Radio Internacional Feminista - FIRE

MARCH  1999

 Pinochet’s Case: A Crack To Impunity

By María Suárez Toro

Historical Background by Brenda Azúa

Motivated by the celebrations of the crack to impunity regarding violations of human rights in Chile, this month of March 1999, FIRE presents interviews with two Chilean women human rights activists. FIRE met with a former political prisoner of the Pinochet dictatorship, Marisa Matamala, and with Parliamentarian Fanny Pollarollo on the 21st of December, 1998,  in Chile about the case against Pinochet in Spain, and in England.

In the midst of mainstream news about Lords, lawyers, judges and high level politicians, the truth is that women have been at the forefront of the daily struggle in Chile and in the rest of Latin America, to keep alive the struggle against impunity and for the respect of human rights. Women, especially the mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared, have been the "moral reserves" of the human rights struggle in the region in the midst of transition processes where many have tried to forget the past of abuses of the rights.

Today, although women are not the main voices in most media, they are the voices in the actions: Women were in the forefront in the streets in Chile when people first heard about Pinochet's detention, women have headed delegations to claim for respect of human rights above diplomacy, and they have been maintaining the dynamics of protests in the streets in Chile, England and elsewhere against Pinochet's impunity.

Marisa Matamala, former political prisoner:

One such woman is Marisa Matamala.  She is Chilean and a former political prisoner of the military dictatorship in the decade of the 70s, and presently a women's health activist.  FIRE asked her to talk about the first reactions of people in Chile, and also her own feelings, when they heard that Pinochet had been detained in England. There is a collective smile in Chile today…

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FIRE also asked Marisa to talk about some of the cases of violations of human rights of which she has personal knowledge, and which form part of the legal process underway in Spain, and in Chile.  Marisa believes that there is an inconsistency with the Chileans who filed a claim against Lord Hoffman accusing him of bias because of his relationship to Amnesty International, because those same Chileans have allowed relatives in Chilean courts to rule in cases where their families might be involved.

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Asked about her hopes and expectations, Marisa believes much has been accomplished already, but much more is needed. She also thinks there is a double standard among the right wing in Chile, that the same ones who have handed the economy over to globalization are the ones talking about "sovereignty" when it comes to Pinochet and human rights violations.

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Fanny Pollarollo, Parliamentarian:

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Fanny Pollarolo is another one of those front-line women. Spokesperson of the Socialist Party in Chile’s Congress, she is also a Medical Psychiatrist who for many years did therapy with the victims of the Military Dictatorship headed by Pinochet in her country. At the end of 1998, she  headed a delegation of Chileans who went to England to deliver a letter to the Government of the U.K., in response to the official position of the Chilean government requesting that the former dictator be sent back to Chile to be judged.  The letter offered evidence to demonstrate that it was impossible to judge Pinochet in Chile.  FIRE interviewed Fanny in Chile, last December 21, 1998, about the recent controversy surrounding Pinochet.

Fanny talked to FIRE about the action undertaken by her Party in December 1998, consisting of forming part of a delegation that took the letter to England. The delegation was composed of prominent leaders who were also victims of the violations of human rights perpetrated by the military dictatorship in the 1970s and '80s in Chile such, including the former Chilean President Allende's daughter, Orlando Letelier's son, and others.
 

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Just before the beginning of the interview, Fanny used the image of a mirror to describe to FIRE what the internationalization of the Pinochet case has done to her country. FIRE asked her to share the significance of the image.
 
 

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Asked to address her hopes and fears regarding the case of Pinochet and the effects it has had and can have in Chile,  Pollarolo highlighted the need to organize around the will of the majority of peoples in Chile who want democracy, in the midst of a large concentration of power by those who oppose it.

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