Chile's Pinochet-era dictatorship: Were soldiers victims, too?
Chile's Pinochet-era dictatorship: Were soldiers victims, too?
Former conscripts are campaigning for compensation from the Chilean state for alleged abuse, unpaid pensions, and salaries for mandatory military service.
By Kyle G. Brown, Contributor / December 7, 2013
SANTIAGO, Chile
In a modest hilltop home off of a long, winding road that leads out of Santiago into the Andean mountains, Anastasio Palma and Carlos Ortega talk boisterously about life in the Armed Forces.
But this isn’t your typical soldier reunion, filled with tales of camaraderie or youthful shenanigans. Mr. Palma and Mr. Ortega were conscripted soldiers during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, and are part of a growing movement of former conscripts demanding reparations from the Chilean government for alleged human rights violations.
“Me and my brothers, we get together and we suffer. We don’t remember good times, but the bad times,” says Palma, who was conscripted in 1978 at the age of 17, and posted near Chile’s border with Argentina and Bolivia.
Palma describes a climate of terror within the ranks: being beaten by his superiors in ways that would later become hallmarks of the brutal military dictatorship – though more frequently associated with the treatment of “enemies of the state.”
“You're naked. They put electrodes onto your body .... They take your fingernails out. Then they lay you on your back and put wet cloths on your face and pour water on top of your face,” Palma says.
More:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/1207/Chile-s-Pinochet-era-dictatorship-Were-soldiers-victims-too