Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Justice for Chile

In September 1973 Chile's military overthrew its democratically elected government and imposed a 20-year junta. Later that month, a group of army officers toured the country by helicopter, murdering captured enemies of the new regime as they went. It became known as the "caravan of death", and at least 75 people were murdered. Today, 40 years after the event, those responsible were convicted of their crimes:
A judge in Chile has found eight former members of the military guilty of murdering political opponents during the rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.

The accused were part of the Caravan of Death, a military operation thought to have killed almost 100 opponents of the 1973 military coup.

They were sentenced to between three and 15 years in jail for killing 14 people in the northern city of Antofagasta shortly after the coup.


And hopefully they'll be the first of many of the dictatorship's servants to face justice for their crimes. It has taken longer than it did in Argentina, and many of those responsible have already escaped through death, but it looks like there is finally going to be a reckoning in Chile, and justice for Pinochet's victims.