Memories and silences of a segregated city: Monuments and political violence in Santiago,Chile,1970–1991

Memorials in disputed territories

It is often pointed out that the politics of marking and assigning meaning to places has mobilized an important part of the spatial-temporal production of these homages for the region (Jelin and Langland, 2003). However, in Santiago almost half of these locations do not directly reference the sites where violent events occurred. A singular aspect of this expression is the memorialization of victims belonging to a sector of the city, be it a población (settlement), an ex-campamento (shantytown) or a comuna (commune) ⁵ (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Collective memorials to victims of localities in Santiago de Chile (n = 12).

Inaugurated at different moments between 2002 and 2011, after heterogeneous and years-long processes, these collective memorials were local initiatives by human rights groups of victims and relatives, mostly located in the settlements’ central plazas. ⁶ All of them include a list that names the victims of the area and, except for two, were carried out by sculptors or architects. In some cases, there was a public contest to choose the design. In at least half of the recorded cases, a significant part of funding has come from the respective municipality ⁷ and in four cases it has come from the Central Government, through the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior. The Program is the governmental agency in charge of providing legal support for victims of the dictatorship. From 2003 onwards, it has destined funds to support the realization of these kinds of symbolic reparations. Moreover, even when there has not been financial assistance, the memorials’ promoters have almost always consulted with the Program to confirm the lists of victims. Producing these lists has been a big challenge. In all but two cases, the lists of victims include only officially recognized victims, although the human rights organizations recognize that there might be more victims. On other hand, in several cases the pro-memorial committees discussed heavily around the option to only include victims who were militants of left-wing political parties, or at least to make a distinction between this group and ordinary people who were killed during massive repression raids or by mistake. Further, few families had not agreed to include their relatives in the memorial. In all memorials, the final decision was to include all victims without political distinctions, with the families permission. Including only people recognized by the state as victims (as it was in most cases), and opting for making no differentiation among them, allows the memorials conform to the mainstream narrative of human rights in the country. In this sense, it reflects a politics of memory aiming to legitimize the memorial within the whole society and not only among the sector directly affected and their supporters. Probably, this might also explain that, rather unexpectedly for the promoters, municipalities governed by the Independent Democratic Party, or UDI (a right-wing party that was born during the dictatorship), have on two occasions given support and the funding to such memorials, although with certain level of tensions at the beginning. ⁸

It is important to note, that these monuments are not the unique memory expressions in the settlements and it is possible to find other spatial manifestations in their territories, in the form of murals and street names, for example. ⁹ This spatial heterogeneity expresses itself on the most important commemorative date related to the dictatorship in the country, the anniversary of the coup on September 11. On that day it is possible to find several commemoratives activities in the same settlement, besides the ritual carried out at those memorials.

How is this particular type of memorializing understood? Which social and political processes inform it?

Settlers’ movements and social mobilization: struggle for the city and political violence

One key feature is the location of the settlements and communes where memorialization of this kind has since taken place: the periphery of Santiago during the years before the dictatorship (Figure 1). These settlements were for the most part the result of processes of conflictive urbanization, including land seizures and programs of eradication and relocation that were happening since the middle of the twentieth century (Castells, 1972; Garcés, 2002; Cortés, 2014; De Ramón, 2002; Espinoza, 1998). This growth of the city was led by a social movement, the so-called Movimiento de Pobladores (Settlers’ Movement) made up of families with immediate needs for housing, as well as of militants from left-wing and center parties (Castells, 1972; Cortés, 2014; De Ramón, 2002; Espinoza, 1998). Henceforth, these sectors possessed high levels of leftist political and social organization. Their location on the periphery was explained more by the availability of low-value land in those locations than by the marginal nature of their social base (Castells, 1972).

Pockets of support for the Popular Unity alliance, these places subsequently suffered from both a selective repression of their leaders, as well as from many raids, including military occupation of the place for one or more days, in which people were removed from their houses that were also searched in a very violent manner. Many people were beaten and/or arrested in these proceedings, or even assassinated and disappeared (Colectivo de Memoria Histórica Coporación José Domingo Cañas [José Domingo Cañas Historical Memorial Collective Corporation], 2005; Loveman and Lira, 2002). Except for the emblematic case of the La Legua Settlement, there was no organized resistance in the encampments (Garcés and Leiva, 2005). As is established in the memorials, more than 300 people were assassinated in these locations.

