| 10.00.06 | Outside Leicester Square church | It's 25 years since General Pinochet took power in Chile. His terrible rule is still deeply remembered for the thousands of innocent lives he took. |
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00.20
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TITLE |
‘The Crimes of Pinochet' |
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| 00.39 | Prisoners Sing | All over Chile the ghosts still remain of Pinochet's concentration camps. Students, unionists, communists, lawyers, doctors. Every politically aware young Chilean was at risk of being detained. Many never came out alive. |
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| 00.58 | Patricia Pizarro Letelier Prison camp survivor |
| My father opened the door. It was the police. They asked my name and I was immediately taken into a but. There were flash lights in front of my house, military as well in jeeps with machine guns pointing at me. |
| 01.26 | Chile 1973 war footage | In 1973 General Pinochet, backed by America, staged a military coup and took power from the democratically elected government of President Allende. |
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| B&W photos | In the years that followed Pinochet's regime was responsible for the killing and disappearance of more than 3000 students and activists. |
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| 01.53 | Chile Amy Parade | Today Chile's army would rather forget the nasty truth of their history during the Pinochet years. |
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| 01.56 | General Pinochet | It was the height of the cold war. Pinochet was pro West and the US didn't like the Allende government's left wing politics. Without America's support Pinochet could not have mounted his coup. |
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| 02.10 | Pinochet hugs officer | Today Pinochet is accused of devising the worst concentration camp regime since Hitler's grand plan. |
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| 02.17 | Chacabuco Aerial | Pinochet rounded up everyone his forces deemed the remotest risk to his new military junta. He threw them into places like this, the Chacabuco desert camp. By the end of 1973 250 000 Chileans had been detained in remote and God forsaken prisons. |
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| 02.42 | Prisoner |
| Q: Were you a member of a party? W: The Socialist Workers Party, USOPO. |
| 02.48 | Watch tower | pause |
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| 02.50 | Prisoner
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| Q: Were you politically active in any party? A: No, I was an independent on the left. Q: And now are you here as a prisoner. A: Now I'm detained as long as they're making their inquiries. |
| 03.02 | Doctor prisoner |
| Q: You're a doctor? A: Yes, a doctor Q: Were you active with a political party? A: No |
| 03.15 | Doctor prisoner |
| Q: Are there many sick here. A: Most serious are neuroses and mental disorders. Q: How do they manifest themselves? A: Insomnia, agitation and trembling. Q: What brings it on? A: The circumstances we are in and the uncertainty of our trials. |
| 03.38 | Roberto Vasquez Camp survivor |
| When we arrived it was quite shocking to see the guards surrounding the camp. You see that sort of concentration camp in films. You don't think you are going to be in one. |
| 03.55 | Prisoner sings | pause |
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| 04.06 | Prisoners | These unique images were taken by the only team of journalists to gain access to the camps. |
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| 04.19 | Pinochet letter | A European film crew had persuaded the Chilean authorities to let them enter . Their permit stated they were not to visit the detainees ... but they talked their way in. It was an extraordinary piece of journalistic footwork. |
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| 04.31 | Gen Joaquin Lago Local Commander |
| Some prisoners are dangerous. So although no charges have been brought against them they must stay there until they realise that they are on the wrong path. |
| 04.46 | Original B&W seq and commentary
| Inside Chacabuco concentration camp the film crew from Europe soon discovered what the right path meant. |
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| 04.57 | Young Communists forced march and song |
| ‘The 1st group of prisoners with whom we're authorised to make contact. We haven't yet begun to record any sound when suddenly the scene changes. At first we took them for soldiers training . Then we found out that they were special category prisoners. The marching men are exclusively young communists. They're forced to sing military songs. Our camera is not supposed to see them. They are ordered to withdraw.'
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| 05.46
| Roberto Vasquez Camp survivor |
| I saw them pass with their cameras, in and out. But I never wanted to show my face because you never knew what they could do with your pictures. Or if they showed the pictures to prisoners somewhere else they may recognise you and you will be in trouble. So everybody was suspicious and didn't want to show themselves. Unless they were people who everybody already knew. |
| 06.16 | Int Luis Enriquez Alvarez, prisoner |
| Q: Were you a militant politically active? A: Yes Q: With which party? A: Communist Q: Are you awaiting trial? A: I don't know what trial can be called. I was at work when I was taken to the National Stadium, and now I'm here. |
| 06.34 | Original B&W seq and commentary
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| ‘We were given explicit orders, film no watchtowers, no barbed wire, no military guards.
The commander of the camp did not allow us out of his sight; we went around the camp following a prescribed route.'
