Chile’s dictatorship operated over 1,200 detention and torture centres, yet Cuartel Simon Bolivar was its best kept secret until Jorgelino Vergara Bravo, a former errand boy for the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) chief Manuel Contreras, revealed its existence as “the place where  no one got out alive.” Vergara, known as El Mocito, gave testimony which placed the feared Lautaro Brigade as commanding operations at the site, notably extermination and disappearance of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s political opponents.

Among the agents named by Vergara was Adriana Rivas, a former secretary to Contreras who also worked at Cuartel Simon Bolivar. Vergara’s testimony places her as an agent directly participating in torture. “Generally, when Adriana Rivas participated in the torture of the detainees, she beat them with sticks, she kicked them, punched them and also applied an electric current to the political prisoners,” Vergara stated.

In an interview with the Australian news outlet SBS in 2013, Rivas praised the dictatorship and normalized its torture methods, but denied being involved in the proceedings. Torture was necessary, she declared, to “break people.” Her stint with DINA, she said, opened her to new glamorous experiences and meeting influential people.

Rivas had managed to abscond from Chilean justice. She was arrested in 2006 and fled to Argentina while out on bail, after which she escaped to Australia in 2010 where she worked as a nanny in Sydney. As relatives of the disappeared ramped up their quest for justice in Chile, Chileans in Australia also clamoured for Rivas’s extradition, to face justice for her role in the detention, torture and killing of seven political prisoners of the dictatorship: Victor Diaz, Hector Veliz, Fernando Navarro, Reinalda Pereira, Lincoyan Berios, Horacio Cepeda and Fernando Ortiz.

In 2014, Chile requested Rivas’s extradition from Australia. Five years later, Australia was still dragging its feet over whether Rivas was extraditable to face justice for crimes of humanity. Rivas was arrested in 2019 and denied bail.

Rivas is the notoriously outstanding example of how Australia offered safe haven to torturers and victims alike. The narrative, at least for Rivas, is about to change with the latest rejected appeal by the New South Wales Federal Court, which has ruled the former torturer extraditable to Chile.

The former DINA agent has claimed she had no idea of what happened at Cuartel Simon Bolivar. In the latest appeal, her lawyer Frank Santisi argued that since DINA was set up by the dictatorship, it did not constitute an unlawful organization at the time it operated, and that there was no testimony that placed Rivas at Cuartel Simon Bolivar. Vergara’s testimony, however, is adamant on her presence and role at the torture and extermination centre.

Santisi also mentioned Pinochet’s Amnesty Law, which sought impunity for all agents involved in crimes against humanity. However, many DINA agents have been convicted in Chile, including Contreras himself and other prominent torturers. Santisi also argued there was political motivation in Rivas’s extradition. However, the political motivation existed from the crimes against humanity committed against Pinochet’s opponents, and which Rivas is said to have participated in.

Little recourse is now left for Rivas. Her final resort could be an appeal to Australia’s High Court if she can persuade the court that there are “special reasons for it to be heard.”

Australia will find it difficult to keep itself out of the spotlight as regards Chile. It is highly unlikely that there was no prior knowledge of Rivas’s presence in Australia and of who she was. Additionally, the ongoing refusal to declassify documents relating to Australia’s role aiding the CIA in Chile remains a point of contention. With Rivas one step closer to facing the Chilean courts, pressure should be ramped up for further disclosure on Australia’s duplicitous role, and how it might be contributing towards the oblivion and impunity enacted by Pinochet.

The U.S. has declassified thousands of documents relating to its involvement in the ousting of Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende and the installing of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Australia, on the other hand, continues to guard its classified documents on the pretext of security, drawing a discrepancy between its purported democratic principles and obstructing the public’s right to knowledge. As a country which welcomed Chileans fleeing the horrors of Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship, as well as harbouring Chilean agents – the most notable case being that of Adriana Rivas – Australia’s political and moral obligation should not be played down.

