“Mr. Piñera, you have been warned, you will be prosecuted for the serious human rights violations committed under your mandate”.
Warning by then MP Gabriel Boric to President Sebastián Piñera in September 2021 1 .

A MEMORABLE EVENT

The rebellion of 18 October 2019 was one of the most significant events in modern Chilean history. Not only did it reveal the weariness of an entire national population with the impudent behaviour of a corrupt ‘political elite’ which, as the ‘natural successor’ of the Pinochet dictatorship, still maintains control of the nation in its hands, but it also showed how far the limits of tolerance for the abuses that society endures can be stretched before translating them into a social explosion whose effects cannot always be foreseen. He also showed that thanks to the marvellous progress made in the development of productive forces, it is possible to organise a better society, a cooperative society in which a more humane, fraternal, and supportive direct democracy can be exercised. Something which, in previous years, was unthinkable to even imagine.

It was only natural, therefore, that the most reactionary sectors of society wanted to keep silent about this fact because it is often convenient to ignore what is annoying. Or to disqualify it. Attributing it to the work of deranged individuals, the lumpen or delinquents. It is no coincidence that some media outlets have spoken of ‘octubrismo’ and, with this label, seek to ridicule and denigrate one of the most important deeds, which took place at one of the high points of our current society; Let us not forget that, for Amnesty International, it is the most serious manifestation of the crises since the end of the dictatorship “The so-called “social explosion” was the most serious since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship and the biggest setback for the Piñera government, which left office last March” 2 .

If there is one thing that the dominant sectors of society fear, it is a social explosion. They find it unbearable, an ‘alien’ parade, a criminal uprising. When that happens, they seem to live in a nightmare from which they would like to wake up immediately. One of the most hated setbacks. Because a people rising up to demand their rights is the worst scenario that can be presented to a government that wants to perpetuate everyday life; even more so when this government is directly exercised by big capital.

VIOLENCE VERSUS ORDER

So we have to think about the answer. And since there is no way of dealing with a community that rises up to demand its rights, the use of violence becomes necessary. Then, all this verbiage about ‘violence’ is used to denigrate as ‘violent’ those who dare to raise their voices to protest for their rights. Protest becomes synonymous with ‘violence’ and the force used by the police against demonstrators finds a more tolerable explanation under the euphemism of ‘guarding order’. It is a prelude to what will happen in the near future, for even ‘justice’ will have to take sides at some point.

The social movement that became manifest from 18 October 2019 extended for days, weeks and months; it continued during the first half of 2020 and, even during the first months of the pandemic, there were protests in various parts of the country. It did not run out. It was stopped by Covid, not by anything else.

REPRESSION AND HUMAN RIGHTS A protest against the current system is a challenge to authority. And when that happens, there is no request for permission to march; the dialogue is broken. That is why the protest of 18 October 2019 never did. The marches that, over the course of time, became daily, never had permission, let alone to take over public spaces such as Dignity Square.

However, defying authority has its price: it is called repression. And when there is repression, human rights violations are usually present.

On 20 October 1971, Chile ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – approved by the United Nations on 10 December 1948 – and, in subsequent years, all the international covenants on the subject. In 2009, through Law 20.357 of 18 July of that year, it also approved the so-called “Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity”, a text agreed by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 2391 (XXIII). Thus, from a legal point of view, any human rights violations that might occur in the following years were protected by clear rules of law.

THE GOVERNMENT OF SEBASTIÁN PIÑERA AS A VIOLATOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Karl Marx teaches us that history is never critical of itself; neither, consequently, are its actors. Nor are those who support its repressive policies. But let us be more precise. No government practises self-criticism, and no government recognises its mistakes; not doing so is an inherent part of politics, otherwise it gives the opposition the weapons it needs to discredit it. For the same reason, it never describes itself as a human rights violator. And even when this is public knowledge, the courts, the highest and most exalted expression of bureaucracy, will never recognise it.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the government of Sebastián Pïñera did not do so either, and consequently declared itself innocent of the charges against it. And yet the accusations were too many.

When, in 2022, Amnesty International (AI) in Chile delivered its Annual Report, Rodrigo Bustos, in charge of that office, pointed out accusingly: “Institutions such as the Police, the Army and the Public Ministry, which depended on the previous government (…), committed serious human rights violations and the administration did not prioritise or deliver all the resources that were required in the face of such a serious crisis” 3.

3 By 2021, the backlog of human rights cases in Chilean courts had reached a total of 3,050 cases, the vast majority of which were classified by the courts as common crimes.

Faced with such manifest arbitrariness, reminiscent of the period of the Pinochet dictatorship, the Chilean Human Rights Commission requested the help of jurist Baltazar Garzón who, accompanied by two other international organisations (the American Association of Jurists (AAJ) and the Centro di Ricerca ed Elaborazione per la Democrazia (CRED)), delivered a presentation to the attorney general of the International Court of Justice, at the time, lawyer Fatou Bensouda.

