ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the findings on torture that were uncovered by those working in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the commission appointed by the Chilean government to investigate instances and policies related to the systematic torture. After the 1973 military coup in Chile the military government led by General Augusto Pinochet and the Catholic Church offered opposing views of torture as a social phenomenon. Each branch of the armed forces and the police gave approval to the new security apparatus, they commissioned personnel for service within the Direccion de Inteligencia Nacional. The operational methods used were clear: counterintelligence in order to arrest and eliminate all traces of the MIR. Maria Luisa Sepulveda and Elizabeth Lira, members of the Valech Commission, made clear their satisfaction that Chile was the first country that, in assessing the arrest and torture of children.
