The General’s Slow Retreat: Chile after Pinochet

Chapter 4. Truth and Reconciliation

73 F O U R Truth and Reconciliation I It was a visit she had been dreading for several months. One of her children had said that two men had arrived at the family home, wanting to speak with her. In the days that followed, her old insomnia returned and her health began to suffer. But she had already decided to tell everything she knew, and when the men returned, she made sure to open the door herself. “My heart started beating faster when I saw them. There were two people in front of me, and one of them said, ‘Mrs. Luz Arce?’”1 Luz Arce had been a member of Salvador Allende’s paramilitary bodyguards , the Grupo de Amigos Personales. Six months after the coup, she was arrested by the DINA and subjected to a horrific barrage of torture, beatings, and gang rape. Other former prisoners had similar 74 A n U n e a s y T r a n s i t i o n experiences, but what made Arce’s testimony of special interest was her insider’s knowledge of DINA operations: she was one of three former prisoners known to have been brainwashed and coerced into collaborating with the security forces. Arce spent several days recounting her experiences to the Aylwin government ’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She had listened to DINA officials describing the murder of a Spanish diplomat who had helped Chileans fleeing political persecution find asylum in foreign embassies. The diplomat, Carmelo Soria, worked for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, headquartered in Santiago; DINA agents kidnapped, interrogated, and poisoned him before dousing him with liquor, putting him behind the wheel of a car, and staging a crash.2 She had conferred with DINA officials and observed how the security agency expanded into new departments and brigades, including one called the Vampire Group that was specifically created to give an inept lieutenant a second career chance. The bumbling Lieutenant Fernando Lauriani was known as Inspector Clouseau to his fellow DINA agents after such missteps as having his vehicle stolen with his unit’s weapons inside while setting up a trap and, on another occasion, commandeering a public bus when he couldn’t locate his own car. He had used his DINA identification to force out the driver and passengers, then used the bus to transport prisoners to one of the regime’s detention centers. Lauriani had poured out his troubles to Arce at one point, then grabbed his gun and threatened to commit suicide. She persuaded him to take his problems to a senior DINA official, who responded by setting up the new unit and assigning some of the most experienced DINA agents to work with Lauriani. She had witnessed the comings and goings of Michael Townley, the American-born DINA agent who helped organize the Letelier car bomb assassination in Washington, D.C. She had been sent on missions to Uruguay, one of several Southern Cone countries participating in joint antisubversive operations with the DINA. She had remained with the security agency during its changeover in 1977, when it was renamed the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), and observed the resulting power struggle between the DINA’s director, Manuel Contreras, and the new security chief, General Odlanier Mena. T r u t h a n d R e c o n c i l i a t i o n 75 Much of Arce’s rich store of information did not appear in the commission ’s final report, for the panel’s brief was to identify the victims rather than prosecute the guilty. The commission consisted of eight members, including a conservative historian who had once served as education minister under Pinochet, a regime-designated senator, a social worker who had led a voter registration drive for the 1988 plebiscite, and a Chilean lawyer who had been president of Amnesty International. The group was given just six months (plus the option of an extension of no more than three months) to complete its investigation and prepare a report. The presidential decree convening the commission acknowledged that time was short, which would limit the investigation to the worst abuses, that is, killings.3 The commission was given no authority to subpoena witnesses and was specifically instructed not to act as a court or to take any actions that might interfere with cases already in the courts. The Aylwin...