Committee on Enforced Disappearances

Sixteenth session

Summary record of the 2 80 th meeting

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Wednesday, 10 April 2019, at 10 a.m.

Chair:Ms. Janina

Contents

Consideration of reports of States parties to the Convention (continued)

Initial report of Chile (continued)

The meet ing wa s called to order at 10.05 a.m.

Consideration of reports of States parties to the Convention (continued)

Initial report of Chile (continued) (CED/C/CHL/1; CED/C/CHL/Q/1 and CED/C/CHL/Q/1/Add.1)

1. At the invitation of the Chair, the delegation of Chile took places at the Committee table.

2.Ms. Chevesich Ruiz (Chile) said that the investigation into 279 cases of irregular adoption or abduction of minors between 1973 and 1990 was ongoing. Only eight of the complaints pertaining to that period related to deprivation of liberty at the hands of the security forces. No information was available as to whether those cases related to children born in detention or to children born to mothers who had been deprived of their liberty.

3.In connection with convictions for crimes committed at Colonia Dignidad, on 29 December 2016, three German and two Chilean nationals had been prosecuted under articles 292 and 293 of the Criminal Code relating to illicit associations and had been sentenced to 5 years in prison; four persons had been convicted on firearms offences and had received a prison sentence of 7 years; and 10 perpetrators of abduction, including aggravated abduction, had been convicted and sentenced to between 5 and 10 years in prison, without access to benefits in all but one case. In addition, fines had been imposed on the relevant State entities. The leader of the group responsible for the homicide of Miguel Angel Becerra Hidalgo had been sentenced to 7 years in prison without benefits, and two German nationals had been convicted for concealing the crime and had received a suspended sentence. A suit had also been filed for compensation in that case.

4.The investigation into crimes relating to illegal burials and exhumations on land belonging to Colonia Dignidad was still in its preliminary stage. With the participation of experts from the Chilean air force, steps had been taken to analyse the terrain, compare maps and examine aerial photos, in order to establish whether earth had been disturbed or burned in the area and whether human remains had been buried at the site. Interviews had been conducted with witnesses and former members of the security forces, including with regard to their knowledge of earthworks in the area or the fate of detainees at Colonia Dignidad. National and international experts were working on forensic analyses, and measures were being taken to examine registers of fires and other incidents during the period covered by the investigation.

5.Ms. Recabarren Silva (Chile) said that the German Foreign Ministry had submitted a formal offer of cooperation in the forensic examination of soil samples from the Colonia Dignidad site, which would be carried out by German experts, in order to identify possible victims of enforced disappearances. The Minister had yet to decide on how to proceed with the DNA sampling process.

6.Mr. Eguiguren (Chile) said that the Governments of Chile and Germany had established a joint commission in 2017 to begin preserving the historical memory of the former Colonia Dignidad and the process of reintegrating its victims into society. The commission’s remit included: establishing a documentation centre to record the history of the enclave, in particular the human rights violations that had been committed there; creating a victims’ memorial site; verifying, preserving and evaluating evidence and documents relating to the crimes committed at the site; providing psychosocial support and assistance in reintegrating victims into society; taking measures to locate assets relating to the former Colonia Dignidad; and encouraging judicial cooperation and technical collaboration in locating victims’ remains. The joint commission had held four meetings, the most recent one on 11 December 2018, and the next meeting was scheduled for the first half of 2019.

7.Given that various kinds of crimes had been committed at Colonia Dignidad, including offences associated with the political violence that had taken place during the dictatorship and others relating to the sexual abuse of children and adolescents residing in the enclave, the commission had reached agreement on a range of measures in relation to the site. Two experts from each country had been appointed to develop a design for the documentation centre and the memorial site. Chile had welcomed the request of the German authorities to extend access to mental health services to the victims living outside of Villa Baviera who had been excluded from the public and private health-care systems. An oral history project entitled “100 interviews to address the historical memory of Colonia Dignidad” had been launched.

8.Mr. Ravenna (Country Rapporteur) asked whether irregular facilities or houses were used as places of detention or transit. He would welcome information on the practice of taking persons into custody in areas that were not officially recognized or under Government control, notably in the southern regions of the country and in Mapuche territory.

9.The Committee had previously indicated to another State party that, in cases where a detainee was transferred between places of detention by the police, and the detainee’s family were not informed of the transfer, the period during which the detainee’s whereabouts remained unknown constituted an enforced disappearance. Information on the situation in Chile regarding such notification would be appreciated.

