“50 years later, I won against the Chilean state”

In 1973, Michel Blin, an agricultural engineering student, found himself in the middle of Augusto Pinochet's coup d'état. Arrested, he will be locked up for several weeks in very difficult conditions. More than fifty years after the events, he succeeded in condemning the Chilean state for its responsibility in this affair.

Fifty-one years after the events, I have just won my case against the Chilean state. In September 1973, after studying agricultural engineering, I decided to closely observe the agrarian reform of Salvador Allende's Popular Unity. After a week in the open air in the center of Santiago, I attend the coup d'état by Augusto Pinochet and I see the planes bombing the presidential palace of La Moneda.

Two days after these events, I am arrested by the carabinieri in my hotel. For a day, I remained locked in a police station before my transfer. I was then sent to the National Stadium in Santiago and imprisoned in a locker room with around fifty Latin American activists.

I obscured these “events” by burying them in my memory.

I thus remain locked up for fifteen days in conditions more than precarious : limited food (soup and bread); cold ; a turn is organized to sleep on the floor, due to lack of space; fear because of no news in an unknown country; alone in a corridor without knowing what will become of me; ill-treatment with rifle butts. Thanks to the action of the French embassy and the International Red Cross, I was finally taken to the embassy and then deported to France.

I have no memory of that week at the embassy. I simply remember the support of a priest-worker who looked after me because I was delirious. During the following years, I concealed these “events” by burying them in my memory, until Pinochet's arrest in London in November 1998.

Since then, I have maintained an interest in Chile – my friends say one « obsession » – who introduced me to and campaigned within the Association of Chilean Ex-Political Prisoners in France (AEXPPCHF), of which I am still a member. A friend of the association advised and supported me (as well as 60 other files) in my procedures for recognition as a victim of human rights violations to the Valech II Commission. Recognition that I obtained in 2011.

The goal was to repair myself and show the massive nature of the repression carried out by the Chilean dictatorship.

The goal was to repair myself and show the massive nature of the repression carried out by the Chilean dictatorship. The association also organized a video collection of testimonies from 90 ex-political prisoners for the sake of memory: one copy is kept at the BDIC of Nanterre-Université and another at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago.

I have always continued to be very interested in Chilean news. I was also able to find the priest-worker who had watched over me. In 2004, he organized a trip to Chile to show a new reality and places of memory. In December 2010, I attended the trial at the Paris Assize Court of the 15 military and civilian executioners of four missing French people. What emotion for the families who had been waiting for this moment for thirty-seven years! This trial honore French justice: the soldiers – absent (what courage!) – were condemned but not extradited by the democratic Chilean governments.

But the problem is there! Certainly, the victims are compensated by the State, but the executioners are not worried, having self-amnested in the 1980s. Few soldiers, contrary to what happened in Argentina, have been tried and convicted – the assassins of singer Victor Jara were only killed last year. This is not full justice.

My current goal is to make this victory known to the Chilean people and, thus, to fight against the current deniers.

In October 2019, on the advice of friends of the association, I initiated legal action against the State so that an independent civil court recognizes its wrongs: my Chilean lawyer, from the office of Nelson Caucoto, specialist in defense of human rights, received my judicial mandate on the day of the outbreak of the Estallido (the social explosion). Since I retired, I organize debates in high school classes in my area and I participate in film screening debates to exorcise my trauma and perpetuate memory.

Five years later, it was a joyto receive the judgment which recognizes the facts, the responsibility of the Chilean State, the characteristic of injustice to humanity, the physical, psychological and moral damage suffered, and the obligation to make reparation. My lawyer appealed given the compensation awarded, which was too low by standards. My current objective is to make this victory known to the Chilean people and, thus, to fight against the current deniers: a third of the Chileans surveyed would approve of the coup d'état against Allende, and half would find it normal to provoke a coup d'état if the president failed!

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