Introduction

When he took office, the president stated that one of his most ardent longings was to bring about the reconciliation of all Chileans; he was thereby expressing the fervent desire of the vast majority of the citizenry. No one can question the need for such a reconciliation, given the events of which we are all certainly aware, namely a profound division between Chileans, and a violation of human rights that affected many people and disrupted our traditional observance of the norms of the rule of law.

The president rightly thought that attaining the reconciliation for which people so yearned would require a thorough knowledge of how grossly the norms of humane conduct had been transgressed. He was indeed correct when he expressed this idea in the decree establishing our Commission, and when he said that "only on a foundation of truth will it be possible to meet the fundamental demands of justice and create the necessary conditions for achieving true national reconciliation." It is also true, as the decree states, that only the truth will make it possible to restore the dignity of the victims in the public mind, allow their relatives and mourners to honor them properly, and in some measure make it possible to make amends for the damage done.

Thus our head of state decided to entrust to us the mission of drawing up a report concerning the overall truth of those violations. That mission will certainly be one of the most important any of us will undertake in our lives. That report is being presented to our country to enable it to acquire a rational and well–grounded idea of what has happened. Such knowledge will also provide the different government branches with information that will facilitate their adoption of appropriate decisions in this regard.

The Commission was legally constituted on May 9 of last year and was to conclude its work by February 9. We have finished our work on time.

We are taking the liberty of stating why we accepted the noble task with which we have been honored. We were aware that it would be difficult, and that our own limitations would make it more so. We nonetheless accepted it without hesitation. The members of our group uphold a variety of philosophies of life. We are aware that we adhere to a variety of traditions, that our political loyalties are different, and that we have different perspectives on our country's history. We do, however, believe in the essential identity of our nation, and we think it ought to be protected by a state that remains faithful to the norms of democracy no matter which administrations might legitimately succeed one another. We accepted our task because the same fundamental principle unites us all – respect for human persons simply because they are human persons – and because we believe that the person is protected by inalienable rights which cannot be violated on the grounds of any accidental condition, nationality, creed, race, or ideology. These are rights that no power, no matter how far–reaching, may violate. We are united by an utter conviction that the human person in his or her dignity constitutes inviolable limits to the activity of other human beings. This is the primordial rule of human life in common. Finally, we are united in our yearning to make our country a land worthy to shelter the children of our species, which is always regarded as the highest expression of creation.

Each person is endowed with numerous rights. All these rights are connected to numerous culturally acknowledged values, and especially those of life, freedom, and justice. The core of our own work, however, had to be an examination of how the most fundamental value – that of life – had been violated.

The primary moral obligation we were fulfilling was to the victims, their families, and those mourning them. It also seemed to us that to maintain silence about these painful events – not a true silence but one imposed by force – was not helpful to our future life together as a nation. Indeed, we thought that to help the Chilean state to establish the truth calmly and impartially would encourage society to acknowledge these facts and thus lay the groundwork for a healthy resistance to such violations in the future. The pain of the past, together with a common desire to condemn what is indefensible, would help prevent such events from recurring, and thus would lead to a consensus that might be conducive to the reconciliation we all desire.

The Commission's task was to draw up as complete a picture as possible of the most serious human rights violations that resulted in death and disappearances which were committed by government agents or by private citizens for political purposes; to gather evidence that would make it possible to identify individual victims and determine their fate or whereabouts; to recommend such measures of reparation and restoration of people's good name as it regarded as just, and also to recommend measures that should be adopted to hinder or prevent new violations from being committed.

We had to complete our work in nine exhausting months. We had no power to oblige anyone to meet with us, and we had to examine and weigh a vast amount of information in order to come to a conclusion, based on an honest judgement, about what had happened in each case presented to us, as well as to prepare an overall account of what had happened.

We interviewed each person who wanted to present his or her case, and in order to do so we travelled up and down the entire country. In an effort to assure that no family member be prevented from providing us with information, some of us travelled to other countries where we enjoyed the cooperation of Chilean diplomats. Our aim was to be utterly impartial in our work. Hence we were objective, and we pride ourselves on having been both rigorous and understanding. No one can accuse us of having been swayed in our deliberations by prejudices or loyalties to particular groups. It was encouraging to find ourselves agreeing on all our decisions. All the humanitarian organizations that had been gathering evidence on these events offered their cooperation, and they opened their archives to us. We sought relevant information from national and international bodies. We sent out approximately two thousand official inquiries to public and private agencies, and we studied their answers with all the care that the situation required. We took testimony from hundreds of people who came forward voluntarily, and we examined all the evidence gathered for each case until we were certain of what had happened. The aid of all these persons and organizations was of immeasurable importance to us; the only way we can express our gratitude is to submit this report.

