CHILE-CONTRERAS/DEATH-CELEBRATIONS Chileans celebrate the death of head of secret police during military dictatorship

Record ID: 144659

  • Title: CHILE-CONTRERAS/DEATH-CELEBRATIONS Chileans celebrate the death of head of secret police during military dictatorship
  • Date: 8th August 2015
  • Summary: SANTIAGO, CHILE (AUGUST 08, 2015) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE OUTSIDE MILITARY HOSPITAL CELEBRATING DEATH OF MANUEL CONTRERAS, FORMER HEAD OF SECRET POLICE PHOTOGRAPH OF DETAINEE WHO DISAPPEARED TAPED ON GATE OUTSIDE MILITARY HOSPITAL VARIOUS OF ACTIVISTS BURNING EFFIGY OF CONTRERAS OUTSIDE MILITARY HOSPITAL (SOUNDBITE)
  • Embargoed: 23rd August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Chile
  • Country: Chile
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAEIEWWT6CE8AKFJFYOQUL7VR76
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: In the early morning hours of Saturday (August 8), hundreds of Chileans sang and danced outside the military hospital where Manuel Contreras, the former head of secret police under Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, died while serving a sentence of over 500 years for human rights violations.
    Bottles of champagne were uncorked and the cheering crowd burned an effigy of the man who created the DINA intelligence service and ran torture centres where hundreds were killed.
    "I'm really happy but it's a conflicting emotion because this murderer died of illness but he should have suffered much more, just like many comrades suffered," said Sergio Contreras. "I also have that feeling that justice still hasn't arrived in this country. Just recently, after so many years, we are still finding out about many crimes, many murders, that the dictatorship committed."
    In 1973, Pinochet, who was then the head of the army, toppled the democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. During Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship, an estimated 3,000 people were kidnapped and killed or disappeared and 28,000 were tortured.
    As Pinochet's right-hand man and head of secret police, Contreras led efforts to suppress dissidents.
    Protesters pasted pictures of some of the disappeared on the gate outside the military hospital.
    Pinochet died in 2006 at the age of 91, having never faced a full trial for the crimes committed under his rule. Contreras was left to face the breadth of human rights charges leveled at the former Chilean strongman. In May 2015, he amassed more than 505 years of jail time for a series of human rights violations from 58 court sentences.
    Many Chileans, like this woman, Beatriz, feel that there are many others who participated in human rights abuses and haven't been charged. She urged President Michelle Bachelet to take swift action.
    "With (Manuel) Contreras' death, we have to reveal and capture all of them. There can't be just 70 people (detained on human rights charges); that's a lie. We're just recently finding out the truth and we hope that (President Michelle) Bachelet act quickly to process all of the people (who are guilty of human rights violations)," she said.
    Bachelet and her parents were tortured during that time and her father - General Alberto Bachelet, died of heart problems aggravated by a torture session while serving a prison sentence for treason for remaining loyal to democratically-elected Allende.
    Contreras served a large part of his sentence at the Penitenciario Cordillera in Santiago, which was eventually closed down amid public anger over his relative comfortable conditions alongside other former Pinochet agents.
    Whilst behind bars, he wrote a book titled 'The Historical Truth' which presented his version of the bloody coup. Amongst the arguments purported by Contreras in his book was the theory that those who disappeared during the Pinochet era actually fled the country.
    In his last television interview from prison, Contreras showed no remorse.
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