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SPECIAL REPORT: Crime and Maybe Punishment in Latin America

Miren Gutiérrez*

ROME, Jun 1 2005 (IPS) - It has taken up to three decades, but some Latin American leaders suspected in politically motivated assassinations and death squad massacres may soon face justice following three unrelated developments in Chile, Colombia and Peru.

It has taken up to three decades, but some Latin American leaders suspected in politically motivated assassinations and death squad massacres may soon face justice following three unrelated developments in Chile, Colombia and Peru.

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was accused last month in the assassination of two political rivals in the 1970s; in Peru a prosecutor sought a 35-year prison sentence for former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos on charge of masterminding massacres 15 years ago, and in Colombia former senator and justice minister Alberto Santofimio was arrested for the assassination of a presidential candidate in 1989.

In Colombia and Chile, accounts of the killings have circulated long before the new accusations.

"These three events are highly significant because they publicly state that impunity will not be the order of the day," Margaret Power, professor of history at the Illinois Institute of Technology told IPS in an email interview from Chilean capital Santiago. She has written extensively on Chilean politics.

"Although the wave of military dictatorships that swept across much of South America beginning with the military coup in Brazil in 1964 no longer rules, the standard practice has been to ignore those who committed the crimes and to, instead, talk about looking to the future and reconciliation," Power said.

"The fact that three separate justice systems in three distinct countries, each one of which has very different political histories and socio-economic conditions, have advanced on the course of bringing those accused of committing political crimes to justice is remarkable and sets a very important precedent for future trials," she said.

Retired Chilean general Manuel Contreras who has now named Pinochet in these killings headed DINA (the National Intelligence Directorate) from its creation in 1974 until it was dissolved in 1978. DINA is commonly believed to have carried out many of them.

Contreras declared in a written statement put out by his lawyers May 13 that Pinochet was directly responsible for the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington in 1976, and of Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires in 1974. The political rivals were killed in similar car bombings.

Gen. Prats, who had commanded the armed forces in the earlier socialist government of Salvador Allende 1970-73, was writing a book about the coup that brought Pinochet to power. Prats’s papers were stolen from his home at the time of the attack. It was the beginning of a string of murders and disappearances of Chilean exiles.

One of the perpetrators of the attack, Michael Townley, was later caught and convicted for the killing.

Letelier, a former foreign minister in Allende’s government was imprisoned right after the coup. He was released in 1974. He left to work at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington where he was killed two years later along with his assistant Ronni Moffitt.

Former Chilean vice-president Bernardo Leighton and his wife Anita were machine-gunned on a Rome street in 1975. Leighton recovered, but his wife was paralysed.

In 1995 Contreras was tried, convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. He is currently serving a second sentence over the disappearance of leftist activist Ángel Sandoval in 1975.

In an affidavit sent to the Chilean Supreme Court in 1997, Contreras had said that no major DINA missions were undertaken without Pinochet’s authorisation. But this is the first time he has named Pinochet as directly ordering the elimination of Letelier and Prats. He has also provided information now on the fate of 580 victims of forced disappearance (‘desaparecidos’).

Mark Ensalaco, director of international studies and human rights at the University of Dayton in Ohio in the United States, and author of the book ‘Chile under Pinochet: Recovering the Truth’ says that while the veracity of all information offered by Contreras is questionable, DINA could not have acted without the knowledge of Pinochet. After these murders and disappearances, DINA members were never investigated; they were promoted instead.

It is estimated that 3,000 Chileans were "disappeared" or murdered by security forces, and that more than 27,000 former political prisoners were tortured under the Pinochet regime 1973-1989.

Pinochet is under investigation for human rights crimes committed under ‘Operation Condor’ launched jointly by the military governments that ruled Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s. The operation sought to track down, capture and eliminate left-wing opponents.

In 2001, a court ruled that Pinochet was mentally unfit to stand trial in a case involving executions of political prisoners. In July 2002, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling. Pinochet is 89.

Power says the military has paid a price in its own way. "Pinochet is discredited and, indeed, the whole Chilean military is tarnished," she said.

She pointed to recent indications of this. "Civil society’s response to the deaths (of military recruits in a recent snow blizzard), its willingness to blame the military…and the alacrity with which it blamed the officers who survived is a symbol for how much of Chilean society views the military. It no longer trusts or respects it," she said.

"This, I believe is the ongoing price that the Chilean military must pay for its murder of Chilean citizens during 17 years, for its refusal to acknowledge that fact and take responsibility for it…in short, Pinochet and the Chilean armed forces as a whole may never stand trial, but I believe that much of Chilean society has already passed a verdict on them."

Colombian Advance

In Colombia, former senator and justice minister Alberto Santofimio was arrested May 12 for his role in the 1989 assassination of leading presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán.