This month, the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled that releasing documents relating to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service’s (ASIS) role in Chile would damage Commonwealth relations. “Protecting our ability to keep secrets – and being seen to do that – may require us to continue suppressing documents containing what may appear to be benign or uncontroversial information about events that occurred long ago,” the ruling partly stated.

In September this year, heavily redacted documents were declassified which confirmed ASIS working with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), following petitions signed by a former Australian intelligence officer, Clinton Fernandes, calling upon the government to clarify its role in Cambodia, Indonesia and Chile.

Fernandes had described Australia’s foreign policy complicity with the U.S. as “a profoundly undemocratic, unfriendly act.” Allende, after all, was democratically elected. U.S. interference to bring about the right-wing dictatorship was a strategy to impede other countries from following Chile’s example in democratic revolutionary socialism.

In 1971, ASIS was tasked to open a radio station in Santiago by the CIA through which spy operations were conducted. Australia’s involvement ceased when the newly-elected Labour Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ordered the closing down of operations, fearing that any public disclosure would make things difficult in terms of explaining ASIS’s presence. At the same time, Australia was also concerned that its decision would be interpreted as anti-American.

Australia’s decision is baffling, considering the amount of declassification which the U.S., as the main instigator of violence in Latin America, has undertaken. The Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal did not make its proceedings public, thus Fernandes and his lawyer could not counter-argue the decision.

To state there not a sufficient passage of time has passed since Australia’s involvement in the coup stands in contrast with how Chile has proceeded since the democratic transition, where the rewriting of a new constitution spells the possibility of a thorough reckoning with the dictatorship legacy. While the Chilean military still holds on to its files and upholds its secret pact which National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agents are bound to, thus refusing to collaborate with the courts for justice when it comes to locating the disappeared, for example, the Chilean government has been coerced to respond to the people’s call for change, thus ushering in an era where Pinochet’s legacy can be challenged and toppled.

There exists speculation that the Australian government would request permission from the CIA to reveal its role, based upon an agreement between the CIA and ASIS. In the early 90s, Chileans in Australia requested the expulsion of DINA agents living in Australia but were told that the government did not have permission from the CIA to heed the request.

Almost 50 years have passed since Pinochet took power, so what exactly is Australia afraid of? The petition was not calling for a revelation of names, but rather the actions which would shed light on Australia’s role in Chile at the behest of the CIA. Considering the exiled Chileans living in Australia, refusing declassification is a political infringement on their right to memory.

A year ago, Chileans voted to rewrite the dictatorship era constitution – the first step in building a more inclusive society since the democratic transition in the country which was plagued by vestiges of Augusto Pinochet’s legacy. In April this year, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera’s right-wing government suffered another loss as independent and opposition candidates gained the majority of seats to rewrite the constitution. This secured another victory away from the right-wing and the possibility that reforms would be blocked by the government’s candidates.

With a broad representation across the political spectrum, including 17 seats reserved for indigenous representation, the Chilean people’s aspirations for social rights and protection of natural resources became more plausible. However, as the Chilean presidential elections draw closer, it is clear that right-wing sentiment in Chile is still gaining traction.

The Republican Party’s leader Jose Antonio Kast – the right-wing presidential candidate and Pinochet admirer – is gaining traction in the electoral polls. A poll places him leading ahead of Apruebo Dignidad’s candidate Gabriel Boric, by one point. Kast who once declared in 2017, “If Pinochet was alive, he would vote for me,” has Chile’s far-right rooting for him, as the possible shift in Chilean politics since the 2019 protests hangs in the balance.

After violence erupted in Iqique over migration, where a group of people burnt migrants’ belongings on a road, the right-wing in Chile recognised its opportunity. In a similar manner to electoral propaganda in many countries, Kast and other right-wing candidates exploited anti-migrant sentiment to introduce security rhetoric.

Chile’s National Institute of Human Rights has called upon the government to alter the state’s policy on migrants, which is mostly defined by expulsions and evictions, thus giving rise to racism and xenophobia.

The right-wing, however, exploited the recent violence as an opportunity to insist upon stricter border controls and surveillance. Kast declared, “the migratory disaster began with Bachelet and escalated out of control with Sebastian Pinera.”

