MARIA PILAR shares a personal account of her devastating ordeal in Pinochet’s Chile.

In 1973, a bloody coup led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Chilean government. It was during this time that I saw my neighbour being taken away after having his house violently ransacked. It was also the year that, for the first time, I was arrested for requesting the return to democracy.

I was 21 when I was kidnapped by the secret police. Also in detention, were my best friend and her eight-month-old baby, her partner, and a mother pleading for her children. Our crime was requesting an end to violations of human rights.

We were blindfolded, our hands and legs tied together, and thrown in the back of a truck for a very long ride. At our destination I was thrown into an isolation cell. I heard screams day and night of people being tortured; a young boy pleading and crying for days and days; the mother still pleading for her children.

I was taken with dogs to see my friend being tortured. Then it was my turn. Stripped naked, gagged, blindfolded, and with hands and legs tied to a metal bed, electroshocks were applied to my genitals and breasts. I was insulted, beaten, humiliated and laughed at. Then more electroshocks. I passed out in a pool of urine, excrement and terror.

I was kept there for a month. Stripped of any dignity or rights, it felt very unreal, like it was hell. So far away from any humanity, it was nothing I could have imagined before. I thought every day of how I could kill myself. They wanted more names. There was no way I was going to bring anybody else to this horror. Dying was the only way I could make sure of that.

After that month, I was taken away again. I thought this time I would be shot, but instead they put me in a very overcrowded prison with one toilet for 100 women. There I waited to be taken to more interrogations and my trial. I was considered an enemy of the state, a subversive criminal. I felt safer there than where I had been before, even though I was with what were considered common criminals. There I could talk with other women. I was given warmth and care. I felt human again.

Later I found out that the place where I was tortured was one of the regime’s concentration camps. I was considered disappeared or missing. My family had been denied any information about me. Then telegrams from all over the world began to arrive requesting the whereabouts of the missing and disappeared. This saved my life, the act of caring and concern from people that didn’t know me.

The months in prison passed by very slowly, spent in fear, in complete despair, powerless and hopeless. One day I received a letter from an Amnesty International group telling me that I wasn’t alone, that they had taken my case, that they were campaigning for my release. This meant so much to me. It gave me so much hope.

When my trial came up, it was a complete mockery. I was tried as a war criminal, five generals against me. It was quite funny actually. There they were, high up with their chests full of medals for killing acts and 10 pages of accusations against me. I was the criminal?

I was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Later I confronted the military prosecutor. I asked him how could he, a man of law, submit himself to that. He lowered his eyes and didn’t answer.

After a year, there was so much international pressure to liberate the political prisoners, that an amnesty was decreed. Again we see the power of the solidarity of ordinary people when they get together. I was released but it was short lived. The continual harassment by the secret police and the police forced me to go into hiding and leave the country. I was given a United Nation passport and refugee status. The World Council of Churches paid for my ticket thanks again to contributions from all over the world. At 22 years of age I boarded a plane for the first time and crossed half of the world. It was scary but nothing in comparison to what I left behind.

After 22 years, I still live with the effects of my traumatic experience. I still have terrible nightmares, hear the screams, I am afraid in the streets and at home. I live with fear: who is coming to my door, who is walking near me, that car that stopped, that surprising noise. Extreme anxiety, stress, indecision, guilt, shame, body pain, emotional pain, memories are with me everyday. When I see a dog I need to cross the street. If I meet somebody in a position of authority I am in so much panic that I shiver and sweat profusely. I don’t trust anybody or anything. Sometimes, I don’t get out of the house for weeks. The denial of justice, the impunity and silence about unspeakable crimes, makes healing almost impossible.

We all know that torture is a standard practice everywhere. Together we gather strength to fight it. Together we share hope all over the world for a just, safe and respectful future. Action is the only antidote to this inhumanity. This is the world that we have created. It is our responsibility to change it before it is too late.