|
|
|
INTRODUCTION
At the sixth plenary session of its fifth regular session, held
on May 19, 1973, the General Assembly of the Organization of American
States adopted the following resolution:
WHEREAS:
It has received the report of the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights on “The Status of Human Rights in Chile,” based upon
materials presented to the Commission by various sources, including the
Government of Chile, and on its in situ investigation of the
facts during its visit to Chile from July 22 to August 2, 1974;
This report, together with the observations of the Government of
Chile, was sent to the United Nations and was considered at the
Thirty-first Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights;
As a result of this consideration, in which seven member states
of the OAS took part, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
unanimously decided to send a working group to Chile to study the
present status of human rights in that country; and
Consequently, both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
and the next session of the General Assembly will have the additional
benefit of a report based on further investigations to assist them in
their work in the coming year,
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
RESOLVES:
1.
To take note, with appreciation, of the report of the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on “The Status of Human
Rights in Chile,” as well as the observations of the Government of
Chile on that report.
2.
To take note, with approval, of the acceptance by the Government
of Chile of the visit of the working group of the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights.
3.
To respectfully call upon all the governments, including the
Government of Chile, to continue to give the most careful attention to
the suggestions and recommendations of the Inter-American Commission
concerning human rights.
4.
To request the Inter-American Commission to secure, by all
appropriate means, additional information, to consider that information,
and to submit a report on the status of human rights in Chile to the
next session of the General Assembly, ensuring that the Government of
Chile has reasonable time to submit its own observations.
2.
The preceding resolution was adopted by the General Assembly,
after having considered the report prepared by the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, and approved by the Commission on October
24, 1974, by the unanimity1
of its members, and after having considered the observations on the
report made by the Government of Chile in the course of the meeting of
the Permanent Council of the OAS on December 4, 1974. These observations
are found in document OEA/Ser.G/CP/doc.385/74.
3.
In conformity with the provisions of paragraph 4 of the
resolution of the General Assembly which has been quoted in the
preceding, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been
required to undertake the task of preparing a second report concerning
the situation of human rights in Chile, to examine how this situation
has evolved since the date when the Commission finished its observations
in loco referred to in the previous report, that is, since August
2, 1974.
4.
Since it was the expressed wish of the General Assembly to have
available, in the next session, information that is as up to date as
possible, and, in addition, to have the Government of Chile provided
with a prudent length of time in which to examine the report before it
is considered by the Assembly, the Commission has agreed that its new
report will cover the period between the date indicated in the preceding
paragraph and March 12 of this year, in order that the Government of
Chile may be able to examine the report adequately in advance of the
date of the opening of the session of the General Assembly.
5.
Since the new report is a continuation of the previous report,
the same limitations that the Commission placed upon itself in drafting
the first report have been maintained in preparing this one. Thus,
nothing that is stated in this report implies a prejudgment with respect
to the individual cases of presumed violations of human rights that have
been denounced and that are still under consideration in conformity with
the Regulations of the Commission.
6.
In accordance with the wishes expressed by the General Assembly,
the Commission has taken note of the contents of the report presented by
the Ad-Hoc Working Group of the Commission on Human Rights of the United
Nations, gathering some observations that have seemed useful.
7.
In order to comply with the resolution of the General Assembly,
the Commission analyzed the methods to be followed in preparing the new
report. After a careful consideration of this, the Commission decided to
apply the method of requesting written reports, without foreclosing the
possibility of requesting authorization for a new observation in loco
if it were eventually to consider this necessary or useful, or without
foreclosing any other method of obtaining information.
8.
The method of requesting written reports has the advantage of
permitting the Commission to refer, at any moment, to the textual
language of information provided by the Government, especially if some
question should be raised about the impartiality or the equanimity of
the Commission’s interpretations of replies from the Government. It
can likewise be expressive if some of the requests for information sent
to the Government are not answered at all or receive an inadequate
reply.
The notes requesting reports from the Government of Chile were,
in all cases, addressed to the Minister of Foreign Relations of that
country.
9.
Our working plans have been seriously perturbed by the attitude
adopted by the Government of Chile upon receiving our requests for
reports. Some requests—a minority of them—have received incomplete
replies; the majority of them, and very important ones, have received no
reply whatsoever. This occurred with our note of October 7 and with our
two notes of October 20, 1975, the contents of which we will refer to in
the body of this report.
10.
In a note dated January 8, 1976, which arrived at the office of
the Commission on January 22, the Minister of Foreign Relations answered
the three notes to which we refer in the preceding paragraph, with the
following brief message:
I have the honor to address Your Excellency in reference to your
Notes dated 7 and 20 October, in which the Commission presented to my
Government several questions of a general nature and requested copies of
certain background information.