Boric called upon the government “to ensure that the people’s mobility is secure and balanced.” Meanwhile, social movements in Chile demanded that Pinera offer protection for asylum seekers.

“Fundamentally, Kast defends free markets and traditional values, and favours the image of a monocultural Chile of European descent,” academic Gilberto Aranda was recently quoted as stating.

Aranda’s analysis invites a deeper reflection of Chile’s society. Kast’s politics are based upon divisions, in a similar manner to which the Pinochet dictatorship operated, particularly with regard to the left wing and the Mapuche. The latter were not recognised as indigenous, as part of the neoliberal experiment that exploited Chile’s natural resources for the benefit of industrialisation.

Chilean governments across the political spectrum since the transition to democracy have also exploited such societal divisions. The low electoral turnout in the 2017 elections reflected the possibility that a majority of the population was disillusioned with Chile’s politics, given the centre left failed to follow through on social issues and human rights.

The 2019 protests marked a change in Chile. A right-wing government acquiescing to the people’s will for a referendum was a major victory. As Chileans mobilised, the government took a downturn in the polls. Yet Kast’s current political prominence casts a shadow over Chile’s gains. On one hand, the rewriting of Chile’s constitution provides the opportunity for change. The slight lead which Kast enjoys in the polls, however, is indicative of how entrenched right-wing sentiment is in Chile, even if Pinochet no longer takes centre stage in terms of adulation. Will the rewriting of Chile’s constitution be enough to veer the country’s trajectory away from the neoliberal experiment ushered in decades ago by the U.S.?

Last month, the Argentinian Memory Museum (ESMA) in Buenos Aires was nominated for inclusion in the list of World Heritage Sites, to be approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

ESMA, which stands on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, was formerly used by the Jorge Videla dictatorship which lasted from 1976 to 1981, as a torture and detention centre, and the place where opponents of the dictatorship were drugged, tied and prepared for the death flights. The practice of disappearing political opponents by throwing them off helicopters into the ocean, and which started during the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, was adopted by Videla as the most efficient means of covering the tracks of the state’s extrajudicial killings. It is estimated that 30,000 people were disappeared during Videla’s rule.

It was through the documents released by the U.S. in 2017, that the death flights were established as having been used not only as a means of disappearance, but also murder, given that some victims were still alive when they were disposed of by the dictatorship. The U.S. was also a supplier of aircraft and helicopters for the Videla dictatorship, and had full knowledge of its methods of disappearance.

Out of 5,000 people detained at ESMA, only just over 100 survived. To mark the International Day of the Disappeared, the street where ESMA stands was renamed “SON 30000” to mark the number of victims killed and disappeared by the Videla dictatorship.

The National Security Archive’s (NSA) recently posted details of the U.S. declassification of Argentina related documents on its website, providing insight in the process taking place behind the scenes. Documents detailing the process show how the Clinton Administration initiated the declassification which eventually led to the release of 4,700 documents to the Argentinian government in 2002. The further U.S. declassification of documents related to the Argentinian dictatorship started with a formal request from the Argentinian government to the Obama Administration and which the Trump Administration subsequently upheld.

One declassified document which stipulates the conditions of how searches should be conducted, partially states, “Agency staff conducting searches should err on the side of inclusiveness and provide all documents pertaining to human rights abuses related to Argentina.” The same document also called upon agencies to reveal as much relevant information as possible but to refrain from declassifying information that jeopardises national security. Out of 918 records reviewed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 124 documents were released in full, 691 were redacted, and 103 documents remain classified.

Another document published by the NSA reveals the names of victims of the dictatorship, as well as U.S. officials, Argentinian generals and politicians, military and police units involved in the dictatorship atrocities. This document is of paramount importance as it contextualises and adds detail to the often-generalised information pertaining to the dictatorship era, and goes a long way in establishing both the identities of victims and aggressors – a crucial point in terms of Argentina’s collective memory.

