LIFE OF MICHAEL WOODWARD
In 1997 at a ceremony in Valparaiso´s
Iglesia La Matriz a plaque was fixed to the wall. It read:
“Fr. Michael Woodward who lived and worked with the poor in Valparaiso for many
years – his friends and colleagues from the Engineering Faculty, King¨s College,
London University”. It ends: “Born 1932 – Assassinated 1973”
Michael had dual nationality, having been born in Valparaiso of a British father
and Chilean mother. He finished his schooling in England at Downside College and
graduated in civil engineering before returning to Chile where he became a
priest. He was ordained in 1961.
As a priest he was increasingly drawn to the plight of the workers and the poor.
Like others in the diocese of Valparaíso, he lived and worked amongst them,
becoming a worker priest in the Las Habas shipyards. Later, he joined MAPU, an
offshoot of the Christian Democrat party which, as from 1971, formed part of
Salvador Allende´s Unidad Popular government. He was convinced that only by
active involvement in a program for social reform could a just society be
achieved. He was also a member of the Christian for Socialism movement which
practised the theology of liberation.
At the time of the military coup in September 1973, Michael was a member of the
staff of the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso and worked in the Centro de
Estudios y Capacitación Laboral (CESCLA). This Centre provided opportunities for
higher education to workers and Michael was elected by the students to run
CESCLA´s summer school in Quillota and La Calera. Michael lived in a poor area
in the hills above Valparaíso in a house which he had built himself. He was
President of the neighbourhood JAP, an organisation which monitored food
rationing and fought against black marketeering.
Immediately after the coup, Michael´s name was included in the list of those who
were ordered, by street loudspeakers and radio, to present themselves to the
authorities. He took refuge in the house of a friend but after a few days
decided to return home. He told friends that he had nothing to conceal and he
refused to consider the possibility of asking for protection from the British
authorities. He went back to his house and was picked up by a naval patrol on
22nd September in the early hours of the morning.
According to witnesses, Michael was taken to local headquarters of the
Carabineros, where he was brutally beaten. From there he was taken to the
Valparaíso docks and was held both on the Lebu, a merchant vessel commandeered
by the Navy, and on the Esmeralda, a naval training ship which at the time of
the coup had been transformed into a prison ship. Michael was seen by various
witnesses including one who said that he had been tortured and described his
injuries. It is assuemed that the interrogators, from the Navy´s Servicio de
Intelligencia wanted information about some of his friends. He did not betray
them.
A naval doctor from the cruiser Latorre, moored nearby, was summoned to the
Esmeralda to attend to Michael. He found that he was suffering from internal
injuries which had clearly been caused by severe blows to the body. The doctor
told his commanding officer that Michael could not live for more than an hour
and he was taken to the Naval Hospital at Plata Ancha. He died on the way.
A death certificate was issued by the Naval Hospital, stating that Michael had
died on September 22nd “on the public highway”. Cause of death was given as
heart failure. The Navy refused the request of the Diocesan authorities to
arrange the burial and Michael´s body was placed in the common grave, a large
pit at the edge of the Cemetery of Playa Ancha in which unclaimed bodies were
deposited without identification. Later, the gate leading to this common grave
was walled up. Later still some construction work took place on the site,
allegedly as part of a project (never completed) to build a new road. Many
bodies were disinterred and pushed over the neighbouring cliffs into the Pacific
Ocean and some were destroyed with acid by the Carabineros.
For several years one of Michael´s sisters tried, latterly with the help of the
British Government, to persuade the Chilean Government to take legal action on
Michael´s murder, on the basis of the information which she had presented to
them and the report of the 1991 Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (Rettig
Commission). This Commission, created by the first post-Pinochet government had
concluded that Michael had died as the result of torture and that torture was
carried out on the Esmeralda by “agents of the State”. The Government refused to
take any action despite their obligation to do so under the terms of Article 84
of the Codigo de Procedimiento Penal.
