CHILE A Rough Road Home

...Far greater, however, are the number of returnees from Eastern Europe and other countries of Latin America, who arrive with few possessions and must rely on family networks in Chile for assistance, placing an acute strain on many families...

...For relatives of victims of human rights abuses, that moment was "like a liberation," according to one member of the Organization of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared (AFDD...

...Rodrigo, his mother and his younger brother lived first in Canada and later in Washington, where Ver6nica worked as a social worker and became an spokesperson for Amnesty's human rights campaigns...

...Headed by human rights lawyer Jaime Esponda and assisted by a staff of 18, it will also attempt to mitigate legal headaches for foreign-born spouses and children...

...The relatives of the disappeared fear that as time passes, popular may be there, the money to implement needed programs is not...

...Eres chileno...

...He was also a talented photographer...

...Twenty-one-year-old Alex Escobar, who lived in Holland, the Soviet Union and Mozambique, discussed with Andlisis reporter Gladys Diaz those aspects of Chile which most bothered him: "The lack of solidarity...

...Recently, groups of political prisoners engaged in hunger strikes and their family members occupied a public jail to protest the government's policy and demand the immediate release of all political prisoners...

...Behind me was a family of what I thought were Germans, and to my right a boy and girl were arguing in French as their mother gazed out the window at the snowcapped peaks...

...And in October, human rights groups revealed 20 cases of torture since March, most committed by carabineros, a public security force over which the government exercises little control...

...To ease international rebuke in the final years of the dictatorship, Pinochet also issued periodic lists of exiles permitted to return (many of whom were deceased or already in the country...

...Last August 14, the Chilean Senate established an Office of Returnees as part of the Ministry of Justice to oversee revision of these laws...

...Reinsertion into Chilean society and culture has been slow and uncertain...

...What action the courts will take on Commission's final report-presented to Aylwin on February 9, but not expected to be made public until March-remains the critical, and still unanswered, question...

...While the systematic repression of the dictatorship has ended, human rights violations continue to be a problem...

...Since the fall of the dictatorship, the country's human rights groups have lost much of their funding, particularly from the European governments that formerly housed exiles...

...There are 700 Chilean families living in Angola and Mozambique and several dozen families in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Finland, and Hungary...

...On July 2, 1986, a day of protest against the military regime, Rodrigo Rojas and eighteen-year-old Santiago native Carmen Gloria Quintana were detained by Chilean soldiers, soaked with kerosene, and set on fire...

...BY THOMAS KLUBOCK When General Augusto Pinoehet arrived in Valparaiso last March to hand over power to Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin and a coalition of opposition parties, crowds lining the streets screamed "Murderer...

...He is currently conducting research in Chile...

...Sergio Baeza assisted with the research...

...Frankly," says Claudio Gonzalez of the Churchbased FASIC, "given our limited resources, our work will focus on the problems of those who stayed in Chile, primarily the political prisoners...

...Sixteen years of dictatorship left a bitter legacy...

...for the first time...an organization of the state listened to us with respect...

...The experience of returned exiles thus far suggests that rooting it out will not be easy...

...Many of them have founded or were incorporated into private think-tanks which mushroomed in the dictatorship's final years and which continue to function today...

...In numerous discussions with returning Chilean adults, I heard echoes of the words of Uruguayan writer and former exile Mario Benedetti: "In so many ways, to 'de-exile' is a process far harder than exile itself-after such a long wait, how do you integrate the ethical imperative of return with the reality of no jobs in your country, the problem that your children do not feel they are from your country, the inevitable loss of projects begun in your country of exile...

...Aylwin put forth a series of judicial reforms, known as "leyes Cumplido" (named for the justice minister), which would eliminate the death penalty, restrict the reach of military justice, modify the system of classifying crimes, and reduce sentences...

...Rodrigo identified more with Chile than with the United States, and in March 1986 he set out alone for Santiago...

...Of these, an estimated 200,000 were political exiles and their families, forbidden by military decree to return...

...VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 5 (FEBRUARY 1991) we inherited from the dictatorship, but it is still painful...

...At school, I made the mistake of telling everyone I was a returnee," Diaz hears from twenty-year-old Piero Claro, who lived for eight years in Mozambique and four in Canada...

