New disappeared charges in Chile

[Judi Lynn]

Last Updated: Tuesday, 9 August 2005, 02:36 GMT 03:36 UK

New disappeared charges in Chile
By Clinton Porteous
BBC News, Santiago

A Chilean judge has laid new charges against General Pinochet's former secret police chief, Manuel Contreras.
They concern the 1974 disappearance of eight political prisoners at the Villa Grimaldi torture centre.

Court documents described barbaric detention facilities at the centre where some prisoners were held in small wooden boxes.
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Human rights groups have welcomed the sweeping resolution and say more charges should be laid as some 300 people disappeared at the centre.
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Located in suburban Santiago, it was probably Chile's most notorious torture and detention centre.
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But a lawyer for one of the three officers arrested said the charges were unjust as the alleged crimes were covered by amnesty law passed in 1978.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4133626.stm

Manuel Contreras: then, with his lord and master, Augusto Pinochet, and now.




Villa Grimaldi, also memorial fountain, and wall

At the heart of the darkness
INTERACT (Commentary and Personal Essay) · 0 links · 0 comments

What the U.S. could learn from Chile's September 11

Written by Victor Tan Chen / Cambridge, Massachusetts
Published February 11, 2003

...Thirty years ago, this was Villa Grimaldi, an elegant estate built by an Italian family on the outskirts of Santiago. After the bloody September 11, 1973 coup that overthrew an elected government and put General Augusto Pinochet in power, Villa Grimaldi was taken over and transformed into a detention center, where the enemies of the new regime were shipped, in secret, and silenced. Between 1974 and 1978, about 4,000 people were tortured there. At least eighteen were killed, and another 200 disappeared, likely executed as well. Those responsible for the atrocities at Villa Grimaldi were blinded by hatred for their political opponents. Their work became something more than rooting out information, or intimidating people into submission. It became the realization of a sadist's fantasy: "la destrucci n de la persona." The enemy must be made to suffer until he is broken, until she is destroyed. And so the torturers showed no mercy. They poured scalding water over prisoner's bodies, and dunked them in vats of dirty water, urine, or feces. They hung prisoners up by ropes and thrust sticks into their anuses or burnt their genitalia with lighters. Women prisoners were routinely raped by packs of men, even by packs of dogs.

Today, survivors of Villa Grimaldi return regularly to their former prison. They are working to turn the place where many of them were beaten, maimed, and raped into a peace park and museum. Over the years since the camp closed down, in 1978, they have collected evidence of the torture and execution that occurred at Villa Grimaldi--painstakingly, because there are many in Chile even today who argue that the atrocities never happened.
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http://inthefray.com/html/article.php?sid=232&mode=thread&order=0

[Wetzelbill]

1. I thought it was happening again

I was just thinking "oh no!"

[acmavm]

2. I'm sure it is. In the deep dark recesses of bush**s mind, this is what

he'd love to be able to do. I truly believe that. His father was responsible for some very horrible crimes against humanity.