10.The Committee had received reports that, under domestic legislation, access to public information had to be requested through the courts, which would appear to violate the provisions of the Convention stipulating that victims (in the broad sense of the term) had the right to access to information. The State was invited to comment on the compatibility of its definition of victims with article 24 of the Convention, with regard to its scope and victims’ access to information.

11.He welcomed the designation of the National Human Rights Institute as the national preventive mechanism and requested further information on its functions, including in relation to the laws that governed it. Noting the importance of providing training in the Convention to the armed forces and security services in order to increase their awareness of its content, he expressed concern that such training was not part of their regular curriculum and therefore fell short of the requirement laid down in the Convention.

12.In addition to financial restitution, the concept of comprehensive reparation also covered political and symbolic actions. In that regard, he would appreciate receiving further information as to whether the symbolic reparation process was still under way, given reports that certain memorial sites appeared to be neglected or had been damaged. He asked what measures had been taken to protect such sites. It would also be useful to know whether compensation was awarded solely in the context of judicial proceedings against the State, or whether victims’ entitlement to economic compensation was recognized by law.

13.Mr. Figallo Rivadeneyra (Country Rapporteur) said that, while he welcomed the trailblazing reform of the procedural model that Chile had implemented, in the cases that were still tried under the old inquisitorial model, which was based on secrecy, victims tended to be placed at a disadvantage. He asked what measures existed to support victims in such criminal proceedings.

14.The definition of victim contained in article 24 of the Convention was far broader than that provided under the State party’s domestic legislation. That was a particularly relevant issue in Chile, given the tight-knit nature of families and communities in Latin America. It was important to recognize relatives and others with close ties to the victim of an enforced disappearance as active participants and rights holders with regard to the measures taken by the State party in the victim’s case.

15.The efforts of the State to identify victims of enforced disappearance and to provide reparations, especially economic compensation, were laudable. It would be useful to have additional information on the Government’s plans to establish a permanent classification body, which could help to identify victims of enforced disappearance not yet officially recognized as such, and on the national plan to search for and establish the fate of disappeared persons. In that context, he requested information on the number of persons who had, to date, been located and identified as victims of enforced disappearances.

16.He asked whether, under existing legislation, persons who had disappeared after 10 March 1990 could be declared “absent by reason of enforced disappearance”. The delegation was invited to comment on why the 174 persons mentioned in paragraph 129 of the replies to the list of issues had been declared by the courts as presumed dead, rather than as absent by reason of forced disappearance. Further information on plans to create a national register of victims of enforced disappearance would be welcome.

17.On the issue of irregular adoption during the dictatorship and beyond, he asked what procedures existed to ensure that families had the right to search for children who had been subjected to enforced disappearance. Had mechanisms been established to locate and identify such children, and to reunite them with their families of origin?

18.Mr. Decaux said that he would appreciate knowing what progress had been made in adding enforced disappearance to the statute books as a separate crime and what specific obstacles, if any, had been encountered in that regard.

19.Mr. Huhle said that he would like to know whether the State intended to continue its practice of litigating against claimants for damages in respect of offences that had occurred during the years of the dictatorship, which it had done to date through the State Defence Council. He asked whether it would consider formulating a definitive policy to guarantee the right to access to reparation through judicial recourse for those victims who did not feel that they had been sufficiently compensated through the measures provided under the three commissions.

20.Mr. Baati said that he would like to know which authority was responsible for making the final decision in cases of extradition. Given that there were no obstacles to extradition in relation to enforced disappearance in the State party’s legislation, he wondered whether that meant that a person might be extradited to a country where he or she risked being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, which would be unacceptable, even if that person had been responsible for an act of enforced disappearance.

21.He would appreciate further information regarding the time frame for the entry into force of the draft legislation that designated the National Human Rights Institute as the national preventive mechanism for the prevention of torture. He asked whether the Institute would have access to adequate human and financial resources and information in order to discharge that function.

22.Mr. Figallo Rivadeneyra said that he would like to have additional information in response to his question about the due obedience exemption, including whether it applied only to the military and the Carabineros (police), or to all government officials. He would also like to know whether that exemption could be invoked in all cases of enforced disappearance, irrespective of whether they involved a basic offence of enforced disappearance or enforced disappearances that amounted to a crime against humanity. He wondered whether a victim of enforced disappearance had to be of Chilean nationality to come under the jurisdiction of the courts; if that was indeed the rule, it was not consistent with the Convention. He requested clarification of the current situation regarding the statute of limitations that applied to civil action brought in connection with crimes of enforced disappearance, including those committed during the dictatorship.