...Such was the tragic case of Rodrigo Rojas, a 17-year-old Chilean-born U.S...

...In their struggles to adapt to a foreign society, pre-teens and teenagers often idealized Chile and the friends and family they left behind...

...On the one hand, former exiles tend to feel guilt for having "escaped" the day-to-day repression...

...Human rights groups face another problem: diminishing popular concern...

...I was completely silent about my experiences...

...The protests that followed the first discoveries of clandestine graves have slowly dwindled, as reports of mass executions and disappearances have become almost routine...

...Indeed, with the fate of the remaining prisoners and other human rights injustices still unresolved, Chileans have a great deal yet to reconcile...

...After 16 years of dictatorship, people feel a mixture of "apathy, fatigue and bitterness," according to a member of the AFDD...

...and threw eggs and tomatoes...

...The government's principal human rights initiative has been the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created last April in the wake of a series of discoveries of clandestine mass graves...

...Shattered Illusions Returning young adults face a different set of problems...

...Their heads are full of illusions of Chile which shatter in their first months here," Maria Eugenia Rojas says...

...Adults arrive here elated to be home, and after months of being here they become depressed and alienated...

...Many laws currently discriminate against the vast majority of former exiles and their families...

...In 1983, during the first massive protests against the dictatorship, several thousand exiles made their way back to the country...

...The word "justice" is notably absent from its title...

...Having participated in solidarity movements in their adopted countries, many of them return to Chile to recover a missing part of their identities...

...They come back extremely politicized, ready to struggle for democracy and human rights," said Maria Eugenia Rojas, of the Foundation for the Protection of Children Affected by the States of Emergency (PIDEE), which runs a support program for returnees...

...as well as impressive international contacts...

...Those children who have returned to Chile with their parents, have experienced mixed reactions at best...

...A number of obstacles left in place by the Pinochet regime, including nine senators "designated" by Pinochet and a Supreme Court fiercely loyal to the policies of the former military government, have imposed severe limitations on the Aylwin administration in this arena...

...Other young recent returnees find that Chile does not live up to their romantic image of a people struggling together for the common good, an image born from years of listening to their parents' stories of Chile before the coup...

...Rodrigo hated school, and despite the pleas of his mother and friends, he left high school two months before graduation...

...For over a year I worked practically every day with the group, doing everything from stuffing envelopes to rallying against the dictatorship...

...But most eventually abandoned such idealization in order to redefine who they were and where they belonged...

...There is an utter coldness, which is even more painful coming from outside...

...resident who returned to Chile in the final years of military rule only to be killed by soldiers a few months later...

...Chilean psychologist Ana VAsquez and Uruguayan sociologist Ana Maria Araujo (both former exiles) say many children have created defense mechanisms to block images of Chile from their memories...

...For many, its most important function has been to provide victims and family members the opportunity to come forward and testify...

...With time and help, they find their niche...

...Two hundred and seventy political prisoners still remain in Chile's jails...

...Today, there are Chileans living in over one hundred countries-with the largest concentrations in Argentina (860,000, of which an estimated 500,000 are undocumented), Venezuela (100,000), Brazil (250,000, of which an estimated 50,000 are undocumented), the United States (150,000), Canada (60,000), Sweden (23,000), and Ausi. l NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 4 tralia (22,000...

...The situation, of course, varies from case to case...

...many human rights activists...

...After taking office, President Aylwin pardoned a number of prisoners detained for "acts of conscience," but did not extend the pardons to those accused of "acts of blood," whom the government plans to retry in civilian courts...

...Augusto Pinochet...

...The majority of the returnees have not been so fortunate...

...Piero and his father returned to Arica, Chile's northernmost city...

...Due to a clause in the 1980 constitution enacted under the military regime, children born abroad are not Chilean citizens and must reside in Chile for more than a year to become recognized as such...

...Now a symbol of Chile's authoritarian legacy, she remains active in the campaign forjustice for the thousands of victims of human rights abuse...

...Carmen Gloria survived...

...According to head of the Christian Social Aid Foundation (FASIC), Claudio Gonzilez, many former exiles "keep one foot in the door of the country they're coming from...

