![Raúl Rettig (1969)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Ra%C3%BAl_Rettig_%281969%29.jpg)
The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report, is a 1991 report by a commission designated by Chilean President
Patricio Aylwin
Patricio Aylwin Azócar (; 26 November 1918 – 19 April 2016) was a Chilean politician from the Christian Democratic Party, lawyer, author, professor and former senator. He was the first president of Chile after dictator Augusto Pinochet, a ...
(from the ''
Concertación
The Concertación, officially the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia ( en, Coalition of Parties for Democracy), was a coalition of center-left political parties in Chile, founded in 1988. Presidential candidates under its banner won ...
'') detailing
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, 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 ce ...
abuses resulting in deaths or disappearances that occurred in
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
during
the years of military dictatorship under
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 ...
, which began on September 11, 1973 and ended on March 11, 1990. The report found that over 2,000 people had been killed for political reasons, and dozens of military personnel have been convicted of human rights abuses. In addition, many reforms have been made based on the recommendations of the report including an official reparations department.
Background
The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, the eight-member committee that later wrote the Rettig Report, was set up shortly after Patricio Aylwin, Chile's first democratically elected president since
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 ...
, took office following the
1989 election.
In addition to the eight members, the committee was chaired by
Raúl Rettig
Raúl Rettig Guissen (16 May 1909, in Temuco – 30 April 2000, in Santiago), was a Chilean politician and lawyer.
A member of the Radical Party, between 1938 and 1940 he served as undersecretary of the interior and, later, at the foreign affai ...
, a former Chilean senator and ambassador to Brazil under Allende. In order to show impartiality, the commission contained four members each from camps of supporters of the Pinochet regime, and opponents of it.
The eight-members of the commission were
Jaime Castillo Velasco
Jaime Castillo Velasco (; 14 March 1914 – 29 October 2003) was a Chilean politician who served as president and vice-president of the Christian Democrat Party on several occasions.
Early life
Born in Santiago, he studied at the Liceo Ale ...
,
José Luis Cea Egaña,
Mónica Jiménez,
Laura Novoa Vásquez,
José Zalaquett Daher,
Ricardo Martin Díaz, and
Gonzalo Vial Correa
Gonzalo Vial Correa (29 August 1930 – 30 October 2009) was a Chilean historian, lawyer and journalist. He was a member of the State Defense Council and the Council on Ethics in Social Media. (minister of Education 1978-79).
The commission was given large amounts of resources and access to official documents to ensure thoroughness, and the report was finalized in February 1991.
One criticism of the report is that it only focused on politically motivated murders and disappearances that occurred while Pinochet was dictator, and did not include other human rights violations. This issue was addressed in a second report commissioned in 2003 known as the
Valech Report
The Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) is a record of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. The report was published on November ...
.
Goals of the Report
On April 25, 1990, Aylwin issued Supreme Decree No. 355, officially creating the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation with the following goals:
* To create as complete a picture as possible of the most serious human rights violations
* To gather evidence to allow the creation of a list that identifies the victims' name, fate, and whereabouts
* To recommend reparations for the families of victims
* To recommend legal and administrative measures to prevent future violations
Findings
![Informe Rettig](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Informe_Rettig.jpg)
The report determined that there were 2,115 victims of human rights violations and 164 victims of political violence between September 11, 1973 and the end of the Pinochet regime on March 11, 1990. This breaks down further to 1,068 victims confirmed to have been killed, 957 people who disappeared after their arrest, and an additional 90 killed by politically motivated private citizens. The report also was unable to come to a decision for 614 cases, and there were an additional 508 cases in which the nature of the violation did not fit the commission's mandate.
The commission found that the majority of the human rights violations were conducted in a sophisticated and systematic fashion in the years directly after Pinochet took power. The majority of the violations were perpetrated by the
National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Chile's secret police force from 1973 to 1977.
Legal Ramifications
As of May 2012, 76 agents had been condemned for violations of human rights and 67 were convicted: 36 in the
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
, 27 in the
Carabineros
The was an armed carabiniers force of Spain under both the monarchy and the Second Republic. The formal mission of this paramilitary gendarmerie was to patrol the coasts and borders of the country, operating against fraud and smuggling. A ...
, 2 in the
Air Force
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...
, one of the
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...
and one in the
Police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
. Three condemned agents died and six agents got conditional sentences. 350 cases, pertaining to disappeared persons, illegal detainees and torture, remain open. There are 700 military and civilian persons involved in these cases. While some perpetrators have been convicted, prosecution has been difficult due to an amnesty law passed by the military regime in 1978 giving full legal protection to any individual implicated in human rights violations between 1973 and 1978.
