“Si no hay justicia…hay FUNA” (where there is no justice, there is FUNA) we shout outside the house of an old man. It is not any old man we are harrassing.
On Monday 2nd June 1984 Victor Molina Astete, along with his “colleagues” in the intelligence services, beat Enzo Muñoz to death as he made a phone call in the street. They kidnapped Héctor Sobarzo and executed him with an uzi, and then murdered Juan Varas and Ana Delgado.
We are demanding that this known criminal who has never been brought to justice be punished. Withstanding the blazing sun above we sing and distribute hundreds of leaflets letting the neighbours of this southern Santiago neighbourhood know they live next to a murderer.
Sixteen years after the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) ended, more and more young people are getting involved in this form of direct justice. “This is my first FUNA,” 18 year-old Tatjiana tells me. “I decided to get involved because of the farcical and stupid situation that these abusers are walking fee. I learnt about the tortures and disappearances that took place through friends of friends.They are never talked about in the media.”
After spending my life protesting on the same issue with the Chilean exile community in London, attending a FUNA is certainly an empowering event, and I can understand Tatiana´s eagerness to go to the next one.
“I got involved because my dad was tortured,” says Tito Marín, who organizes the FUNAS. “These events play a crucial role in raising awareness about the abuses.”
Victor Molina´s neighbours were astonished and horrified to learn about his past. Before they read and understood the leaflet they asked many of us why we were here on a Saturday afternoon protesting about human rights. The reality is that, unlike Argentina, where the military apologized for the 30,000 ‘disappearances’ it carried out during its dictatorship, in Chile there has been no apology for the thousands that were rounded up tortured and killed under Pinochet. The victims are scorned rather than pitied by the media and (mainly well-to-do) public who don’t want to be reminded that the relative prosperity and stability they claim Pinochet brought, is soaked in blood.
Chile´s president of the last few years, Michelle Bachelet, is seen to have bee helping the country’s reconciliation because she urges forgiveness. She and her mother were both tortured and forced into exile, while her father was ¨disappeared¨. Bachelet is seen as a unifying force because following this ordeal she worked to improve relations between the government and the military in her job as Defence Minister.
Bachelet´s views on reconciliation are shared by the majority of Chileans, who believe it is best to focus on a unified future rather than confront a past, which is controversial and divisive. Yet, while being popular and perhaps useful for her political ambitions, Bachelet’s approach does not represent the many who suffered. “You can only forgive someone who asks for forgiveness,” says Gabriela, who was raped and tortured with iron rods and a stretching rack. And the Chilean military do not seek forgiveness as it still doesn’t admit it did anything wrong.
What is more, the lack of desire to deal with the dark side of the dictatorship is the legacy that still permeates everyday life. “The objective of the brutal repression was to instil a deep rooted fear of political activity,” Says Ricardo Martínez head of the ex-political prisoners group. “People don’t want to talk about human rights because they are scared. Even today few sign up for compensation for victims of torture because in the back of their minds looms the possibility of the military taking their details and paying them a “visit”.
By banning political parties and making any form of political expression dangerous the dictatorship successfully de-politicised whole sections of society, including the next generation.
Many young people who grew up under, or after, the dictatorship do not get involved in politics as Cathy,16, and Roberto, 21, show: “I think human rights abuses were wrong but they have nothing to do with us. It’s to do with our parents. “ This attitude allows the UDI right wing party to condemn the FUNAs, saying, with no amount of irony, that “These events are above the law. They are terrible and should stop”.
But with denial of the past also comes a denial of Chile’s own identity, values and culture. “The saddest thing is that the military mentality of the past lives on in the present ,“ says Gabriela. The Pinochet regime imported American culture and values that have swamped Chile’s own, not least the idealist Chile of social justice envisaged by Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President Pinochet toppled in 1973 with US backing. Even the so-called Pinochet ‘economic miracle’ is not all it’s cracked up to be. Despite it’s wealth, Chile has one of the worst gaps between rich and poor in Latin America.
In Bachelet 's years as president, however, she did not reverse the lack of political will that has left putting the likes of Victor Molina behind bars to a judiciary still dominated by Pinochet appointees. And few suspect that the new right-wing president-elect Sebastian Piñera will be more proactive in bringing these criminals to justice, as many in the business world profited from the Pinoschet years and believe that the human rights cost was worth it.
However, out of the depressing vacuum the FUNAs emerge as a refreshing new source of energy and hope. Groups of young people who’ve decided that the past has got to do with them, attend court hearings and organise events to remind people what happened and keep the spotlight on the need for justice. It shows that the “military” mentality of accepting a fate chosen for you, does not live on in all. As Carolina declares. “The Chile our parents wanted was taken away from us. They killed our parents but they haven’t killed us. Our parent’s ideals live on in us. That is our victory.”
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