Some family members of victims rallied around the drama of the disappearance and execution of their relatives right from the outset of State Terror, and they also participated in the formation, at national level, of relatives’ groups (Orellana and Hutchison, 1991). ¹⁰ While these early efforts to seek justice and truth activated narrative devices about lived violence, the elaboration of a local memory of political violence was strengthened particularly during the rise of mass movements against the dictatorship, starting from the year 1983. While this movement, which began with unions and settlements, and to which political parties later aligned themselves, arises in a context of economic crisis (1981–1983), the Schneider (1991) Study shows that it was anchored in the settlements where the Settlers’ Movement had been particularly strong in the years leading up to the dictatorship. In particular, it took root wherever local leftist militants had remained, capable of maintaining support in the settlement and to continue sustaining a political culture among the populace. Along with that, the local churches stood out for their support and development work in the resistance (Cortés, 2014).

A hundred people died as a result of the military and police repression during the days of Protests in Santiago (Corporación de Reparación y Reconciliación, Gobierno de Chile, 1996). In some settlements, these deaths—above all, those of young people—became the symbol of subjugation: the Vergara Toledo brothers in Villa Francia, Pedro Mariqueo in Lo Hermida (Peñalolén), and Len Ríos in La Legua, as well as the death of the worker-priest André Jarlan in Victoria (Cortés, 2011; Raposo, 2012; Rafael and Carmen 2014, personal correspondence; Vladimir Salamanca, 2014 personal correspondence). Thus, along with the social mobilization, public commemorations began to spread in the settlements and working class neighborhoods of the capital, by means of graffiti and shrines set up within these areas, in streets, alleys, and local plazas, as well as commemorative activities on the anniversaries of deaths and each September 11. On the first anniversary of the military coup in democracy (1990), a group of families of victims in La Legua installed a commemorative stone inscribed with a verse in the neighborhood’s main square, the name of which they managed to change to Salvador Allende. Likewise, only a few years later, in Conchalí, the local cell of the Communist Party installed in the central square of the commune, and not without conflict with the authorities, a plaque in homage to comrades who had fallen during the dictatorship.

Long-term memories of political violence and the struggle for the city

Memorials in the form of monument to the martyrs in the settlements and shantytowns would not flourish until roughly a decade after the dictatorship had passed. The period of the first post-dictatorial governments was marked by big difficulties for human rights organizations to push forward their agenda on truth, justice and memory (Collins, 2011; Stern, 2010). Pinochet’s arrest in London in October of 1998, due to a court case brought in Spain, marked the begging of a new period, more favorable for public memorializations (Collins, 2011; Stern 2010; see also Alejandra Serpente’s article in this collection). It sparked an irruption of memory, which coincided with the commemoration of the Military Coup’s 25th anniversary (Collins, 2011; Collins et al., 2013; Wilde, 1999), a constellation that would become a veritable memory boom only 5 years later on the occasion of the 30th anniversary, reproducing several of the characteristics indicated by Huyssen in a paradigmatic essay (Huyssen, 2003). This also supplied the context for rearticulating memories of political violence at what had been the periphery of republican Santiago, through installations of memorials to local victims. These memorializations have been carried out by committees comprising relatives of victims, human rights organizations and various left-wing political parties. This link between, on one hand, leftist political parties that had maintained a strong presence in these settlements since the mid-century and local human rights organizations, allowed memorial undertakings to be carried forward in these locations from 1998 onwards. Although the social process of memorials erection have been different in all cases, most initiatives have been led by people belonging to the settlement culture, which had embraced the defense of human rights during the dictatorship or during the following years. Effectively, many leaders of these memory and human rights committees have participated since the beginning of the dictatorship in local and national human rights organizations, at the same time as they continued to be political militants. In La Legua, the local leader, Vladimir Salamanca, belongs to the Salamanca Morales family, members of the Communist Party, being an ex-political prisoner himself, brother of two disappeared and son of one of the founders of the Association of Families of Disappeared Prisoners. In Lo Prado, the leader, Víctor Hugo Fuentes, is the father of a young man murdered during a Day of Protest, affiliated to Communist Party. In Conchalí, the memorial was started on the initiative of the local cell of the Communist Party, led by Ana María Herrera. In La Victoria Settlement, the memorial was put into place by a local group of the Communist Party. In Huechuraba, it was initiated by a group of relatives of victims, lead by Juan Soto López, and member of the Socialist Party. In Peñalolén the main memorial was forged by the Organización Cultural por la Memoria Histórica de Peñalolén (Cultural Organization for the Historic Memory in Peñalolén) led by Rebeca Martínez, the mother of Pedro Mariqueo. Members of this same group also installed a memorial in a different area of the community, in the Lo Hermida Settlement within the commune. In Maipú the monument was erected by the initiative of the local organization of human rights, led by the socialist Patricio Chandía. ¹¹ While many activists belong to political parties—mainly to the Communist and Socialist party—interviews also indicate that initiatives to install a memorial are not party decisions but rather local undertakings motivated by the search for a permanent and lasting public recognition for those who suffered repression under the dictatorship. While the political affiliation is the same in many cases, the interviewees state that there was no main collaboration among them to install memorials, and in all of the cases the initiatives had been of a local character. The construction of these memorials has been a great challenge for their promoters, in the search for funding but also because of the research work that the list of victims entailed; a task of local memory in itself. The leftist political culture still active in many settlements, a remainder from the Settlers’ Movement of mid-century, has been a determining factor in this work of local memory.

