In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 9 The Politics of Human Rights The Report did not help us very much with respect to the clarification of the fate suffered by our family members, and to this day, we are in the same situation as before. - Sola Sierra, President, Association of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared Reactions to the Report As one of his first acts as president, Patricio Aylwin assigned the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation four tasks in order to satisfy a set of moral and national imperatives. When the commission delivered its report to Aylwin in February 1991, it had substantially accomplished three of those four tasks. The commission had established a reasonably complete picture of the most serious human rights violations committed during the years of the dictatorship; it had recommended a set of creative measures aimed atjust reparation; and it had likewise recommended sweeping constitutional , legal, and institutional reforms which, if adopted, could plausibly be expected to prevent further grave human rights violations from being committed. But, because it possessed limited powers and was given a short life, the commission was simply incapable of completing the most compelling task of all, that of identifying all the victims by name and determining their fate and whereabouts. Of course neither Aylwin nor the commission had the power to achieve the transcendent goal of the commission: national reconciliation. Patricio Aylwin made the Rettig Report public during the first week of March in a national television address. The president had reflected on the report for just over a month. Aylwin decided to address the nation, he said, in order share his personal reflections, and to announce the measures he intended to take to implement the recommendations contained in the report .' Aylwin had tears in his eyes. Before going on the air, the president had handed the report over to representatives of victims' organizations, including Sola Sierra's Association of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared. The truth is essential, Aylwin reflected, "because deceit is the antecham- The Politics of Human Rights 21 3 ber to violence, and it is incompatible with peace." The commission had clarified the truth, he asserted, and no one should deny it, especially the armed forces. Anticipating challenges to the objectivity of the commissioners , the president pointed out that some had been supporters of the regime, one had even been part of it. Nothing could justify the violations, he said, not even the claim that there existed an internal war against terrorism. "Nothing justifies the torture and execution of prisoners, or that their remains be made to disappear," he said, "even war has its laws."2 Then the president appealed for reconciliation and pardon. "All of us always desire greater justice," he said in a memorable and telling phrase, "to the extent it would be possible." He acknowledged that "pardon cannot be imposed by decree," but "dared, in his capacity as president, speaking on behalf of the entire nation, and in the name of the nation, to request pardon from the families of the victims."3 As dramatic as this was, neither the armed forces nor representatives of the victims' families were favorably impressed. The army would later declare in its written responses to the report that "we have no reason to seek pardon." Sola Sierra, president of the Association of the Families of the Detained-Disappeared, angrily countered that "no one has asked us to pardon them, nor do we want them to ask us to pardon them." EvenJaime Castillo, President of the Chilean Human Rights Commission, and one of the members of the now discharged Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, found the often repeated phrase, truth and justice to the extent possible, worrisome. "Aylwin is correct when he says justice to the extent possible," said Castillo, "but it's a phrase that should not be spoken, because when it's said it reduces the momentum needed to accomplish things." Paradoxically, the onus of accountability shifted away from the armed forces and onto the civilian president the moment Aylwin made the Report of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation public. Now that an official accounting of the truth had been rendered, the issue was no longer what the military had done, but what the democratic government would-or could-do in response. Unless he chose utterly to ignore the report of his own presidential commission, Aylwin now had to make progress in four critical areas: delivery of reparation to surviving victims; implementation of scores of recommendations for...

Share