Deputy Lorena Pizarro Urges End to ‘Pact of Silence’ Over Pinochet-Era Crimes After Chilevisión Report on Bernarda Vera

Chilean lawmaker Lorena Pizarro called for breaking the “pact of silence” maintained by civilians and military personnel involved in crimes committed under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, following a Chilevisión investigation into the case of Bernarda Vera—officially registered as a detained-disappeared person since 1973—who is allegedly living in Argentina.

The parliamentarian and former president of the Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD) stressed that identifying cases that may not actually correspond to enforced disappearance depends above all on dismantling the wall of impunity erected by the perpetrators.

“It wouldn’t be the first case, and I don’t know if it will be the last—because that is what enforced disappearance entails,” she said.

“There is a pact of silence among the civilians and uniformed officers who made people disappear in this country. If that pact is broken, we will likely learn who they are and what happened to our detained-disappeared relatives and, secondarily, who has falsely passed themselves off as victims of enforced disappearance,” she stated.

With this statement, Pizarro underscored that families’ top priority remains access to historical and judicial truth about the whereabouts of their loved ones.

“What matters most is to know what happened to them and who is responsible for the kidnapping and disappearance of our relatives,” she emphasized.

Reopened wounds and political opportunism

The legislator spoke about the pain and impact that cases like Bernarda Vera’s have on the human rights movement and criticized sectors seeking to capitalize politically on the story—often the same actors who have remained silent about crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship.

“Beyond the political opportunism sought by the very sectors that keep silent, for the families the wound reopens—and it seems it never fully closes,” Pizarro said. “For us this is not easy; we fully support whatever actions the families’ organizations decide to take, because they are the ones who have led the fight for ‘never again,’” she added in remarks reported by Radio Nuevo Mundo.

With these words, Pizarro reaffirmed the central role and autonomy of victims’ organizations, highlighting that they have been the driving force behind the struggle for memory and guarantees of non-repetition in Chile.

Questions for the Government and the State’s responsibility

On potential responsibilities of the current administration, Lorena Pizarro pointed to the need to clarify what Justice Minister Luis Cordero knew about this specific situation involving Bernarda Vera.

“Since the 1990s, everything could have been done. This government as well—and not everything has been done to ensure this doesn’t remain an open wound for the country and for families, and above all to establish guarantees of non-repetition,” she noted, alluding to decades of pending debts in truth and justice.

“I believe it must be clarified whether Minister Cordero knew earlier, and we also need to know what the Government has done to address this specific situation,” she added.

The lawmaker closed with a reflection that encapsulates the ongoing struggle of families of the detained-disappeared under Pinochet’s regime.

“I’ll repeat this: I don’t know if it will be the last, and it’s not the first. The point is we cannot continue in such a brutal situation where, every so often, we learn—on top of everything that has been concealed—something new as well. That is a deep pain for families,” she said.

The Bernarda Vera case—whatever its particularities—has once again put at the center of public debate the historic demand of the human rights movement: the urgent need to break the pact of silence that, 50 years after the coup, still prevents Chile from knowing the full truth about the detained-disappeared.