Senate Decision an Outrage to Those Mourning the Killings and Disappearances of Loved Ones

Original article: «Decisión del Senado es una bofetada a quienes aún sentimos la aflicción por el degollamiento de nuestros compañeros y el lanzamiento al mar de nuestros seres queridos»

Political Statement from The Barrack of 3 and 4 Álamos, the Good Shepherd of Valparaíso, and Magallanes

On this March 8th, we, the women who were political prisoners during the civil-military dictatorship in Chile, extend our greetings to the working women of Latin America and express our solidarity with the struggles they currently lead in unions, communities, student spaces, and social movements.

We remember the female workers who were murdered for demanding labor dignity and the women in Chile who fought for full citizenship and the right to vote as free women. We continue that journey by participating in the construction of a more just country. For this, we were persecuted, imprisoned, and subjected to sexual torture.

During the dictatorship, we persisted in our struggle and participated in women’s organizations, in the community, also as activists, to protect life in neighborhoods, support communal kitchens, and resist the terror until the dictatorship was brought to an end.

The repression faced by prisoners was rooted in the use of political sexual violence, which was applied as punishment and discipline against all women who engaged in politics. We were subjected to torture, abuses, threats against our children, and various forms of humiliation. Our bodies became battlegrounds of aggression.

Since then, we have not ceased to demand truth and justice for those who were executed and disappeared. We have testified before commissions and courts, often confronting denial and disdain.

Today, we also fight to reclaim the site where The Barrack stood, so that it may be recognized and preserved as a site of memory to honor the ethical and political legacy of the prisoners. That was the main women’s concentration camp during the dictatorship.

We carry our history in our bodies, and this March 8th, we express our indignation towards the Punta Peuco bloc in the Senate of the Republic, which seeks to release their uniformed assassins.

This vote is the final act in a chain of infamies and stands in blatant contradiction to the international human rights standards and commitments undertaken by the Chilean State, which for over 50 years we ex-prisoners who were violated have upheld in our quest for truth and justice.

The Senate’s decision is an affront to those of us who still feel the grief over the slaughter of our comrades and the casting into the sea of our loved ones. Those criminals did not act alone; they were the guardians of a model of looters, both national and foreign. Their release is the payment for services rendered to the elite that today guarantees them protection from within Parliament.

Releasing them under the pretext of their age is not a humanitarian act: it is impunity; the senators are siding with the perpetrators, becoming political accomplices to denialism. It is particularly serious that even female senators support and alleviate the sentences of convicts for rape and torture against other women.

In memory of our detained, disappeared, and politically executed companions: we will not allow the murder, kidnapping, and rape to be minimized under the excuse of senility, because these are not “sick elderly,” but instead state-organized assassins who wield terror.

On this International Women’s Day, we also reaffirm our solidarity with women living under wars and invasions. We know that in armed conflicts, women and girls suffer particularly and devastatively. We call on states to prioritize dialogue over weapons and death.

Our struggle is the same that millions of women are currently upholding: equality, an end to gender violence, recognition of caregiving work, respect for diversity, and the right to decide about our lives and the future of our country.

We urge today’s women to remain organized and to exercise their right to participate in the political life of the country without fear.

We also call on all former political prisoners to not remain silent before the senators of the Pardon and to denounce the «honorable» individuals who favor barbarity.

Ex Political Prisoners – The Barrack of 3 and 4 Álamos; Former Political Prisoners of the Good Shepherd, Valparaíso; Former Political Prisoners of Magallanes