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Our position on the problems of human rights violations is basically legal, ethical and preventative. No healthy, solid, stable democracy can build itself upon a foundation of forgetting the most serious crimes against the right to life, integrity and freedom committed in Chilean history and within a policy of state terrorism that unleashed maximum political violence against society. We reaffirm that there is no ethical nor judicial reason why crimes of human rights violations should remain in impunity. We are asking that crimes against humanity be punished in the same way that common ones are. (From the Statement, on 23rd July 1995, by the Group of Families of the Detained and Disappeared; quoted in Amnesty International's report, Transition at the Crossroads: Human Rights Violations under Pinochet Remain the Crux , March 1996.) |
Statements by Remember-Chile on
Britain's release of Pinochet:
- Did Bindman & Partners
help Jack Straw to secure General Pinochet's release?
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WHO WE ARE This web site is by a group of Chileans and others in Britain. We have been prompted into action by the arrest in Britain, in October 1998, of Chile's former head of state, General Pinochet. Those of us with direct experiences of Pinochet's brutal dictatorship have had painful memories brought more rawly to the surface. Others have become involved in the unfolding events because of their concern for human rights. While Bell Pottinger Communications has been running a £200,000 public relations campaign for Pinochet, we have put together this website for less than £200. Rather than by money, this web site has been motivated by genuine belief and real commitment. The wish to sell an image through the techniques and distortions of propaganda has not been behind this web site. It has been motivated by the desire for the truth to be known. It has been driven by the need for grief and loss to be acknowledged and to be able to follow through naturally. And it is hoped that it may be a contribution towards open, informed and balanced discourse - the precondition for a healthy society. There are those in this country who have actively supported Pinochet and see it as wrong to have arrested the man at all. However, we would prefer to resist such tendencies to turn a blind eye to horror or - even - to justify it for ideological ends. Rather than sinking into short-sighted cynicism (usually euphemistically termed 'pragmatism', 'national interest' or 'realpolitik') we would prefer at least to try to temper the human capacity for the darkest cruelty and most degrading violence. Remember-Chile Disclosure of the truth is part of ensuring that justice will be done, but it does not replace justice. |
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ABOUT THIS SITE - The site is composed of this HOME page and nine Sections.
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Contact: info@remember-chile.org.uk