>================================== > >Personal accounts of life under General Pinochet > >We have received many e-mails commenting on the Pinochet affair. Here are >two particularly startling accounts of life under General Pinochet. Keep >e-mailing us with your views and experiences. > >GUARDIAN (London)Tuesday December 1, 1998 > >"Pinochet must pay for his crimes. It's a personal thing." >From: Tito Tricot, Chile >Tuesday December 1, 1998 > >It hasn't rained for a long time in Chile. The fields are dry and the >lakes are running low. But no one is thinking about the country's drought >since General Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London this month. >Right-wing politicians and the armed forces were astonished. The left and >human rights activists were sceptical. I was delighted. > >I am happy, yet at the same time sickened by those who claim that the >dictator's rights are being violated. By those who state that the aging >General's rights were violated when the British police kept him two hours >incommunicado. Two hours!!! Is this a sick joke? He kept a country under a >permanent state of terror for 17 years. > >For designated senator and former commander in chief of the Navy, Jorge >Martinez, this is nothing but "an international conspiracy". For the >Chilean government the British action constitutes "a legal aberration". >There is certainly a legal and political dimension to the case, but there >is also a personal dimension - something neither the current Chilean >government nor Pinochet supporters care about. > >But I do, because I cannot forget Patricia's horrifying screams for help >as she was repeatedly raped by a gang of "brave" Chilean marines. She was >only 15 at the time of the coup. She was arrested, like many of us, simply >for being a supporter of the Popular Unity government. I will never forget >the night she tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall. >Did any of the right-wing members of Parliament whom today so >wholeheartedly defend Pinochet do anything for her? > >Did any of them defend my legal or political rights when I was brutally >tortured at the Naval Academy in Valparaiso? Where were they when I was >stripped naked, blindfolded and electricity was applied to my genitals? I >certainly did not see any of them when I left the hospital in a wheelchair >only to be taken to the War Academy and tortured again. Yes, this is a >personal problem, for the coup did not only mean the end of a unique >social and political process, but also the end of a dream for a whole >generation of Chileans. > >Terror became our permanent companion. Terror made my mother's hair go >grey, because she couldn't find me. She had to go through the humiliating >and agonising journey of knocking at the soldiers' doors asking questions >that always remained unanswered. > >Our lives, my life, changed dramatically after the coup, that's why this >is so personal. My wife was five months pregnant when arrested by a >special secret police unit. Where were the now-vociferous Pinochet >supporters when she was sent to a men's prison and kept in solitary >confinement? Did they ever think about the suffering of our baby? He was >born with mild brain damage, but of course the rich politicians, >businessmen and lawyers who complain about the treatment of Pinochet never >helped him. > >It's also personal because we had to endure many years in exile, because >our children were born abroad and then went back to Chile to live out >their own exile. Ireland was a place of refuge, but it was never home. We >lived in England, but it was never home. It was exile, that slow and >painful way of withering away from your family, friends, past and present. >Above all it was the realisation that you were not part of your country's >future. So we came back, but the military had changed the country's trees >and lakes, they had moved the mountains and the sea. Nothing was the same. > >But nothing mattered, because we were home at last. We were happy, until >the night the secret police broke into the tranquillity of our home, >ransacking the place, stealing the little we had and shattering the peace >of the neighbourhood. Nothing had changed. > >They terrorized my pregnant wife and the little being in her womb. "It is >war", they shouted, before ripping away my clothes, tying my hands behind >my back and putting a hood over my head. They took turns in beating me up, >I could feel their stale breath, their joy when their fists or kicks met >the flesh. I stood there, naked, tied up, blindfolded and defenceless, but >proud. > >Yes, proud, because I was better than they were, because I had nothing to >be ashamed of. What do they know about ideals, ethics or morality, they >who have been trained in the "art" of killing? They were the raving >animals while I was more humane than ever before, conquering fear in the >name of freedom. > >The pain rushed through my entire body, it got increasingly hot in that >room, the torture session went on forever. Was it still night-time, was >the sun already coming out, were people leaving their homes to work, were >little children going to school unaware that in a dark basement cell yet >another human being was being tortured by a group of cowards? > >I will never know the answer to these questions. All I know is that at one >point I was taken to another room, tied to a chair, threatened with being >executed before