The meeting was suspended at 10.50 a.m. and resumed at 11.15 a.m.

23.Mr. Navarro Brain (Chile) said that the bill designating the National Human Rights Institute as the national preventive mechanism for the prevention of torture had been approved by the Constitutional Court on 4 April 2019 and would therefore be promulgated in the near future. The new legislation was in line with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Under the proposed legislation, the committee for the prevention of torture of the National Human Rights Institute would perform the mandate and be granted the powers described in Part IV of the Optional Protocol, which related to national preventive mechanisms.

24.The committee for the prevention of torture would be composed of seven fully independent experts, who would be selected by means of a competitive examination. In order to guarantee the committee’s independence and transparency, its members would not be permitted to hold public office or work in the public administration or judiciary during the two years that followed their appointment. The experts would benefit from legal protection from any reprisals related to their work, and the Supreme Court would examine any complaints lodged against them. During their periodic and unannounced visits to any place of detention under the authority of the State, committee members would have the right to investigate any reports of torture and gather relevant evidence.

25.The committee would conduct awareness-raising and training activities on the prevention of torture in conjunction with various government institutions and their officials, such as the Prison Service. It would also prepare a biannual report on its activities for submission to the National Human Rights Institute. In addition, the committee would cooperate with other institutions in efforts to prevent torture and any other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

26.With regard to the definition of enforced disappearance in the national legislation, a bill currently before the Senate Constitutional, Legislative, Justice and Regulatory Committee was expected to enter into force soon, as it enjoyed wide political support. The Supreme Court had ruled that, in accordance with international law, it was necessary for the legislative framework to contain a definition of the offence of enforced disappearance.

27.The rules regarding due obedience applied not only to military personnel but also to civilians. Enforced disappearance was a crime, and military personnel therefore had the right and the obligation, under the revised Code of Military Justice, to disobey orders that would lead to the commission of such a crime. The bill providing for the establishment of a national register of victims of enforced disappearance was under consideration before the Chamber of Deputies. Under the bill, disappeared persons would not be struck from the electoral rolls.

28.Mr. Celedón (Chile) said that no information was available regarding illegal detention centres in the Araucanía region. While there was no specific protocol that covered the detention of persons belonging to the Mapuche community, specialized investigators worked with the police to ensure police officers’ compliance with human rights laws, and measures had been implemented in that region to protect children and young persons. Throughout the country, support had been provided to the security forces of indigenous communities with a view to strengthening the communities’ self-governance.

29.The responsibilities of officials with regard to the use of force or the deprivation of liberty were set out in a 2019 circular. In order to prevent disappearances during the transport of prisoners, clear procedures were established in legislation, and specific rules were included in police regulations. When persons were detained, their detention was always registered, and information concerning them was always entered into a database. The relevant police unit was then responsible for their supervision and care. Despite those measures, there were sometimes gaps in the system, particularly during the transport of prisoners to a police station, often in the case of persons who had been caught in the act of wrongdoing.

30.The subject of preventive measures, including the deprivation of liberty and the use of force, had been included in the national plan on human rights training, and updated modules on those subjects had been prepared for inclusion in law enforcement training programmes. Under national legislation, any agent of the State who was aware of torture but who did nothing to prevent it could be prosecuted. The Investigative Police had been receiving training from the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights since 2010 and also participated in a separate programme on enforced disappearance. Special events on human rights involving international experts had been organized for students in police academies. Since 2016, thousands of officials throughout the country had received training in human rights from instructors provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The issue of enforced disappearance was included in the National Human Rights Plan 2018–2021.

31.The Government of Chile considered human rights training to be of the utmost importance. In conjunction with the National Human Rights Institute, it was endeavouring to update its protocols to ensure that they were in line with international standards. To that end, the Carabineros national police force was undergoing a process of modernization, which included the revision of its training programmes to include an emphasis on human rights in the curriculum. Furthermore, a human rights directorate had been established within the Carabineros administration.

