This article is more than 19 years old

This article is more than 19 years old

New evidence of crimes committed during the rule of Augusto Pinochet, including the dumping of 120 bodies from helicopters into the Pacific, lakes and rivers, has hardened the mood in Chile and made it unlikely that the former dictatorcan secure the amnesty he has been seeking for human rights violations by the armed forces.

At the same time he has lost another attempt to get today’s interrogation by the investigating magistrate Judge Juan Guzman delayed. The appeal court rejected it by two to one.

If General Pinochet fails to attend and answer Judge Guzman’s questions he can be declared “in rebellion” - similar to contempt of court - and thus liable to arrest.

Gen Pinochet, 85, was last seen on Sunday afternoon, hobbling with a cane from his beach home to prayers in his private chapel.

Police officers and security guards blocked public access to nearby roads to shield the former commander-in-chief and president from television cameras and passersby.

For months Gen Pinochet and his allies have saved dozens of officers from trial by arguing for the revival of the amnesty law his regime introduced in 1978.

Those efforts were effectively buried by the new evidence of the atrocities committed under the regime between 1973 and 1990.

Gory details of the fate of 180 missing detainees from that time were given by President Ricardo Lagos in a nationally televised speech on Sunday night.

He said they were among the 600 people still unaccounted for out of the 3,000 thought to have been the victims of political violence under Pinochet.

He said that, thanks to a government-backed forum in which the military, the church and other sections of society were cooperating, he had information about how they had met their end.

Of the 180, he said, 120 civilians kidnapped by security forces in the 1970s were tossed from helicopters into “the ocean, the lakes and the rivers of Chile”.

Mr Lagos, a socialist who began his political career by challenging the Pinochet regime in the 1980s, said he had asked the supreme court to review and investigate the new information quickly.

The material was ceremoniously placed in a leather satchel and passed to Hernan Alvarez, who heads the supreme court.

Mr Lagos made no direct reference to Gen Pinochet in his speech, but the testimony and documents are a blow to the general attempt to revive and shelter behind his regime’s amnesty law.

More than 100 officers are under indictment for crimes committed during that period.

Further macabre details of summary executions, including the use of dynamite to dismember prisoners, are expected to be released within days.

The revelations will set off many further judicial investigations which are likely to involve teams of forensic anthropologists wielding their shovels under the country’s gaze.

In his speech, Mr Lagos sur prised commentators by referring to those who disappeared under the dictatorship as “our fellow countrymen” and “children of the nation”.

It was a remarkable break from the language of past civilian administrations, which buried the dead under the cloak of euphemism or classified them as the unfortunate victims of a fictitious civil war.

President Lagos left no doubt about his sentiments, referring to the events as “this tragic, dark episode of our national history”.

Without being specific, he revealed that a “mass grave” containing 20 bodies had been discovered in the capital, Santiago.

Further details, he said, would be released after the families of the dead were notified.

The president also chastised military and civilian officials who are still withholding information about the death of hundreds of people.

“I have not resigned my hopes that their conscience speaks and will help alleviate the pain of many [Chilean families],” he said.

But he praised “the recognition by the armed forces high command, who have accepted that Chile can’t look forward without clearing the debts of the past”.

The president of the Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared, Vivianna Diaz, said at the organisation’s office that Mr Lagos had told her privately that her father had been tossed into the sea in the mid-1970s, along with other prominent members of the banned Communist Party of Chile.

“After fighting for so long to find him, I know tonight that I will not ... To discover that he is in the depths of the ocean is terrible and distressing,” Ms Diaz said with tears rolling down her face.

She then told the group that “together with him were all his companions who were taken prisoner in May of 1976”.

The new evidence of what happened to 180 people came from six-months roundtable discussion in which human rights lawyers, religious leaders and military commanders discussed the systematic violations which began within hours of the 1973 coup that overthrew the elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende and installed Gen Pinochet.

For the first time in more than a quarter of a century opposing political forces have been confronting each other in a civilised and orderly way.

The army commander, Ricardo Izurieta, has played a crucial role in balancing the army’s present needs - fewer personnel, modern equipment, and a coordinated central command structure - with respect for the old guard, which is loathe to break away from nearly 30 years of lies about the armed forces’ role in mass murder.

Ultimately the military chose to divulge the truth, though critics maintain that President Lagos’s government had to toss in a£480m bone, the purchase last week of a batch of F-16 jets fighters.

www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/ pinochet Amnesty International - Pinochet campaign www.fundacionpinochet.cl Pinochet Foundation www.presidencia.cl Chilean Presidency