Madam, - Please allow me to respond to remarks reported from the funeral of Augusto Pinochet (World News, December 13th) - specifically the remarks attributed to his daughter Lucia, who praised her father for lighting "a flame for freedom" in September 1973. Rarely have I read such a nauseating sentiment.
While accepting that Pinochet's death was, no doubt, a very sad occasion for his family, this statement must be corrected, and particularly the deliberate abuse of the symbolic language of Amnesty International.
During the 17 years that Pinochet was in power in Chile, there were thousands of human rights violations. Over 3,000 people were killed or "disappeared", over 100,000 people were imprisoned without trial and tortured. Here is just one example of the depravity of the Pinochet years.
Veronica de Negri was a trade unionist. She was tortured by the Chilean secret police in 1974, beaten and repeatedly raped. Veronica survived her ordeal. Speaking in Dublin some years ago, she said that when she was told by her torturers, "No one knows you're here, no one cares if you die, no one will ever know", that was the worst torture.
In July 1986 her son Rodrigo became another victim. Rodrigo, a photographer, was walking with his friend Carmen Quintana down a street in a poor suburb of Santiago when they were rounded up by a Chilean army patrol. The soldiers dragged them into a side street and started beating them, breaking their bones. The account of Carmen, who survived the attack, is that some 30 soldiers were involved. In front of many eyewitnesses, the soldiers doused Carmen and Rodrigo in kerosene and set them alight. The soldiers then wrapped their charred bodies in blankets and dumped them in a ditch. By the time Veronica was able to see her son Rodrigo in hospital he was just hours from death, and the only way she could communicate with him was by rubbing the soles of his feet.
From 1998 onwards, thanks to the efforts of Amnesty and many others, Pinochet was facing charges relating to dozens of human rights violations and at the time of his death he had been stripped of his immunity from prosecution and was about to stand trial.
Amnesty International will continue to light "flames for freedom", and will work to ensure that justice will not be buried alongside Pinochet. Victims, survivors and their relatives retain their rights to truth and justice. There were many others who were active in the same command chain who are still alive today and are yet to be brought to justice. - Yours, etc,
SEAN LOVE, Executive Director, Amnesty International (Irish Section), Dublin 2.