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Published: November 2nd 2007
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Picnic by the lake
Check out the sky! This is by far the most exciting thing that I’ve experienced in Chile (and one of the most exciting things in my life):
Today I got the chance to interview Roberto Garretón, a lawyer and leading human rights activist and Chile (he worked with the Vicaría de la Solidaridad and was the Latin American American Representative to the UN Commission on Human Rights, among innumerable accomplishments). I was really nervous because it’s the first time I had ever interviewed anyone about research that I am interested in and I was going to do it in Spanish.
But he put me at ease right away, and after finding out a little bit about me, he began answering my questions. Most likely, I could have found the majority of the information that he told me by searching through archives, but some of my questions could only really be answered by a person who lived through the process, and they weren’t the kinds of things that people talk about in essays normally. In any case, he included in his answers not only legal and social history that it would have been difficult for me to find, but also personal anecdotes that breathed
Ready to Raft
These pictures are really old, but we went to Pucón for Fiestas Patrias, and we took a rafting trip! We were really intent on listening to the safety information... personality and life into the history I already knew. I’ll mention a little more about the interview at the end of this blog.
Since one of my main focuses in this research is trauma recovery, a few of my questions had to do with the emotional effects of the methodologies in testimony collections on the victims. At this point, he told me that these questions would be better answered by the psychologists and psychiatrists from the Vicaría (even though he provided an interesting and relevant answer himself). So not only did he give me the names of other people to contact, he actually read their phone numbers to me from his cell phone and found some copies of their books in his office to suggest that I read! The Associate Director of our program is working on helping me set up more interviews now.
Near the end of the interview, we were talking about the building that the Vicaría used, the old palace of the archbishop. He asked me if I knew the building, and I said only through pictures, so he invited me to take a walk and see it. His office is only a few blocks
from the Plaza de Armas, so it took about two minutes to walk to the building. Along the way he explained to me how it was owned by another institution now (I forget the exact name), and that the plaque that had been placed outside to commemorate the Vicaría’s work had been removed because it was objectionable to the political right. When we arrived, I was sad to learn that the new institution had an exhibition upstairs, so we couldn’t go up to see the offices, but Mr. Garretón mentioned to the guard that he had worked with the Vicaría, and the guard decided to let us up anyway. He showed me his old office, explained the layout of the social workers and psychologist and the process that victims went through to report crimes. But my favorite part of his explanation was when he explained how the line usually went all the way down both flights of stairs, through the foyer and outside the building, “but it wasn’t a dead line,” he said, “it was full of life.” The line itself formed part of the network of social support that the Vicaría offered victims of political repression.
Earlier in
Really cold swim
Just thought I'd see how the water was... the interview, he had explained to me why he had chosen to set the appointment for that day and time. He was planning to attend a ceremony in honor of one of his colleagues, Jaime Castillo. The ceremony would be held nearby, and since we had spoken for so long, it was going to begin in only about 20 minutes. He invited me to attend and I jumped at the chance. We went back to the office so that he could finish a few things, and then we set out for Universidad Miguel Cervantes.
As with any decent Chilean gathering scheduled to begin at 7:15, we arrived around 7:20 and had ample to time to get coffee, tea, and cookies before the ceremony actually began. During this time, I met and conversed with several of the most important activists of the Pinochet period. Among these, I met Fabiola Letelier, the sister of Orlando Letelier. Her brother, after serving as Secretary of State in Chile, had opposed the Pinochet regime and gone into exile in Washington, where he was assassinated on Pinochet’s orders. Fabiola Letelier remained in Chile working with the Vicaría and other human rights organizations in opposition to
the dictatorship. I also met Patricio Aylwin, first president of Chile after the dictatorship. Along with dozens of other notable accomplishments, Aylwin founded the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, the subject of my research here. The people around me had worked with the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and innumerable other human rights organizations for their entire lives, so the conversation flowed naturally. But for me the experience of being surrounded by so many activists who had literally changed the worled was enough to make my head spin.
During the course of the ceremony, I learned more about Jaime Castillo Velasco. He had founded the Chilean Commission on Human Rights (the first commission had a temporary mandate, whereas this commission does not have a deadline to fulfill its objectives) and served as it’s first president. He had represented this commission along with a delegation of other members at UN Conferences. But I was most interested to learn that he was one of the original 8 members of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation.
I’ve tried to include the highlights from my night, but if you’re interested in knowing more about my research or any of the
40K bike ride
This was the reward for my bike ride, along with meeting a really nice girl from Spain people I’ve mentioned, let me know. I’m excited to share. And as promised, I have a little more to share about the interview itself. My last few questions had to do with how the four departments of the Vicaría worked together, and in the process of answering these questions, Mr. Garretón expressed his attitude toward his work at the Vicaría in general. These are his words:
“Yo nunca en mi vida voy a hacer algo más importante que haber trabajado en la Vicaría. Es lo más importante que he hecho, y nunca tengo ninguna posibilidad de hacer una cosa más interesante...He hecho esas otras cosas que fueron importante en mi vida, pero nada como trabajar en la Vicaría, nada. Y todos los que trabajamos en la Vicaría hoy día tenemos la vida un poco vacía de no poder hacer lo mismo que hacíamos antes. Menos mal que tenemos vacía. Se acabó la dictadura.”
I’ll translate, but it won’t sound as eloquent in English:
“Never in my life have I done anything as important as working at the Vicaría. It is the most important thing that I’ve done, and I’ll never have the opportunity to work on anything more
Volcán Villarica
I was supposed to get to climb this, but it rained... interesting...I’ve done all of these other things that were important in my life, but nothing like working in the Vicaría, nothing. And all of us who worked there feel this emptiness in our lives now from not being able to do what we used to. But it’s better for us to have the emptiness. The dictatorship is over.”
That’s the kind of fulfillment I want. I hope that at some point in my life I will be able to say the same thing about something I’ve done.
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