The Ministry of Justice quickly and efficiently provided us with the equipment we needed to carry out our work. We also relied on the self–effacing and loyal assistance of more than sixty people who gave up their normal work in order to devote themselves to the tasks of this Commission with enthusiasm and commitment.

We now turn over to the president the volumes containing our report. We thought we should examine the situation in our country on September 11, 1973, for even though it in no way justifies the violations we are going to relate, doing so will be helpful for recalling the atmosphere in which some of that violence was rooted.

We have documented cases of death and disappearance. In the first few days after September 11, 1973, some people were killed in armed clashes, as well as through political violence perpetrated by both sides. Several hundred political prisoners were then executed. Many of these executions were officially explained in accounts that the Commission has not found convincing or acceptable. Bodies were often left abandoned, or they were hidden, thus bringing about the first cases of disappearance. There was no legal investigation of, or punishment for, these events.

After the DINA (National Intelligence Directorate) was created, victims were selected by its intelligence units, and then generally held in DINA's secret detention centers where they were interrogated and tortured by specialists. The bodies of those who died under these circumstances disappeared in such a fashion that many have been impossible to locate. Normal legal safeguards proved insufficient. Efforts to introduce writs of habeas corpus were fruitless after the Ministry of the Interior denied that detentions were taking place. Judges did not inspect secret prisons or torture centers.

After the DINA was dissolved in August 1977, disappearances became far less common, although torture resulting in death continued. Armed resistance to some military operations led to gun battles, and there were other events which this Commission was forced to conclude were executions. In the early 1980's commando units composed of government agents or operating under government protection carried out some executions.

During this same period, some organized or reorganized extreme left groups opted for armed struggle. Groups reentered the country ready to engage in subversive activity. Their methods and objectives varied. For political purposes they made attempts on the lives of government figures, murdered police who were maintaining public order, set off bombs for terrorist purposes, and carried out attacks in which government agents and civilians were killed.

The nationwide protests that took place beginning in 1983 represented a new stage in which government agents or unidentified civilians killed political opponents. Some of these opposition groups were also responsible for killing people.

These violations radically changed the lives of the victims' relatives, as this report seeks to show by indicating the pain, sense of rejection, and fear affecting these families even today. The Chilean state must turn to them and urge them to forgive the society that injured them. Our society must ponder deeply what has happened if it is to look toward the future with a clear conscience.

If this Commission has had the arduous task of reestablishing the truth, it is now the delicate but fundamental task of all Chileans to utilize that truth for the sake of national reconciliation. How can the truth that we have sought to present systematically by means of our investigation and report be used to the best advantage? We firmly believe that we Chileans must seize hold of this truth which makes each and every one of us responsible; we must understand that there are some aspects to both repressive and extremist violence whose impact goes beyond the consciences of those directly responsible for crimes. To do otherwise would be tantamount to narrowing the scope of our effort to understand what has happened. Indeed if we yearn to assure that it does not recur, we need a new spiritual attitude.

Such an attitude entails reflecting with civic devotion on how we must conduct ourselves in the future. That reflection should lead to an utter conviction that full democracy and the rule of law are the only dikes that can contain violence, render it useless, and banish it forever. Only in this fashion will our country be secure from new outbreaks that might give lawless force control over our life in common and incline dissidents to routinely resort to criminal behavior. An examination of the tragic series of events that the Commission has had to present makes it imperative that our reflection and education be aimed at bringing about understanding among all Chileans.

The harm done to many Chileans calls for some degree of reparation. A special chapter of this report is devoted to this issue which from a human standpoint is so important.

We conclude by thanking the president for having invited us to participate in the task he set for us. We have fulfilled that task with both sacrifice and gratitude. In this instance those two ideas are not at odds.

We also thank those who put their confidence in us, whether by coming to our office or from afar, and shared their anguish, concern, and hope with us. They have enriched us emotionally with their sincerity, their self–control under affliction, and their faith that they would bring about the restoration of the good name of their loved ones. We ourselves may be better as a result.

We hereby submit our report.

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Posted by USIP Library on: October 4 2002
Source: Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
(Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), vol. I/II, Introduction, 1-4.
Note: Digitized and posted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press, February 22, 2000.