Thirty years ago, a car bomb killed a former ambassador to the
U.S. and his colleague as they drove to work at the Institute of
Political Studies in Washington, D.C. This 1976 act of
international terrorism was ordered by the Chilean secret
police.
Today, Fabiola Letelier ““ the sister of one of the victims
and a prosecutor in the case ““ plans to speak about
international terrorism and human rights at UCLA.
Letelier, a Chilean human rights lawyer, prosecuted the head of
Chile’s secret police, Gen. Manual Contreras, and his
second-in-command, Gen. Pablo Espinoza, for the assassination of
her brother, Orlando Letelier.
Alicia Partnoy, a Loyola Marymount University Spanish professor
and president of the organization responsible for Letelier’s
tour, Proyecto VOS, said she hopes today’s lecture will help
instruct UCLA on the ways in which “the policies of one
country can destroy another country,” referring to the U.S.
government’s alleged support of Chilean dictator Agusto
Pinochet’s brutal regime.
Proyecto VOS ““ Voices of Survivors ““ aims to provide
a forum for survivors of human rights violations to share their
struggles with academics at various American universities.
Today’s event is sponsored by the Latin American Studies
Center; Division of Social Science; Department of Spanish and
Portuguese; and Southern California Consortium of International
Studies.
Orlando Letelier was Chile’s ambassador to the U.S. under
Salvador Allende’s administration and became the defense
minister when Pinochet’s violent coup supplanted
Allende’s socialist rule in 1973.
In 1980, Fabiola Letelier joined the proceeding of her
brother’s case before a Chilean military tribunal, which
allegedly consisted of several of Pinochet’s secret
police.
After a decade of litigation, Letelier’s case was
transferred to the Chilean Supreme Court under the newly
established democracy in Chile.
Letelier said that 1995 marked the first time in history that
any director of secret police in Latin America received a
sentence.
“The sentence was minimal ““ seven years for
Contreras and six years for Espinoza ““ but significant
because it opened the door for justice. Now, victims of
disappearances and torture and their families are filled with hope
and joy that one day they too will obtain justice,” Letelier
said.
During the 17-year dictatorship of Pinochet, violent criminal
acts were common on an international scale as well as within Chile.
An estimated 3,000 Chileans were subject to
“disappearances” or execution, while thousands more
were imprisoned, according to The National Commission on Political
Imprisonment and Torture Report.
Members of Proyecto VOS have similarly personal ties to
protection of human rights in Latin America.
Partnoy, the LMU professor, survived a three-year kidnapping in
her home country of Argentina, part of which she spent in a
concentration camp with hundreds of prisoners.
“I was arrested because I was a student activist active
against the military coup. I spent three and a half months lying
face down on a mattress waiting to be killed at the Little School
concentration camp,” Partnoy said.
While in the United States, Letelier also plans to lobby for the
declassification of documents related to her brother’s
assassination, and attempt to establish an alliance with American
lawyers to assist her in reopening her brother’s case.
Even though nearly 30 years have elapsed since her
brother’s death, Letelier said she continues her efforts to
combat human rights violations because “it’s a long
road to justice.”