Iraq Images Jolt Chile to Count Torture Victims [View All]

Pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners jogged memories of Chilean victims of ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet at a time when thousands were telling their own accounts of torture to a new government commission for the first time.

"What they did to those prisoners is exactly the same as what they did to us. The hood over the head, electric shocks, rape of men and women, sleep deprivation, total humiliation at every level," said Carmen Gloria Diaz, a former political prisoner, referring to photographs that shocked the world of U.S. soldiers laughing as they mistreated captives in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Estimates of the number of people tortured in Pinochet's anti-communist purges between 1973 and 1990 range from 50,000 to 400,000. Stories abound of survivors bumping into their tormentors in the grocery store or in elevators and there are dozens of lawsuits against torturers but otherwise little public fuss is made over the issue.
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Now, human rights groups hope Chileans may be jolted out of their complacency by the international outcry over the U.S. abuses but also by the government's first official tally of Chilean torture victims and plans to compensate them.
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