Chile to search for victims of forced disappearance during the dictatorship

Santiago de Chile, Aug 30 (EFE) – Chilean President Gabriel Boric signed a decree Wednesday establishing the first “permanent and systematic national policy” to search for victims of forced disappearance during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

“I have the conviction that democracy is memory and is the future, and it cannot be one without the other,” said the Chilean president during a ceremony with politicians, human rights activists and relatives of the victims.

“We take responsibility as a State, not only as a Government, to move all barriers to clarify the circumstances of the disappearance and/or death of the victims of forced disappearance,” he stressed.

It is estimated that the dictatorship detained and subsequently disappeared some 1,469 people, of which only 307 have been found.

Among the goals outlined in this public policy is to “locate, recover, identify and return the mortal remains of the victims of forced disappearance”, all of them political opponents of the dictatorship and/or left-wing activists.

The policy also aims to render accountability to Chilean society on the progress of these proceedings, and implement reparation measures and guarantees of non-repetition of these types of crimes.

“There was never an explanation or an act of deference from the Chilean State to the wives, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, grandsons and granddaughters of the disappeared, while their families were desperately searching,” said the president of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees, Gaby Rivera, in her speech.

The leader pointed out the “political will” of the President and insisted that the family groups will be following up on the implementation of this plan.

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