Word: chiles
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Worst Fears. Of the dozens of nations accused of practicing torture today, it is difficult to single out the worst violators. The examples most frequently cited by experts are Chile and Iran...
Perhaps the most terrifying feature of torture in Chile and Iran is its institutionalization, the fact that it has become the almost private domain of huge, semiautonomous police agencies. Once embroiled in the torture monolith, the individual has no appeal, no recourse to the kind of legal authority provided by functioning courts. But whether to an equal or lesser degree, torture is very much a part of life in many other countries as well. Some recent instances...
...only because they fear that a bad human rights record could interfere with economic and military aid programs or foreign investments. Secretary Kissinger sensibly argues that U.S. foreign policy cannot be based on personal moral beliefs. Nonetheless, it does seem possible that regimes such as those of South Korea, Chile and Uruguay, which are heavily dependent on American support, could be nudged into loosening some of their grip by threats from Washington to withhold...
...most obviously by a mocking language of euphemisms and code words. Some former prisoners report, for example, that at the notorious Sao Paulo torture center of the Brazilian political police, a torture session has been called a "spiritual seance," as if it involved a cleansing of impurities. Victims in Chile say that DINA interrogators refer to Santiago's infamous Villa Grimaldi as the Palacio de la Risa?the Palace of Laughter. In Iran, Otagh-e Tamshiyat, or "the room in which you make people walk," is a name for the blood-stained chamber where prisoners are forced to walk after...
...know their real identities. Often the nicknames derive from a physical feature, such as "the Tall One," or "the Mustachioed One." In South America, such aliases as El Aleman (the German), Cara de Culebra (Snake Face) and El Carnicero (the Butcher) are common. One particularly brutal torturer at Chile's Tejas Verdes camp near San Antonio used to tell prisoners his name was Pata en la Raja, meaning Kick...