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Patricia Woodward's letter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe
May 15, 2003
Mr. Walter Schwimmer
Secretary General
Council of Europe
67075 Strasbourg Cedex
France
Dear Mr. Secretary General,
I would like to draw to your attention the policy decisions by four of your
member countries to authorise the visit to their ports this coming summer of the
Esmeralda - a training ship which was the scene of assassination and systematic
torture by agents of the State in Chile at the time of the military coup in
September 1973. Amongst the victims was my brother, Michael Woodward, a priest
of dual nationality - British and Chilean - who was tortured and murdered on the
Esmeralda.
I consider the authorisation of the visit of the Esmeralda by the four member
states to be an affront to the memory of those who suffered on that ship. I
believe their policy decisions to allow the Chilean Navy to visit their
territory is degrading both to the victims of the Esmeralda and to their
relatives. As such, it is a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention for
the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms which reads.
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment"
I also believe that the right to protection against such treatment will be
further breached if the visit of the ship is allowed to take place.
The four countries to be visited by the Esmeralda are France, Germany, Spain and
the United Kingdom. Visits to two other countries, Sweden and Holland have been
cancelled after protests. I believe that in each case the Chilean government
formally requested, and received, permission for the visits to take place,
thereby giving them an official character. It is noteworthy that some of these
countries have announced their intention of presenting a bid in the coming
months for the construction of three frigates for the Chilean Navy.
The crimes committed on board the Esmeralda were recognised by the Chilean
National Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (Rettig Commission) in 1991 in
the following terms:
"In the case of the training ship Esmeralda the investigations carried out by
this Commission enabled us to confirm that a special unit of the Navy set itself
up in its interior for the purpose of interrogating those who had been arrested
and were being held on that ship and those who had been brought there from other
naval places of detention. Those interrogations, for the most part, involved
torture and ill-treatment."
The Commission´s findings were formally accepted by the then President of the
Republic Patricio Aylwin. However, successive Commanders in Chief of the Chilean
Navy have denied those same conclusions. The democratic governments to whom they
were, and are, subject have not required them to rectify those statements and
have failed to take any action to investigate and prosecute those crimes - in
defiance of the obligation on them to do so under Article 84 of the Chilean Code
of Criminal Procedures.
Added to this, the Chilean government has failed to comply with its obligations
under the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention against
Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. All of
these require that a prompt and effective investigation be carried out but, 30
years on, the perpetrators of these atrocities in the Chilean Navy remain
unidentified and unpunished.
The Chilean government has informed the British government that investigation of
the human rights abuses committed under the former military government is a
matter for the courts, and that the role of the government is to ensure the
courts have the freedom and independence they need to guarantee due process. As
a result, in good faith, I filed charges in the Courts of Valparaiso related to
the death of my brother which included genocide (for religious reasons), state
terrorism, kidnapping, torture and assassination.
Over a year later, however, there is conclusive evidence, as attached, that the
government itself has obstructed due process in a number of ways. The official
human rights agency of Chile has misled my lawyer as to the availability of
evidence and has concealed its knowledge of damage suffered by the archives of
the Rettig Commission as the result of negligence or extra judicial tampering.
Moreover, the government has failed to ensure that the investigating judge has
the necessary resources to carry out her duties.
In relation to the continued denials of human rights abuses by the naval
authorities, the connivance of the present Chilean government is in contempt of
the investigations which, in relation to the death of my brother, are being
carried out at present by the Ministro del Fuero Gabriela Corti in Chile (Auto 1
891-01). They also flout the objectives of the pre-trial Summary 19/97 initiated
by Judge Baltazar Garzón in Spain in 1999, with the unanimous support of the
Pleno of the Sala Quinta of the Audiencia Nacional, of which my brother´s case
formed part.
In authorising the visit of the Esmeralda, the British government expressed its
hope to the Chilean authorities that they would show sensitivity for the
feelings of victims´ relatives. This hope is unlikely to be fulfilled. The ship
has now left Chile and at its ports of call in Latin America its officers have
been dismissive of protest demonstrators and have denied that torture took place
on board the ship. This follows the pattern of earlier cruises such as that
which took the ship to Canada in the year 2000 where the Captain of the
Esmeralda called me a liar in the national press and the Chilean ambassador, in
public, refused to acknowledge the conclusions of the Rettig report.
For these reasons, I request that you take up this matter with the Governments
of France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. I also request that you
consider issuing recommendations whereby the policy decisions which authorised
such visits be considered as degrading treatment under Article 3 of the
Convention, in relation to victims´ relatives and the victims themselves now
resident in these countries and, furthermore, that you should recommend that
each of these countries should reconsider its policy and rescind its
authorisation for the visit.
Yours sincerely,
Patricia Woodward Bennetts
Appendix: "The Esmeralda - Crime and
Impunity"
Copy:
Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles
Commissioner for Human Rights
Council of Europe
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