Geography of silence: public memory in the city’s high-income corridor

When we broaden our view to take in the city as a whole, considering the socio-economic levels of the residential sectors where memorial landmarks are located, we obtain a dual view of the city (Figure 2). On one hand, memorials dedicated to the victims of dictatorship are usually located in the middle- and lower-middle class areas. On the other hand, in the city’s so-called high-income corridor, the residential area where the richest part of the population lives, rather than public homage to these victims, ¹² we find memorials to those assassinated by armed leftist groups during the Popular Unity government, under the dictatorship, and during the transition.

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Figure 2.

Memorials, sites, plaques, and shrines to victims of political violence during 1970–1991 in Santiago de Chile (n = 64).

Which dynamics of memorialization have been at work here? In 1971, the Popular Unity government launched the construction of a commemorative monument to General Schneider (El Mercurio, 1971). As the rules of the contest expressed, the memorial would symbolize the respect for and solidity of Chile’s democratic system. ¹³ At first, different locations were being considered for its emplacement, although always near the Military School (El Mercurio, 1971). The monument was ultimately located in what was going to be the exit of a metro station (Parrochia, 1979: 118), connected to the urban redevelopment project that the Corporation of Urban Improvement of the Popular Unity (CORMU, from its initials in Spanish) had conceived for the San Luis estate (Lawner, 1979). As the then-director of CORMU describes it, the project included the construction of around 1000 social housing units in the central-south part of the estate, which had already been assigned to settlers from the community of Las Condes (Lawner, 1979). The memorial was only completed and inaugurated during the dictatorship (Navarrete, 2010), a delay probably due to its message contrary to military intervention in domestic politics. However, the monument remains in place until today, although the development project for the area has changed completely: the dictatorship eventually changed the course of the metro and a significant portion of the land on which the residences would be located was given over to real estate speculation (Brugnoli, 2010). Subsequently, the city’s first shopping mall was erected there. Nowadays a corporate building complex stands at the site as if it were a reminder of the neoliberal model imposed by the dictatorship, destroying the Popular Unity’s dream of a socialist society. Ortuzar’s modernist and highly abstract sculpture remains as a silent sediment from other times.