In reply, I can inform the Chairman that the Government of Chile,
as it has up to now, shall continue to respond and to give background
information to all requests that the Commission addresses to it
concerning individual denunciations that have been received concerning
presumed violations of Fundamental Rights and Liberties.
Since the Notes already mentioned do not refer to individual
cases, and in the confidence that the questions of a general nature that
are presented have their origin in denunciations received by the
Commission, my Government awaits concrete inquiries in order to respond
to them with the maximum promptitude as Chile has done consistently.
11.
The reply of the Minister requires us to make the following
comments:
a)
Neither the Statutes of the Commission nor the wish of the
General Assembly, expressed in charging us with the preparation of a
second report concerning the application of human rights in Chile,
requires us to limit our investigations and conclusions to those which
arise from “individual denunciations” that have been presented to
us. With regard to our Statutes, Article 9, section b, leaves no room
for doubt with respect to our legal authority to obtain information and
to make recommendations to any American Government when we consider it
appropriate for the purpose of making the observance of human rights
more effective, and is in no sense dependent upon the existence of a
prior “individual denunciation.” In regard to Resolution 190 of the
General Assembly, adopted on May 19, 1975, after a complicated procedure
to which the Government of Chile was not an outsider, the resolution
ordered us to make us of “all pertinent methods” to obtain and
consider more information, without being able to deny that the most
loyal and direct procedure is to request information from the Government
whose conduct with respect to the application of human rights is being
appraised. Thus, to try to make the right of the Commission to request
information dependent upon the prior existence of an “individual
denunciation” implies non-recognition of its competence as defined by
the Statute that governs the Commission and the unequivocal meaning of
the Resolution of the General Assembly, compliance with which is being
obstructed. Moreover, the Government of Chile did not abstain from using
this same argument when, in reply to our note of September 9, it sent us
its note of October 17, 1975. Two different types of conduct in two
identical cases.
b)
It is especially noteworthy that the Government of Chile, at a
time when it seemed to assert that it should not provide information
that does not relate to individual cases, that is, that affect specific
persons or persons that can be specified, also did not provide
information when the Commission requested it—to contribute to the
clarification of a general situation—with respect to very specific
individual cases. Thus, for example, we have unsuccessfully requested
that we be permitted to obtain photocopies of three absolutely specific
legal proceedings: the proceeding of the Council of War of Linares
against Hugo Alejandro Valdéz y Fuentes and Mario Eleazar Mora Arévalo,
a proceeding which Members of this Commission witnessed in part; the
proceeding of the Council of War of Concepción, inscribed as Nº
1645/73, against José Isidoro Saldías and others; and the decision of
the Council of War in the case called the “Bachelet case.” So,
information is denied when it is not possible to invoke an “individual
denunciation,” and it is also denied with reference to individual
cases which the Commission first learned about as “individual
denunciations.”
12.
It is obvious that the attitude adopted by the Government of
Chile does not excuse the Commission from compliance with its duty. It
only deprives it of the principal source of information to which it
should turn, as it tried to do.
The very delay with which we were informed of the decision of the
Chilean Government—the replies to our notes of October 7 and 20
arrived in our hands on January 22—had the practical effect of
obstructing us from trying again, in adequate time, to obtain from the
Government the information that had not been provided. We had made note
of the fact, in all our communications, that it was necessary to receive
the requested information before the end of December, in order that we
might have the time to prepare our report carefully and to submit it to
the Government of Chile the necessary time in advance so that the
Chilean Government would be able to prepare its objections and
observations before the meeting of the General Assembly which was
originally planned for the moth of April, 1976.
Consequently, we have carried out our work making use of other
sources of information that we possess, without prejudice to the sifting
of conclusions that can be taken from the lack of opportune information
from the Government of Chile. 13. The experience gained from the preparation of the first report has induced this Commission to arrange the present report in separate chapters, following the order in which the various human rights have been proclaimed in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. We shall abstain from referring to those human rights with respect to which there have not been developments or changes worthy of special consideration during the period covered by this report.
14.
We consider it necessary to begin this study with a chapter in
which there are described the principal changes introduced in the system
of governmental standards in effect in Chile, from August 1974 to 1976,
insofar as these relate to the effective application and protection of
human rights.
1
It is to be noted that, after the expiration of the period
specified in the regulations, and in a communication to the
President of the Commission, the Commission member, don Manuel
Bianchi, expressed his disagreement with certain passages of the
report.
|
