Chile has yet to put to rest its egregious history of brutal torture of dissidents under General Augusto Pinochet. This is most recently underscored by two key developments: Judge Alejando Solis’ lawsuit against nine DINA agents and Pinochet’s conveniently deteriorating and improving health. These two issues leave Chile’s future unclear; however, a new presidential contender with an unusual twist has surfaced ? she’s female.

The nine DINA agents ? Chile’s secret police ? were stationed at the notorious Villa Grimaldi torture chamber. Among the agents is Manuel Contreras who, among other heinous acts, assassinated Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Orlando Letelier with a remote detonated car bomb in Washington DC’s stately Embassy Row in 1976 and kidnapped activist Miguel Angel Sandoval in 1975 (Terrorist Incident forthcoming). Contreras created the DINA upon Pinochet’s behest after a failed coup in 1973. By the time he was removed from his position in 1977, he had been responsible for hundreds ? if not thousands ? of cases of abduction, torture, and execution. Another of the agents is Marcelo Moren Brito, who was the head of Villa Grimaldi and was also involved in Sandoval’s disappearance. According to Solis, these agents “knowingly and on the orders of the director of (DINA), Juan Manuel Contreras, ? captured and ordered the capture of militants or those affiliated to political parties, weakening them with physical torture of different kinds, with the objective of making them hand over information on other leftists so they could be captured.” Those who were held at Grimaldi, “were kept tied up at all times, with sub-standard hygiene conditions and little food,” he said. Further, captives were placed in “the Tower” (a 2 meter by 70 cm by 70 cm box), “Chile houses” (dresser-sized boxes for solitary confinement), and “Corvi houses” (small wooden boxes). While the case is seemingly air-tight, the 1978 Chilean Amnesty Law, which was created by Pinochet’s coterie to clear human rights violators, could free these deplorable men, as it has five other DINA agents who were accused of kidnapping Diana Aron (Terrorist Incident forthcoming) in 1973. According to La Tercera, Villa Grimaldi, modeled on the Nazi death camps, was the death of some 4,500 insurgent dissidents.