What the U.S. perpetrated in Argentina is in some ways a continuation of what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger instigated in Chile. In 1975, the year prior to which Videla took power in Argentina, Kissinger met with Chile’s Foreign Minister Patricio Carvajal. “I read the briefing paper for this meeting and it was nothing but Human Rights,” Kissinger mocked. “The State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there are not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State.”

As Argentina continues to set the record straight over its dictatorship memory, the UNESCO nomination should prompt a reckoning of the damage international diplomacy has wreaked over countries that deviated from the imperialist agenda which also sustains the UN.

On the same day Chileans remembered the 48^th anniversary of the U.S.-backed military coup which ousted President Salvador Allende, the National Security Archives (NSA) published heavily redacted documents which prove Australia’s involvement in the coup, at the formal request of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

A request by former Australian Army military intelligence officer Dr Clinton Fernandez to the National Archives of Australia to release documents pertaining to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) role in Chile between 1971 and 1974 was at first rejected. Albeit limited, there was public knowledge of Australia’s involvement in Chile. As Fernandez stated in his appeal, “In my submission, the publicly available evidence will show that ASIS has undertaken operations and that these operations took place at a time the U.S. was involved in undermining the Allende government.”

In contrast to the U.S., which declassified documents pertaining to its role in the coup and its aftermath, Australia had been reluctant to reveal documents, claiming a possible jeopardising of “the security, defence or international relations of Australia.”

However, the documents which have now been made public affirm the previously known snippets of information regarding Australia’s involvement in Chile. In 1973, Australia’s Labor Party Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ordered ASIS to shut down its operations in Santiago – according to documents because Whitlam was worried about how Australia could justify its presence in Chile if ASIS’s role was exposed. Whitlam, however, was also concerned about the U.S. reaction to his decision. As one declassified memo states, Whitlam was “most concerned that the CIA should not interpret this decision as being an unfriendly gesture towards the U.S. in general or towards the CIA in particular.”

ASIS, known by the code MO9 in the declassified documents, had operated a station in Santiago between 1970 and 1973 at the CIA’s request. While details still remain scant – what was revealed leans towards more mundane details rather than the actual operations Australia undertook for the CIA – the documents confirm what Whitlam himself had acknowledged in 1977 – “when my government took office, Australian intelligence personnel were still working as proxies and nominees of the CIA.” Documents also reveal that ASIS used the British Embassy’s secure pouch for delivery of secret documents – such use indicates Australia’s concern to conceal its clandestine operations in Chile.

In 2000, the Clinton administration in the U.S. declassified thousands of documents, but none that detailed the U.S.-Australia collaboration in Chile. According to author and journalist Nicky Hager, discussions between both countries would have taken place to ensure that information regarding Australia’s role in Chile would remain shrouded in secrecy.

Australia had opened its doors to both Chilean refugees and pro-dictatorship individuals – among the latter members of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s secret services. While exile remains a prominently discussed aspect in terms of Chileans in Australia, the presence of dictatorship agents testifies to the global surveillance network which Pinochet operated to quash any possible grouping of political dissent.

The secrecy with which Australia is treating its involvement in Chile has been questioned and challenged by Fernandez. “National security should be a goal not an alibi. It should mean the safety of the Australian public. It shouldn’t mean protecting policymakers from democratic accountability.”

The documents are a stain on Australia’s purported democratic approach to foreign policy and relations. Proof of Australia’s involvement in Chile depicts the willing complicity in overthrowing a democratically-elected government to be replaced by a brutal dictatorship which tortured, killed and disappeared thousands of Chileans. A host country for refugees having contributed to destabilising Chile has much to answer for, both in terms of political violence and in terms of accountability towards the refugees whose safe haven turned out to be a political accomplice with the CIA and Pinochet.

Chile’s September 11, in 1973, brought a brutal end to Salvador Allende’s socialist rule. In its wake, violence permeated Chilean society, through the U.S.-backed military coup which was to provide gruesome inspiration for the later regional systematic surveillance and elimination of socialists and communists known as Operation Condor, in which several Latin American countries were involved.

