Ex-Soldier’s Extradition Marks Progress in Pinochet-Era Crimes
TL/DR –
Former soldier Pedro Barrientos, charged with the kidnapping and murder of folk singer Víctor Jara during General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, has been extradited from the US. The case marks a significant moment in Chile’s struggle to address human rights abuses committed under Pinochet’s regime, with many perpetrators still avoiding punishment. Convictions have only been secured in about a third of the 3,216 cases of forced disappearances and executions that occurred during the dictatorship.
The pending closure of a high-profile human rights case from the Pinochet era
The conclusion of a historic human rights case from General Augusto Pinochet’s brutal regime is drawing nearer with the extradition of a former soldier from the United States. The soldier is charged with the kidnapping and murder of folk singer Víctor Jara.
On a recent Friday afternoon, a plane from Miami landed in Santiago, Chile, bringing with it Pedro Barrientos, the former lieutenant. Barrientos was flown across the capital for processing at a police barracks under Chilean police escort.
Nelson Caucoto, a human rights lawyer representing the Jara family since 1998, commented on the desire to expedite the case’s closure.
However, activists caution that the pursuit of justice must persist, as many accused of dictatorship-era atrocities still evade punishment. Among them are 14 individuals convicted by Chile’s supreme court of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial executions and kidnappings, yet remain at large.
The slow march towards justice for Pinochet’s victims
Convictions have only been secured in about one-third of the 3,216 cases of forced disappearances and executions committed during Pinochet’s dictatorship, according to data from Diego Portales University’s Transitional Justice Observatory.
Rodrigo Bustos, the executive director of Amnesty International in Chile, stressed the importance of these cases not ending in impunity to prevent such crimes from recurring.
Jara’s widow, British dancer and activist Joan Jara, died earlier this month at the age of 96, having advocated for justice for nearly five decades. Her determination led to the gradual gathering of testimony from former conscripts, soldiers, and prisoners, eventually allowing the case to be reopened.
The enduring legacy of Víctor Jara
Jara, a folk singer and theatre director, remains one of Pinochet’s coup d’état’s best-known victims. His protest songs remain popular today. He was arrested, interrogated, and tortured in the Estadio Chile, where his hands were broken and skull battered. He was later shot dead, his body riddled with bullets and dumped near Santiago’s main cemetery.
Former soldier José Navarrete testified that Barrientos bragged about killing Jara with the gun he frequently brandished. Barrientos fled to the US in 1989, where he married and obtained citizenship. In 2012, a judge in Santiago charged him for the kidnapping and murders of Jara, and Chile sought his extradition.
The United States’ role in the pursuit of justice
In 2016, a US jury ruled that Barrientos was “responsible” for Jara’s kidnapping and murder, ordering him to pay $28m to Jara’s family. In July, a federal court revoked Barrientos’s US citizenship for failing to disclose his military background and role in a political execution. He was later arrested in a traffic stop in October.
Back in Chile, justice moves closer with the imprisonment of 54 former military officers and agents of the Pinochet regime in August, including seven linked to Jara’s case. Caucoto finds hope in the fact that Chile is one of the few countries where justice is still forthcoming, even 50 years later.
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