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Published on
Sunday, June 18, 2000 in the Baltimore Sun
ALL SHIPS FROM around the world are scheduled to sail into
Baltimore's Inner Harbor on Friday for what organizers are touting
as an event to promote "cultural exchange and good will."
The ships will surely be a majestic sight. But behind the stately
image of one of these ships, La Esmeralda, lies a terrifying history
that should not be forgotten.
In 1973, in the aftermath of a bloody coup against the
democratically elected government, the Chilean Navy made a special
contribution to the new military junta led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
They allowed La Esmeralda, a four-masted Chilean naval ship, to be
used as a prison and torture chamber. According to testimony
collected by Amnesty International and the Organization of American
States, at least 110 political prisoners - 70 men and 40 women -
were interrogated aboard the ship for more than two weeks without
charges or trial.
The former mayor of Valparaiso, where the ship was stationed,
described being tied to one of the ship's masts and subjected
repeatedly to electric shock. "I couldn't sleep for six days because
they woke me up every six minutes, night and day," he told Amnesty
International. "We could hear how the others were tortured right
where we were."
According to a Chilean lawyer held on board, military officials
stripped and savagely beat the prisoners and shot them with
high-pressure jets of water that produced "an unbearable pain in the
head, ears, eyes, and lungs" At least one of those tortured on board
La Esmeralda, a British-Chilean priest named Michael Woodward, died
as a result. His body was thrown into an unmarked mass grave. |
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