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The "Esmeralda" - 50th Anniversary Celebrated in Impunity (AI-Chile Press
Release)
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Press Release
11 June 2004
The Chilean Navy's training ship "Esmeralda" has arrived in Harumi, the port of
Tokyo, where it will remain until the 15th June - the day on which it celebrates
50 years under the Chilean flag.
The "Esmeralda" was in active use as a torture and detention centre during the
first weeks after the military coup of September 1973, which introduced the
period of cruel military rule under General Augusto Pinochet.
"More than 30 years have passed since the military coup and the "Esmeralda" is
still sailing the world's seas, frequently the object of the rejection and scorn
which is inspired by past and present government inaction and by the failure of
the Chilean Navy to recognize the abuses carried out on board" declares Amnesty
International. Despite the explicit statements of the "Rettig Report" and veiled
acknowledgments of responsibility, the victims and their families are still
waiting for truth, justice and reparation.
Amnesty International and many other human rights organisations around the world
have vigilantly tracked the ship's cruises, in the hope that the Chilean
authorities will recognize the human rights abuses committed on board the
"Esmeralda" and other centres of detention and torture. Amnesty International
insists that independent and impartial investigations should be carried out in
relation to the claims that brutal torture and other human rights abuses were
carried out on naval ships and facilities during the military regime; that those
who were responsible should be brought to justice and that victims and their
families should receive full reparation, moral and material.
The protest actions which mark the arrival of the "Esmeralda" in every port are
not directed at the crew, as now constituted, or at the ship itself. Rather they
are intended to strip off the dark mantle of impunity that still covers those
who perpetrated these crimes against humanity.
"Despite the repeated expressions of concern by the international community
regarding the serious human rights violations committed on the training ship
"Esmeralda", the Chilean government has made no move towards providing truth,
justice, and reparation to the victims and their families", according to Amnesty
International.
Amnesty International hopes that the governments of the countries visited by the
"Esmeralda" on its training cruises will make reference, publicly, to the urgent
need to know all the truth about the grave human rights violations committed in
Chile during the military regime.
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