CHILE: Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declares August 30 National Day of the Disappeared

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared August 30 as Chile's National Day of the Disappeared on Wednesday (August 30), commemorating the thousands who were killed during Chile's 17-year Pinochet dictatorship. Bachelet, herself a former political prisoner, signed the official decree establishing the day at a special ceremony attended by government representatives and relatives of the disappeared. The ceremony took place in La Moneda palace, the scene of the bloody coup in 1973 led by Augusto Pinochet, which overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende and ushered in one of the darkest periods in the country's history. Speaking at the event, Bachelet acknowledged the symbolism of signing the decree in the very place where the first victims of the dictatorship lost their lives. "I establish August 30 as the National Day of the Disappeared, and I do it with all the solemnity that this official declaration can have, but at the same time with all the symbolism carried by the fact that it was exactly here, in La Moneda palace, where the first disappearances occurred on September 11 1973," said Bachelet, who currently leads the ruling centre-left coalition which has been in power since democracy was restored in 1990. An estimated 3,000 people died in political violence during Chile's 17-year dictatorship, but many bodies were dumped into the ocean and never recovered. Others were buried in mass graves which were subsequently dug up after the country returned to democracy. Forensic experts used facial reconstruction, fingerprints and dental records to identify some of these remains as people arrested by the military in La Moneda palace during the coup. Chile is still struggling to come to terms with the haunting legacy of Pinochet's seventeen-year rule. Pinochet, who is now ninety years old, has avoided being prosecuted in a handful of human rights cases because of his health problems, which include mild dementia caused by frequent mini-strokes.

ITN Source | August 31, 2006

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