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	Chileans urged not to repeat Pinochet-era mistakes by NYT / Chinaview and agencies Chile   Dec. 19, 2006   Chile’s Leader attacks Amnesty Law, by Larry Rohter. (New York Times)   Gen. Augusto Pinochet died this month without ever being held legally accountable for human rights abuses that occurred during his dictatorship. But his subordinates are now facing a new threat: President Michelle Bachelet is pushing to invalidate an amnesty law that for nearly 30 years has exempted them from prosecution on murder and torture charges.   General Pinochet originally decreed the amnesty in April 1978, four and a half years after he seized power in the coup that overthrew an elected president, Salvador Allende. According to official reports of government commissions, his dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of at least 3,200 people, the bulk of which occurred before the amnesty edict, and the torture of 28,000 more.   “This government, like other democratic governments before it, maintains that the amnesty was an illegitimate decision in its origins and content, form and foundation,” Ms. Bachelet’s chief of staff, Paulina Veloso, said in an interview at the presidential palace here. “Our conviction is that it should never have been applied at all, and certainly should never be used again.”   Ms. Bachelet, a Socialist, took office in March in the fourth consecutive victory for a center-left coalition of Christian Democrats and Socialists since General Pinochet was forced to step down in 1990. In the past, pro-Pinochet right-wing parties have been able to block congressional efforts to overturn the amnesty, but Ms. Bachelet’s coalition has a large enough majority in both houses to make passage of such a bill almost certain.   Despite the amnesty, there have been some prosecutions over the years, as investigative judges and prosecutors found ambiguities in the law that permitted them to move against people suspected of human rights abuses.   Since the late 1990s, prosecutions have occurred in cases of people who disappeared in the early years of the dictatorship and are presumed dead, thanks to judicial rulings that such disappearances are really a form of “permanent kidnapping” and not covered by the amnesty.   Courts have convicted more than 100 people of crimes including disappearances, killings and torture; 35 former generals are among those who have already been sentenced or are facing trials. But human rights advocates and government officials estimate that if the amnesty were revoked, the number of people suspected of human rights abuses who could be prosecuted would more than double.   Ms. Bachelet made her intentions clear in mid-October, during a visit to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention and torture center here that has recently been turned into a memorial to the victims of General Pinochet. It is her obligation as president, she said, to support “measures to ensure that the Chilean state acts in accordance with international law.” The issue has special relevance for the president because she and her mother were imprisoned and tortured at Villa Grimaldi in 1975, before going into exile. Her father, an Air Force general who had served in the left-wing Allende government and opposed the 1973 coup, died in another prison in 1974 after being tortured.   In late September, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the Pinochet “self-amnesty,” as critics here refer to the measure, was incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights, a treaty created by the Organization of American States that took effect in 1978. Because Chile has signed that agreement and others, it is theoretically bound by provisions of international law that prohibit any amnesty for crimes against humanity.   “Until now, the government has taken a hands-off approach, and the courts have had to circumnavigate the law,” said José Miguel Vivanco, a Chilean who is the director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. “But now the government and Congress have to bite the bullet. To her credit, Bachelet has embraced this opportunity and has been busy consulting human rights experts and jurists to work out the most effective option.”   Proposals have already been offered to Congress, calling for the amnesty to be repealed, nullified or modified. The right-wing opposition has made it clear that it intends to challenge any change in the courts.   “The executive branch wants the law completely toppled because of the international impact that would have,” said Juan Bustos, a Socialist deputy who introduced a bill that would tinker with the amnesty to exclude crimes against humanity or war crimes. “But I favor a mixed solution because I want to see these cases resolved quickly, before those responsible die, and that can’t be achieved if we’re tied up in the courts.”   In a decision last week that the conservative daily newspaper El Mercurio called “a radical turn in jurisprudence,” the Chilean Supreme Court ruled that the Inter-American tribunal’s September verdict permits the prosecution of police officers accused of murdering two leftist students in 1973. “Rather than contributing to social peace and national reconciliation,” the paper said, “this verdict seems to augur the reopening and perpetuation of many causes of division, due to the juridical uncertainty it creates.”   