The mass arrests of Chileans loyal to Allende and socialist politics became a long purge in the country. The Caravan of Death – one of the earlier dictatorship operations aimed at instilling terror within the country – was carried out in the coup’s aftermath, between September 30 and October 22, 1973, after securing Santiago by means of brutal suppression, torture and killings. Dictator Augusto Pinochet’s purge was aimed at silencing dissent throughout the country, and also to ensure the military’s loyalty towards the dictatorship – any negligence or lenience exhibited by any individual would be punished by methods used against dissenting Chileans. The ultimate aim, according to retired Lieutenant Colonel Marcos Herrera Aracena, was “to bring an end to the remaining legal processes… In other words, finish with them once and for all.”

The Caravan of Death massacres are considered to be among the most brutal not only due to the extermination methods involved – at times the corpses were unrecognizable due to bludgeoning – but also because many Chileans willingly turned themselves in for interrogation.

Army officers travelled in Puma helicopters throughout Chile, inspecting detention centres and giving orders for execution, or carrying out the executions themselves. Testimony from La Serena indicates that 15 prisoners were executed by firing squad and their bodies buried in a mass grave. To prevent any possible dissemination of knowledge, at least in the immediate aftermath, the official version publicized by the dictatorship was that the prisoners had attempted an escape.

While at first the dictatorship seemed adamant on making its brutality known to quash any resistance, the more refined methods of disappearance and secret extermination sites hastened a culture of impunity and oblivion. The Calama massacres – the last stop in the Caravan of Death – was such an example. Relatives of the disappeared sought information about the whereabouts of their loved ones to no avail. It was the female relatives of the disappeared in Calama who took matters into their own hands and started physically searching for the bodies of their loved ones in the Atacama Desert. The dictatorship had forbidden any leaking of information due to the extent of mutilations the victims had been subjected to by the execution squads. As the women’s resilience increased, so did the dictatorship’s efforts to prevent any discovery of the bodies through exhumation and reburial of remains.

The Rettig Commission established that 75 Chileans were killed and their bodies disappeared throughout the operation, headed by Brigadier General Sergio Arellano Stark, and with the participation of agents Manuel Contreras, Marcelo Moren Brito, Sergio Arredondo Gonzalez, Armando Fernandez Larios and Pedro Espinoza Bravo – all of who played prominent roles in the torture and disappearances of dictatorship opponents throughout Pinochet’s rule. Contreras headed the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Brito oversaw torture at Villa Grimaldi, while Fernandez Larios was involved in the assassination of Chilean economist and diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington, carried out by double agent for DINA and the CIA, Michael Townley.

Although indicted by Judge Juan Guzman Tapia on December 1, 2000 for ordering the Caravan of Death killings, dictator Pinochet escaped justice on account of purported health reasons. In relation to dictatorship memory and rupture, the Caravan of Death stands as a forewarning of what was to be unleashed in Chile throughout Pinochet’s rule and its aftermath. Particularly in Calama, the women’s resilience against the dictatorship can be seen as one of the earliest expressions against the nationwide oblivion through which Pinochet attempted to crush any questioning, let alone investigations, into dictatorship-era crimes.

When, in October 2019, Chileans across the country protested and called for a new constitution as well as right-wing Sebastian Pinera’s resignation, the state responded with violence, illustrating how neoliberal profit and repression of civilians are related.

Chile’s Constitutional Assembly is making inroads in altering the neoliberal politics which sustained the country’s transition to democracy since the fall of dictator Augusto Pinochet, yet the road ahead is fraught with the existing legacy of violence.

The rewriting of the Chilean constitution will be led by Elisa Loncon – a Mapuche and university professor. The choice is a far cry from Pinochet’s refusal to recognise the Mapuche as Chile’s indigenous population, which was established in a decree in 1978, in a bid to industrialise indigenous lands.

Loncon is adamant about the change which the new constitution should bring to Chile. “This convention today that I have the responsibility of presiding over will transform Chile, a plurinational Chile, an intercultural Chile, a Chile that does not go against the rights of women, the rights of citizens, a Chile that looks after Mother Earth, and a Chile that safeguards water against being dominated,” she stated.

