2023-09-11 17:00:00
Two events were decisive for the establishment and effective presence of the ICRC in the region: the coups d’état in Chile in 1973 and in 1976 in the Argentine Republic.
These events caused a drastic increase in humanitarian consequences with a high number of victims, that is, dead, injured, tortured, people deprived of their liberty, missing, displaced, refugees, among others. Thus, the ICRC decided to set up operational delegations in both countries, whose missions would be to visit people deprived of their liberty, collect information on missing persons and also assist the families of those deprived of their liberty.
In Chile, the ICRC’s tasks focused on visiting thousands of people. The ICRC’s concern was to guarantee decent conditions for people deprived of liberty, to prevent ill-treatment, torture and disappearances. Thus, continuing with its traditional procedures worldwide, it maintained a confidential dialogue with the Chilean authorities, in which it made observations and recommendations on the humanitarian situation, and in which it reminded them of their obligations under international law.
On September 20, 1973, nine days after the coup, the ICRC was authorized by the Chilean Government to visit various detention centers. Until December of that year, the ICRC carried out 114 visits to 63 locations, including the National Stadium, Cuatro Álamos and Dawson Island. The following year, he made 241 visits to 108 centers.
ICRC general delegate visits people deprived of their liberty in a detention center in Santiago.
Due to this situation, that same year (1974), together with the Chilean Red Cross (CRCh), the ICRC implemented a program of assistance to the families of people deprived of their liberty, with food, shelter, medicines and payment assistance. of lawyers. The program had 46 distribution centers and served 3 thousand families (approximately 15 thousand people).
In 1981, the number of visits to prisoners by the ICRC was considerably reduced for 27 detention centers and the number of families receiving assistance increased to 46.
Former prisoner finds answers
When Dr. Patricio Bustos was imprisoned in 1975 during the military dictatorship in Chile, the visits of one of our delegates helped him avoid the fate of many of his compatriots, according to what he himself said.
“The fact that the ICRC recorded my details and told my relatives that I was alive helped ensure that they would not kill me,” he says. In the 2000s, Bustos, who died in 2018, became the director of the Chilean Legal Medical Service.
Patricio Bustos was director of the Legal Medical Service of Chile between 2006 and 2017
Bustos was detained by the military on September 10, 1975 when he was leaving work in the city of Santiago. They took him to Villa Grimaldi, a torture center in the Chilean capital and current Parque por la Paz memorial site. After two months, Bustos was transferred to Cuatro Álamos. Sergio Nessi, ICRC general delegate for Latin America, obtained permission to visit the facilities.
Nessi and two other ICRC officials, Rolf Jenny and Willy Corthay, entered Cuatro Álamos on December 9, 1975. There they met Bustos and other political prisoners in the communal room. Nessi and Jenny recorded each man’s name and Corthay examined his wounds, especially Bustos’s. He could barely walk. ICRC delegates spent about 90 minutes with those deprived of their liberty and returned the next day with medicine for Bustos and supplies for the others.
More than 40 years later, one of Bustos’ main tasks was to help the relatives of people who disappeared during the dictatorship get answers about their loved ones. Today, the forensic service serves as a model for other States that use forensic science to identify the mortal remains of missing persons.
After almost 40 years, Bustos returned to the place where the Cuatro Álamos detention center was located.
90’s
With the return of the democratic regime, in the 90s, the ICRC promoted the dissemination and integration of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in different areas, among other activities.
Between 2006 and 2014, the ICRC collaborated as an observer of the process of identifying victims of human rights violations during the military period. It did so through technical-scientific recommendations, training and support from the Legal Medical Service (SML) of Chile.
Thus, in March 2011, in response to the recommendations of the international panel of experts, convened by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Human Rights of Chile, the SML presented an official request to the ICRC requesting the storage of copies of reference biological samples for DNA analysis of relatives of missing people during this period.
The Convention, signed in 2014 and valid for 30 years, allowed the transfer of 3.3 thousand biological reference samples for DNA analysis of relatives of missing persons to the ICRC headquarters in Geneva. The SML is the only counterpart of the ICRC and channel, together with the relatives, authorized to access these samples for the benefit of the Government of Chile and the families of missing persons.
Exhumations of Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende
In 2011, the Chilean justice system ordered the exhumation of the poet Pablo Neruda and the president of Chile Salvador Allende. Both processes were carried out by a multidisciplinary team of Chilean and international experts. The ICRC was an observer and monitor at the request of the Chilean SML and the relatives of Neruda and Allende.
#Chile #learn #ICRCs #humanitarian #action #military #regime