Parque de la Paz

Today I visited the Parque de La Paz, a former torture and murder site during the Pinochet regime that has since been converted into a memorial garden. I had read about it in my guide book and thought it would probably be worth visiting, although they don’t give tours unless you have a prearranged group, so I would have to figure things out on my own. I arrived around one in the afternoon and spent some time exploring.

At the time that the site was used for torture it was an old colonial-syle villa, where a rich family had built a large house, surrounded by high walls and with private stables, a pool, and plenty of trees. All of these pretty, enjoyable attributes were put to work when it changed to be a torture site. The horse stables were re-constructed to be tiny, completely encapsulated cells which five or six people at a time were jammed into. The large house was a base of operations and a site of prisoner torture. A water tower next to the pool was the main torture location, with an electricity table and various torture instruments placed in the bottom. Further up, the DINA (the national “intelligence” agency) built two levels of tiny cells, where prisoners were once again stuffed into quarters so small that they couldn’t sit down to sleep. Although the pool was never actually used for water torture (which did take place at the site, just in other parts) it was used for psychological torture. Family members of people working for the DINA would come to the Villa during the weekends, and the children played in the pool while prisoners were held captive and tortured in the structure directly next to them. The large, beautiful trees were used at times to tie prisoners to while they were tortured.

This part of my visit was interesting and informative, but I wouldn’t exactly describe it as having a terrifically strong impact on me. However, as I was leaving the guard told me that there would be a tour starting in about an hour, if I was interested in having more information about the park. Realizing that guided tours are almost always worth taking advantage of, and being quite fascinated with the subject, I decided to stick around.

I walked down the street and bought a whole, fresh pineapple for a dollar, and ate it for lunch while I waited. (That doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of this, but it’s pretty awesome in its own right.)

The tour group I joined was made up of about 25 high school junior or senior aged students. The guides were a female volunteer who works there and an elderly gentleman who soon divulged the fact that he was tortured at that very site. He spent a great deal of time describing his experiences with torture, incarceration and the camaraderie that existed amongst the prisoners. Apparently he had been taken prisoner because he had been a member of the military, but with left-leaning politics, before Pinochet came into power,

Some of the more interesting parts of the site included a place called “La Sala de Memorias,” the Room of Memories. This was a small pool house between the pool and the water tower, which the DINA had used as a location for false document fabrication. They were known to make forms of identification which would name them as public works employees, for example, as a way to covertly gain information about possible subversives. One of the few original buildings still standing on the site, (nearly everything was destroyed shortly before Pinochet was removed from power, in order to eliminate evidence) it now houses shadow-box type dioramas where families have donated small personal items that belonged to their loved ones, and written short explanations of who they were, what they were like and what activities or thoughts of theirs had resulted in their murder. Among the “desaparacidos” (the “disappeared,” which is the collective name for people who were murdered but a body was never recovered) were two pregnant women and a woman with a 6 month old son at the time she was taken. Most of the individuals were in their early or mid twenties – my age.

Also very impressive was the water tower, which has been reconstructed to be just like it was at the time of its use as a torture center. Tiny, completely enclosed cells with sliding doors at the floor level were used to house prisoners; our guide told us that he once spent a month in this block of cells with a group of 18 other people. Of his group, only 6 survived. He told us about a woman he had been kept there with who was seven months pregnant, and shared with us the sort of things they all did together to occupy the time. He told us about a cellmate of his who had been taken prisoner when he had a two day old son, and told us that talking about this son was something they did often. This particular cellmate was eventually killed by the DINA.

Our guide also told us why so many people were simply considered disappeared, a reason which correlated with the strategic location of this particular torture site. An easy and discreet was to dispose of the bodies of individuals who died in the torture process was to take them by helicopter – there’s an airport right next to where we were, I saw it on my way to the park today- and dump them into the sea.

As he finished the tour, our guide shared with us the two most important reasons that he dedicates his free time to giving these tours. For him, this is a way to give a small homage to the people with whom he suffered, but did not survive. Additionally, this is his effort to preserve the memory of what happened, a way to ensure that the future generations of Chile will realize what constitutes their past. I was incredibly grateful to the man for sharing everything that he did with us, and I told him that when our tour was over. We commenced to converse, and he asked me where I was from. Upon finding out that I’m from the US, he asked me to please, share with other Americans when I go back what I had learned today.

When people think of Chile, they often realize that a dictator (many don’t even know his name) ruled the country for a while. That’s about it. They don’t think about the fact that thousands of people were brutally murdered, nor do they acknowledge the fact that our own government had a strong hand in bringing about the Pinochet dictatorship and supporting it for a very long time. That’s not hearsay or legend, its documented fact. I didn’t even realize it until very recently, but a Chilean diplomat was murdered via carbomb by Pinochet’s people in Washington, DC right before the coup d’etat took place, and it’s documented in public record that our government knew it was going to happen, for example. It’s just as important for us, as Americans, to realize what took place as it is for Chileans.

So…here’s the moral of my story. I’m sharing this story with you, as this gentleman asked me to do. Keep this sort of thing in mind when you vote, please. The US is a very powerful country, more powerful than we as everyday citizens usually take the time to realize. Our ability to have a say in who is the head of our nation has an affect that reaches much farther than we as individuals ever envision it to. It’s important that we make wise decisions, based on more than our selfish feelings about gun control or tax rates. Just think about it, and make smart decisions.

And that’s my soapbox for today.