Weekly Report - 19 August 2003

Plea-bargaining and compensation package is applauded by politicians, but fails to satisfy victims' relatives. 

When President Ricardo Lagos announced, on 13 August, a series of measures designed to speed up the conclusion of the 180-odd pending trials of Pinochet-era officials for crimes committed while in power (1973-90) - usually referred to as human-rights trials - he took care to clarify that these were not `definitive' solutions , just `another step in this long process in which the state [...] responds to those who were victims.' 

The package, applauded by most politicians, including the opposition, envisages plea-bargaining by those who did not plan or direct the commission of crimes in exchange for information. It also provides for an all-party commission to determine `austere reparation' for victims of torture and former political prisoners, and for a 50% increase in pensions granted to relatives of victims (now US$300 a month). 

For opposite reasons, organisations of relatives of victims and of retired military officers have criticised the package for not explicitly taking a position on the 1978 amnesty which the Pinochet régime granted itself by law; the former want it overturned, the latter want it strictly applied.