Recommendations
The report included the following recommendations to prevent future human rights violations in Chile:
* Ratification of
international human rights treaties
* Modifying the national laws to match international standards of
human rights law
International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, ag ...
* Assuring the independence of the judiciary
* Creating a society in which the armed forces, the police, and the security forces respect human rights
* Creating a
permanent office to work to protect citizens from future human rights violations
Over time, many of these recommendations were put into place in Chile, although progress was slow due to a lack of a legislative majority from Aylwin's party, and the continued influence of the military in politics.
One area where Aylwin was unable to make change was a failure to repeal the 1978 amnesty law.
Aftermath
In a speech announcing the report's findings, President Aylwin apologized on behalf of the Chilean government for the murders and disappearances detailed in the report, and asked the military to do the same. The Chilean military, still headed at the time by Pinochet, refused to apologize and much of the armed forces community openly questioned the validity of the report.
The Rettig Report's listing of a disappeared person as deceased and the victim of a human rights violation created a legal determination of the victim's situation. That would give the surviving family members certain benefits such as making it possible for them to resolve property and inheritance claims, apply for social security and any reparation benefits, as well as impacting the marital status of spouses.
This was made possible through the establishment of the "National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation".
Other actions based on recommendations from the report that were eventually taken by later Chilean governments are:
* The elimination in 1998 of the national holiday celebrating the 1973 coup.
* The Chilean military was stripped of its political power with the elimination of the military dominated National Security Council in 2005.
*The National Institute for Human Rights, a government agency that reports on human rights issues within Chile, was created in November 2009.
Pinochet was also stripped of his parliamentary immunity in 2000, and was indicted by the Chilean Supreme Court along with other officers for killings which occurred after the original coup in 1973. He was put under house arrest with new charges in 2004, and died under house arrest in December 2006.
One issue that remained was the fact the
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
Pinochet's regime put into place in 1980 had remained relatively unchanged. This however may change as a result of
protests in Chile
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...
in late 2019, prompting a referendum on replacing it currently slated for October 2020.
The human rights violations in Chile were also looked at again in the
Valech Report
The Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) is a record of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. The report was published on November ...
which was conducted between 2004 and 2005.
See also
*
Chilean Coup of 1973
Chilean may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Chile, a country in South America
* Chilean people
* Chilean Spanish
* Chilean culture
* Chilean cuisine
* Chilean Americans
See also
*List of Chileans
This is a list of Chileans who ar ...
*
List of truth and reconciliation commissions
A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission is a commission tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government (or, depending on the circumstances, non-state actors also), in the hope of resolving conflict left ove ...
*
Víctor Jara Stadium
Estadio Víctor Jara is an indoor multi-use sports complex located in the western part of Santiago, Chile, near the Santiago Estación Central, Estación Central and Alameda Avenue. It has a total capacity for an audience of 6,500 people.
Esta ...
was a sports arena used as a
detention and
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
center listed on the report.
*
Carlos Lorca
*
Patio 29
Patio 29 (Spanish: Yard 29) is a common grave site in Santiago General Cemetery in Chile, where political prisoners, especially those who "disappeared" during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, were buried anonymously. The mass grave, the larges ...
*
Villa Grimaldi
Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA’s (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet regime) many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during ...
Infamous torture center in Santiago.
*
Colonia Dignidad
Colonia Dignidad ("Dignity Colony") was an isolated colony of Germans established in post-World War II Chile by emigrant Germans which became notorious for the internment, torture, and murder of dissidents during the military dictatorship of G ...
is another detention and torture center listed.
*
Valech Report
The Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) is a record of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. The report was published on November ...
is the report from the second truth commission in Chile, considered to have continued Rettig's work.
References
External links
Memoriaviva(Complete list of Victims, Torture Centres and Criminals - in Spanish)
Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation(English translation of the Rettig report, PDF file)
Truth Commission: Chile 90 Website with English translation of the report
Protests in Chile regarding lasting impacts of PinochetVíctor Jara a famous victim of the Pinochet Regime
{{Authority control
1991 in Chile
Political repression in Chile during the military government (1973–1990)
Dirty wars
Government reports
Truth and reconciliation commissions
Operation Condor
Political repression in Chile
1991 documents
Presidency of Patricio Aylwin
Truth and reconciliation reports