Ex-Soldiers Want to Reveal Chile Dirty War Secrets - NYTimes.com

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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Hundreds of former military draftees rallying outside Chile's presidential palace were asked Sunday to come forward and reveal crimes they committed and witnessed during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

The draftees have long feared that if they name names and reveal where bodies are buried, they will face prosecution by the courts or retaliation by those who ordered them to torture and kill.

But now the information they once promised to carry to their graves has become both a heavy psychological burden and a bargaining chip. By offering confessions, some of these now-aging men believe they can improve their chances of getting government pensions and mental health care.

''Perhaps today is the day when the moment has come, for us to describe what we saw and what we suffered inside the military bases, the things that we witnessed and that we did,'' said Fernando Mellado, who leads the Santiago chapter of the Former Soldiers of 1973.

Mellado told his fellow former soldiers that he's made little progress with lawmakers as he lobbies for military draftees to be recognized as victims of the dictatorship, in part because no one understands what they went through.

''Our human rights were also violated,'' he declared. ''The moment has come for former military draftees to tell our wives, our families, the politicians, the society, the country and the whole world about the brutalities they subjected us to. I believe the moment has come for us to speak, for our personal redemption.''

Mellado has been working with similar groups across Chile to figure out whether and how to turn over the information. He urged those in the crowd to provide their evidence to him, and promised to protect their anonymity.

Of the 8,000 people drafted as teenagers from Santiago alone in the tumultuous year when Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende's government and cemented his hold on power, Mellado believes ''between 20 and 30 percent are willing to talk.''

A small crowd among the former draftees was inspired enough by Mellado's call to immediately approach Associated Press journalists at the rally.

''They made me torture -- I am a torturer -- because they threatened me that if I didn't torture, they would kill me,'' volunteered Jorge Acevedo. He said several prisoners died when he applied electricity during torture sessions, and that their bodies may have been dumped in abandoned mines at the Cerro Chena prisoner camp.

Chilean security forces killed 3,186 people during the dictatorship, including 1,197 who were made to disappear, according to an official count.

In nearly two decades of democracy since then, less than 8 percent of the disappeared have been found, said Viviana Diaz of the Assembly of Family Members of the Disappeared Detainees.

Hundreds of recovered remains, some just bone fragments, have yet to be identified. Only those who buried the bodies know where other common graves lie. Diaz, for one, hopes the former draftees do start talking, even if they do so in a way that avoids prosecution.

Chilean law allows for a ''just following orders'' defense if people submit to the mercy of the courts, naming names and providing information that could help resolve some of the thousands of crimes committed under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule.

The defense ''theoretically applies and exists'' in Chile, and judges can even have people testify in secret, said attorney Hiram Villagra, who represents families of the dead and disappeared.

But most former soldiers fear the consequences for themselves and their families. Some worry that judges who rose through the ranks under Pinochet might protect their former superior officers instead.

Mellado maintains that the former draftees also are victims -- forced into service as minors and made to do unspeakable things -- and that many now want to get it off their chests.

One confessed to shooting an entire family. Another -- now an alcoholic who sleeps in the street in Santiago -- said he was forced to drown a 7-year-old boy in a barrel of hardening plaster. Others describe harrowing torture sessions, and loading bodies onto helicopters to be dumped at sea.

''Our mission was to stand guard outside, and listen to their screams,'' former draftee Jose Paredes said as he told the AP about his service at the Tejas Verdes torture center. ''They would end up destroyed, torn apart, their teeth and faces broken.''

''There are things that I've always said I will take to the grave,'' Paredes said, his grizzled face running with tears as he named a half-dozen officers who he said gave the orders. ''I've never told this to anyone.''

The Chilean government has made several high-profile efforts to resolve dirty war crimes, but Mellado said former draftees who wanted to testify were turned away: The Defense Ministry sent them to civilian courts, while civilian authorities considered them to be military.

Villagra agrees the time is overdue for the soldiers to seek redemption -- and sent a message of support for Mellado's efforts to gather their testimony.

''Clearly there is no desire from our part for these soldiers to carry the burden of guilt of the officers, who were the ones who made the decisions,'' Villagra said.

An AP review found 769 current and former security officers, most of them military, have been prosecuted for murders and other human rights violations. Almost all deny committing crimes. Only 276 have been sentenced.

Much of the evidence came from former prisoners. Testimony from former soldiers could do much to resolve these cases.