Chile remains a country of contradictions, influenced by the struggle between memory and forgetting. The dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet has left a legacy that has not been adequately challenged since the country's return to democracy.
Human rights and memory groups in Chile have struggled against state institutions and military secrecy over dictatorship crimes. They demand, for example, that Punta Peuco, the luxury prison for former agents of National Intelligence Directorate (DINA, the Chilean secret police under Pinochet) be closed and the inmates transferred to ordinary jails. That such demands remain unmet provide foundations from which impunity can make inroads.
Last week, Chilean media reported that Javier Rebolledo (pictured), an investigative journalist and author specialising in uncovering dictatorship era crimes, was taken to court by former DINA agent and Punta Peuco inmate Raul Pablo Quintana Salazar. Rebolledo is facing 'calumny' charges in court, over one particular quote published in his most recent book, Camaleon.
Rebolledo has published several books about the dictatorship's torture, extermination and disappearance of its opponents, and mentions Quintana as part of the notorious Tejas Verdes regiment of DINA. Quintana was in charge of the prisoners held at the port of San Antonio, 100km west of Santiago, and part of a group of agents that specialised in torture.
Here, Rebolledo reveals that a former officer, Gregorio Romero Hernandez, witnessed Quintana inserting a carrot into the vagina of a Uruguayan woman, Nelsa Gadea Galan — who is one of the disappeared — during a torture session at Tejas Verdes.
The revelation is not out of the ordinary. There are various testimonies of depraved sexual torture committed by DINA agents against female detainees. One former prisoner, Nieves Ayress, testified that agents 'placed rats in my vagina and then gave me electric shocks'.
Quintana, who is being represented in court by his daughter and whose lawyer, Juan Carlos Manns, is also the lawyer of former DINA chief Manuel Contreras, has claimed that Rebolledo's revelations are injurious to his purported 'honour'. Public support for Rebolledo also prompted Quintana to claim, through his lawyer, that the author is threatening him. Rebolledo can face up to three years in prison if the court rules in favour of Quintana.
"The end result would be to consolidate Pinochet's request for oblivion. Chileans would be forced to forget, while dictatorship crimes, many of which are still classified, would remain out of public scrutiny."
However, the underlying motives have little to do with the alleged honour of DINA agents. With Chile once again under the rule of a right-wing president in Sebastián Piñera, former military officers and their relatives have the opportunity to demand impunity from the government.
Former president Michelle Bachelet's failure to close Punta Peuco has emboldened the military and its former officers, who have been calling for convicted torturers to be pardoned, while requesting that Chile complies with the military's request for 'understanding' the circumstances in which DINA operated.
The end result would be to consolidate Pinochet's request for oblivion. Chileans would be forced to forget, while dictatorship crimes, many of which are still classified, would remain out of public scrutiny and thus limit opportunities for Chileans to pursue justice.
Rebolledo has remarked that this indictment marks a first in Chile's history; that an investigative journalist faces the possibility of imprisonment for reporting about human rights abuses and imparting information that is relevant to many Chileans.
Quintana is serving 30 sentences for dictatorship-era crimes. Considering that the declaration in Rebolledo's book was part of a testimony given in court, and the number of prison sentences Quintana is serving, there is little to substantiate claims of 'calumny'.
On the other hand, Piñera's presidency creates a favourable climate for politicising the court. The current justice minister, Hernan Larrain, is notorious for having openly supported Paul Schafer, a former Nazi official who established Colonia Dignidad and allowed the dictatorship to use the colony's premises as a torture centre.
Chile's quest for justice has been frequently ruptured by the refusal of governments from both the centre-left and the right to prioritise memory over political power. Although operating within different dynamics, both the centre-left and the right have collaborated, in different ways, to protect the perpetrators from justice.
While Bachelet may be seen to have procrastinated on several issues — notably the closure of Punta Peuco and the application of Pinochet's anti-terror legislation — to the benefit of state institutions, Piñera will have the opportunity to leverage the right's calls for impunity.
Rebolledo's writing makes it clear that the dictatorship cannot be imagined away as if it never occurred. Yet, the legal action against him shows that Pinochet's calls for oblivion are still taken seriously by former military officers and their relatives.
Chile is allowing a situation to happen where a convicted torturer is being given the benefit of the doubt over a sentence that corresponds to torture practices committed during the dictatorship and which was recorded as testimony in court. This latest charade should be exposed as a weapon of political violence against a committed journalist. Chile still needs people like Rebolledo if memory is to survive.
Ramona Wadi is a freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America.