One of the main announcements that the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, delivered in this Sunday in the National Congress, and in the final part of his speech, was the transformation of, where they comply with more than 130 former formerly-formed sentenced for violations of human rights during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), in a common penalty.
The president recalled that it was in 1995-during the administration of the Democristian (1994-2000)-that the construction of the prison was authorized. “It was another Chile and from my point of view there is no justification for that privilege,” he said. He then informed that he instructed the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, which leads, modify the decree that created that establishment, “abandoning its status as special and transforming it into a common penalty that allows to segregate people according to gendarmerie requirements. It is not only a measure of justice, it is also a need for management for our penitentiary system.”
The prison is located in the commune of Til Til, 44 kilometers from Santiago and most of the inmates – 80% of them exceed 80 years – were intelligence and security agents of the dictatorship that belonged to the DINA and the CNI, the Pinochet Secret Police. Both organizations are responsible for executions, and torture, among other crimes against humanity.
Since its construction that Punta Peuco was an uncomfortable penalty for sectors of the left, which considered a privilege that the ex -uniforms were deprived of liberty in a prison with a special regime, that is, with inmates involved in crimes against humanity without mixing with prisoners for common crimes. When Democristian Frei Ruiz-Tagle promoted his creation, his then Minister of Public Works, he refused to sign the decree that allowed construction. In 2000, Lagos became the first socialist president after Salvador Allende.
Another episode that reflects the controversies around Punta Peuco occurred in March 2018, when the socialist president ordered the closure of the prison. He did it at the end of his second government. However, his Minister of Justice, Jaime Campos, refused to do so, as he said, “he would have implied a transgression to the Constitution.”
In 2023, during the commemoration of the 50 years of the coup d’etat, the penalty was again in the controversy, when parliamentarians of the ruling party pushed an offensive for Punta Peuco to be reconditioned as a detention center. His proposal was that the formerly -formed were transferred to Colina 1, a penalty for common crimes where they also serve more than 100 exagents after Punta Peuco exceeds their capacity.
The reconversion of the prison has been criticized by the opposition, which considers that President Buric has made a gesture towards his political sector. According to the president of the Senate, Manuel José Ossandón, of national renewal, of the traditional right, the measure “more than an act of justice, it seems an act of revenge. I believe that that does not help at all, because we are talking about pure inmates that are about 80 years, an issue that happened 50 years ago, and what will cause is more controversial and more internal violence in the discussion”.
The leftist administration has only proposed that it becomes a common prison, but it has not been able to close it, because Chile, which lives a security crisis, also has a criminal overpopulation.
In 2013, in his first administration, President Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014, 2018-2022), of the traditional right, surprisingly ordered the closure of the Cordillera prison, which was another jail in which they fulfilled ex -iform sentences involved in human rights violations: they had a patio with garden and terrace tables.
In this regard, Boric recalled: “As President Piñera did when closing the Cordillera prison, today we are ending Punta Peuco as he has been known.”
