Coming to Terms with the Past: Chile

Ann Matear examines the continuing pursuit of justice after Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Pinochet

'The history of this country is filled with emotive upheavals, passions which were once felt and then disappeared, were choked back, and became forgotten; or were simply eliminated or silenced.’ So wrote the Chilean historian Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt Letelier in 1998. He continued: ‘If these catastrophes resonate still, it is because they left open wounds which even now cause pain; we have accumulated disturbances and trauma which scourge our deepest emotions and all we hold dear.’

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