[ad_1]
Thousands of complaints against security forces for human rights violations during protests in Chile remain unresolved one year after the social outbreak of October 2019, which has led the victims to demand justice and speed in the investigations.
It has been almost 12 months since the Ecuadorian student Romario Veloz was assassinated during a demonstration in La Serena, allegedly at the hands of a military man, and it has not been until now that the Prosecutor’s Office requested the formalization of a captain of the army as allegedly responsible for ordering the shots that ended his life.
“I thought that with the death of my son the story ended, but that’s when my ordeal just began“, recognized Efe the young man’s mother, Mery Cortez.
The judicial slowness this week led the brave mother to march through the streets of Santiago and undress in front of La Moneda to show a message painted on her chest: “Justice for Romario.”
“A wounded man fell before him, they should have stopped firing, but they kept shooting and my son got the ugliest part”, lament.
“THE NUMBERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES”
To the case of Veloz are added that of other 4,681 victims of alleged human rights violations by police and military officials, according to data from the Public Ministry.
However, of the thousands of cases opened since the beginning of the current social crisis, the most serious in three decades of democracy, only 66 agents have been formalized, who are under precautionary measures.
With respect to 460 eye injuries encrypted by the independent National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), at least two policemen have been charged, the agents accused of leaving blind Fabiola Campillai Y Gustavo Gatica.
Their cases went around the world and served to denounce the high number of mutilated eyes in the marches, which began as a protest against the rise in the price of the Metro ticket and became a popular clamor for a fairer socioeconomic model.
The director of the Ocular Trauma Victims Coordinator during the social outbreak, Marta Valdesexplained to Efe that these two cases are “exceptions” and that “Justice has not been done” with the rest of the human rights violations.
For Sergio Micco, director of the INDH, an institution that has monitored the protests since their inception, “the figures speak for themselves” and the advances made in research “are not enough.”
During the UN General Assembly last September, the President Sebastián Piñera assured that his Government will “all efforts so that there is no impunity, neither for those who violate human rights nor for violent activists.”
However, Micco pointed to Efe what “The commitment that there will be no impunity is expressed by increasing the resources for the procedural system” and with the “Comprehensive reform of the Carabineros body”, something that has “not happened” yet.
“THE PANDEMIC IS AN EXCUSE”
Among the reasons for the limited judicial progress, argued the official, the structural problems of the Chilean procedural system stand out, which has a “low level of efficiency” and the “insufficient” response of the Government to the overload of the system, which has been aggravated by Covid-19 pandemic.
Since the arrival of the coronavirus in the southern country last March, judicial hearings have been reduced to a third, which has slowed down “even more” investigations.
For Erika guevara, Director for the Americas of International Amnesty (AI), the pandemic is an “excuse”, since “historically the complaints of human rights violations committed by Carabineros are little investigated.”
“There are no prosecutors dedicated exclusively to human rights violations and there are not enough police officers dedicated to investigating these crimes.”, he added for his part to Efe the security analyst at the University of Santiago de Chile, Lucia Dammert.
Several human rights organizations have raised the need to use special resources to strengthen the Investigative Police (PDI), the only police force in charge of investigating this type of crime, and to increase resources for the Public Ministry.
“Justice, truth and reparation to the victims is the best remedy for a wounded country”Guevara concluded.
