Prisoner of Pinochet: My Year in a Chilean Concentration Camp PDF
Preview Prisoner of Pinochet: My Year in a Chilean Concentration Camp
UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pagei Prisoner of Pinochet UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pageii Crit ic al Human Rights Se ries Ed i tors Steve J. Stern Scott Straus Books in the ser ies Criti cal Human R ights em pha size re search that opens new ways to think about and unders tand human r ights. The ser ies valu es in part ic u lar em pir i cally grounded and in tell ec tu ally open re search that es chews simp lified ac counts of human rights events and pro cesses. After bombing the presidential palace in downtown Santiago on September 11, 1973, and taking control of Chile, what would the military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet do with high officials of the vanquished democratic govern- ment of Salvador Allende? The dictatorship saw adversaries as war enemies rather than as citizens. The junta intended not an interim coup to restore order but a radical makeover of politics and society, backed by force. This scheme left no room for dissident political leaders. Allende committed suicide before soldiers stormed the presidential palace. Some high officials eluded capture and escaped into exile, while others were assassinated, whether in Chile or abroad. Many ended up political prisoners. Banished to Dawson Island near Chilean Antarctica, former cabinet officials such as Sergio Bitar, Allende’s minister of mining, endured a regime of brutal weather, poor diet, and forced labor. In a memoir whose matter-of-fact tone enhances its poignancy and insight, Bitar tells a human rights story both unique and universal. It is the unique story of Pinochet’s Chile, a dictatorship that destroyed a once vibrant democracy and galvanized international human rights concerns. It is the universal story of political prisoners whose world has collapsed, yet who somehow defend their human decency and dignity—and, therefore, the possibility of hope. UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pageiii Prisoner of Pinochet My Year in a Chilean Concentration Camp Sergio Bitar Trans lated by Erin Goodman Foreword and notes by Peter Winn The University of Wisconsin Press UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pageiv The University of Wisconsin Press 1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059 uwpress.wisc.edu 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden London WCE 8LU, United Kingdom eurospanbookstore.com Originally published as Isla 10, by Sergio Bitar, © 1987 by Sergio Bitar and Pehuén Editores, Santiago, Chile English translation copyright © 2017 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise— or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. Printed in the United States of America This book may be available in a digital edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bitar, Sergio, author. | Goodman, Erin E., translator. | Winn, Peter, writer of foreword. Title: Prisoner of Pinochet: my year in a Chilean concentration camp / Sergio Bitar; translated by Erin Goodman; foreword and notes by Peter Winn. Other titles: Isla 10. English | Critical human rights. Description: Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, [2017] | Series: Critical human rights | Originally published as Isla 10, by Sergio Bitar, ©1987 by Sergio Bitar and Pehuen Editores. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017010438 | ISBN 9780299313708 (cloth: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Bitar, Sergio. | Political prisoners—Chile—Biography. | Chile—Politics and government—1973- Classification: LCC F3101.B58 A3 2017 | DDC 983.06/5092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010438 UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pagev Contents List of Illustrations vii Foreword ix Peter Winn Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Complete List of Unidad Popular Prisoners at Dawson Island xix Escuela Militar 3 Compingim 18 Río Chico 75 Puchuncaví 120 Ritoque 133 Thirty Years Later 149 Index 155 v UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pagevi blank UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pagevii Illustrations following page 62 Sergio Bitar and Jorge Tapia entering Escuela Militar on September 13, 1973 Map of region in southern Chile where Dawson Island is located Censored letter from Kenny Hirmas de Bitar to Sergio Bitar Lieutenant Jaime Weidenlaufer’s first speech to the prisoners Study session at Ritoque Orlando Letelier Certificate issued following house arrest, granting Sergio Bitar freedom to circulate in Santiago so long as he is under registration Telegram from Sergio Bitar’s family wishing him a happy thirty-third birthday Improvisational mug made by a prisoner at Dawson Stones carved by Sergio Bitar Flag-raising ceremony at Compingim Prisoners lined up upon arrival at Dawson Church at Puerto Harris, rehabilitated by the prisoners at Dawson Army barge facing Dawson Island Prisoners walking back from work at Dawson Trucks used for transporting materials and people to worksites The wives of political prisoners vii one line long UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pageviii blank UWP: Bitar: Prisoner of Pinochet pageix Foreword In my lifetime I have experienced two traumatic 9/11’s. As a New Yorker, I lived through September 11, 2001, with its aerial attack on the Twin Towers, and its indelible memory resonates with me. But I also lived through and cannot forget my memories of another violent 9/11: September 11, 1973, in Chile, the date of the bloody military coup that over- threw the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende. That 9/11 also culminated in an aerial attack that left a symbolic building in flames, but that aerial attack was by the Chilean Air Force and the building its planes destroyed was Chile’s presidential palace, with the country’s president inside. The dead that day included President Allende, and the violent coup that ousted him destroyed Chile’s democracy for almost two decades. After a distinguished career as a congressional deputy, cabinet minister, and senator, Allende was elected president in 1970 as the candidate of a broad leftist coalition, on a platform of pioneering a nonviolent, democratic road to a Democratic Socialism that included an agrarian reform, as well as the nation- alization of mines, banks, and large industries, with worker participation in their management. By 1973, Allende’s government had made major advances along this Democratic Socialist road. The goal of the coup was to reverse those advances and block that road. The military coup led to the seventeen-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, a dictatorship that massively violated human rights and was respon- sible for the deaths of more than three thousand Chileans—a toll similar to the number of deaths on September 11, 2001. It also imprisoned and tortured more than 38,000 Chileans in more than 1,100 clandestine centers, concentra- tion camps, and military barracks. When the attack began on La Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace, I was across the square. I was fortunate to survive the battle that claimed the lives of ix
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