...The government has chosen to pursue a cautious strategy of negotiation and conciliation with the armed forces and the right wing in Congress, to the frustration of Thomas Klubock is a doctoral candidate in history at Yale University...

...These children have been denied easy access to basic education, health care and other rights which require a Chilean birth certificate...

...Currently human rights activists and the parties of the governing coalition are considering taking legal steps in Congress (a "constitutional accusation") against the Supreme Court, but have thus far failed to gain the administration's support...

...El Encuentro" and PIDEE are havens for children and young adults as they adjust to their new surroundings...

...These young people, many of whom have had a parent or parents in hiding, imprisoned, or even killed, often view Chile as no more than a bad memory of chaos and pain...

...These include high tariffs on household possessions accumulated over the years in exile and brought back to Chile, refusal to recognize educational degrees and profescases of executions and disappearances...

...Another option, a plebiscite, falls outside the Aylwin administration's stated parameters of working by negotiation and sional experience gained abroad, and denial of conventional access to education, housing and health care...

...But for the relatives of the disappeared the "result of the work of the Commission is not going to be what we demand....Those responsible for human rights violations will not be named...and will not be brought to justice...

...At Casa de la Juventud "El Encuentro," until this year a center for young returnees and now a meeting place for all youth, there is a great deal of discussion of expectations versus reality and of the difficulty of fitting in with peers...

...The lii iproblem of language is often the most obvious...

...In fact, many young people referto their arrival in Chile as the beginning of their own exile...

...While job security and the ability to support self and family is the most obvious issue, exiles express greater concern about their children, for whom Chile is an abstract idea, an obsession of their parents with which they may sympathize but cannot comprehend...

...For eight months all I did was watch TV...only now can I say I feel integrated...

...In the wake of the March 1990 transfer of power, the number of returnees is thought to have tripled...

...In agony, Rodrigo died four days later...

...You can understand where this comes from, it's something Carmen Gloria Quintana was set on fire by police in 1986, along with returned exile Rodrigo Rojas, who died of the burns...

...When children arrive, they hate it at first...

...Not one person ever asked me about my life in Sweden...

...Though the Aylwin administration has sought repatriation support from these same sources, Esponda and others recognize that aid for returnees does not rank high on the administration's list of budgetary priorities...

...While the question is admittedly absurd, it underlies much of the tension inherent in society's reckoning with the phenomenon of exile and return...

...Some went abroad after months of living in the cramped quarters of foreign embassies in Santiago, others after years of torture and despair in prison cells and concentration camps...

...After almost a year of democratic government, however, that exaltation has faded, as the fundamental problems of human rights violations remain unresolved...

...The Commission is expected to recommend some form of formal public recognition of the victims of the dictatorship and government reparations for their family members...

...The Golden Exile" There is a certain lack of sympathy and even resentment for returnees, implied in such expressions as "el exilio dorado" ("golden exile"), or "la marrequeta debajo del brazo" ("loaf of bread under one arm," an old saying which now refers to those who return with financial support from abroad...

...According to its secretary, Jorge Correa, the Commission's report by itself "will not be sufficient to produce national reconciliation, but it will establish the truth to make possible future political solutions...

...Under the guise of tourism, thousands crossed the Andes to seek refuge in Argentina, where in 1976 they were to face renewed horror and the need to flee once again...

...Several former exiles who were political party leaders during the 1970-1973 Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende today occupy top posts in the Chilean executive and legislature, as well as leadership positions in the political parties...

...Isn't that right, Mom...

...Esponda has sought guidance from the 15-member national coordinating body of institutions already engaged in assisting returning exiles, including the Committee for the Return of Exiles (established in 1979), the Chilean mission of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, the national committee of World University Service, FASIC, PIDEE and others...

...Adjustment to the United States was never smooth for Rodrigo...

...They reject their parents' constant talk of Chile, or refuse to speak Spanish in countries where it is not the native tongue...

...In addition to tensions generated from the perception that former exiles are economically better off is the more profound question of "Who suffered more: those in exile or those who remained in Chile through the years of dictatorship...

...Then one day in an organizing meeting I began to explain how our solidarity group in Stockholm carried out a particular task, and a woman shouted at me: 'We've had it up to here with your talk of how everything is done in Sweden...