Some human rights groups here, on the other hand, have expressed concern that General Pinochet’s death, and the consequent removal of his name from prosecutions already under way, may reduce the determination of the government and the courts to proceed in prosecuting human rights abuses during his dictatorship. But officials say that will not happen.   “This was a highly planned system of extermination, not just a solitary person,” said Ms. Veloso, a lawyer and former judge whose first husband was one of the dictatorship’s victims. “So I think the death of Pinochet will not alter the agenda.”   12 Dec. 2006   Chileans urged not to repeat Pinochet-era mistakes. (Chinaview)   Chilean President Michelle Bachelet urged the Chilean people on Monday not to forget the suffering and social fragmentation inflicted by Augusto Pinochet"s rule and to learn from the past in efforts to avoid repeating the same mistakes.   Stressing the importance of national dialogue, Bachelet said it was terrible for a society to run out of something as vital as the possibility to communicate and reach understanding.   "Chile cannot forget because that"s the only way we will have a constructive outlook towards our future and guarantee the fundamental rights of every Chilean citizen," the president said during the presentation of an Education Advisory Council report.   Bachelet was referring to the military government under Pinochet, who was charged with torturing and murdering thousands of leftist opposition members during his 17-year rule.   The 91-year-old former leader, who was brought to power by the 1973 coup d"etat, died on Sunday, without being held accountable for any of his crimes.   "History is gradually built and truths are established... I have a very settled notion about a painful, dramatic and complex era our country went through. I have memory. I believe in truth and I aspire to justice," Bachelet said.   Bachelet"s remarks came one day after riots, pitting Pinochet"s opponents and supporters, swept through Santiago, which witnessed some 100 arrests and dozens of injures.   According to official information, about 15,000 people took to the streets on Sunday to celebrate Pinochet"s death with champagne, while some 3,000 of his followers gathered outside the Military School where his remains were held, bidding farewell to the former leader. "We have seen divisive gestures we dislike, but I know that as a country and as a society we have the ethical strength to reunite," the president said.   Meanwhile, Home Minister Belisario Velasco, also Bachelet"s chief of cabinet, reiterated the government"s stance that there would be no state funerals for Pinochet.   "The government does no think (Pinochet) fulfils the requirements for a state funeral," he said, adding that Pinochet "will go down in history as a dictator, as the classic rightist dictator who seriously violated human rights and became rich. This has been the line of rightist dictators in Latin America."   As Pinochet"s death touched off mixed emotions in Chile, the Group for Relatives of Detained and Missing People (AFDD) on Monday called for new demonstrations in downtown Santiago to honor the victims under Pinochet"s rule.   December 11, 2006   Pinochet should have stood trial: Allende, from correspondents in Madrid.   The daughter of Chile"s late President Salvador Allende, who was ousted by Augusto Pinochet, said today she was comforted by the fact the former dictator died pursued by the courts but wished he had been convicted.   "To the end he was surrounded by lawyers trying to defend the indefensible," Isabel Allende told national radio in Spain, following Pinochet"s death from heart failure in a Santiago military hospital on Sunday at the age of 91.   Salvador Allende, a Socialist, shot himself during the military coup led by Pinochet, who went on to head a bloody 1973-1990 dictatorship in which more than 3000 people were killed or disappeared and 28,000 tortured.   Isabel Allende, a cousin of the well-known novelist of the same name, went into exile in Mexico after the coup but is now a member of Chile"s parliament for the Socialist Party, which once again governs the country.   "I would have preferred that the courts finished their work, I wish there had been a ruling, I wish he had been condemned," Ms Allende told television in Spain, which she is visiting. "I think it would have been healthier in some way and it hurts me ... because as a country, in the end ... we didn"t carry out final justice."   Pinochet, the most notorious of the military leaders who dominated South America through much of the Cold War, narrowly escaped extradition so Spain for human rights abuses in 2000 but died facing charges of kidnapping and torture.   Thousands of Chileans danced in the streets of the capital to celebrate his death this weekend, while his supporters wept outside the hospital where he died.   "At this moment my thoughts are with so many of our dead, certainly my father, but I think of all our people who were disappeared, tortured, murdered," Ms Allende said.