Last week, the assembly debated an amnesty bill to free all of Chile’s political prisoners, including the Mapuche. Since Chile’s transition to democracy, the Mapuche have been targeted by Pinochet’s anti-terror laws, enacted in 1984 and exploited by governments to criminalise Mapuche resistance. The anti-terror laws allowed indefinite detention of the Mapuche, faceless witnesses and secret evidence to be used, in order to eliminate the right to cross-examination. Pinera’s electoral campaign in 2017 was partly built on his intent to reform the anti-terror laws to increase surveillance of indigenous communities.

The amnesty bill does not merely address the political prisoners’ current predicament. It is also a recognition of the Chilean state’s political repression since the dictatorship and the need to eliminate associated practices.

Both the dictatorship and the transition governments required measures that would protect the neoliberal model from social movements and indigenous mobilisation. Prior to Pinochet, the Mapuche people had already faced centuries of defending their land and people from colonisation and the Chilean state. With the privatisation of indigenous land for industrialisation, the earlier oppression and dispossession of the Mapuche continued, with no respite even during the transition to democracy, regardless of each elected government’s political leanings.

During the 2019 uprisings against Pinera, the arbitrary arrests and detention, not to mention torture, killings and disappearances of demonstrators, elicited dictatorship memories for many Chileans. The shared fate of Chileans and Mapuche, standing side by side and experiencing the same forms of violence by the Chilean state, has unified mobilisation for all of Chile’s political prisoners. The constitutional assembly has stated it cannot draft a new constitution while relics of the dictatorship and past governments are still present in the new society to be constructed.

The Mapuche, however, still face increased state repression. Last Friday, a Mapuche man was killed by the Chilean police in the Araucania region, in a confrontation at a forestry company on stolen indigenous land, where it is reported that a group of hooded men opened fire. Reports from the Chilean Prosecutor’s office identified the man as Ernesto Llaitul, the son of Mapuche leader Hector Llaitul.

The amnesty bill is a beginning, but Chileans have a long road ahead. The constitutional assembly is right when it states that past practices should not belong in the construction and development of a new Chilean society. However, the government, which incurred several political losses since the elections, is still holding on to power through repression. A new constitution requires new political thinking and implementation, to ensure a complete break with Chile’s dictatorship past.

Chilean President Sebastian Piñera would not have imagined, upon his electoral victory in 2017, that he would have mangled his political career beyond redemption. The 2017 Chilean presidential elections were characterised by a low turnout of voters, which largely indicated the left-wing electorate’s disillusionment in terms of candidates, proposals and, most importantly, the inherent corruption across the Chilean political spectrum since the country’s transition to democracy.

Prior to the 2019 protests across Chile, it was difficult to imagine any form of transition out of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s legacy. As the clamour for Piñera’s ousting and the collective cry for a new constitution resonated throughout the country, the government took a leaf out of the dictatorship’s book, imposing a military curfew and unleashing widespread, state-sanctioned violence which many Chileans said was reminiscent of the Pinochet era. Detention, torture, killings and disappearances occurred all over again, in a supposedly democratic period in Chile.

While Piñera eventually yielded to the demand for a new constitution and attempted to frame the decision as that of a government listening to its people’s demands, social movements in Chile were not acquiescing anymore to the imposed narrative. The right-wing suffered yet another blow in the vote to choose the individuals tasked with writing the new constitution, with voters electing a majority of independent and left-wing candidates.

For Piñera, however, the 2019 protests sealed his legacy. Working alongside the former Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon who, in 1998, issued an international arrest warrant for Pinochet for crimes against humanity while the dictator was in London, Chilean human rights organisations filed a report with the International Criminal Court, asking for an investigation into the crimes against humanity committed by the Chilean government during the 2019 protests. The report called for Piñera’s prosecution, along with other officials responsible for the atrocities.

Establishing criminal culpability and accountability in the Chilean courts is fraught with the prevailing political impunity. To date, many dictatorship era crimes have gone unpunished, and it is up to human rights organisations to constantly uphold the struggle for justice. One of the main arguments brought forward by Garzon and the human rights organisations, in fact, is that 3,050 cases out of 6,568 have been archived by the prosecution -a clear indication of judicial impunity.

