Juan Salvador Guzmán Tapia (; 22 April 1939 – 22 January 2021) was a
Chilean judge. He was the first Chilean judge to lead investigations and
prosecute
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
for
violations of human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...
during
his dictatorship between 1973 and 1990. As a special prosecutor, he used novel legal strategies to hold Pinochet and members of his military regime accountable for the killings and human rights violations during this period.
Early life
Guzmán was born on 22 April 1939 into a Chilean diplomatic family of
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
descent in
San Salvador
San Salvador (; ) is the capital and the largest city of El Salvador and its eponymous department. It is the country's political, cultural, educational and financial center. The Metropolitan Area of San Salvador, which comprises the capital i ...
,
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
.
His father
Juan Guzmán Cruchaga
Juan Guzmán Cruchaga (March 27, 1895 – July 21, 1979) was a Chilean poet and diplomat. He won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1962. Guzman Cruchaga was of Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and Fra ...
was a diplomat and a poet, while his mother was involved in the arts, having been trained in theater and sculpture.
He was exposed to American culture early in his life, having spent his early years between 4 and 12 in San Francisco and Washington.
He also spent time in Venezuela and Colombia, before going on to studying law at the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (''PUC or UC Chile'') ( es, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical universities i ...
and obtaining a postgraduate degree from the
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
in the late 1960s.
During his stay in Paris, he witnessed the events of
May 68
Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ha ...
and met his wife, Inés Watine Dubrulle, the daughter of a World War II
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
fighter.
A fluent French speaker, Guzmán played a minor, uncredited acting role in the 1972
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; el, Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and s ...
film, ''
State of Siege
A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
'' (set in Uruguay, but filmed in Chile), which explores
American covert actions in South America preceding
Operation Condor
Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of o ...
.
Career
Early years
Guzmán started his career as a regional magistrate in the early 1970s and went on to become an appeals court judge in
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...
and
Talca
Talca () is a List of cities in Chile, city and Communes of Chile, commune in Chile located about south of Santiago, Chile, Santiago, and is the capital of both Talca Province and Maule Region (7th Region of Chile). As of the 2012 census, the ...
by the time
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...
gave up power in the early 1990s.
Speaking of his early years as a sheltered conservative, Guzmán said that he and his family initially cheered as Pinochet overthrew democratically elected socialist President
Salvador Allende
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...
in a military coup.
However, this changed many years later when he learnt of the true extent of the actions undertaken by Pinochet and his secret police.
Prosecution of Augusto Pinochet
Guzmán was amongst the first few judges to lead the investigation and prosecution of Pinochet for killings and other human rights violations undertaken by his regime between 1973 and 1990. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, Guzmán led a risky legal campaign to fully investigate the crimes and drive redressals using a combination of novel legal strategies.
Under the judicial system in force in Chile at the time, judges had both investigative and prosecutorial responsibilities in addition to presiding over the courts.
When democracy returned to Chile in the early 1990s, the true extent of the human rights abuses by Pinochet and his military regime started to surface.
On 12 January 1998, human rights lawyers in Chile submitted the first of more than 70 lawsuits against Pinochet. Guzmán was appointed to take charge of the investigation. During this time, Pinochet was arrested in London in October 1998 under orders of Spanish judge
Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a former Spanish judge. Garzón formerly served on Spain's central criminal court, the ''Audiencia Nacional'', and was the examining magistrate of the ''Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5'', ...
on charges of genocide and other crimes against Spanish citizens in Chile. However, Pinochet was finally deemed unfit for trial and returned home to Chile in March 2000 after 17 months of house arrest in London. Guzmán immediately applied to have Pinochet's legal immunity revoked and have him placed under house arrest in Santiago.
Chilean investigation commissions including the commission on truth and reconciliation had documented over 3,000 victims of executions and disappearances, and a different commission had estimated at least 80,000 survivors of human rights abuses.
Guzmán got together a team of detectives and other forensic experts to lead the investigation.
He traveled from city to city interviewing relatives of people who had been executed or had disappeared and survivors of human rights abuses.
As a part of the investigations, he uncovered mass graves and secret prisons. He was often admonished by senior judges for the tactics used including taking journalists along on these missions to document the discoveries.
Pinochet had issued a blanket amnesty to his military and security officials for any crimes committed before 1978. However, Guzmán secured the arrests of the accused by applying a little-used interpretation of the 1978 auto-amnesty law. He argued that since many of the bodies of the military squads' victims were still missing, it could be argued legally that these people are still kidnapped. Therefore, Guzmán argued, the crime is continuing and neither the auto-amnesty law nor the statute of limitations can be applied until the bodies are found: the crime of
permanent sequestration was created by this
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
, thus permitting prosecution for the
forced disappearance
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...
s.
In December 2000, Guzmán formally charged Pinochet for kidnapping during his 1973–1990 dictatorship, and questioned him for two hours in January 2001 after doctors said he was fit to undergo interrogation. That same month, Guzmán placed the general under house arrest.
In July 2001, the charges were suspended and later dropped on health grounds. In May 2004, the Court stripped Pinochet again of his immunity from prosecution over fresh charges concerning
Operation Condor
Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of o ...
. In September 2005, the Court acceded to Guzmán's request to strip Pinochet of his immunity concerning
Operation Colombo Operation Colombo was an operation undertaken by the DINA (the Chilean secret police) in 1975 to make political dissidents disappear. At least 119 people are alleged to have been abducted and later killed. The magazines published a list of 119 de ...
.
Despite all of the efforts, Pinochet died in 2006, with charges and multiple cases continuing to remain pending.
Speaking later, Guzmán would say, "The important thing is what we leave to our children and here they are going to be able to say, 'Look, here a dictator was judged.'"
Later years
Guzmán retired in 2005. In a memoir, ''The Edge of the World'', published later that year, he revealed that he had come under political pressure to drop the case against Pinochet.
After his retirement, he served as the director of the Center for Human Rights at the
Universidad Central de Chile.
In 2008, Guzmán called for the lifting of the
United States blockade of Cuba. He also voiced his support for the
Cuban Five
The Cuban Five, also known as the Miami Five, are five Cuban intelligence officers (Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González) who were arrested in September 1998 and later convicted in Miam ...
, whose arrest Guzmán deemed as unjust and arbitrary.
Media
The 2008 documentary ''
The Judge and the General'' documented his efforts to bring Pinochet to justice for the crimes committed by his regime. The documentary was produced and directed by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco. The show was aired on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
in the United States.
Personal life
Guzmán was married to French-born Inés Watine Dubrulle. The couple had two daughters.
He was an art collector who donated several of his Pre-Columbian South American art collection pieces to museums in Chile including the . Titled the Guzmán–Watine collection, it spanned Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.
He lived in Santiago and suffered from dementia in the latter part of his life. He died on 22 January 2021. The cause for his death was not announced. He was 81.
Works
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guzman Tapia, Juan
1939 births
2021 deaths
20th-century Chilean judges
Chilean people of Basque descent
People from San Salvador
21st-century Chilean judges