Patricia Verdugo 1948-2008
international |
gender and sexuality |
other press 
Friday February 29, 2008 13:21
by Obit
Woman who exposed Pinochet's Brutality
" We should preserve in adults the confident and Joyful attitude of children"
Patricia Verdugo has died. She helped form in Chile 'The Women's Movement for Life' ( 1983), which comprised
women politicians, activists and writers;a cauccas of women opposed to the Pinochet regime. The WML
organised protests against Pinochet .
She was a journalist , an activist and an academic, who in the immeadiate aftermath of her father's assasination
began her career to expose the Pinochet Regime.
She founded 'Hoy' , established 1977. The Publication operated throughout the dictatorship and retained an
independent critical position against the dictatorial regime.
Her books included; 'Bucharest 187' and 'The Claws of the Puma' (1989)
The books formed the basis for the legal cases instituted against the Pinochet regime.
'The Claws of the Puma' detailed 75 extra-judicial murders in the period just after the coup, when 'The Caravan
of Death'- a Puma helicopter travelled picking up dissidents and murdering them.
She never gave up despite the great personal cost, which disallowed her time to grieve the murder
of her father and copper-fastened her desire to expose the brutality of the regime which she found herself
living in.
'Bucharest 187'- was written in the immediate aftermath of the extra-judicial murder of her father, whose body was
found in the Mapacho river, which crosses Santiago. She discussed her inability to cope with the post-traumatic
disorder that resulted from the disappearance of her dad and decided consciously to create a movement
against human rights violation from her trauma and in solidarity with women who had suffered the same traumas.
She was nominated for the Nobel peace Prize in 2005