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The Independent Democrat Union complains to human rights body for Argentina’s refusal to extradite.
Chile’s conservative Independent Democrat Union party (UDI) has stepped up its bid to capture suspected political killer Galvarino Apablaza by appealing to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Argentina’s refusal to extradite him back to Chile.
Photo courtesy of Fundación Jaime Guzmán
The UDI is complaining to the commission that Argentina’s granting of political asylum to Apablaza in 2010, and consequential refusal to extradite, has frustrated Chilean attempts to bring Apablaza to justice and violates the American Convention on Human Rights.
The case raises complex questions of international law, in which a state’s obligation to offer protection to political refugees directly contradicts the obligation to extradite suspected criminals so that their cases may be resolved.
Apablaza is believed to be implicated in the 1991 assassination of Sen. Jaime Guzmán, a Chilean politician and academic who acted as a close advisor to former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet and later founded the right-wing UDI party. Guzmán was one of the primary authors of Chile’s 1980 Constitution, which remains in force today and is believed to be responsible for keeping the UDI in a position of power disproportionate to the party’s narrow electoral base.
The petition was presented by UDI president Antonio Coloma to the IACHR in Washington, D.C., with UDI Dep. Edmundo Eluchans, Guzmán’s sister Isabel Guzmán, Guzmán’s nephew Juan Pablo Moreno Guzmán and UDI lawyer Claudio Grossman also attending the occasion.
Guzmán’s assassination “was a crime against democracy in Chile,” according to the petition.
“What is at stake here is nothing less than the meaning of human rights beyond any other consideration,” Grossman told El Mercurio. “We are not going to give up, despite the 20-year wait and the incredible circumstances which have prevented justice from taking place on the Jaime Guzmán assassination, and that is why we have appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.”
The Apablaza case is a politically divisive issue in Chile, and last year a bomb was exploded at the Jaime Guzmán memorial in Santiago. Left-leaning sympathizers claim it is hypocritical of Chile’s political right to complain of human rights abuses, while right-wingers see double standards in the left’s lackluster attempts to bring Apablaza back to Chile in order to be prosecuted. Leftists see Guzmán as a monster who collaborated in Chile’s dictatorship, while those on the right are demanding compensation money from Argentina, which would be used to keep alive “the historic legacy” Guzmán left behind.
Despite two decades passing, the case continues to cause friction between the governments of Chile and Argentina. In August 2011, Apablaza’s name was added to Chile’s official list of torture victims, further complicating Chile’s extradition requests.
Apablaza was one of the founders of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, an armed guerrilla group set up in 1983 to resist the Pinochet regime, and has been living in Argentina since 1994. In 2004 he was arrested by Argentine authorities, and Argentina’s Supreme Court ordered his extradition to Chile in September 2010. Almost immediately afterwards the Argentine government granted him political asylum and declined to abide by the extradition order.
Apablaza is also accused of being involved in the 1991 kidnapping of Cristián Edwards, son of the owner of the conservative Chilean newspaper El Mercurio.
Apablaza is married to Paula Chain, a member of the press office of the Argentine President Cristina Kirchner.
The IACHR is expected to review the UDI’s petition in March, when the commission will hold its next meeting.
By Michael Andrews and Juan Francisco Veloso Olguin (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Copyright 2011 – The Santiago Times
Chile’s conservative Independent Democrat Union party (UDI) has stepped up its bid to capture suspected political killer Galvarino Apablaza by appealing to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Argentina’s refusal to extradite him back to Chile.
Photo courtesy of Fundación Jaime Guzmán
The UDI is complaining to the commission that Argentina’s granting of political asylum to Apablaza in 2010, and consequential refusal to extradite, has frustrated Chilean attempts to bring Apablaza to justice and violates the American Convention on Human Rights.
The case raises complex questions of international law, in which a state’s obligation to offer protection to political refugees directly contradicts the obligation to extradite suspected criminals so that their cases may be resolved.
Apablaza is believed to be implicated in the 1991 assassination of Sen. Jaime Guzmán, a Chilean politician and academic who acted as a close advisor to former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet and later founded the right-wing UDI party. Guzmán was one of the primary authors of Chile’s 1980 Constitution, which remains in force today and is believed to be responsible for keeping the UDI in a position of power disproportionate to the party’s narrow electoral base.
The petition was presented by UDI president Antonio Coloma to the IACHR in Washington, D.C., with UDI Dep. Edmundo Eluchans, Guzmán’s sister Isabel Guzmán, Guzmán’s nephew Juan Pablo Moreno Guzmán and UDI lawyer Claudio Grossman also attending the occasion.
Guzmán’s assassination “was a crime against democracy in Chile,” according to the petition.
“What is at stake here is nothing less than the meaning of human rights beyond any other consideration,” Grossman told El Mercurio. “We are not going to give up, despite the 20-year wait and the incredible circumstances which have prevented justice from taking place on the Jaime Guzmán assassination, and that is why we have appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.”
The Apablaza case is a politically divisive issue in Chile, and last year a bomb was exploded at the Jaime Guzmán memorial in Santiago. Left-leaning sympathizers claim it is hypocritical of Chile’s political right to complain of human rights abuses, while right-wingers see double standards in the left’s lackluster attempts to bring Apablaza back to Chile in order to be prosecuted. Leftists see Guzmán as a monster who collaborated in Chile’s dictatorship, while those on the right are demanding compensation money from Argentina, which would be used to keep alive “the historic legacy” Guzmán left behind.
Despite two decades passing, the case continues to cause friction between the governments of Chile and Argentina. In August 2011, Apablaza’s name was added to Chile’s official list of torture victims, further complicating Chile’s extradition requests.
Apablaza was one of the founders of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, an armed guerrilla group set up in 1983 to resist the Pinochet regime, and has been living in Argentina since 1994. In 2004 he was arrested by Argentine authorities, and Argentina’s Supreme Court ordered his extradition to Chile in September 2010. Almost immediately afterwards the Argentine government granted him political asylum and declined to abide by the extradition order.
Apablaza is also accused of being involved in the 1991 kidnapping of Cristián Edwards, son of the owner of the conservative Chilean newspaper El Mercurio.
Apablaza is married to Paula Chain, a member of the press office of the Argentine President Cristina Kirchner.
The IACHR is expected to review the UDI’s petition in March, when the commission will hold its next meeting.
By Michael Andrews and Juan Francisco Veloso Olguin (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Copyright 2011 – The Santiago Times
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