| Description: | In this arpillera, we see women in colourful dresses protesting on the side of the road displaying a banner, which contests the denied atrocities of the Pinochet dictatorship by asking a simple question: "¿Dónde están/Where are they [the disappeared]?" The answer to this simple question was repeatedly ignored by the regime, who frequently told the women checking jails and detention centres, seeking news of their disappeared loved ones that the people in question did not exist, that they had left the country or gave implausible answers.
It is likely that the road is crafted from the trousers of a disappeared relative. The sun, a common feature in the majority of arpilleras, has been replaced by two grey clouds. Indifference towards the plight of these women and their families is also apparent in this arpillera. The motorist and the pedestrians in the bottom right hand corner avert their faces from the protestors, in denial of the atrocities committed by the Pinochet regime made public by these women.
The Chilean Truth Commission of the post-Pinochet regime was mandated to find out what happened to the disappeared and also to determine where their remains had been disposed. According to Chile's second national Truth Commission Report on Torture and Political Imprisonment (Valech II), published in August 2011, there were a total of 3,216 cases of forced disappearance or political execution. A new state search initiative, announced in 2023, considers 1,469 of them to be still missing. Observatorio de Justicia Transicional, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile (2023) |
