Little justice that adequately sanctions human rights violations, a precarious response in terms of reparation and the “absolute non-existence” in Chile of measures of non-repetition regarding what happened in the social outbreak of 2019 denounced on Saturday the director of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) in its annual report.
The report presented by Consuelo Contreras in the framework of the commemoration day of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the country, in an activity in which the president was present Gabriel Boricoffers overwhelming figures: as of October 2022, of the 3,151 complaints that the INDH accompanied for events that occurred between October 18, 2019 and March 18, 2020, only 3% of these cases have people prosecuted or formalized for those events.
Of those 187 formalized people –179 belonging to the Chilean police or Carabineros and 8 to the Armed Forces– and of the 18 convicted, only two are serving prison sentences.
“All those convicted received mitigations to their sentences, due to their good conduct,” the report establishes in its chapter number 1 referring to human rights violations in democracy.
The INDH accompanied a total of 3,626 victims in the processes, which represents 33% of the total number of victims who denounced according to the data provided by the prosecution National Office of the Public Ministry as of September 2022.
Of these 3,626 victims, 1,748 reported acts of at least one shot, 25% of them reported violations of their rights in police custody, either in police cars or in police stations, while reported acts of sexual violence represent 32%. of the total.
In total, the Chilean State has delivered 299 grace pensions for these events.
Regarding the care provided by special programs of the health system to the more than 400 victims of ocular trauma, who partially or totally lost their sight as a consequence of State violence, deficiencies are denounced as “little personnel, little material, little technology, little money, few amounts so that the people who are working there have more equipment”. The report highlights “the particularly precarious situation in which the victims find themselves, both in terms of their physical and mental health, as well as in the economic and labor sphere”, as a consequence of the brutality they suffered.
It also indicates that the recommendations regarding the use of force by the police forces have not been complied with or partially complied with. Three years following the crisis, “the absence of a law and not simply a protocol” that marks the use of force by the police and security forces “reinforces the concern that certain behaviors will be repeated in the future.”
The INDH report also exposes in a total of 7 chapters in its report the most innovative aspects related to human rights, such as access to water for a population subjected to water stress, the human rights of the elderly or access to education. following the pandemic, among others.
Climate change is the subject of analysis, remembering that in March 2022 there were 188 communes out of the 345 that exist in Chile, 54% of the country, under a water scarcity decree. This means that 8,350,000 people or 47.5% of its population had water problems.
It also addresses the problems of school dropout and violence that are experienced in the country. The face-to-face makes it clear that “there is a group of students that has been left out of the system; others living conditions of deficient infrastructure, with a shortage of teachers or facing situations of violence” which shows the need for policies that ensure access to education.
In addition, it highlights the problem of public health waiting lists for the elderly population and also their situation of economic vulnerability. 38% of the elderly declare an income of less than 230 dollars and 1 in 3 adults affirm that their income is not enough for basic needs: “19% of households made up only of elderly people have a permanent concern regarding not having enough food ”, the report states.
Finally, it also mentions the need for the search program for those who disappeared during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) announced by the government of Gabriel Boric this year.
The report highlights that in the country there has not been a search for persons of forced disappearance, and that the information collected is merely due to judicial processes that seek to establish legal responsibility. Therefore, according to the official figures of the 1,109 forcibly disappeared almost 50 years following the beginning of the dictatorship, only 310 would have been identified, which indicates clearly “insufficient” results.