Since then the conclusions of the Rettig Commission regarding Michael´´s death
and the torture of the many other prisoners held on the Esmeralda have been
denied by successive Commanders in Chief of the Navy. Over the same period the
successive Heads of Government have not seen fit to require that the Commanders
in Chief retract their declarations, made about the conclusions of a Commission
which was created by the Chilean Government itself. On the contrary, successive
Presidents . most recently Ricardo Lagos in April 2003, have bid farewell to the
Esmeralda on its training cruises with praise for the Navy, the “White Lady”
herself and the values which she represents
Ultimately, in January 2002, Michael´s sister – with the help of Chilean friends
- was able to bring criminal charges against Pinochet, senior Naval officers,
and crew members of the Esmeralda. They included genocide (for religious
reasons), torture, assassination, state terrorism, kidnapping, illegal
inhumation and exhumation and offences against the Geneva Convention and other
international treaties. The investigation was assigned to a judge who has
confessed that she has virtually no time for the case and the Supreme Court,
when asked to resolve this problem, responded by increasing the case load of the
judge. Moreover, as regards information held on the Rettig Commission files
which could be subpœnaed by the court, evidence has come to light which makes
clear that the Programa de Derechos Humanos (the Chilean Government´s human
rights agency) has misled the lawyer who presented the charges.
All the other crimes perpetrated on board the Esmeralda remain in the most
complete impunity.
De nacionalidad chileno-británica. Nació en Valparaíso en 1932, de padre inglés
y de madre chilena. Terminó sus estudios secundarios en Inglaterra y siguió
estudios de ingeniería en la Universidad de Londres. Ingresó al Seminario de
Santiago, se ordenó sacerdote y optó por ejercer su ministerio entre los pobres,
en Chile. Se especializó en Sagrada Escritura y fue sacerdote obrero y trabajó
en los astilleros del Puerto.
En 1969 dejó la Parroquia de Peñablanca y se inserta en la Población Los
Placeres, formando allí una comunidad de base. Luego, entró en conflicto con el
Obispo Emilio Tagle y fue suspendido de sus funciones sacerdotales.
Iglesia
de la Matriz en Valparaíso, Iglesia de los Pobres. En su interior está la Placa
Recordatoria que lo recuerda como el sacerdote que asesinaron en 1973.
No se ha podido aclarar bien si el Obispado de Valparaíso pidió o no el cuerpo
de Miguel Woodward. El hecho es que la Marina no lo entregó, sino que lo echó a
la fosa común del cementerio. Esta fosa, poco tiempo después quedó cubierta por
la loza del camino costero. Allá reposa, frente al mar, quien fue torturado y
muerto por hacer realidad las orientaciones de Medellín, que llamó a los
cristianos a tomar un mayor comporomiso con los más pobres y abandonados.
Murió como Cristo, amando y sirviendo a los pobres.
FUENTE: http://www.lafuna.nu/
--
El día 22 de septiembre
de 1973, Michael WOODWARD IRIBARRY, 42 años, ex sacerdote y militante del
Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU), murió en el Hospital Naval de
Valparaíso.
Ha
quedado acreditado que fue detenido por una patrulla naval en el Cerro Los
Placeres el 16 de septiembre de 1973 y que en su lugar de reclusión fue
torturado. Un médico de la Armada intentó darle atención de urgencia en el molo
de abrigo, recinto custodiado por la Armada en que se hallaban atracados el
Buque Escuela "Esmeralda" y el carguero "Lebu", Desde allí fue llevado al
Hospital Naval donde falleció a causa de un "paro cardiorespiratorio", producto
del lamentable estado físico en que se encontraba.
Los
antecedentes expuestos permiten a esta Comisión formarse la convicción que
Michael Woodward murió víctima de la acción de agentes del Estado que lo
torturaron en su lugar de detención.
(Informe Rettig)
Michael Woodward, catholic priest, professor of CESCLA - which formed part of
the Catholic University of Valparaíso (Report of the Commission of Truth and
Reconciliation, 1991):
"It has been established that he was arrested by a a naval patrol in the Cerro
de Placeres on 16th September 1973 and that he was tortured in his place of
detention. A Navy doctor tried to give him urgent attention on the dockside, an
area guarded by the Navy, where the training ship
Esmeralda and the cargo ship Lebu were moored. From there he was taken to the
Naval Hospital where he died as the result of "cardio-respiratory failure", the
result of his parlous physical condition"
(Informe Rettig)