The more recent violations are no exception. While Chileans were being beaten and shot in the eyes by the military during the protests, and human rights organisations, including international bodies, were documenting the cases, Piñera was praising the military’s conduct, exhibiting a complete dissociation when it comes to the situation on the ground for Chileans.

According to the Justice Studies Centre of the Americas (JSCA), “there is a widespread breach of informality, opportunity and thoroughness in the investigations of severe human rights violations.” The JSCA also noted that Chile’s prosecutor does not have “a specialised unit focused on investigating human rights violations, unlike other Latin American countries.”

The violations inflicted upon Chileans by the military during the 2019 protests have been classified as common crimes in Chile – a deliberate move, the human rights organisations insisted, in order to delay justice and allow the government to provide amnesty for the individuals involved.

While the ICC’s decision regarding whether the filed complaint falls within its jurisdiction may take years, the action to access international justice points both towards the Chilean courts’ failure as a result of political bias, as well as the Chilean people’s steadfastness when it comes to accountability. For decades, Pinochet’s shadow loomed over, influencing the transition to democracy as democratically-elected governments refused to make a clean break with the dictatorship. The 2019 protests have ignited change in Chile, which the people are determined to bring to fruition.

The Chilean right-wing government has been given yet another resounding rejection by the people, as the elections for a body to write the country’s new constitution has veered strongly towards independent and left-wing candidates. Only 38 candidates from the right-wing coalition “Vamos por Chile” were elected. The rest of the body is composed of 25 candidates from the centre-left coalition Lista del Apruebo, 27 candidates from the left-wing coalition Apruebo Dignidad, 48 independent candidates and 17 indigenous representatives.

Social inequalities have plagued Chile and become entrenched since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, whose economic policies based upon the neoliberal model have remained unchallenged until now. In October 2019, protests triggered by an increase in bus fares swiftly became a call for social and political justice – the people were not protesting about the price hike, but an unsustainable economic model which the transition to democracy in Chile not only failed to challenge, but made sure to protect. Neoliberalism in Chile had ensured the Concertación governments would function as democratically elected bodies supported by dictatorship legacies, and for several decades, the center-left and right wing governments ruled unhindered.

Chilean President Sebastian Piñera’s ruthless tactics to quell protests enacted the horrors of the dictatorship in the streets under democratic rule, with similar violence unleashed against demonstrators. Meanwhile the government attempted to quell the nation-wide anger by making some concessions while still protecting the neoliberal agenda. For the first time since the dictatorship, underrepresented Chileans have the opportunity to become visible and active participants in a democratic process which the transition since the end of the dictatorship until recently failed to deliver.

For Piñera and Chile’s right wing, including institutions such as the military and multinational companies which so far have benefited from privatisation, the new constitution will provide a thorough reckoning.

Chile’s dictatorship past is still held hostage by state institutions such as the military, which refuses to cooperate with the judiciary in terms of divulging details regarding human rights violations, torture, killings and disappearances during Pinochet’s era. As seen in the 2019 protests, the military has not changed its tactics. With impunity still governing Chile’s armed forces, the protestors were targeted with violence, mass arrests and disappearances, while Piñera attempted to hold on not only to his role, but to the entire neoliberal set-up that propped Chile’s semblance of democracy.

In Chile, social inclusion is anathema to the elitist right-wing. The new constitution will usher in many political ruptures when it comes to the monopoly over profit. The meagre results obtained by the government will ensure it is powerless to block proposals that run contrary to its politics, which indicates that Chile is well on its way not only for a constitution rewrite, but to end the impunity which has characterised the country’s politics since the democratic transition. The implications have not been lost on Piñera, who advised against “extreme changes” which could alter perceptions of Chile’s economic stability.

Gabriel Boric from Frente Amplio, however, was adamant that the constitution should provide “a new treaty for our Indigenous populations, to recover our natural resources, build a state that guarantees universal social rights.”

If Pinera is so concerned about the forthcoming changes, his rhetoric about the new constitution providing “a great opportunity” towards inclusivity and sustainability ring hollow. The election results have dealt a severe blow to the right-wing and its associations with Pinochet, which have largely guided and strengthened neoliberalism in Chile to the detriment of its growing multitudes of victims. Economic growth in Chile has exploited the working class and the indigenous, thus providing a false reflection of Chilean society and its inequalities. Rewriting the constitution provides the opportunity to address the imbalance that has ravaged Chile and created a society where profit has silenced dignity and human rights for decades.

Last March, on the 45^th anniversary of Argentina’s descent into dictatorship, the National Security Archive posted a selection of declassified documents revealing the U.S. knowledge of the military coup in the country in 1976. A month before the government of Isabel Peron was toppled by the military, the U.S. had already informed the coup plotters that it would recognise the new government. Indications of a possible coup in Argentina had reached the U.S. as early as 1975.

A declassified CIA document from February 1976 describes the imminence of the coup, to the extent of mentioning military officers which would later become synonymous with torture, killings and disappearances of coup opponents. Notably, the coup plotters, among them General Jorge Rafael Videla, were already drawing up a list of individuals who would be subject to arrest in the immediate aftermath of the coup.

One concern for the U.S. was its standing in international diplomacy with regard to the Argentinian military dictatorship’s violence, which it pre-empted as a U.S. State Department briefing to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shows. “An Argentine military government would be almost certain to engage in human rights violations such as to engender international criticism.”

After the experience of Chile and U.S. involvement in the coup which heralded dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rise to power, human rights violations became a key factor. Kissinger had brushed off the U.S. Congress’s concerns, declaring a policy that would turn a blind eye to the dictatorship’s atrocities. “I think we should understand our policy-that however unpleasant they act, this government is better for us than Allende was,” Kissinger had declared.

Months after expressing concern regarding the forthcoming human rights abuses as a result of the dictatorship in Argentina, the U.S. warned Pinochet about its dilemma in terms of justifying aid to a leadership which was becoming notorious for its violence and disappearances of opponents. “We have a practical problem to take into account, without bringing about pressures incompatible with your dignity, and at the same time which does not lead to U.S. laws which will undermine our relationship.”

In the same declassified document from the Chile archives of 1976, Pinochet expresses his concern over Orlando Letelier, a diplomat and ambassador to the U.S. during the era of Salvador Allende and an influential figure among members of the U.S. Congress, stating that Letelier is disseminating false information about Chile. Letelier was murdered by car bomb in Washington that same year, by a CIA and National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agent Michael Townley.

However, the Argentinian coup plotters deepened their dialogue with the U.S. over how human rights violations would be committed. Aware of perceptions regarding Pinochet’s record, military officials approached the U.S. seeking ways to minimise the attention which Pinochet was garnering in Chile, while at the same time making it clear to U.S. officials to “some executions would probably be necessary.”

Assuming a non-involvement position was also deemed crucial by the U.S. To mellow any possible fallout, the coup plotters were especially keen to point out that the military coup would not follow in the steps of Pinochet. One declassified cable document detailing U.S. concern over involvement spells out how the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Robert Hill planned to depart the country prior to the coup, rather than cancel plans to see how the events pan out. “The fact that I would be out of the country when the blow actually falls would be, I believe, a fact in our favor indicating non- involvement of Embassy and USG.” The main aim was to conceal evidence that the U.S. had prior knowledge of the forthcoming coup in Argentina.

While the released documents portray the U.S. as having knowledge of the coup as opposed to intervening overtly or covertly, the aftermath shows U.S. involvement was considerable. The Chile experience, including the murder of a diplomat on U.S. soil, were clearly not deterrents for U.S. policy in Latin America, as it extended further support for Videla’s rule. The Videla dictatorship would eventually kill and disappear over 30,000 Argentinians in seven years, aided by the U.S. which provided the aircraft necessary for the death flights in the extermination operation known as Plan Condor.