Presentation of a book on children victims of dictatorship in Chile (+ photos)

There are 275 minors between the ages of zero and 18 who have been murdered and we set ourselves the task of making every story of their lives and their stories visible.

The 350-page text, with many photos and illustrations, consists of three chapters: the first includes victims recorded between 1973 and 1979, the second on cases from 1980 to 1989, and the third on pregnant women who had miscarriages during torture.

“It is also important to say that adolescents joined the resistance against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, such as the case of Miguel Ángel Leal, Paulina Aguirre, Eduardo and Rafael Vergara,” recalls Lira.

Entire families of five and six were also killed. This is why we are talking about extermination.

For the prominent human rights activist, it is a work about pain, because of the way they were killed, but also about their happiness and compassion.

The book, “Breaking the Silence of Children and Political Adolescents Executed Under Civil and Military Dictatorship,” was presented at the Central House of the University of Chile, in an action attended by the authorities, relatives of the victims, and political, social and diplomatic organizations.

In this memory exercise, Lyra recalls, we saved their photos, testimonials from their family and friends, letters, drawings, and memories.

He stressed the importance of announcing that political activists are not only victims but also minors, to educate the population and avoid the recurrence of these crimes.

Undersecretary of the Ministry of Cultures and Arts Andrea Gutierrez, whose aunt was murdered when she was 14 years old, considers this an act of healing and vindication because memory, she says, is a way to save lives.

While participating in the launch of the book, the director of the National Institute for Human Rights, Consuelo Contreras, declared that the coup against the government of Salvador Allende was a catastrophe that changed personal, national, political, social and economic life.

“Thousands of children witnessed this horror,” he explained, adding that after the institutional collapse, a model was set in the country whose collective costs and effects continue today, with denial, poverty pensions and poor quality education.

JCM/car