32.Ms. Ortiz Pulgar (Chile) said that the conflict of jurisdiction between the military courts and Attorney General’s Office referred to by Committee members concerned the 2005 case of José Vergara Espinoza, not that of Ricardo Harex González. The Espinoza case had originally been under the authority of the Attorney General’s Office, and in it prosecutors had brought charges against the Carabineros. However, coinciding with the entry into force of the new Code of Criminal Procedure in 2009, the military courts had claimed jurisdiction over the case. In 2018, the Attorney General’s Office had regained jurisdiction, and inquiries were now being led by the homicide brigade.

33.The case of Ricardo Harex González, on the other hand, concerned a young person without any prior criminal record who had allegedly been sexually abused and who had subsequently gone missing. The case was being prosecuted under the old procedural model by a special investigating appeal court judge. If it could be shown that there had been police negligence in investigating his case subsequent to the reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Attorney General’s Office would then be able to hear a case on charges of obstruction of the investigation.

34.The definition of victim under articles 108 and 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was, admittedly, more limited than that of the Convention. However, with the ratification of the Convention, protection measures for victims would certainly be expanded. Furthermore, it was both the policy and practice of the Attorney General’s Office to extend protection to all types of victims.

35.On the subject of extradition, the Attorney General’s Office had exercised universal jurisdiction in 2017, when charges had been brought against a former Sri Lankan dictator for war crimes and other crimes against humanity. The case had been registered, an investigation had been commenced, and the Sri Lankan embassy in Chile had been notified. Ultimately, however, the case had been dismissed, owing to the failure to locate the defendant.

36.Foreign victims and detainees received notification of their right to contact their country’s representation in Chile in order to seek consular assistance. Prosecutors and judges responsible for detention review hearings had to be informed that the defendant was a foreign national by the defendants themselves, or by their public criminal defenders. Minimum protocols were in place to investigate the cases of any defendants who died while in custody. The law contained various safeguards and controls for the protection of mentally ill defendants who were charged with serious offences, including regular, biannual checks to determine whether the degree of their illness exempted them from criminal responsibility for their acts. Lastly, a bill had been drafted that would enable prosecutors to ask tribunals for intrusive measures, including telephone taps, in order to investigate disappearances in general.

37.Mr. Fernández González (Chile) said that considerable efforts had been made to improve human rights training within the Prison Service. The Prison Service Academy provided human rights training to public officials and new prison staff, including on the subject of enforced disappearance. A law had been enacted in 2018 whose aim was to improve standards at the Prison Service Academy, offering training for both professionals and technicians, and increasing the human rights content of its curriculum. In 2018, the department for the promotion and protection of human rights of the Prison Service had conducted training, partly drawing on the national human rights plan, for more than 1,200 public officials.

38.Ms. Intriago Leiva (Chile) said that, after a review of the methods that had previously been used to identify the remains of 150 individuals and after further analyses, in 2006 it had been reported that the Forensic Medicine Service had mistakenly identified over half of those remains. To improve the reliability of the its identifications, the budget allocated to the Service had been increased, its equipment had been modernized and internationally accepted protocols had been implemented. Accepted techniques for the identification of poorly conserved and old skeletal remains had been introduced, including fingerprinting, and nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analysis.

39.The procedure for the identification of victims was very complex. Many families still awaited confirmation of identification, as the process was hindered by poor-quality skeletal remains, which had been exhumed from cemeteries and mass graves. DNA samples from immediate family were also hard to obtain, and in such cases, samples had to be taken from deceased, distant family members, after exhumation. The Human Rights Unit had a database of 3,957 blood samples and 113 bone samples from exhumed family members. To date, a total of 303 victims, discovered throughout the country, had been identified, of which 155 had been victims of enforced disappearance. Three victims had been found in Argentina, two of them children who had been abducted but who had been found alive.

40.The Forensic Medicine Service continued to analyse previously identified cases and to search for new remains. The courts and police also continued to carry out searches. To improve its strategies to search for and identify new victims, the Service had enabled individuals to provide information concerning sites where victims were buried and had improved coordination between the courts, the Public Prosecution Service, the police force and the Forensic Medicine Service, which was currently working with those agencies to identify a number of victims of execution.

41.Mr. Candia Falcón (Chile) said that the State had convened three temporary truth commissions, and that most such commissions set up in other Latin American countries had also been temporary in nature. Therefore, Chile did not consider itself to be under an obligation to set up a permanent classification body, and doing so was not an absolute priority for the Government. Victims of enforced disappearance who were not included on the truth commissions’ official lists and who had been formally declared as such by the courts were entitled to the same social benefits as those enjoyed by individuals who were included on those lists.

