By Jonathan Franklin and Monte Reel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 14, 2005; 1:57 PM
SANTIAGO, Chile -- Chile's former secret service chief has provided courts with a document that claims to list the whereabouts of hundreds of people who disappeared during the 17-year rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, casting blame for their killings away from himself and directly toward the former Chilean military chief. Lawyers for retired Gen. Manuel Contreras submitted to Chile's Supreme Court on Friday a 32-page document that lists about 580 people -- almost half the number still considered "disappeared" -- and purportedly reveals exactly what was done with the bodies. Human rights groups immediately questioned the information and its source, citing Contreras's years of deception and denials of responsibility for human rights abuses. Many of the details he provided -- such as the claim that many of the bodies were dumped into the Pacific Ocean -- were previously known, and some contradicted the findings of commissions that have investigated the disappearances. In an 11-page letter accompanying the spreadsheet, Contreras, 75, wrote the court that Pinochet personally ordered human rights violations. He described the former military ruler's claims that his subordinates were responsible for any abuses as "an intolerable injustice." Contreras alleged that Pinochet personally ordered the assassination of Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean foreign minister who was killed in a car-bombing in Washington in 1976 along with Ronni Moffitt, an American co-worker. He wrote that Pinochet also ordered the killing of former general Carlos Prats in Argentina in 1974. Contreras was previously jailed for his role in Letelier's death, and he is currently in prison for the 1975 killing of activist Miguel Angel Sandoval. Contreras served as the head of the secret service agency known as DINA, which carried out many of the human rights abuses that have come to symbolize Pinochet's rule. The Chilean government estimates that 3,190 people were killed for opposing Pinochet and that about 1,200 of those are still classified as disappeared. Pinochet, who led a coup to overthrow president Salvador Allende in 1973, has been indicted twice, but Chilean courts have ruled that the 89-year-old is too ill to stand trial. Many of those whose disappearances are attributed to DINA were listed by Contreras as having been "killed in combat," a designation that human rights groups and relatives of the victims said they considered offensive. He made no mention of the secret detention centers where the government kept many of those who would eventually disappear. Some victims identified by other investigations as having been returned to Chile from other countries before being killed were listed as having died abroad. "Contreras's list is just another cover-up," said Sebastian Brett, a researcher in Santiago for Human Rights Watch. "This is intended to help his former subordinates who committed horrific abuses, not the families of the victims." For years, relatives of the victims have been pressing for more details about the fates and whereabouts of the disappeared. After reading Contreras's list, some groups representing victims' families said their long search for more information was not any closer to a conclusion. "There are plenty of lies that a judge will have to determine and Contreras will have to answer, because he has lied one more time to the country," said Mireya Garcia, vice president of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared, in a press conference in Santiago. Peter Kornbluh, director of the Chile project at the private National Security Archive in Washington, said that although the information could be viewed as a "small step forward" in the continuing investigations into Pinochet's government, Contreras's motives seem questionable. "He's in jail, and he's learned that abject denial doesn't keep him free," Kornbluh said. Reel reported from Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina.