Chilean lawmaker Lorena Pizarro called for dismantling the long-standing “pact of silence” among civilians and former military personnel tied to crimes committed under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, following a Chilevisión investigation into the case of Bernarda Vera—officially registered as a detained-disappeared person since 1973—who is reportedly living in Argentina.
Pizarro, a former president of the Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD), stressed that clarifying which cases may not, in fact, constitute enforced disappearance depends above all on breaking the wall of impunity maintained by perpetrators.
“This wouldn’t be the first case, and I can’t say it will be the last—that is the very nature of enforced disappearance,” she said.
“There is a pact of silence among the civilians and uniformed officers who disappeared people in this country. If that pact is broken, we will likely learn who they are and what happened to our detained-disappeared relatives and, secondarily, who has falsely presented themselves as victims of enforced disappearance,” she stated.
With that, Pizarro underscored that families’ overriding priority remains access to historical and judicial truth regarding the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.
Reopened Wounds and Political Opportunism
The legislator addressed the pain and shock cases like Bernarda Vera’s cause within Chile’s human rights movement and criticized political sectors seeking to exploit the story—often the same actors who have stayed silent about crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship.
“Beyond the political opportunism pursued by those very sectors that keep silent, for the families the wound reopens—and it never seems to fully close,” Pizarro said. “This is not easy for us; we fully support whatever actions the families’ organizations decide to take, because they are the ones who have led the ‘never again’ fight,” she added, as reported by Radio Nuevo Mundo.
With these remarks, Pizarro reaffirmed the leadership and autonomy of victims’ organizations, noting that they have driven the struggle for memory, justice, and guarantees of non-repetition in Chile.
Questions for the Government and the State’s Responsibility
Regarding the potential responsibilities of the current administration, Pizarro said it is essential to clarify what Justice Minister Luis Cordero knew about the specific situation involving Bernarda Vera.
“Since the 1990s, much more could have been done—including by this government. Not everything has been done to ensure this doesn’t remain an open wound for the country and for families, and above all to establish guarantees of non-repetition,” she noted, alluding to decades of unfinished work on truth and justice.
“I believe it must be clarified whether Minister Cordero knew earlier, and we also need to know what the Government has done to address this specific situation,” she added.
The lawmaker closed with a reflection that captures the ongoing struggle of families of the detained-disappeared under Pinochet’s regime.
“I’ll repeat this: I don’t know if it will be the last, and it’s not the first. The point is we cannot continue in such a brutal situation where, every so often, we learn—on top of everything that has been concealed—something new as well. That is a deep pain for families,” she said.
The Bernarda Vera case—whatever its particularities—has once again thrust into the center of public debate the long-standing demand of Chile’s human rights movement: the urgent need to break the pact of silence that, 50 years after the coup, still obstructs the full truth about the detained-disappeared.
