open letter from Jaime Yovanovic Prieto
To the jurists, authorities and those that are neither jurists nor authorities:
For almost 20 years that the mass media in Chile in my case violate the most elementary legal principles, in already special the presunsià³n of innocence of any defendant.
I have been treated by means of press like participant in the action that culminated with the death of general Urzúa in 1983, question that I deny categorically.
It believed and I create legitimate, as it establishes the letter of principles of the United Nations, the rise in arms against which they beyond ended the legally instituted government of Salvador. I create to have acted my as like part of the town in resistance with honesty and dignity. A soldier would never have gone me through the mind when taking prisoner, disappearing it, to torture it and to throw it to the sea from a helicopter. The companions who I also knew in that time were worthy and altruistic human beings, arranged to the greater sacrifices to end the black night of Chile and to help to that the true democracy could return.
For that reason I have my high and clear front and watch facing the present Chilean institutions with the certainty that today it is possible to explain this case of once.
It is of public knowledge which after the death of general Urzúa, the resistant groups that fell into the hands of the DINA-CNI were assassinated, its houses attacked with rocket launcher, in short, furious razzia was dropped on which they fought by the democracy with the arms in the hand. In that context, the only solution was to leave the country and for that reason we looked for refuge in the Apostolic Nunciature where we made delivery of the arms that we carried, with which in fact we were fulfilling the principles of the Convention of Geneva in relation to the armed conflicts.
My appearance in newspapers by that reason took which they tortured to Jorge Donoso Palm to show my photo to him asking in case the other participant of the Urzúa operation were I made by the commando Miguel Enràquez of the MIR, and to it Palm responded affirmatively, which allowed the DINA-CNI practicamente to close the case with the incorporation of my name. Only that Jorge Palm, when he could speak, declared publicamente that this affirmation had been taken by tortures and induced by which they physically urged to him. Jorge Palm declared, and thus he appeared in the newspapers, that he did not know me, that I did not have been in that armed action and that denied the extraida affirmation of form ilegàtima.
It is not possible, gentlemen jurists, gentlemen authorities and gentlemen who are neither jurists nor authorities, that in front of these two declarations, extraida under the worse tortures and other when the word can be emitted freely, the press means they become echo of the first version, the one of my culpability, and unload a mediatic campaign in my against. It was not difficult to them at that time to involve my name and to enlodar my clean trajectory like fighter by the most elevated social values.
For more ` conviccià³n`, the secret services of the time made circulate the news that between the arms given to the Nunciature there were some were used in the Urzúa operation, reason why denote that its character ` secretà³ was strictly functional. The idea of the DINA-CNI was to judge to me publicamente and to always attract the public opinion towards the version extraida under torture, hiding and burying for the last declaration of Jorge Palm exactly because it built in my favor. The made means reproduced ` time and time again pruebas` that were used in my against, but never had the honesty to repeat a single time the denial of Jorge Palm.
The own DINA-CNI, that says to know as much on the case, knew perfectly that those arms were used in diverse actions and soon given back to a central depot. A journalist said that he was stranger who arrived itself with the same arms, that something not explained were there, but silence prevailed and continued the accusatory equipment again that it looked for to make of a lie a truth by force of repeating it.
So that I have been judged and condemned, I have been declared guilty by the DINA-CNI and the press. The propaganda has installed that idea in a sector of the public opinion, reason why I made the option of not giving themselves nor letting to me stop, because it would fall completely in a noticeable letter game.
20 years have passed, gentlemen jurists, authorities and those that are neither jurists nor authorities. Today already it is possible to differentiate the civil courts from the military courts. Today already it is possible to vindicate the due process. Not I know if will be possible to demand him to press that instead of to raise other campaign mediatic, respects principles essential of all defendant, of which he is innocent in as much does not prove the opposite, which they disclose the idea of my innocence and that those are the own secret services of the time that contribute, if they can, the accusatory burden of proof, that my unloadings already I will do them at its moment and its place with my lawyer.