42.The purpose of the State Defence Council, which functioned independently of the State, was to defend the State interests, in particular the Treasury, in all trials and non-contentious cases. Therefore, in suits lodged against the State by families of victims of enforced disappearance, the Council had to defend the State, presenting arguments permitted under the law, one of which related to the statute of limitations. The Government could not order the Council to refrain from invoking the exception of the statute of limitations in such cases. However, since 2011, the courts had rejected the exception of the statute of limitations invoked by the Council in such trials.

43.Mr. Ravenna said that he would like to know whether the composition of the national preventive mechanism met the conditions for the independence of such bodies, or whether some of its powers were exercised by representatives of the State. He asked whether the national preventive mechanism inspected the registers of places of detention that were not prisons, such as psychiatric hospitals and children’s institutions. He wondered whether the individuals in the four existing cases who had become victims of enforced disappearance during the transition to democracy could obtain reparation. Chile was to be commended for its efforts to develop its own national genetic databank, but he wondered whether it could speed up the identification process by means of an agreement with Argentina, for example, which had already developed such a database.

44.He wished to point out that, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, it was the duty of the competent authorities of the receiving State to inform the consular post of the sending State if, within its consular district, a national of that State was arrested or committed to prison or to custody pending trial or was detained in any other manner. It was not up to the foreign detainees themselves to request that their consular office should be contacted. Requiring them to do so was inconsistent with the relevant provisions of that Convention.

45.Mr. Figallo Rivadeneyra said that, under article 2 of the bill on due obedience, only the Carabineros and officers of the armed forces could be tried under the Code of Military Justice. He would therefore like to hear the delegation’s views concerning the fact that no other bodies, such as the Prison Service, which could potentially be involved in a case of enforced disappearance, could cite due obedience as justification for their actions. He also wished to hear more about the fate of individuals who had been the victims of enforced disappearance after the end of the dictatorship. He asked how the Government ensured that victims of enforced disappearance were considered as such, in keeping with article 24 of the Convention.

46.Although the fact that two abducted children from Chile had been found alive in Argentina was a welcome development, it suggested that the State party’s legislation with regard to the identification of children and the falsification of documents could stand to be strengthened. He would be interested to hear about any plans to develop legislation aimed at protecting children.

47.He understood that the State party’s system of checks and balances, which performed the essential role of preventing an illegitimate accumulation of power, made for a complex dynamic that sometimes appeared to delay change. Although the State party had an obligation under the Convention to provide reparation and compensation to victims of enforced disappearance, there was no obligation to create a permanent classification body. The purpose of his earlier question had been to find out what mechanism the State party intended to use to provide reparation and compensation to victims of enforced disappearance in the post-dictatorship era, and whether that mechanism would be extrajudicial in nature.

48.Mr. Huhle said that he would like to know how the State party planned to ensure that a statute of limitations no longer applied to civil proceedings regarding crimes of enforced disappearance. He was aware that the judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights inÓrdenes Guerra et al. v. Chile, which represented a pro-victim stance, was not binding on courts, as there was no system of obligatory precedent in the State party. In the absence of a judicial mechanism for ensuring that Chilean courts and the State Defence Council did not continue to apply their former criteria, the State party should consider adopting a legislative solution to that problem.

49.Ms. Chevesich Ruiz (Chile) said that the standard position of the Supreme Court was that civil lawsuits involving crimes that amounted to enforced disappearance were not subject to a statute of limitations, as such acts constituted crimes against humanity under international law. Its standard position was to reject State claims that victims of torture should not be compensated if they had already benefited from reparation payments under Act No. 19.123. Recently, courts of first instance had begun following the same practice, and a court in Santiago had recently ordered the State to pay damages in a case involving 29 victims.

50.With respect to “active” extraditions, or extraditions requested by Chile, there were general requirements that had to be met in cases where no specific extradition treaty was applicable. The alleged offence must not be political in nature; it must not be subject to a statute of limitations; it must carry a penalty of more than one year’s imprisonment; and there must be sufficient evidence to charge the accused. In the case of “passive” extraditions, whereby Chile received a request for extradition from another State, the request was considered first by a member of the Supreme Court and then by a division of the Court. Extradition was denied if there was a risk that the individual could be subjected to enforced disappearance in the requesting State.

