Chile Seeks To Annul Dictatorship-Era Amnesty Law

The Chilean government wants to annul legislation that grants amnesty for human rights abuses committed under the country's 1973-1990 military dictatorship, Justice Minister Jose Antonio Gomez said Thursday.



Speaking on the 41st anniversary of the 1973 coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power, Gomez said that the government would prioritize the approval of a motion in Congress to squash the law.



In July, the United Nations Human Rights Commission called on Chile to revoke the law to ensure that no human right abuses omitted during the regime went unpunished.



In a press conference at the La Moneda government palace, government chief of staff Ximena Rincon said that the government's aim is to "allow a debate in Congress" about these proposals, long sought by human right organizations and victims' relatives.



The amnesty, which was passed in 1978, applies to 578 uniformed officers accused of human rights abuses as well as 1,475 rebels who were tried by military tribunal.



Socialist President Michelle Bachelet, who began her second four-year term in March, was one of thousands of Chileans who were imprisoned, tortured and exiled by the military regime, which handed over power to a democratic government in 1990 after narrowly losing a popular plebiscite.



Her father, an army general who opposed the coup against fellow socialist Salvador Allende, died after being tortured.



Even after a generation of democratic rule, the coup still haunts the country with youths taking to the streets every Sept. 11 to do battle with armed police.



Earlier on Thursday, an appeals court in the southern city of Valdivia ruled that Rosauro Martinez, a deputy for the right wing National Renewal, should stand trial for his part in the murder of the three members of MIR, an armed left wing group that opposed the dictatorship.



On Monday, a bomb exploded in a crowded metro station, injuring 14, just a few meters from the Military Academy where Gen. Pinochet's remains were visited by supporters after his death in 2006.



During a ceremony Thursday to pay homage to Allende at La Moneda where he committed suicide, Bachelet said the country should use the memory of the fateful year to rebuild a better country.



"Every Sept. 11, the winds of history shake our heart and our conscience, but each of one these memories is also seed of the future … a reason to commit ourselves to the present and undertake the reforms Chile requires," the president said.



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