SANTIAGO DE CHILE (AP) — Two months before Tamara Lagos was born, in October 1984, her father was killed by agents of the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.Al short ly, she and her mother went into exile in Argentina. When they returned, five years later, Tamara was unable to obtain a birth certificate stating her father’s surname because he had already passed away and could not recognize her as her daughter.
Nearly three decades after the fall of the 1973-1990 regime, Chile is advancing on the punishment of human rights violations, but persists in discriminating against those born after the death of their parents, opponents killed in repressive operations of the regime.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the Southern Cone of Latin America had several dictators and Chile is one of the countries still indebted to its past. Tamara and Luciano Aedo are two of the Chileans known as “posthumous children” of the dictatorship and both have faced justice to be legitimized as victims. The lack of legal recognition of the blood bond with their parents not only deprives them of obtaining correct identity documents, but also prevents them from accessing family inheritances and the rights that the law envisages to compensate for damages to those who suffered from oppression. Although their lives have been different, the stories of Tamara and Luciano have one thing in common: they both lost their parents in 1984 and know what it’s like to fight for legal legitimacy. Until 1998, when the legislation was amended in their favor, all they could aspire to was to be recognized as “illegitimate children” — that is, born out of wedlock — and thus lacked birth certificates that included their paternal surname. Tamara’s family was recognized as the illegitimate daughter of Mario Lagos Rodríguez in 1994 and thanks to this she managed to pursue a university career at no cost and obtained a monthly pension of 40,000 pesos (about $57) for the duration of her studies, benefits for the relatives of victims of the dictatorship. In Luciano’s case, his father — Luciano Aedo Arias — was killed in the same operation that wiped out Lagos. The death occurred five months before birth, so Luciano is also considered an “illegitimate child”. The fate of both took a different course because in April Tamara achieved something unprecedented in the history of his country: to be the first Chilean recognized as the legitimate daughter of an opponent killed in the dictatorship. Tamara’s most recent legal battle began in 2018 with the help of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), when he filed an appeal against the Civil Registry, which denied him a birth certificate with his father’s surname claiming that they could not the amended affiliation law in 98′ and that the rule was not retroactive.
In this image of April 30, 2019, Tamara Lagos, whose father Mario Lagos was executed in August 1984 by agents of dictator Augusto Pinochet, during an interview at his home in Santiago de Chile. Chile continues to place obstacles on the children of leftist dissidents killed during the brutal regime. In 1994, Lagos was formally recognized as an illegitimate daughter. That allowed him to earn a university degree for free and a monthly pension of about $57 while studying _ one of the benefits bestowed on the relatives of the victims of the dictatorship. But the designation still hints that he was born out of wedlock. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
The Registry rejected AP interview requests to comment on the issue. Rodrigo Bustos, legal officer of INDH, explained that they took Tamara’s case because “she was suffering a violation of our human rights judgement because she was not recognized as a daughter”. The protection was rejected by the Court of Appeal but the Supreme Court unanimously accepted it in April 2019 and ordered the Registry to correct the data and birth certificate of Tamara, who received the same month his first identity document in which Lagos appeared like his father. Chile’s Human Rights Programme declined to hand over the number of cases similar to Tamara and Luciano to AP. The records of the first of three Chilean truth commissions contain nine other similar cases. In Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, the formation of truth commissions was vital to quantify human rights violations, seek justice and define restorative policies. Although Bolivia created its own in 2017, it already identified 130 missing. Argentina and Chile stand out for advancing the search for truth and justice, even though in the Chilean case the courts made progress well into the 21st century. Argentines, on the other hand, prosecuted the military boards within two years of regaining democracy. To date, there is no record in other countries in the region that there are cases such as those of “posthumous children”. The wound remains open to thousands of Chileans and the issue of dictatorship is recurrent in politics and society. Many, for example, fail to forgive former President Michelle Bachelet, who is now High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, because during her second term (2014-2018) she failed to fulfill one of her campaign promises: to close the Punta Peuco prison , a prison for human rights rapists where they live comfortably. Despite this, Bachelet herself recognizes the challenges facing the region in this area. “There is still much more to be done until the goal of knowing the truth, achieving justice, achieving reparation for victims, and establishing guarantees of non-repetition is fully achieved. These goals are essential and irreplaceable,” he said in response to a written questionnaire from AP. In the face of the worst crimes against humanity in the region, Bachelet added that “giving up the truth about the whereabouts of missing persons is not an option.” In the case of Chile, as in other countries, the problem of impunity has had much to do with the law. One of the rules that for years prevented criminals from being punished from the dictatorship was an Amnesty Act that Pinochet imposed in 1978. Thanks to her, those who committed human rights violations between 1973 and 1978 were protected. And although it ceased to apply in 1990, a legal secret still applies in the country that prohibits access to the testimonies of 28,000 tortured people who revealed to a second real commission the names of their flagrant. The latter prevents the use of data until the year 2054, so it also contributes to the continued punishment of criminals. On the latter, the president of the Group of Missing Detainees, Lorena Pizarro, opined that the silence imposed on the testimonies of the tortured politicians “is part of impunity… they didn’t mind hiding the names of the genocides.” Although she did not meet him, Tamara is moved when she talks about her father.” Dad was killed almost 35 years ago, the same 35 years i’ve been in the world,” he told the AP. After the assassination in 1984 and his return from exile in Argentina in 1989, his grandmother had the idea to start the fight for his recognition. For Tamara, it was a gesture for her family to establish the bonds of fatherhood she lacked. And although her case was a part of it for other “posthumous sons” of the Chilean dictatorship because she finally obtained the birth certificate that recognizes her as her father’s legitimate daughter, the past is not forgotten.” The ruling does not reach a reparation, it does not reach justice, it does not reach joy.”