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| 6.52 | Drive through desert | And the film crew went on, deeper into Chile's most inhospitable zones, to find the most notorious camps. They were looking for a prison where they'd heard women were being kept. Its name was Pisagua. |
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| 7.09 | Woman prisoner
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| Q: When did you arrive here? A: 22nd December Q: Are you politically active A: No Q: How long do you think you will be here? A: I haven't got a clue. |
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7.21 |
Patricia Pizarro Letelier Camp survivor |
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When the film crew left we went back to the darkness and the horror of living under threat, continuous threat that anything could happen to us. Everything was prepared in a way to look normal. |
| 07.45 | Stirling l/s | Music |
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| 07.48 | Neighbourhood watch | Thousands of survivors from Pinochet's prison camps exiled themselves to safer parts of the world, like Stirling in Scotland. |
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| 08.05 | Patricia and family walk on common | Patricia Letelier was imprisoned and tortured in the concentration camps. She spent 5 months there. |
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| 08.11 | Patricia Letelier Camp survivor |
| I started hearing the shouting and the screaming of the men. They were in another room. I went really cold and I was terrified. I didn't know, or rather I knew what was waiting for me. Shortly afterwards I was moved to that other space and there my torture started. |
| 08.46 | Patricia and family in kitchen | Today Patricia lives with her partner Oliver and their son. Twenty five years on she still suffers side effects from the torture she experienced during those dark distant days. |
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| 09.07 | Woman prisoner |
| A: I'm Leonora Alvarez Reyes. Q: Were you politically active? A: Never Q: When did you arrive? A: 23rd November. Q: How long will you be here? A: Until the commandante decides. |
| 09.21 | Iwes Gifientes Campos Woman Prisoner |
| A: I'm Iwes Campos Q: How long have you been here? A: Almost 2 months. Q: Are you politically active? A: I'm a sympathiser. Q: When do you think you'll get out of Pisagua? A: I haven't got a clue. |
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| 09.37 | Patricia Pizarro Letelier
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| After they tied my hands behind my back they hung me from my wrists. I hung down. I had this bag over my head. My clothes were taken off and they put water over me. The more I was shivering because of the shock the harder the beating was. |
| 10.25 | B&W interview with Patricia Pizarro Letelier |
| Q: What's your name? A: Patricia Pizarro Letelier
Q: When did you come? A: 15th November 1973.
Q: Are you a member of a party. A: No. The only organisation I was a member of was a left wing student organisation.
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| 10.45 | B&W commentary |
| ‘Witnesses who were able to flee Chile have said that the guards abused them while they were prisoners.' |
| 10.57 | Patricia's meeting | Twenty five years later Patricia's new life is very different. She's now comfortable and secure. |
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| 11.07 | Patricia and banner | Through the local Stirling Chile support group, meeting in Patricia's house, she, like thousands of other Chilean exiles scattered around the world dreams about bringing Pinochet to trial. |
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| 11.18 | Speaker in meeting |
| He has been hiding behind this amnesty and nobody has said that he gave himself this amnesty. Nobody gave it to him. He gave himself this amnesty as a condition to step down from power. So he knew that he was guilty. And that's what we have to emphasise. The man is guilty. |
| 11.41 | Pinochet setup | Caught up in the paranoia of the cold war, and encouraged by the USA, Pinochet had become obsessed with obliterating Marxism. |
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| 11.56 | General Pinochet |
| I do not say we have totally triumphed over Marxism. Marxism is like a ghost. It's very difficult to catch, impossible to trap. |
| 12.12 | C/S pan prisoners | music pause |
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| 12.32 | High shot prison | Whilst mass graves have been discovered around Chile's prison camps the real business of killing and torture usually took place elsewhere. |
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| 12.45 | Intro stadium pics | The Santiago sports stadium was chosen by the authorities for its holding capacity. Ten days after Pinochet's coup it held 7000 prisoners. |
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| 12.50 | Negatives and B&W film commentary
& Stadium photos |
| The photographs were taken from a hidden place, an apartment in a high building overlooking the national stadium. We had a powerful telephoto lens. In this way it was possible to secretly obtain the graphic evidence of what the world knows already from eye witness statements. |
| 13.08 | Roberto Vasquez Camp survivor and stadium pics
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| We didn't know where we were going because they'd said they were going to kill us. Eventually trying to look up through the near side of the lorry we realised that we were getting to a stadium. So at least we knew that we'd be with more people so people would see us. But also we were afraid because everybody knew that in the stadium they were killing people. |
| 13.35 |
| Music Pause |
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| 13.48
14.30 | Roberto Vasquez
pause music
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| They made you take your clothes off. Everybody went naked inside with a cover on your head. You start to sweat underneath. They hanged me and they put electricity all over my body. I was naked. And they interviewed me, well they called it an interview, I would say for 10-12 hours.
I saw a pile of people lying there and a pool of blood coming out of this pile of people. |
| 14.38 | Frederico Willoughby Junta Spokesman |
| This is a war of intelligence which we're treating as when one wants to have a good shave. We want to allow them to grow so that later on we can shave them smoothly and leave nothing behind. |
| 14.57 | Prisoners march | Music pause Pinochet had called a war even though there wasn't one. He'd wrenched the heart from a young and vibrant country. |
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| 15.07
15.22
| Pisagua sign Patricia Pizarro Letelier
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natsof pause | We were prisoners of war of Pinochet because it was a convenient term.
We never had a war in Chile. It was not a civil war. Pinochet declared a war on the Chilean people because they wanted to change the political system, or because they wanted a different way of life, that's all. |
| 15.48 | L/S Pisagua | pause music
In the late 1980's Pinochet was finally forced out of office and his concentration camps were discarded.
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| 15.55 | L/S Pisagua |
Recently Patricia Letelier took her family back to the Pisagua prison most people would think she'd never want to see again. |
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| 16.03
| Pisagua slides Patricia |
| We are inside the building now, the women's jail. Apart from this hole here, with the piece of wood missing, the place looked exactly as the time when we were kept. We lived in that building for 5 months with no light and just one window where we could have fresh air.
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| 16.38 | Swimming pool slide | Within hundreds of metres of mass graves Pinochet has built a holiday villa. When Patricia visited there recently she was told that he still likes to go there. |
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| 16.48 | Patricia |
| As far as I remember we were told when we were at Pisagua that Pinochet had visited the place a few weeks earlier. |
| 17.05 | Patricia |
| That's one of the things that kept me alive really. I have to go back and I have to tell the world what happened there. |
| 17.18 | B&W Patricia | pause
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| 17.37 | Mass | music pause
Twenty five years after Pinochet devised his evil system the people who suffered still hope for justice. Pinochet may yet pay for the souls he so easily took. |
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| 18.00 | End |
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