Presidential candidate Johannes Kaiser (Freedom Party) has declared that if elected president, he will pardon Miguel Krasnov, a former military man convicted of crimes against humanity. And he immediately gave his reason for pardoning himself: “You can’t mix 80- and 90-year-old people with common criminals and let them rot in prison just because you don’t like it politically.” He immediately referred to the period of military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990, saying, “We will place the end point between 1973 and 1990.”
Miguel Krasnov was sentenced to 1,000 years in prison for multiple crimes, including kidnapping, rape, torture, and disappearance, not for political reasons.
Under the military dictatorship, thousands of people were subjected to the most barbaric torture.
After democracy was restored, the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, established during the Ricardo Lagos administration, collected testimonies from victims: “They put a blunt object inside me that cut the fibers in my anus.” “I lost the vision in my right eye due to the impact of the machine gun.” “They ‘called’ me and blew into both ears at the same time, causing my right ear to explode.” “They had my teeth pulled out without anesthesia.” “They hung me by the legs, made me eat my excrement, and in front of me they grabbed my nine-month-old daughter by the neck and told me they were going to kill me.” “They crushed my kidney with the blow, and I still feel the effects of it.” “They beat me so much that I lost my memory and my eyesight.” “They made us undress and passed a bar between the elbows and the backs of the knees. It felt like being torn apart.” “My testicles were torn apart by the electric current.” “I have cigarette burns all over my body.” “They destroyed my vagina. I couldn’t defecate without pain for years.” “They left me there and my legs became gangrenous.” “My uterus and ovaries had to be removed because of internal bleeding.” “Today I have heart disease because of the electrical current they put in me.” “Then one of them pulled down his pants, took out his penis and forced me to straighten it with his mouth. Then another one came, and another came. There were three soldiers in total that I had to straighten, and the last one was in my mouth. I had a hood up so I couldn’t tell who they were or what they looked like.” “I was left with a fear that never left me: paranoia, claustrophobia, pain.” “I remember over and over again the pain I suffered back then.” “I still cry in my sleep.”
When ex-soldiers like Miguel Krasnov are imprisoned, it’s not because they “don’t like it politically,” as Johannes Kaiser would say, but because they torture and kill men and women who don’t agree with them.
More than 1,000 people were murdered or disappeared in the secret prison. And even now, after so much time and in prison, the former soldiers whom the Kaiser hopes to pardon have not agreed to reveal where the bodies of the disappeared detainees are.
It is both dangerous and unacceptable for a Chilean presidential candidate to refer to an event that left deep scars on our country due to such a lack of humanity.
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