tiny electrodes were fixed to my wrists and genitals. It >was electricity. You could feel it coming, travelling throughout your body >like a million pins pinching your flesh, your bones, your kidneys, and >your brain. It is a painful explosion of shiny colours that comes out of >your mouth in the form of a scream that you cannot control. It is as if >somebody else is screaming in the room; it is not your scream, it is not >your body, but it is your pain. You swallow electricity and you vomit >electricity. It hurts, and they know it. That is why this is personal. > >I spent four months with a plaster cast from my neck to my waist because >they broke my back. Not in a private clinic, not in a hospital, but in >prison. Because ten years went by before I could get a job, because my >first wife died without knowing what true democracy is. Because I was >separated from my children and it hurt. > >President Eduardo Frei has called upon the Chilean people to remain calm. >But, you know what? I don't want to remain calm, for this is personal, >this is between Pinochet and I. I want the whole world to know that he is >a murderer, a terrorist, a criminal, an animal. I want the whole world to >know that I feel deeply embarrassed by the civilian government's defence >of the dictator. It sickens me that two European countries have finally >arrested Pinochet, because our own judicial system was unable or unwilling >to bring him to justice. > >I don't care whether he is 80 or a 100 years old. He must pay for his >horrendous crimes. We will never rest until he and all those responsible >for crimes against our people are brought to justice. It is not only a >legal or political problem, it's personal, because I was lucky, because I >survived, because it is my duty to pay homage to all my sisters and >brothers who fell in the struggle against the dictatorship. > >Tito Tricot, >Chile >_________________________________________________________________ > >"We were all taken blindfolded to the detention centre located in the >neighborhood of NuNoa - the so-called 'house of terror'" > >From: Arturo C. Ellis, Santiago, Chile >Sunday November 29, 1998 > >My name is Arturo C. Ellis, geographer, born in Chile, holder of a British >Passport number C 556841 D and son of a former British Diplomat. I declare >that the night of September 29, 1974, a gang of the Chilean secret police >(DINA) led by Osvaldo Romo (famous for his brutal tortures) broke into my >house searching for my cousin Cecilia Bottai. I was taken with a submachine >gun under my neck into the house, where I was living with my cousin Gilda >Bottai, her husband, Edmundo Lebrecht and their 3 years old daughter >Tania. > >We were all taken blindfolded to the detention centre located in the >neighborhood of NuNoa a - the so-called "house of terror". I was forced to >lie on the floor and interrogated about my activities and isolated from my >relatives. I was then put against a wall with my hands up, a position I >had to maintain during all the rest of the night. In the meantime, they >hit me with their firearms on my legs while they made sounds simulating >preparing to shoot, in a kind of psychological torture. > >I was released in the street the next morning with my cousin Gilda, while >her husband remained detained. > >One month later, at the end of October, they came again, like the first >time, at night during the curfew hours. Then I knew they were coming for >me because they acquired the certainty, in their perverted minds, that I >was a dangerous terrorist with military training. This was because at that >time I was studying Geography at the University of Chile and I had a >number of maps marked with my field work and outdoor equipment that they >found in the first housebreaking. They surely thought this was part of a >military operation (I have never fired a gun). > >I escaped through the window out into the garden and I remained hiding up >in a tree for a couple of hours while they where searching all over the >place with their machine guns ready to shoot. I was able to reach the >street creeping on the floor in between the bushes. I continued creeping >on the sidewalk up to a friend's house where I asked for help. > >The British Embassy was notified of what was going on. They advised me to >remain in a safe place while they arranged my exit from the country. I had >to hide for ten days, moving continuously. At last, on November 4, 1974, I >was taken to the airport by the British Consul, Mr. Ferneyhough, and flown >to Britain. > >As a result of the failure of my arrest, my relatives were severely >tortured and the order to shoot me was given. If I was captured, I would >not be alive know. > >I do not write this in the spirit of revenge, but with a sense that >justice must be done. I lost not only my material goods stolen during the >housebreaking, but also my family life and my studies at the University >and therefore, my future. > >My human rights were violated, and I think the dictator must be held and >taken into courts. If not, all the British lives lost during the war >against Hitler's and Mussolini's fascism, in which my father participated, >will mean nothing. > >Arturo C. Ellis >Santiago, Chile > >** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material >is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest >in receiving the included information for research and educational >purposes. **
