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Chile’s president-elect, Sebastian Piñera of the right-wing party Renovación Nacional (National Renewal, RN) recently announced that he plans to “modernize” the country’s Anti-Terrorist Law when he takes office. This announcement builds on promises from throughout his 2017 Chilean electoral campaign, when Piñera said on multiple occasions that his new aministration would seek to perfect the law, which…
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Groups of Chilean activists living in Australia are mounting a campaign for the extradition of an alleged torturer: former Dirección de Intelligencia Nacional (DINA) agent Adriana Rivas. Rivas is wanted by the Chilean courts in connection with the disappearance of Partido Comunista and Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR) militants. The former agent has been living…
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The move to extradite Florida resident Pedro Barrientos Nunez in connection with the murder of famed Chilean singer Victor Jara – a supporter of deposed President Salvador Allende – is re-igniting Chile’s campaign for justice for victims of the Pinochet regime’s reign of torture and violence. The US-backed military coup in Chile on September 11,…
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Stories of the torture, murder and disappearance of political opponents in US-backed South American dictatorships resurfaced again recently, with the declassification of documents revealing, among other issues, US knowledge of the multinational campaign of state terror known as Operation Condor. Dr Carolina Villella, a lawyer from the organisation Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, Grandmothers of the…
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During General Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, one of the most notorious places for political dissidents to end up was Cuartel Simon Bolivar. It was here, in the extermination centre known as “the place where no one got out alive” that Adriana Rivas, a former National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agent and personal secretary to DINA Chief…
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If he were still alive, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet might have voted for right-wing candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who seemed intent on provocation with his incessant, belligerent statements during the electoral campaign. In October 2017, Kast took a shot at former President Salvador Allende, calling him a “dictator,” and absolving the Chilean military of its role in the…