51.Ms. Ortiz Pulgar (Chile) said that the victims’ remains had not been found in any of the four cases of enforced disappearance that had occurred since 1990. A judge in Punta Arenas was currently presiding over the case of Ricardo Harex González. Despite the fact that it had occurred after 1990, the case of José Huenante concerned the military, and thus had posed problems in terms of determining which court was competent to examine it. The case of José Vergara Espinoza had led to a conviction. Lastly, the case of Hugo Arispe Carvajal was being tried by a judge in the appeal court of Arica. During criminal proceedings, either the prosecution or the victim could request measures to ensure that the civil case was settled at the same time as the criminal sentencing.

52.The State party considered that article 36 (1) (b) of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations conferred on detainees the right to have the consular services of their State informed of their arrest, but only if the detainees so desired. Oversight measures were in place to ensure that detainees were able to communicate with their consular service. The Carabineros were responsible for informing the prosecutor that the accused was a foreign national, and the due process judge was responsible for verifying that the detainee had been informed of his or her right to consular assistance. If consular assistance was desired, contact was made with the respective consular office.

53.Mr. Navarro Brain (Chile) said that, within the National Human Rights Institute there was a multidisciplinary committee for the prevention of torture, which was composed of an equal number of men and women and several indigenous persons or members of ethnic minorities. The three criteria for membership in the committee were possession of a university degree, a proven track record in human rights and five years of work experience in the fields of health care or human rights. The multidisciplinary committee was an important addition to the State’s human rights architecture, and its independence was guaranteed by law. Representatives of the National Human Rights Institute were authorized to visit all types of police, civil and military detention centres. Although it had encountered some obstacles in undertaking such visits, the Institute had thus far persevered in discharging that function.

54.Ms. Recabarren Silva (Chile)said that, at the request of their families, 174 individuals had been declared as “presumed dead”, which had led to a number of legal outcomes, including the dissolution of some marriages. If any of those individuals was later identified, the judicial ruling of presumed death would be declared null and void. The Undersecretary for Human Rights was engaged in efforts to honour the memory of disappeared persons. In the National Human Rights Plan, emphasis had been placed on developing and coordinating actions to shed light on the final whereabouts of disappeared detainees. Two officials were leading that task with funding from the regular budget of the Undersecretary. Their duties included drafting a report that would include a list of presumed victims of enforced disappearance, prepared on the basis of information from institutions, public bodies, memorial sites, family members and research centres. The report would lead to the development of a plan to locate new relatives of presumed victims, who had not yet provided blood samples to help identify individuals.

55.An official from the Forensic Medical Service was part of the working group for the protocol on action for public institutions that provided support to the judicial services in searching for skeletal remains of victims of enforced disappearances that had occurred under the military dictatorship. Analysis of documentation and other investigations into the final whereabouts of disappeared persons had led, in 2018, to charges of illegal burials and exhumations in cases brought before the court in connection with the campaign code-named “Operation Television Removal” in which the remains of political prisoners from secret graves were dumped into the ocean.

56.Mr. Ravenna said that the purpose of the present exercise had been not merely to revisit 1973 but also to take stock of the state of human rights observance in modern Chile. The Committee’s dialogue with the State party had been highly instructive, thanks to the delegation’s high level of preparation and detailed responses. The Committee’s concluding observations would provide recommendations aimed at ensuring that crimes of enforced disappearance were never repeated.

57.Mr. Figallo Rivadeneyra said that the Committee had been enriched by the constructive dialogue with the Chilean delegation, which would benefit not only Chile, but all States parties to the Convention. In honouring the memory of victims of enforced disappearance and heeding their clamour for redress, the Committee and the State party were firmly on the path towards guaranteeing the non-repetition of those offences.

58.Ms. Recabarren Silva (Chile) said that the Government’s first interactive dialogue with the Committee had helped it to fulfil its ethical obligation to probe into past events. As a sign of its willingness to guarantee non-repetition, the delegation had reported on the activities undertaken between 1990 and 2019 on the subjects of justice, memory and reparation. Although normative and institutional challenges remained, the Government would continue the work it had started in a spirit of solemn resolve and responsibility. The ultimate goal was to prevent circumstances from arising in future that might result in the violation of fundamental human rights.

59.The Chair said that the Committee appreciated and supported the delegation’s willingness to confront the crimes of the past and to take all necessary measures to guarantee that they were not repeated.

The meeting rose at 1.05 p.m.