In this sector of the city there are three monuments to victims of political violence that belong to right-wing memorialization projects. First, two commemorative busts dedicated to former city mayor and army officer Carol Urzúa, assassinated on 30 August 1983, by the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). ¹⁴ One of them was placed in November of that same year in a rotunda in the commune of Las Condes, which was renamed as Urzúa’s rotunda. ¹⁵ The second was installed on the first anniversary of Urzúa’s death, at the square located across from the La Reina Military Academy. Both memorials were initiatives that had the support of their respective municipalities, as is recorded on the plaques. As in the case of the memorial to General Schneider, it was a priority to place the busts in areas of high-traffic, and not where the attack had taken place. These busts are commemorative places of the Armed Forces and the Chilean right, as evidenced by the ceremonies carried out in both sites on the anniversary of Urzúa’s death, including the participation of important political figures (El Mercurio en Internet, 2003). Second, a memorial center to Jaime Guzmán is emplaced in this sector of the city. Moreover, a statue in homage to Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, a former Prime Minister of Eduardo Frei’s government (1964–1970), who died at the hands of an extreme-leftist group in 1971, had been emplaced recently in a nearby place.

What might this map of segregated urban memorials mean? Here, we need to consider that in this same area of the city, there were places that functioned as DINA (National Intelligence Direction, for its initials in Spanish) ¹⁶ detention centers such as the former Simón Bolívar barracks, in the commune of La Reina, now demolished. One possible answer would be that the rich part of the city manifests the imagination of the elite that has governed the country in these past decades, independent of the political party in charge. In this sense, a key to understanding the absence of memorialization of victims of the dictatorship in the districts where the higher income population of the country resides, might rest in the difficulties that the political and economic elite has had to come to terms with the human rights violations committed during the dictatorship. Indeed, as the works by Brian Loveman and Elizabeth Lira (2002), and Steve Stern (2010), have shown, the memory question about how to deal with those human rights violations would become an open question during the first period of the democratically elected governments (1990-1997), even though the initial commitment of the political coalition in power was to bring the crimes to justice. Various factors were at play: the support of more than 40% of the population (stated at the referendum of 1988), and a majority support among military and the business class, to the military rule, the failure of the judiciary to process the criminals, and the institutional structure that gave right wing parties disproportionally higher levels of political representation in the parliament (Garretón, 2000; Loveman and Lira, 2002; Stern 2010). The situation started to change in 1998, with the resignation of the former dictator as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces at the beginning of the year, changes within the judiciary and, most importantly, the arrest of Pinochet in London (Loveman and Lira, 2002; Stern 2010). However, this was not a radical shift, as important aspects of the institutional structure inherited from the dictatorship were still in place. The memory question of the following period was characterized by the idea of unfinished work, with no clear winners and losers (Loveman and Lira, 2002; Stern, 2010). Possibly, a less studied dimension of these difficulties has been the failure by the elite to push forward public recognitions to the victims of the dictatorship in those residential areas where participants or accomplices of crimes against humanity continue to live, together with holding a tolerant attitude towards the commemorative inscriptions authored by the members of the regime. The absence of memorialization seems to show, that the so called “culture of elite prudence” (Stern, 2010: 155) resting on the idea that the political stability of the transition depends on avoiding jeopardizing the interests of the supporters of the military regime, is still strongly in place among an important part of the elite.

However, this should not be understood as a final picture. The conflictive process of coming to terms with the legacy of the dictatorship has shown to be movable and of no fixed nature along the years. Two recent top-down memorializations promoted by the local government of districts belonging to the high-income corridor might be a sign of a change; first, the initiative of the Municipality of Providencia, in 2013, to restate the original name to the main avenue 11 of September. Secondly, the recent launch for a public contest to install a memorial to the victims of the Simon Bolivar DINA’s barrack, by the Municipality of La Reina in September 2014.

Final reflections

The analysis of the collective memorials dedicated to the victims of particular areas in Santiago, and those that are placed in the city’s high-income corridor, shows that the public production of memories of political violence is strongly tied to the social and political trajectories of the production of urban space. On one hand, an important part of this memorialization stems from the long political and social tradition of struggle among sectors fighting for a place in the city that were harshly repressed during the dictatorship. On the other hand, in those places where the country’s elite resides, memorials to the victims of State Terrorism have not been erected, whereas memorials linked to right-wing memories are in place. In particular, the very high levels of residential segregation in the capital (Márquez and Pérez, 2008; Rodríguez, 2008; Sabatini, 2000; Sabatini and Brian, 2008; Sabatini et al., 2001) is reflected in a fractured production of the memory of political violence. Meanwhile, this memoryscape of a segregated city demonstrates the ambiguous relationship of the country’s elite with the legacy of dictatorial violence.