(MENAFN- Gulf Times) A woman who survived being set on fire by Chilean soldiers during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet filed a criminal complaint in the case yesterday, nearly three decades after the disfiguring attack.
Carmen Gloria Quintana was 18 when she and another youth, 19-year-old Rodrigo Rojas, were seized at an anti-government protest by a military patrol in 1986.
A member of the patrol recently came forward to confess that Quintana and Rojas were beaten, doused with gasoline and set aflame by the soldiers, who left them for dead on the outskirts of Santiago.
Rojas died of his injuries four days later, while Quintana survived despite burns on 60% of her body.
"I file a suit today against all those who turn out to have been responsible for the murder of Rodrigo Rojas and my attempted murder," said Quintana, whose face still bears scars from the attack.
She said her complaint is aimed at "the authors, accomplices and those who covered up" the attack, one of Chile's most shocking human rights cases even by the standards of the Pinochet dictatorship, which has been blamed for the deaths or disappearance of more than 3,000 people.
"Here it has been proven that there was a machinery to lie," said Quintana, who has called on the military to come forward with all the information it has.
Quintana said she is confident more perpetrators of dictatorship-era rights violations will come forward.
"I think this pact of silence that is breaking apart after so many years is a milestone for our country. It's a before and after in the struggle for human rights," Quintana said as she paid homage to Rojas by pinning a photo to a memorial in Santiago for the late photographer. "From now on many more soldiers, who are burdened by their conscience, will talk because they know what they did. They murdered and forcibly disappeared people."
Quintana also thanked the former soldier, identified as Fernando Guzman, for testifying, and expressed compassion for the soldiers involved in the attack who were teenagers like her at the time and received death threats to keep silent.
Rojas' mother, who also spoke at the memorial, said she had an emotional meeting with Guzman last week. Veronica De Negri said she appreciated his testimony but can't forgive those involved in the death of her son.
Since Friday, Chilean prosecutors have arrested 12 former military officers and non-commissioned officers, accused as authors of the attacks or accomplices.
A previous investigation in 1990 resulted in the conviction of a single former officer for negligence, with the courts accepting the military's claim that the youths were burned when a homemade bomb they were carrying exploded.
Rojas had recently returned to Chile from the US, where he lived with his exiled mother.
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