As a leader of the Socialist Youth in Valparaiso, Chile, Guillermo “Willie” Lopez was considered a threat to the newly instated Pinochet government and was taken and tortured on the first day of the 1973 military coup.
He survived three years of torture and imprisonment in the concentration camps and prisons in Chile during the Pinochet government, where he was brutally beaten during interrogations, subjected to waterboarding and shocked with electrodes.
Lopez will give a presentation about survival of the regime at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 4, at Western Washington U. He will speak about the events that led to the dictatorship and his struggles against it.
He will also discuss his 13-year exile from Chile that prompted him to share his experiences with others to gain support in demanding justice from the government.
According to the Hinchey Report, which discloses the United States’ CIA activities in Chile throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the CIA was aware of a military coup plot in Chile and did not try to stop it.
Lopez was 22 years old on Sept. 11, 1973, when Augusto Pinochet staged that coup against democratically elected President Salvador Allende. Lopez was imprisoned in concentration camps, interrogation headquarters and prisons for three years. He was then forced into exile for the next 13 years.
Lopez said that on the first day of the coup, the police took him to their headquarters in Valparaiso, Chile. After days of torture, violence and constant questioning, Lopez was sent to the public prison and then to the Isla Riesco concentration camp.
Lopez said interrogators attached electrodes to his mouth and genitals, sending electrical currents through his body.
According to the Valech Report, which describes cases of torture and civil rights abuses under the Pinochet government, thousands of others were also tortured like Lopez. He said many people had bones broken and cigarettes burned into their skin.
Lopez said that Chilean marines ran Isla Riesco as a clandestine underground operation with horrific conditions, malicious beatings and a system of forced manual labor. The only bathrooms were latrines, and to bathe, there was one tank of water for all 400 prisoners. Lopez said disobedience of any kind resulted in a savage beating.
“In there, you always lived in uncertainty and fear of what would happen,” Lopez said.
Lopez was later sent to the Chacabuco concentration camp, which he said held about 1,500 prisoners. After another four months, Pinochet began transferring some of the detainees, including Lopez, to public prisons. For the next two years,
Lopez was incarcerated in the Valparaiso prison until he was expelled from the country in 1976.
“Lopez was an advocate for social justice before he was imprisoned and tortured,” said Marie Marchand, executive director of the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center. “He is still an advocate. He teaches us that the flame of the human spirit cannot be extinguished when it is on the side of justice. There is a wrong side of history and a right side of history. In order to be counted on the right side, we must act on behalf of justice.”
Upon his release, Lopez’s left kidney was failing, and at a mere 90 pounds, he was extremely frail. He was also psychologically tormented by his experiences.
“But I always had faith and hope that I would get out,” Lopez said.
In 2003, then-President of Chile Ricardo Lagos commissioned the Valech Report to document the cases of torture and civil rights abuses under the Pinochet government. More than 27,000 victims testified for the report. However, these testimonies were classified as confidential by the Chilean government and will be sealed for 50 years.
Lopez said there is still a lot of secrecy within the government about the abuses during Pinochet’s dictatorship, and that this creates a lot of controversy.
Lopez said sealing the testimonies hinders torture victims from attaining justice because it makes the evidence harder to access.
Lopez said he feels he has not gotten justice for the crimes committed against him and would like further acknowledgment for his torture and imprisonment, as well as having the testimonies made available to the public. Lopez currently has a pending lawsuit against the Chilean government, and is a co-director of both Anexpp and Unexpp, two
Chilean organizations that aid former political prisoners and prisoners of war.
“There’s a lot we’re not told,” said Kirsten Drickey, visiting assistant professor of Spanish at Western.
The United States accepted Lopez as an exile in 1976. However, this forced him to leave his parents and sisters behind in Chile. Lopez said he had conflicting emotions about going to the United States. He said he was grateful he had an escape from the Pinochet government, but at the same time, was angry that the United States knew of the coup but did nothing to stop it.
“But the people of the United States have big hearts,” Lopez said.
Lopez was forbidden to return to Chile, where his family still lived, for the next 13 years. Lopez said he was heartbroken from not being able to see his mother.
“I wanted to get out alive for my mom, because I didn’t want her to suffer,” Lopez said. “For her, I survived.”
Lopez said he hopes that by spreading awareness to the public about Chile’s violent history, he can help the human rights abuses during the Pinochet government be recognized on a grand scale.
“Solidarity, justice, peace,” Lopez said. “Those are beautiful qualities.”
Sheila Dashtestani is a junior and a Human Services major at Western. She is an intern at the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center.