DEATH PENALTY

Murder Victims’ Families
THE DEATH PENALTY AND
THE RIGHT TO LIFE
Mireya García Ramírez 1
I am the sister of Vicente Israel García Ramírez, detained and disappeared
since 1977, when he was a young man of 19. I am a member
and leader of the Association of Families of the Detained and
Disappeared, which at the start Chile’s military dictatorship, with
immeasurable support and protection from the Christian churches,
launched a crusade for truth and justice that is today active, legitimized
and respected by society.
The ongoing and systematic violation of the right to life and the
integrity of people; the banning of political, social, cultural and
community institutions and organizations; the permissiveness and
acceptance of the judiciary and the media; the creation of criminal
groupings financed by the state such as the National Intelligence
Directorate (DINA) and the National Information Centre (CNI);
the use of hundreds of public and private locations as centers for
detention, torture, death and disappearance throughout the country—these
are some of the many factors supporting a state using
a national security doctrine and the existence of a “home-grown
enemy” as a pretext for exterminating political dissidents.
Chile became a vast prison, and society was exposed to a new and
traumatizing repressive policy that harmed the institutions, the
national soul, and thousands of families that still place their hopes in
justice despite the fact that penalties have been imposed on human
rights violators in less than 10% of the cases.
The family trauma caused by the repression, the ignorance of the
final destination of the bodies of the detained and disappeared, and
the lack of justice are three factors making the forced disappearance
of persons an ongoing torture, which, 43 years after the coup
1 Former Vice-chair of the Chilean Association of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Persons
in Chile.
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