	Peace Women, convicted of Trespassing by Medea Benjamin USA   December 2006   It must sound absurd, perhaps even unbelievable, that four peace women were arrested and put on trial for attempting to deliver a peace petition to the US Mission to the United Nations.   On March 6, 2006, CODEPINK organized a group of about 40 women, including a delegation from Iraq, and held a press conference in front of the United Nations, in New York City, to call for an end to the war in Iraq and commemorate International Women"s Day. The group then marched a few blocks to the US Mission to deliver a petition signed by 72,000 women from around the world.   The previous year, on International Women"s Day, CODEPINK had delivered a similar petition without incident, with government representatives from the diplomatic office coming outside to greet us in a freak blizzard. This year, to our surprise and horror, we found the building had been locked up to keep us out and we were surrounded by armed police and security guards.   After an hour of urging them to either let a small group inside or have someone come down to "just accept the damn piece of paper," the four women representatives - myself, peace mom Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Families for Peace member Missy Beattie, and Reverend Patti Ackerman - were handcuffed and dragged to a police wagon.   We were booked and kept overnight in the over-crowded, roach-infested jail called "The Tombs." We were charged with trespassing, two counts of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstructing government administration.   Nine months later, the trial of the "CODEPINK Four" started in the Manhattan Criminal Court and dragged on for over a week.   Day after day, the prosecution trotted out police officers, security guards and US Mission staff to testify that we never intended to deliver the petition but instead had planned to get arrested as a publicity stunt.   They insisted that we were trespassing on private property (the US Mission is a government office, but is currently housed in a commercial building), that we blocked the entrance to the building, and that we resisted when the police swarmed in to arrest us.   The head of communications for the US Mission, Richard Grenell, was the most absurd of the witnesses. While a videotape we introduced as evidence showed a group of about 40 mostly middle-aged women strolling toward the Mission singing Give Peace a Chance, Mr. Grenell testified that he found the group threatening because "they were wearing pink, they were laughing and they were clearly happy."   When one of our stellar lawyers, Robert Gottlieb, asked incredulously how a happy group of women dressed in pink could possibly be threatening, Grenell gravely replied, "You had to be there to understand."   In a way, he"s right. You had to be there, and then in the courtroom, to understand how ridiculous it was for the US diplomatic office to refuse our petition, how absurd it was for the private security to lock down the building, for the NY City police to haul us off to jail, for the DA"s office to pile on extra charges, and for the jury, the prosecutors, eleven witnesses, our wonderful lawyers and ourselves to have to waste tens of thousands of dollars on such a frivolous case.   It should have been George Bush, not us, being prosecuted for the criminal actions that are maiming and killing people every day.   If the government intended to use this high-profile case with well-known "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan as a way to intimidate anti-war activists, the tactic backfired.   The jury acquitted us of the more serious misdemeanor charges and found us guilty of trespassing, a violation akin to a parking ticket. After paying a $95 court fee, we were free. The prosecutor wanted us sentenced to some days of community service - an irony for a group of women who have more or less devoted our lives to community service - but the judge required us only to pay a $95 court fee and set us free.   The arrest also backfired because we left the courtroom outraged that we had ever been arrested in the first place, and that we had been convicted of trespassing for being outside a government office that should be open to the public.   So as soon as the court adjourned, we immediately returned to the same US Mission to deliver the same petition.   This time, when we read our petition outside the building, no one threatened to arrest us. This time, when the same four women tried to get in the building, we were ushered in. This time, the two members of the US Mission staff, who only days before had testified against us, were now waiting cordially in the lobby to greet us.   This time, they smiled and accepted our petition. No arrests. No hassle. No bad press for the Mission.   Perhaps this new lesson in diplomacy, coupled with the departure of Ambassador Bolton, can help nudge the US Mission onto a more diplomatic path.   For CODEPINK, it only strengthens our resolve to promote non-violent conflict resolution, not war.   * Medea Benjamin is co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange. She was one of the "CODEPINK 4" convicted of trespassing. Visit the related web page
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