Santofimio was implicated by the testimony of John Jairo Velásquez alias ‘Popeye’, the man who led hit teams for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, and the only person convicted for the crime.

Velásquez told local media that he was present at a meeting with Escobar and Santofimio when the politician said Galán should be killed. Velásquez quoted Santofimio as saying: "Pablo, kill him. If (Galán) wins the presidency, he will extradite you."

At the time Santofimio was running for the Liberal Party nomination for the 1990 presidential election, but his rival Galán was far ahead in the polls.

For Escobar (shot and killed by the police in 1993), the assassination of Galán meant eliminating a candidate who would likely extradite drug traffickers to the United States to stand trial.

Escobar’s cocaine cartel known as Medellin fought a bloody war during the 1980s to force the government to impede extraditions. Cartel killers murdered judges, cabinet ministers, an attorney general, journalists and police officers. Hundreds more Colombians died in bomb attacks.

Galán was shot while campaigning south of capital Bogota. Galán’s campaign manager Cesar Gaviria ran in his place and was elected president.

Santofimio was arrested in 1995 and spent four years in prison for accepting bribes from the Cali cartel. He was questioned over the assassination of Galán, but never tried due to lack of evidence. He faces 40 years in prison if now found guilty of the assassination.

"The positive message is that, in spite of the time that has passed, justice has arrived," the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo wrote in an editorial May 14.

Peruvian Progress

In Peru nobody has any doubts who was behind the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings; but no one has as yet been convicted.

On May13, anti-corruption special prosecutor Pablo Sánchez Velarde announced that he is seeking a 35-year prison sentence for Peru’s former spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos for masterminding the extrajudicial execution of 15 people – including an eight-year-old boy – in Barrios Altos in 1991, and for the 1992 ‘disappearance’ of nine students and a teacher of La Cantuta university.

Montesinos is alleged to have ordered the ‘Colina Group’ death squad to carry out the murders. In the Barrios Altos case, the victims were partygoers mistaken for Maoist Shining Path terrorists. In the La Cantuta case, the victims’ bodies were secretly mass buried under a layer of calcium oxide at one location and later removed and incinerated.

Montesinos was the de facto head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN) during Alberto Fujimori’s presidency 1990-2000. Montesinos is facing trials on corruption and human rights charges.

In 2001, attorney-general Nelly Calderón formally accused Fujimori of a hand in these killings. The criminal charges against Fujimori were filed after a unanimous decision by the Peruvian Congress to lift his immunity as former head of state.

A few days later, Supreme Court Justice José Luis Lecaros issued an international warrant to Interpol for the arrest of Fujimori in Japan. But four years later, Fujimori is still in Japan, and Montesinos has yet to be convicted of any crime.

"There have been positive steps, but at the same time they are insufficient and slow," Ernesto de la Jara, director of the Institute of Legal Defence told IPS in an e-mail interview from capital Lima. "The worst thing is that the final outcome is still uncertain."

De la Jara says Peru has set up a Truth Commission that replaced a "distorted and extended ‘truth’" with a truth that has more to do with reality. Peru came back to the Inter American Court of Human Rights and accepted its decision of cancelling Fujimori’s 1995 amnesty, and the Constitutional Court declared most of the anti-terrorist legislation promulgated by Fujimori unconstitutional.

Of the 47 cases the Truth Commission recommended for investigation, he said 15 are been looked into by public attorneys and 30 are in the courts. All members of the ‘Colina Group’ are in prison.

New Trend

Power says there are several factors behind these changes.

The negative impact of neoliberal economic policies "has fuelled anger, resentment and organisation…these movements have, in turn, pressured the governments of their countries to redress the crimes committed by the militaries in the past," she said.

Another factor is "the emergence of strong, deeply-rooted social movements" and their connection with the struggle for human rights. "They have demanded transparency in government, honesty, the rights of citizens, both economic and political, and they have proven themselves willing to fight to obtain them."

Finally, she points to "the election of and alliance between progressive governments in much of South America." Many of them were themselves victims of the military dictatorships that ruled their countries, she said.

Ensalaco from the University of Dayton admits that he never thought justice could be possible. "I am a bit ashamed of that conclusion now. Courageous victims, judges, and activists have made it possible…I am thrilled that the bravery of some very courageous individuals can defeat those who once held absolute power."

But de la Jara says that "from ten to 20 years after the crimes took place…the judicial cases are still starting. There is no single sentence in relation to human rights, although there is hope that the Colina Group case ends in one."

A scheme to compensate the victims of human rights abuses in Peru is "insignificant", he said. There is no political will to incorporate military law into common jurisdiction or to fight for human rights with the resources and teeth needed to confront past abuses and set up preventive measures, he said.

"It is clear that the circle of impunity is not closed, either in Peru or in the region. Either we secure a consistent string of (judicial) successes of increasing weight or there will be a regression."

*Miren Gutiérrez is IPS Editor in Chief.