The Committee of Cooperation for Peace in Chile () was a Chilean peace organization founded in October 1973 by an inter-religious group led by the Archdiocese of Santiago in order to support human rights of those persecuted by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. It was the first active human rights organization in Chile and it lasted for two years, supporting thousands of people persecuted by the regime. It dissolved under pressure from the regime in November 1975, but the

Vicariate of Solidarity The Vicariate of Solidarity () was a human rights organization in Chile during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. A Catholic organisation, it was created by Pope Paul VI at the request of cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez to replace the ...

was formed in its wake shortly thereafter, and it took up the baton of protection of human rights in Chile.

Background

On 11 September 1973 a

military junta A military junta () is a system of government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''Junta (governing body), junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the Junta (Peninsular War), national and local junta organized by t ...

toppled President

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until Death of Salvador Allende, his death in 1973 Chilean coup d'état, 1973. As a ...

in a

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

and installed General

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...

as head of the new regime. This was a dictatorial, authoritarian regime which trampled on human rights with the use of torture, disappearances, illegal and secret arrest, and extrajudicial killings. Thousands were being detained, and hundreds killed by the regime. It was in this context, that the first opposition to the Pinochet regime appeared.

Founding

The first organized opposition to the regime came from the churches. The committee, more commonly known as "Committee for Peace" (; also ) was founded by the

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

, and

Pentecostal Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a movement within the broader Evangelical wing of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes direct personal experience of God in Christianity, God through Baptism with the Holy Spirit#Cl ...

Churches, as well as the

Jewish community Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

in Chile. It was formalized by Archbishop Raul Silva Henriquez in Order 158-73 on 9 October 1973, with the goal of "helping Chileans, who, as a result of recent political events, are in dire economic or personal straits," and also to provide "legal, economic, technical, and spiritual" assistance. Its charter also called for ecumenical links to other religions to help carry out its work in favor of those who were persecuted by the regime. The Committee carried out its pro-human rights activity in the face of harassment and intimidation by the government, and was a risky proposition for those involved. A year later, a couple dozen members of the committee, mostly women who were looking for their "disappeared" relatives, went on to form a new group focused on pressuring the government for information about their "disappeared" relatives. This was formalized into a new group, the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared by

Clotario Blest Clotario Leopoldo Blest Riffo (; 17 November 1899 – 31 May 1990) was a Chilean social activist and labor union leader. Blest was one of the founders of Agrupación Nacional de Empleados Fiscales (ANEF), Central Única de Trabajadores (CUT), R ...

the next year.

Activities

The chief activity of the Committee of Cooperation for Peace in Chile was the legal support for those persecuted by the government, as well as people arrested for political reasons without a trial. It also played a support role for those who lost their job for political reasons, and provided medical care. In the two years of its operation, it provided legal services to over 17,000 people, and medical care for an equal number.

Links with other groups

The Committee was the first such human rights group, but others followed, to the point where there were at least fifteen human rights groups operating in Chile by the mid-1980s. One that grew directly out of the Committee, was the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared. At the end of 1974, a group of mostly women applied to the Committee for Peace to find out the whereabouts of their missing family members, the ''

desaparecidos An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a State (polity), state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the i ...

'' (the ''disappeared''), who had been detained or killed. The Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared coalesced unofficially out of this group of people.

formally established the group in 1975 out of her home in central Santiago.

Dissolution

When the Committee was dissolved at the demand of the government. At the same time as the government was arresting its lawyers, Pinochet wrote to Cardinal Raul Silva Henriquez on 11 November 1975 claiming that the Committee was being "used by Marxist-Leninists" to cause an appearance of division between the government and the Roman Catholic Church, and used this as an excuse to demand its dissolution.

Follow-up

The Archbishop established its successor organization, the

in January 1976, which took over the responsibility of defending human rights in Chile and was less subject to pressure than the Committee for Peace had been, because it was under the full protection of the Roman Catholic Church.

References

External links

Comité de Cooperación para la Paz en Chile
history page (in Spanish) by the Archdiocese of Santiago {{DEFAULTSORT:Committee of Cooperation for Peace in Chile 1973 establishments in Chile 1975 disestablishments in South America Human rights organisations based in Chile Religious organisations based in Chile