But those 20 years I have not passed them locked up in same me, because if something has motivated my behavior during the dictatorship and exile, has been the hunger and thirst of justice and the effective accomplishment of the human rights. 20 years I have happened fighting for that reason in the diverse countries, where it had to leave by the unjust persecution that it was put under to me. My first destiny was Cuba, at where I arrived as sheltered from ACNUR and I graduated in the race of Right, I was associated to the National Union of Jurists of Cuba and worked in subjects of house and population in the Municipality of Habana Center. Soon in 1990 I was invited to Brazil by the present Methodist University of Sao Paulo and ministrà© classes in several universities, among others, the disciplines of Philosophy of the Right, Human rights, Penal Right, History of the Right and I evolved like professor of pos-graduation in the Sao University Francisco in charge of the discipline of Compared Penal Right.
Also I was member of the Commission of Human rights of the Order of Lawyers of Brazil OAB-Sao Paulo and adviser of the Association of Tutelary Advice of Defense of the Rights of the Boy and the Adolescent. I evolved like adviser of the Association of Officials of Justice of the State of Sao Paulo and adviser of the General Secretariat of the National Federation of Workers of the Judicial Power of Brazil. I founded, next to the Union of Psychologists of Sao Paulo, the Permanent Commission by the Rights of the Marginalized ones, as well as I founded and I was coordinating of the network Popular Legal of Brazil, next to groups of students, lawyers and other professors of Right. Until today diverse Brazilian jurists they recognize my paper in the promotion of the human rights and the formation of jurists with social sensitivity towards the layers more needed the population. I also published in Brazil the book ` Introduction to the Science of the Right and Alternativà³ Right that is, among others, in the library of the Faculty of Right of the University of Sao Paulo and is used by professors in several Brazilian universities.
In Mozambique I evolved like adviser of the director of the Faculty of Right of the University Eduardo Mondlane and consultant of the Ministry of Agriculture for communication subjects and investigations next to the peasantry. In South Africa I worked with Planact, organization that makes investigations and communitarian formation.
At the same time, diverse outlying areas of cities of Brazil, Bolivia, South Africa. Mozambique and others, were scene of my activities with children and young people in investigations of field, songs, dances and games, in the search of new modalities to understand the behaviors and yearnings of a group that is united for the reconstruction of the communitarian social being, independent, free and creator, the subject of the democracy, the motor base of all social project, the common man and the common woman, the subject of the poverty, the social subject who in the middle of the marginality and the misery is able to dream and to make of dreams realities, the emancipation, that must begin in the hearts of each one, already not more from the theories, the ideologies, tactics and strategies, but actually of the common life in and the joy of being, in the daily hug with the others and the expensive glance to face, solidarity, the respect and the affection, the taken hands and recommencing to see the world from the shared deepest feelings.
I have changed, clear that I have changed, I grown like a tree with the Earth roots firmly, in our Pachamama, unfolding my branches towards the infinite, and now I come to caress itself with the other roots, to transform itself into forest, where many trees and dreams can entretejer ways towards the horizon.
For that reason I vindicate my right to justice, that puts aim to campaign infame that has made in my against, that is allowed me to walk freely and to feel the wind of the mountain range and the breeze of the sea in my face, that is allowed me to continue my way of teaching to teach to learn, because I do not have anything new to transmit to not being my old desire to live and to be free, of reir, singing, to jump, to dance, to give returned from sheep and to raise mountains me, like the French song that I always teach in the groups whereupon I have coexisted:
Boy of the mountain
I return, I return
Boy of the mountain
I return singing.
The exhaustion earns
But my heart, but my heart
The exhaustion earns
But my heart is happy.
I thank beforehand to all, jurists, authorities and to the ones that are not neither jurists neither authorities, the measures and actions that be taken to do reality this shout of justice and liberty.
Jaime Yovanovic Prieto (Professor J)