Human Rights in Chile: Remeberance and Reckoning

"A society’s desires to forget are motivated, in part, by an interest in putting an end to the horror. This interest inevitably contradicts the need to remember, which therapeutically is a condition for mental health. At this crossroad, the issue of ‘social reparation’ arises, because traumatization is not a private affair, but a social reality. The victims know that individual therapeutic intervention is not enough. They need to know that their society as a whole acknowledges what has happened to them. However, the rest of society, of course, does not understand the urgency of the victims’ need." (Becker, 147)

Actions and Actors

In “The Multicultural Paradigm: An Open Letter to the National Arts Community”, Latino performance artist, Guillermo Gomez-Pena states, “In Latin America, the artist has multiple roles. He/she is not just an image-maker or a marginal genius, but a social thinker/educator/counter-journalist/civilian diplomat/human rights observer. His/her activities take place in the center of society and not in specialized corners.” (22) Ariel Dorfman’s La Muerte y La Doncella (Death and the Maiden) is one rendering by a Chilean artist of the trauma of torture in Chile’s recent history. In this case, the medium is theatre (produced on Broadway, featuring Glenn Close, Gene Hackman, and Richard Dreyfuss), and later film (directed by Roman Polanski, featuring Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and Stuart Wilson). Dorfman was one of many artists effected by the military coup in 1973, and like many of his contemporaries, lived in exile many years. Chile’s national theatre scene has had a long tradition of closely mirroring its socio-political world, as well as being directly involved in its production in terms of political activism. What was largely traditional theatre broke away from traditional themes, advocating social progression and reform as early as the 1950s; when Allende’s United Front party was gaining political footholds, the theatre movement was working with collective creation, where traditional theatrical hierarchies— such as director, playwright, actor— were abolished and community effort was the essence of production. (see Mary de Luz Hurtado)

In Dorfman’s play, the female protagonist encounters her former torturer and according to one account, “The play is about three people who, after surviving through a hellish experience, are reunited by chance, years later, to stage a seemingly endless ritual of guilt, intolerance and punishment.” (Martinez) The artist community in Chile was just one of many social groups to be exposed to torture and repression; many who fled considered themselves lucky to be exiled. As for the national theatre scene? According to one source, following the coup, when theatre resumed productions, “classics” were reintroduced, along with the disappearance of collective creation. (Maria de La Luz Hurtado)

It is interesting to consider art mirroring reality, particularly when understanding the production of memory, free expression, and the everyday ritual of political, social, and legal life within a society. Further, when viewing the social reality of a given nation, the idea of performance gains multiple meanings. Within performance referring to physical action, there is the significance of the body and all of the ways it is used and defined as a political entity. It is ironic that during times of political repression, those who use their bodies to express political freedom are often the most targeted. In describing the measures of the dictatorship, one source states:

"As if aping the Nazis, the fascist junta showed a special hatred for the creators of culture and their works. The junta’s soldiers attempted to purify Chilean culture by holding book-burning sprees. They devastated the home of Pablo Neruda, Chile’s greatest poet and Nobel Prize winner, as he lay dying of cancer. And they tortured and killed Victor Jarra, a beloved composer, folk singer, and theatre director..." (Keen, 432)

In an account given about the tragedy and treatment of Victor Jarra describes how on Wednesday, September 12th he was taken to the Chile Stadium, along with employees and students of the Technical University:

"The head of the “prisoner camp” arrived and said: “Let’s cut off the hands of this son-of-a-bitch” He hit Victor with a stick. “Sing now, you bastard; get up!” he ordered. Then they bent him over, with his hands on a sawhorse, and began to beat his hands and wrists until they became a bloody mass. All this took place in a passage of the stadium...They showed him off to the fascists who arrived as if he were a trophy of war. Three air force officers arrived and stopped in front of him, insulting and taking turns in kicking him. “Do you want a smoke, bastard?” they asked in a mocking tone. Victor did not respond. They put out a cigarette on one of his hands, a mass of wounds. The torture continued until very late in the afternoon of the twelfth...Saturday, the thirteenth, they announced a transfer of prisoner to the national stadium, and all thought that Victor would leave with the rest. It seemed they had finally forgotten him. That morning he began to dictate the verses that he entitled “Chile Stadium.” He would never finish them. They took him, together with a group described as “Marxist specialists in explosives” out of the corridors. They took him into one of the rooms converted into torture chambers and the rain of blows began again...A student who managed to come out of that inferno alive tells that at the end blood poured from his mouth, nostrils, ears, eyes. Thus died Victor Jara, who had sung of love, tenderness, and hope in the language of the humble. There he died, beaten to death by the irrational hatred of fascism. Afterwards, by way of an example to others, they left him lying in the foyer of the stadium." (from Chile, una esperanza aplastada, Keen, 432-33)

Additionally, there is the consideration of what it is to be an “actor,” as in the case of “performing a duty,” or to be impacted by the physical actions of others. Within human rights, legal culpability of the individual has so much to do with the performance or non-performance of certain actions, or simply action or non-action. “The [Torture] Convention calls for punishment not only of the person who actually carries out the act of torture, but of those who are complicit or participate in those acts.” (HRW, “The Pinochet Precendent”)

In addition, in cases of torture, the body takes on a new significance as a way to access the individual and achieve political ends. Perhaps for a society to really address reparation where there has been torture, it is necessary to understand to extent of the trauma and the impact of such acts on a societal level, as discussed in the previous section. This is certainly necessary for a society to recognize that there have in fact occurred crimes against humanity, as ultimately came to be addressed in the case against Pinochet in 1998-99, involving the governments of the U.K. and Spain. Accounts given by victims of human rights abuses in Chile have helped reveal the brutality of the regime, and the full extent of its terror, both nationally and internationally: