From Denial to Reluctant Dialogue: The Chilean Military's Confrontation with Human Rights (1990-2006)

Abstract

1 This article analyzes the advances and limitations of transitional justice efforts in democratic Chile through the examination of a key political actor: the armed forces. The military's earlier attitude of denial and noncooperation regarding the human rights violations of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) was slowly replaced by dialogue with civilians, institutional recognition of violations and limited cooperation with courts. While strategic interactions with other political actors and generational/personnel change stand out as variables explaining the military's behavioral and ideational transformation, the article highlights a crucial third factor: the pluralization of truth and justice mechanisms, both domestic and overseas, that opened up juridical, political and societal fields of contestation against impunity and amnesia. None of Chile's major political actors, including the military, could exert full control over these multiple channels of truth and justice, and the result was the adoption of new strategies and legitimizing discourses more in line with the human rights norm. The military reoriented its stance on human rights in the context of Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998, a changing political environment and the judicial battle over amnesties for the dictatorship's abuses.