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At least two ex-military men convicted of human rights violations during the Augusto Pinochet regime, they are authorized to attend vote, according to data from Servel.
He Electoral Service is working flat out for the Plebiscite on October 25, where the future of the current Constitution will be defined.
More than 14 million Chileans will be able to go to the polls to approve or reject the change in the Magna Carta, as well as eventually the modality, if it is through a Constituent Convention or a Mixed Convention.
It should be noted that the law establishes certain restrictions to be able to exercise the right to vote, which has to do with not having been sentenced to a afflictive pain, that is, three years and one day in jail.
However, after a review of the registry carried out by BioBioChile, the former general appears Juan Emilio Cheyre, and Manuel Contreras Donaire, ex-Army Major NCO, despite the fact that both were sentenced to afflictive sentences for human rights violations.
In Cheyre’s case, the Justice convicted him of the case Caravan of Death, becoming the first former Commander-in-Chief of the Army to be punished for human rights violations during the dictatorship.
According to the ruling, the sentence for the retired general was 3 years and 1 day of probation, since his degree of participation decreased, going from accomplice to accessory.
In detail, Cheyre covered up 15 homicides that occurred on October 16, 1973, in the passage of the Caravan of Death through La Serena.
Let’s remember that Cheyre was also Servel member between 2012 and 2017, after being appointed during the first government of Sebastián Piñera, with the agreement of the Senate. He was even president of the organization between February and August 2013.
In the case of Contreras Donaire, the former military man was sentenced to 8 years in prison as one of the material perpetrators of the murder of the union leader Tucapel Jiménez, in February 1982. Although, then-President Ricardo Lagos Escobar pardoned him in 2005.
According to the current Constitution, article 17 of its chapter “Nationality and Citizenship” specifies that people who have lost their citizenship due to a conviction of afflictive punishment, can recover it “once their criminal responsibility has been extinguished.”
Consulted in this regard, from the Servel they assure that they have not received the respective information from the Judicial Power, regarding the eventual disqualification of these people.
“In the digitized criminal sentence records that the Electoral Service has from automatic registration onwards (2012), there is no communication for the indicated and consulted persons,” they pointed out.
Consulted by the situation of former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, BBCL confirmed that he was sentenced to three years in jail, which legally qualifies him to vote.
Criticisms of relatives of victims of human rights violations
Maja Jordan, sister of doctor Jorge Jordan Domic, One of the victims of the passage of the Death Caravan through La Serena, harshly questioned the situation involving the former Army commander.
“We find that this is a very great offense because Cheyre attacked democracy and Human Rights and today there are relatives who will not be able to vote fairly for the crimes committed by the military,” he criticized.
“Furthermore, October 25 is a very important day for the country and the presence of those who are murderers hurts us. It deeply annoys that they have that right, “he said.
“I think that the Government and the Servel should give us an explanation, because this shows the privileges that he continues to have and enjoys, and I don’t know if this has to do with his belonging to the Servel or because he is Juan Emilio Cheyre,” he added.
In this sense, Maja Jordán pointed to the pending debt that exists with the different cases of Human Rights violations and especially, the disappeared detainees.
“There is a pending debt, parents, children, siblings of relatives who are victims of human rights violations have died, without justice. It hurts us because we have not been able to close the duel because I believe that this comes with Justice and truth, which is the most important thing, and it has not arrived because everything is half done ”, he stated.
In this regard, Human Rights lawyer, Cristián Cruz, The plaintiff in the case against Cheyre, insisted on Cheyre’s past as a member of the Electoral Service.
“It is strange that being part of the Servel, his prosecution, accusation and sentence being publicly known, his friends of the Servel have not complied with the law and prevented this character from having the right to vote on October 25, which is when Chileans have the possibility of getting rid of the Constitution of Pinochet and the military, ”he said.
“Here the law has not failed, here what has failed are the institutions, and the Servel board of directors I believe should give a serious explanation to the country for this serious fact,” he concluded.
Deputy Jiménez: Donaire should be in prison
Meanwhile, the deputy Tucapel Jiménez, son of the murdered ANEF leader, he referred to the case of Contreras Donaire pointing to the underlying issue that those convicted of human rights violations should be behind bars.
“I find it regrettable because Donaire is a person who should still be in prison, should not be at liberty, understanding that he regains his right once he is pardoned. But for me and for many people, he should remain in prison. There is a contradiction for many of us ”, he lamented.
“Not much can be done because once freedom is recovered, because as we understand it, criminal responsibility is extinguished. But the question is much more fundamental, if he should be free or not and there is an unanswered void that nobody understands that a person like him is free today in our country, “he questioned.
“Suddenly there is a very unintelligible criterion in the Judicial Power, one sees that people with minor crimes go to five years in prison and in the case of my father, the prosecutor Torres Silva received a sentence of 800 days as an accessory to a crime, and Contreras Donaire had 8 years of sentence and was pardoned much earlier, so I do not know if it is the law, I believe that it is also the criterion applied by the courts of Justice that unfortunately is very unfair, justice for some and for others it applies in a different way ”, concluded the parliamentarian PPD.
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