The text began by denouncing the arbitrary classification by the Chilean courts of crimes against humanity, “[…] fraudulently classified and investigated in Chile as ordinary crimes, with the deliberate purpose firstly, to remove them from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and secondly, to prepare the conditions that would favour their subsequent impunity with the eventual application of statutes of limitation, or through the application of possible pardons, amnesties or laws of no end.

Furthermore, the state bodies responsible for investigating and judging, such as the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary, have had unjustified delays in the substantiation of these processes and their actions do not have the necessary independence and impartiality and due respect for the principle of equality before the law” 4 .

The Piñera government, at that point, had been denounced as a human rights violator by Amnesty International (AI), the Human Rights Watch, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. For this reason, the Social Convergence CS deputy Gabriel Boric Font raised his accusing finger in those years to point out that he would be prosecuted for all these crimes.

THE HERMOSILLA ‘CASE’ AND A SURPRISING OUTCOME.

In mid-November last year, CIPER’s journalistic team denounced the payment of bribes to officials of both the Internal Revenue Service (SII) and the Financial Market Commission (CMF). These bribes allowed for tax evasion to the tune of 3,044 million pesos, one of the biggest financial scandals of recent years 5 . The complaint directly affected the lawyer Luis Hermosilla Osorio, at the time the defender of La Moneda’s chief advisor Miguel Ernesto Crispi Serrano, who was being accused of having covered up and actively participated in the work of rushing the payment of operations destined for government party foundations. The problem would have been reduced to one more of the usual corruption that affects members of the national ‘political elite’ were it not for a very special circumstance: Hermosilla was not protecting Crispi by chance but by a very special circumstance: his son, Juan Cristóbal Hermosilla, had been a member of Giorgio Jackson’s party ‘Revolución Democrática RD’ during his years of study at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile where he met Miguel Crispi with whom he maintained a close friendship. During Michelle Bachelet’s first government, the two had even shared public functions6 . “Subsequently, Juan Cristóbal Hermosilla was part of the consultancy firm Mapa linked to the RD, which provided and bought consultancy services to several parliamentarians, among them the then deputy Miguel Crispi […]” 7

THE DIFFICULT TIMES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF APRUEBO DIGNIDAD

Gabriel Boric’s government was not going through good times in mid-2023. The scandal of the agreements threatened his ministers and closest collaborators in the face of an opposition whose politics, extremely miserable as well as tremendously reductionist, was limited solely to holding him accountable for the acts that, when he was a deputy, he had carried out against the government of Sebastián Piñera. No laws, no interesting proposals for the wellbeing of the nation. None of that. Only to take revenge for Boric’s ‘wickedness’ and to represent his iniquity to him at every turn.8 Psychological problems in this political representation or narrow-mindedness? What is certain is that, at that point, the obstacles imposed by the opposition on the government not only made it impossible for it to even think of fulfilling its programme, but also forced it to be on the lookout for protection from various government officials, threatened with accusations. In those weeks, it was the turn of Giorgio Jackson, Minister of Social Wellbeing.

LUIS HERMOSILLA’S NETWORKS

Hermosilla was well known in La Moneda. He had reached the first floor of La Moneda with the task of defending Miguel Crispi against the accusations made against him, not because he was a brilliant lawyer, but because his contacts in the legal world allowed him to make successful interventions, as this is the usual way for the dominant sectors to persevere in their own affairs. But there was another reason, in addition to the above.
Former president Sebastián Piñera had been warned by the then presidential candidate that he would be prosecuted for human rights violations. A group of collaborators very close to him, including Hernán Larraín, Andrés Chadwick and Cristián Larroulet, decided to talk to Luis Hermosilla so that he could agree with La Moneda a possible formula aimed at defusing any attempt to bring the former president to justice.

It should not be surprising that these political representatives of big business were so committed to this task, nor that their plea was echoed by members of the Frente Amplio, especially Miguel Crispi, since a large part of its leadership are not only the political continuation of the Concertación de Partidos Por la Democracia, but its genetic continuation.9 Crispi was also in need of the political continuation of the Concertación de Partidos Por la Democracia, which had been the political continuation of the Concertación de Partidos Por la Democracia for many years.

Crispi was, likewise, in need of help. And Boric, squeezed by an inclement opposition, also agreed to such negotiations. On 11 August, forced by circumstances, Giorgio Jackson had to relinquish his post as Minister of Social Welfare while President Boric prepared to attend the change of office in Paraguay. The occasion seemed propitious to invite former president Piñera to the ceremony, which was to take place on the 15th of that same month, and to travel with him to Paraguay on the presidential plane.

Boric’s gesture was commented on, as the invitation he had received from the Paraguayan authorities was a personal one.

“After the trip, Boric was measured. We talked [with Piñera] about how to unblock the political moment [in Chile]’. And two weeks after, in the framework of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état, Boric affirmed that ‘I have no doubt that President Piñera is a democrat'” 10 .

THE FUTURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHILE

There is not the slightest doubt that if the scandal involving Hermosilla in facilitating tax evasion – and, consequently, defrauding the State – is a serious matter, it is even more serious if, in this endeavour, he resorts to bribing officials of the SII and the CMF.

However, this offence becomes infinitely more serious when, in the company of another person (or a group of audacious people who claim to represent someone that no one has conferred on them), he tries to find a way to ensure impunity for a possible human rights violator. The Nobodies cannot compromise on such rights. Human rights are intransgressible, they are beyond human commerce.

Whoever dares to do so must also be charged as a “co-perpetrator”, “accomplice” or “accessory” to such crimes.

We do not know if this possible agreement between President Boric and the lawyer Hermosilla, representing former members of the government of Sebastián Piñera, is still in force, if it has been consummated or is in the process of being consummated.

In that task and in the meantime we will be watching to find out if President Boric will show his unwavering will to demand respect for human rights or not. In more direct words, if he will push, as is his duty, for the opening of a trial against those who violated human rights during the social outbreak. Will he do so directly? Will he request the State Defence Council to do so in the name and on behalf of the State itself? Or will he simply collaborate in this mission? Will he therefore hand over the Carabineros generals involved in these events? And the mayors, governors, intendants, government delegates who perpetrated such illicit acts? It seems difficult. The confession made to the press by the president after his arrival from Paraguay shows him to be oriented towards an entirely different end: “Have I ever said that Piñera is not a democrat? What I said in the debate is that human rights violations have to be prosecuted.

“I say and I maintain that President Piñera has democratic convictions and although I have many differences with him, I personally do not believe that he has ordered any kind of violation of human rights.

We maintain that, having silenced the debates provoked by the recent vote, it seems appropriate to demand that the authorities make an important change in their performance. A shift away from the machinations of both Hermosilla and his representatives (Larraín, Chadwick, Blumel and others) and allow the Presidency to increasingly assume the role of leader of the nation that corresponds to it, which implies turning a deaf ear to the voices that keep it away from this high task; among others, the unrestricted respect for human rights. Gustavo Gatica, Fabiola Campillai and all those who were visually mutilated cannot be eternally condemned to live in darkness while their real perpetrators remain completely unpunished. The same cannot happen with the crimes of Abel Acuña, Romario Veloz, Manuel Muga, Andrés Ponce, Manuel Rebolledo, José Uribe and so many others. It cannot be that those who incited the suicide of young people who could not bear their visual mutilation continue to enjoy peace of mind. There are people directly responsible for all of these events, people who gave orders and ordered this to be done. There are people responsible for having turned the police forces into repressors of student protests and not of real crime. There is, in this matter, a work that is not unfinished but, simply, something that has not been started and that needs to be done. Now, not tomorrow.

1Editor: “”Señor Piñera, está avisado”: Boric reiterates warning to take cases of “grave human rights violations” to international tribunals during the outbreak”, ‘El Mostrador’, 22 September 2021.

2 Agencia EFE: “Amnistía Internacional entrega informa anual sobre DDHH en Chile: ‘Piñera deja un legado sombrío'”, Radio Biobío, 29 March 2022.

3 Agencia EFE: “Amnistía Internacional entrega informa anual sobre DDHH en Chile: ‘Piñera deja un legado sombrío'”, Radio Biobío, 29 March 2022.

4 Weibel Barahona, Mauricio: “Garzón y Comisión Chilena de Derechos Humanos acusan al Presidente Piñera en la Corte Penal Internacional por crímenes de lesa humanidad”, CIPER, 29 April 2021.

5 Sepúlveda, Nicolás: “‘Aquí estamos haciendo una huevá que es delito’: el audio en que Luis Hermosilla menciona pagos a funcionarios del SII y la CMF”, CIPER, 14 November 2023.

6 It is likely that Crispi entered the public sector on his own merits, but it should not be forgotten that his mother Claudia Serrano was Michelle Bachelet’s Minister of Labour and Social Security.

7 Herrero A., Victor: “La desconocida negociación entre Miguel Crispi y Luis Hermosilla para no perseguir a Piñera por violaciones a los derechos humanos”, ‘Interferencia’, 18 November 2023.

8 This infantile way of acting by the political representation of the dominant sectors of society was so manifest that the mayor of Providencia herself, Evelyn Matthei, acknowledged it on CHV’s ‘Contigo en la mañana’ programme on Monday 18 December 2023, stating that there was animosity against the government because of the expressions that the leaders of Apruebo Dignidad (especially the former deputy Boric) had made against Sebastián Piñera.

9 In more than a few media and also on social networks, people began to speak of the ‘New Concertación’ and not of ‘Apruebo Dignidad’.

10 Herrero A., Victor: “La desconocida negociación entre Miguel Crispi y Luis Hermosilla para no perseguir a Piñera por violaciones a los derechos humanos”, ‘Interferencia’, 18 November 2023.

11 Editor: “Presidente Boric: ‘Personally I don’t believe that Piñera has ordered any kind of Human Rights violation'”, ‘Ex Ante’, 10 September 2023.