The Whole Truth

The creation of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission on April 25, 1990, one of Patricio Aylwin's first acts as President, marked an uneasy political boundary between the first democratic transitional government and the authoritarian regime that had ruled Chile for the previous 17 years.

The Justice Ministry's decree -"to clarify the whole truth on the most serious violations of human rights" - created the eight-member Commission headed by attorney Raul Rettig, and immediately sparked apprehension within the Armed Forces and their supporters.

"We want the whole truth," insisted Sergio Onofre Jarpa, president of the rightist Renovacion Nacional (RN) party and former Interior Minister in the early 1980s. Members of other rightist parties likewise expressed doubts about the Commission's capacity to retain "historical objectivity."

A moment of tension arose in the Commission's first month of life when Army Maj. Gen. Jorge Ballerino, on express orders from his Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, called on Rettig. Ballerino conveyed the Army's concern that the Commission's work might fall prey to political interests wishing to discredit the Armed Forces and the Army in particular. The Army was also warned that the Commission might overstep its legal mandate by taking on work that properly pertains to the courts.

The new government perceived the Army's challenge to the Commission as indirectly questioning presidential authority itself. Aylwin called the commander-in-chief to La Moneda to answer to this unacceptable intrusion into the civilian-political realm. Pinochet pledged his willingness to cooperate and the government publicly reiterated that the Commission had no judicial powers whatsoever and would turn over names of human rights offenders directly to the courts.

Victims' relatives and other human rights advocates also had their doubts. For them, the Commission's working definition of "the most serious human rights violations," comprised only of those violations that resulted in death, was too narrow in scope. Yet the Commission's inclusion of deaths and presumed deaths as a consequence of other human rights violations such as illegal executions, disappearances of persons, and torture reassured most of these skeptics as well.

Gathering the Facts

Having overcome its initial hurdle, the Commission prepared for the first wave of testimonies. During the month of June 1990, thousands arrived at the Commission's Santiago offices and many more came forward between July and September, when representatives traveled to the provinces. At least one Commission member, in addition to an attorney, social worker and other staff were present for each interview, which averaged about an hour each.

Political parties, unions, and human rights defense offices sent the Commission lists of their victims. Members of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared arrived together to tell Commission staff the stories of their missing children, spouses, or parents. Survivors formed work groups to document the crimes committed at Venda Sexy, Villa Grimaldi, Cuatro Alamos, Tejas Verdes, and other places where they had been imprisoned and tortured. These men and women, some of whom recalled the names of their tormentors and the fate of fellow prisoners who comprise the lists of the disappeared, were particularly important witnesses. Key testimony on numerous cases of disappearances came from a repentant informant, former Socialist Party member Luz Arce Sandoval, who, following severe torture in 1974, became a collaborator for the DINA, the military regime’s secret police, from 1974 to 1977. On three different occasions former DINA chief Manuel Contreras was asked to testify, which he declined to do.

Although the Commission lacked any judicial authority, it was vested with the power to access documents and records. The Commission requested birth certificates from the Civil Registry to confirm the victims’ identities and death certificates as well in case a death may have been recorded without the knowledge of the family. Off-limits, however were files of the former CNI secret police, successor to the DINA. Where testimony suggested the involvement of the Armed Forces, the Commission sent requests for verification to the respective branches of the military. The Army, it reports, responded to two-thirds of these requests, while the Navy was most cooperative, responding to each request sent its way. All, however, either cited legal reasons that precluded releasing the information or claimed that the records had been incinerated or destroyed in a fire.

Altogether the Commission had collected, after accounting for duplication and errors, more than 3,400 cases to investigate. Its case-by-case catalogue of human rights violations, political analysis of the circumstances that resulted in those crimes, as well as recommendations for safeguarding human rights in the future are contained in the three-volume, 2,000-page document, which has come to be known as the Rettig Report. At least 2,025 persons, the report found, suffered serious human rights violations resulting in death at the hands of agents of the state. Of these deaths, 957 correspond to disappearances. The Commission also found that another 90 persons were killed by civilians for political motives, and 164 more had died as a result of "political violence." That the latter category included military personnel was much disputed by human rights advocates who adhere to the traditional definition of human rights as safeguarded by the state and violated only by agents of the state.

A Past That Separates

"Let's do whatever we can to heal the wounds of the past," declared President Aylwin when he formally presented the report to the nation on March 4, 1991. Aylwin also asked relatives of the victims for forgiveness, and called for gestures from the military acknowledging the pain and suffering inflicted.

At the same time, Aylwin asked Chileans to put the past behind them. "Many fellow countrymen believe it is time to close this chapter. For the good of Chile, we must look to the future that unites us rather than the past that separates us."

As Aylwin concluded his speech, hundreds of Chileans marched through the streets of Santiago, expressing their conviction that human rights are still an issue of the present. Among the demonstrators was Carmen Gloria Quintana, carrying a poster-sized photograph of Rodrigo Rojas, who died when a military patrol doused them both with gasoline and set them on fire.

"The report is but a first step towards learning the truth and obtaining justice... A truth that has been denied and twisted so many times in the past will be known to all, and now it's time to demand justice, trial and punishment for the guilty," said Quintana.

The Armed Forces were initially silent. Their response came in late March in the form of a four-volume report of its own. Addressing only the Commission's "unforgivable lack of knowledge concerning the real causes that motivated the action of national restoration initiated September 11, 1973," the report reiterated the thesis that the nation had been in the grips of war and military forces responded to their duty to restore peace. In its sole allusion to the human rights violations enumerated by the Rettig Report, the Army added, "War is never bloodless and always brings pain, hatred, and injustice..."