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INFO RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 1627
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RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 1262
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RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

UNCLAS SANTIAGO 000202 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KPAO PREL CI
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S VISIT TO FORMER TORTURE CENTER WELL RECEIVED 
 
 
¶1.  Summary:  An unpublicized visit by Ambassador Kelly to Villa 
Grimaldi -- a Pinochet-era torture center (now a memorial park) -- 
received favorable media attention and commentary.  The certified 
guide of the site (a Villa Grimaldi survivor) praised the Ambassador 
for taking the initiative, and later spread news of the visit via 
e-mail throughout the human rights community.  That e-mail generated 
the media coverage and an interview.  The Ambassador used the 
opportunity to express sympathy for the torture victims, with the 
hope that this memorial park would contribute to the spirit of 
"Never Again." and underscored that all human rights abuses, 
regardless of political origin, must be condemned.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  For more than two hours on January 30, the Ambassador visited 
the Villa Grimaldi Peace Park, a detention and torture center where 
approximately 240 Chileans disappeared or died under the Pinochet 
regime between 1973 and 1978.  Villa Grimaldi guide Pedro Alejandro 
Matta -- one of the site's approximately 5000 targeted victims -- 
described in detail the systematic and brutal treatment of 
detainees.  Matta also identified the location of Villa Grimaldi's 
torture chambers (electricity, water and hanging sites), recovery 
cells, separate male and female jails, and the isolation tower. 
(The Pinochet government had destroyed all but one of the structures 
in the late 1980s in an alleged attempt to cover up its dirty work.) 
 
 
President Bachelet Detained at Villa Grimaldi 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  Matta noted that President Bachelet and her mother had been 
detained in Villa Grimaldi before going into exile.  Wife of an 
anti-coup Air Force General, her mother had been the target when 
both were picked up by DINA intelligence agents.  Bachelet's mother 
suffered the brunt of the torture and was held incommunicado in the 
isolation tower.  Unlike the men, female detainees of Villa Grimaldi 
usually were jailed together and could talk with each other. 
Decades later, these bonds remain very strong, Matta highlighted. 
Matta also confirmed that President Bachelet's boyfriend had been a 
DINA collaborator, but he later disappeared from Villa Grimaldi 
without a trace, and is presumed dead. 
 
Pro-U.S. Guide and Investigator 
------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  In addition to his other activities, Matta is currently an 
Embassy consular warden and Trinity College's resident director of 
the Trinity-in-Santiago Program.  Matta lived in exile in the United 
States (his "second home") between 1976 and 1991.  After working in 
several unskilled jobs in New York and San Francisco, Matta became a 
private investigator, a job he said later helped him advance several 
human rights cases in the Chilean judiciary involving victims that 
were detained at Villa Grimaldi. 
 
¶5.  Through interviews, legal records and disappearance reports, 
Matta has been able to document the presence of thousands of torture 
and disappearance victims at Villa Grimaldi between 1973 and 1978. 
He helped identify approximately 160 of the estimated 250 DINA 
intelligence agents who worked at the site until mid-1978.  Matta 
noted that the detention and disappearance of a pregnant Spanish 
woman at Villa Grimaldi formed part of the case against General 
Pinochet in London. 
 
¶6.  Matta added that when he returned to Chile in 1991, he observed 
a high level of self-censorship among Chileans.  Whenever he would 
speak of torture during the Pinochet regime among friends, even his 
most leftist acquaintances showed discomfort.  Matta praised the 
Ambassador for taking the initiative to visit Villa Grimaldi, noting 
that to his knowledge this was the first time a sitting U.S. 
Ambassador had visited a former torture center in Latin America. 
Matta hoped such visits would help heal the wounds of the past.  He 
said that Chilean views about the past --particularly about torture 
-- are changing and Chileans are increasingly more open-minded about 
discussing sensitive topics. 
 
¶7.  A leader of the Socialist Youth in the 1970s, Matta spent 
approximately 10 days in Villa Grimaldi following his detention at 
another torture site.  He later recuperated for several weeks at 
another location before being released when the physical signs of 
torture had disappeared, which was the norm for survivors. 
 
Favorable Media Coverage 
------------------------ 
 
¶8.  On February 1, the "Santiago Times" reprinted a translation of 
the Ambassador's entry in the Villa Grimaldi guest book, which had 
been forwarded by Matta to the English language daily:  "In the name 
of my country, I would like to express our profound sympathy to all 
the victims of torture.  I hope that this place can contribute to 
the spirit of "Never Again" all over the world."  Post has added the 
Ambassador's visit to the Embassy website. 
 
¶9.  "El Mostrador" online news service interviewed Ambassador Kelly 
on February 1 about his interest in seeing the Villa Grimaldi Peace 
Park.  "Kelly's visit to the memorial of the victims of abuses 
committed by the Pinochet dictatorship is unprecedented....  Kelly 
said he was deeply moved....  He expressed... sympathy toward the 
victims, and hoped that the memorial would help prevent such abuses 
from happening again." 
 
¶10.  The Ambassador told the news service:  "It is very important to 
have a memorial, because as has been said in Chile, 'there is no 
tomorrow without a yesterday.'  I deeply admire the ability of 
Chilean society to look to the future with tolerance, but without 
forgetting what happened in past years.  That is an indication of a 
very strong democracy," said Kelly.   The Ambassador emphasized the 
need to "condemn all human rights violations, regardless of the 
political ideology from which they stem.  I believe we should all 
oppose any type of injustice ... showing consistency in that 
practice." 
 
¶11.  "El Mostrador" also interviewed Margarita Romero, the Vice 
President of the Villa Grimaldi Corporation (which operates the 
park).  She valued Ambassador Kelly's visit, but said she would hope 
to see more consistency on the part of the U.S. government in 
upholding human rights.  "I value his visit as that of any 
individual who is influential.  This place is for important people, 
such as the U.S. representative in Chile, to show (them) the 
atrocities committed in our county." 
 
KELLY