Italy jails 24 South Americans over Condor-era killings
Judges in Rome’s Court of Appeal on Monday sentenced a group of former military and police officials from Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Uruguay to life imprisonment for voluntary homicide.
The individuals were found guilty of the abduction and killing of 23 Italians in the 1970s and 80s as part of Operation Condor — the code name for a campaign of political repression that led to an estimated 60,000 deaths under South America’s dictatorships.
Monday’s verdict reversed an earlier ruling in 2017, in which eight officials were given life sentences and 19 others were acquitted.
Read more: South American leaders on trial for Condor Plan crimes
Among those sentenced were former Bolivian Interior Ministor Luis Arce Gomez, Peruvian ex-President Francisco Morales Bermudez, former Uruguayan Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Blanco, and a former deputy intelligence chief from Chile.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Chile’s September 11
September 11, 1973, changed the lives of many Chileans forever. General Augusto Pinochet, commander in chief of the Chilean army, overthrew the incumbent socialist president, Salvador Allende. The military bombarded the presidential palace “La Moneda” in the capital Santiago, arrested government supporters, leftists and Pinochet opponents.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Salvador Allende, a people’s president
The socialist president had only been in office for three years before the coup. After having nationalized companies and dispossessed great land owners, his government faced massive opposition. The US didn’t approve of the socialist leader in South America either. With the help of the CIA, Washington boycotted Allende’s economic policies and incited Chile’s media against the government.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
The president’s death
President Allende committed suicide on the day of the coup, stating in his farewell speech that his commitment to Chile did not allow him to take an easy way out. The photo above shows soldiers and firefighters carrying his body from the presidential palace. Meanwhile, the Estadio Nacional stadium was used as a concentration camp: 40,000 people were detained there, thousands tortured and killed.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
A stadium as a concentration camp
Walter Ramirez, cameraman for DW’s “After the Escape” feature, was also arrested. A student at the time, he was walking with a friend when soldiers arrested the two of them on September 11, 1973. His friend not only had long hair, he also had Argentinian pesos on him, which he needed to travel to his wife and son in Argentina. For days, the alleged “traitors” were kept in the national stadium.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Shots in the changing room
Walter Ramirez and his friend were locked into a changing room with nearly 100 other men. They all needed to share two bathrooms, while bored soldiers shot at the windows. After several days, Walter and his friend were released. To this day, he doesn’t know why. Could it be because his father worked for a US company? The topic is taboo in his family.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
General turned dictator: Augusto Pinochet
The head behind the coup was General Augusto Pinochet, supreme commander of the armed forces. He governed Chile from 1973 until 1990 in a dictatorial style. Political parties and leftist trade unions were forbidden. Freedom of opinion ceased to exist. Despite all this, the Pinochet regime continued to be supported by the US, as well as some politicians in Germany.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Torture, assassinations and book burnings
Chilean artists, writers and intellectuals were also persecuted. Song writer Victor Jara was arrested, tortured and shot to death in a basketball stadium in Santiago. Books written by authors regarded as bothersome were burnt on the streets. Numerous opponents of the regime were to leave Chile over the next months and years.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Antonio Skarmeta: exile in Berlin
Author and university professor Antonio Skarmeta also fled Chile in 1973. For 16 years, he lived in exile in Berlin where he wrote “Nixpassiert” (Nothing Happened) and “The Postman,” two highly successful books that were adapted into film several times. Exile was a theme that would dominate his life. His story is told in the DW special feature, “After the Escape.”
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Isabel Allende’s flight from Chile
Another internationally acclaimed writer who left Chile is Isabel Allende, author of the bestseller “The House of the Spirits.” In 1975, the journalist and women’s rights activist fled to Venezuela. Incidentally, President Salvador Allende was not her uncle, as is often claimed, but the cousin of her father. In her novel “Paula,” she describes her years in exile. She now lives in the US.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Numbered days for Pinochet
In August 1987, dictator Augusto Pinochet oversaw a military parade in honor of the 14th anniversary of his coup (picture). But his days were numbered. A national referendum on his political future was planned for October 1988. The opponents of his dictatorship mobilized all available forces. With a spectacular action, they initiated change for Chile.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
A successful No campaign
In October 1988, the Chilean population decided whether or not Augusto Pinochet should run as the sole candidate during the next elections. Yes or no? A colorful campaign mobilized the masses. A majority dared to say no. It was the beginning of the end of the dictatorship.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
Peaceful transition to democracy
In 1990, Pinochet handed over power to Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin (right). However, until 1998, Pinochet continued serving as supreme commander of the armed forces. Implicated in over 300 criminal charges, a final verdict wasn’t reached by the International Criminal Court before Augusto Pinochet’s death at the age of 91, on December 10, 2006.
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Artists After the Escape: Chile’s coup, dictatorship and the path to democracy
The dictatorship’s legacy in a divided society
It took a long time for Chile to deal with its former dictatorship. Democracy has by no means solved all problems. On this photo from March 2017, people demonstrate against the AFP pension system, which was privatized during the Pinochet era and still excludes many people from obtaining a pension. The dictatorship continues to haunt the country, but at least people can now demonstrate for change.
All were sentenced in absentia, except for former Uruguayan naval intelligence officer Jorge Nestor Troccoli, 69, who had been living in freedom in Italy after escaping justice in his home country in 2007. He had also been acquitted in the previous judgement.
Significant sentence
The ruling provoked a sigh of relief from victims’ relatives who had packed into the courtroom.
“It is an important and emotional sentence for Uruguay and for the victims,” Uruguayan presidential secretary Miguel Toma, who traveled to Italy for the sentencing, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
He was joined by Javier Moncada, Bolivia’s deputy justice minister: “We have come this far, to Rome, to continue the fight against impunity, and because we have the obligation not to forget,” he told AFP.
The verdict is “a great victory of justice,” said Alicia Mejia, a lawyer representing the relatives of Jaime Patricio Donato Avendano, who disappeared in Chile in 1976.
Read more: Argentine court issues guilty verdicts in Operation Condor trial
Long-running ordeal
The trial, which began in 2015, was the first of its kind in an Italian court. More than 100 witnesses were called on to give testimony over the course of the proceedings.
The sentencing comes some 20 years after Italy first started investigating the murder of its citizens under Operation Condor. The right-wing dictatorships of six Latin American countries collaborated under the secret campaign, often with US support, to repress and eliminate perceived leftist threats.
Under Italian law, prosecutors can investigate cases involving the murder of Italian citizens abroad. Monday’s ruling must be confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation before the sentences are served. Many of the defendants are already serving jail time in their home countries.
nm/amp (AFP, EFE)
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