immediately following the military coup.

MARCH 16, 1998 Ten Concertacion deputies file a constitutional accusation against Pinochet charging him with threatening national honor and security as commander-in-chief of the Army between 1990 and 1998. If successful, the legal maneuver, which is similar to a call for impeachment, would prevent Pinochet from becoming a lifetime senator.

MARCH 16, 1998 The government announces plans to create a DNA bank to identify the disappeared.

MARCH 18, 1998 The Second Branch of the Supreme Court rejects a request by former DINA secret police head Manuel Contreras to review his conviction for the 1976 car-bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit.

MARCH 24, 1998 Carabineros police conduct a massive raid and occupation of former Colonia Dignidad with the aim of finding fugitive ex-colony leader Paul Schaefer. It was the largest of a series of unsuccessful raids into the German compound.

MARCH 24, 1998 Spanish judge Manuel Garcia Castellon closes the investigation into human rights violations suffered by Spanish citizens residing in Chile during the military regime.

APRIL 1, 1998 The Martial Court names civilian judge Hugo Dolmestch as special prosecutor in the recently re-opened "Operacion Albania" case investigating the 1987 deaths by shooting of 12 opponents of the military regime. The case was re-opened in December 1997 when the Supreme Court qualified the crimes as "premeditated murder."

APRIL 3, 1998 Chile votes in favor of a United Nations resolution to abolish the death penalty worldwide.

APRIL 3, 1998 The Supreme Court dismisses a case against journalist Manuel Cabieses charged in 1991 with making offensive comments about former Army head Pinochet and of being anti-patriotic.