Eduardo Contreras Mella He kicked the bucket at the afternoon of Might 26 in his gorgeous house in Ñuñoa, the place we shared such a lot of unforgettable moments. Born in Chillán on February 7, 1940, a 12 months after the earthquake that had devastated the realm, since that turbulent April of 1957 he studied Legislation on the College of Chile, in 1962 he joined the Communist Birthday party and the next 12 months he gained his stage in legislation. attorney.
For his autobiography (Inhabitant of 2 centuries. Memoirs of a cheerful guyCeibo Ediciones, 2022), which I had the dignity of prefacing, we all know that during his first steps within the judicial global it used to be his duty to take part within the workforce in control of the case of the so-called Nahueltoro Jackalthe younger illiterate peasant Jorge del Carmen Valenzuela Torres, who confirmed him a crude portrait of the social truth of his nation and its dominant categories.
He for my part knew Salvador Allende in early 1964, when he gave a speech on the Spanish Heart in Chillán in reinforce of his 3rd presidential candidacy. Councilor since 1967, after the municipal elections of April 1971 he used to be elected mayor of his place of birth and all through his temporary mandate the nice painter Julio Escámez created an excellent mural within the meeting corridor of the Municipality, which the army coup leaders they’d smash. In March 1973 he used to be elected deputy for Chillán, Bulnes and Yungay and arrived at that Nationwide Congress transformed right into a trench for the opposition to the In style Team spirit Govt. He by no means forgot that consultation of the Area of August 22 that, on the proposal of the Christian Democrats, licensed the seditious declaration that the Nationwide Birthday party had demanded since December 1972.
Two weeks later, on September 8, Eduardo Contreras revealed in The century an editorial (titled Examples that inspire) through which he recommended, as President Allende and the PC additionally did in the ones dramatic days, to “make the utmost efforts to reach joint motion via all democratic sectors.”
After the coup d’état, took safe haven in numerous pleasant homes in Santiago till the communist chief Eliana Ahumada advised her that she needed to search asylum. He completed the safety of the Embassy of Panama, which, with a view to enlarge its capability to welcome the persecuted, extensively utilized the home of the Brazilian sociologist Theotonio Dos Santos, at 1,367 José Domingo Cañas Boulevard in Ñuñoa… Just one 12 months later, The DINA would flip that place of abode into the coincidence Ollagüe Barracks, one in all its secret facilities of torture and dying. Nowadays it’s an excellent position of reminiscence.
Panama and, above all, Cuba and Mexico have been the puts of a fifteen-year exile through which he tirelessly participated within the world denunciation of the crimes of the army and civil dictatorship headed via Normal Augusto Pinochet. In Mexico, as well as, he cast an in depth friendship with the author Poli Délano and his circle of relatives and cultivated the artwork of journalistic columnism, which he would show masterfully for the reason that 90s within the weekly The centuryof which he used to be deputy director, along with his Political compasswho by no means misplaced his approach…
And Insurgentes Road in Mexico Town used to be the scene of probably the most many anecdotes that stuffed his reminiscence, regarding an afternoon when, when he used to be strolling with Volodia Teitelboim, they noticed an indication that warned: “Materialists are prohibited from parking in absolute”. Leaders of a birthday celebration impressed via the ancient materialism of Karl Marx, needed to ask a passerby, who defined that of their nation they name materialists to the huge vans that shipping building fabrics and that they might now not prevent on that highway.
On January 12, 1998, two months after Pinochet left the management of the Military after 1 / 4 of a century and, via distinctive feature of his Charter and the restrictions of the Transition, turned into a senator for lifestyles, the overall secretary of the Communist Birthday party, Gladys Marín, offered the primary felony grievance in opposition to the previous dictator in Chile, ready via a workforce of legal professionals of which Eduardo Contreras used to be section. With the wonder arrest of Pinochet in LondonOn October 16 of that 12 months and the “reinterpretation” of the Amnesty decree-law via the courts, that grievance (steered via Pass judgement on Juan Guzmán Tapia), along with the lengthy fight of the human rights motion, modified the historical past of the rustic. .
Pinochet died in 2006, accused in several felony instances for human rights violations. And, in keeping with a record from the Ethics Fee in opposition to Torture (Justice within the steadiness. Processes, trials and sentences for human rights violations that befell in Chile between 1973 and 1990), as of December 2022, 1,313 trials had concluded with a sentence, affecting 2,191 of the 41,467 sufferers identified via the Chilean State from the Rettig Record (1991) to the Valech II Record (2011) and which had led to sentences of imprisonment. jail of one,154 former brokers of the repressive equipment of the dictatorship. Now not together with the 16 officials sentenced to lifestyles imprisonment, the years of sentence imposed via the courts of justice totaled 28,039.
Member of the Central Committee of the PC, in 2014 the president Michelle Bacheletappointed him ambassador to Uruguay. And within the final years of his lifestyles he additionally knew easy methods to transmit his dedication to the struggle in opposition to impunity to a big workforce of younger legal professionals who reinforce the Workforce of Relations of Politically Finished Individuals.
I met Eduardo Contreras in 1998 in Barcelona and through the years his reinforce has been very important for my paintings. On numerous events I’ve had to reply to the query, apparently inevitable, in regards to the beginning of my hobby in Chile and its historical past, which has been mirrored in seventeen books. “For Salvador Allende…”, I’ve at all times spoke back succinctly. Alternatively, this solution has been incomplete for a very long time, since nowadays’s causes also are to proceed sharing lifestyles and dedication with such a lot of buddies and co-workers who’re a part of my chilean circle of relatives. It’s going to be painful to go back to a Chile with out Eduardo. We can at all times take note him as a result of he left an indelible mark.
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