...Katherine Roberts Hite is a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia University, specializing in Chile...

...even those who arrive from other Spanish-speaking countries are singled out in a classroom or on a bus because of their non-Chilean accents...

...The Commission received testimony for more than 4,000 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 6sense of abandonment and betrayal toward those who left...

...They generally praise Esponda's efforts, but worry that while the will conciliation within the structure left by the dictatorship, and is unlikely...

...What we have found," says Marfa Eugenia Rojas of PIDEE, "is that adults and children go through opposite cycles in their reinsertion in Chile...

...The reintegration of returned exiles is one of many challenges Chileans face after the fall of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen...

...This was a Chilean family, as was the family of "Germans" behind me...

...Children returning from advanced capitalist societies often must move in with relatives for extended periods and are shocked above all by Chile's poverty...

...They carry "temporary residency" visas, and must wade through a host of bureaucratic tangles...

...Government action in this area has been "extremely cautious and timid," according to one human rights group...

...The Catholic Church reports that approximately one million Chileans, or close to one-tenth of the total population, left the country in the early years of the dictatorship...

...On the other hand, political activists who remained often harbor anger, a Senate...

...I was totally rejected...

...The feeling that if I can hurt the next guy and get something out of it, I'll do it...

...As adults today, often with bicultural families of their own, they cannot imagine more than a visit to their former home, despite the end of the dictatorship...

...In September, two journalists-Juan Pablo Crdenas, editor of the leftist weekly Andlisis, and Andr6s Lagos, editor of the Communist Party's El Siglo--were jailed for several weeks by a military court for printing "subversive" articles critical of the armed forces...

...One AFDD member noted that "the people who have gone [to testify] have felt that in one way or another they have begun to vindicate their family member...

...While it seemed amusing at the time, I soon learned that a mistaken identity is hardly funny for the children of exiles...

...There Piero felt his peers showed neither compassion nor interest in his experiences...

...Rodrigo was quiet and bright, a whiz at electronics and computers...

...Nein, nein, soy alemdn," the boy answered emphatically in a curious but common mixture of German and Spanish...

...Pinochet's 1978 amnesty decree, upheld in a widely assailed Supreme Court decision in August, is a fundamental obstacle in trying cases of human rights abuse...

...When we lived in Amsterdam," said one girl now living in a shantytown on the outskirts of Santiago, "all I heard was 'Chile, Chile.' I look around me now and ask, 'Why are we here...

...Like Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay before it, Chile must come to terms with the systematic violation of human rights in the recent past, a process that will test its political will and social fabric...

...Like many young people, Rojas had come to Chile to recover a missing part of his identity...

...These reforms have been blocked by the right-wing-dominated No doubt many former exiles do bring personal savings, short-term grants, and other resources, particularly those who come from Western Europe and North America...

...The Office of Returnees plans to coordinate job reinsertion programs, scholarships, and psychological counseling...

...These exiles returned with political resources "AND JUSTICE, WHEN...

...The Commission's report will document the most serious human rights violations of the dictatorship, those that resulted in death, but it is not empowered to establish responsibility or to implement its recommendations...

...Yet, according to groups close to the exiles, only 12,000, or 17% of those considered political exiles and their families, will return...

...After ten years in Stockholm I returned to Chile and began working with a local human rights committee," one former exile recounted...

...I reacted by not wanting to have anything to do with anyone...

...He had few friends his age, preferring the company of older people...

...While statistics are unavailable, it is clear based on several accounts that a fair number of former exiles who ventured home to Chile chose not to remain...

...one Chilean reporter recently asked a ten-year-old son of exiles living in Leipzig...

...Rodrigo's mother, Ver6nica di Negri, was a political prisoner until 1976, when a Canadian Amnesty International group won her release...

...For an authoritative opinion on the subject under discussion, the girl turned to her mother and demanded in Spanish, "iNo es asi, Mami...

...A constitutional reform expanding President Aylwin's power of pardon and amending the dictatorship's "AntiTerrorist" law, now being negotiated in Congress, could also lead to the eventual freedom of many prisoners...

...From all reports back to Washington, the final months of Rodrigo's life were his happiest...