Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I joined the member for Lalor, Joanne Ryan; the member for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus; and Senator Conroy from the other place to welcome Lorena Pizarro, a human rights activist from Chile, to Parliament House. Ms Pizarro is from the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Chile, a group established in the 1970s to track down loved ones who were vanished under the Pinochet government. The Pinochet regime was infamous for its suppression of political opponents, dissidents and the working class. During the regime, thousands of people disappeared without trace and hundreds of thousands were forced into exile. Many suspected of complicity with the Pinochet government's persecution of dissidents fled Chile after Pinochet's arrest. One of those is Adriana Rivas, who is accused of aggravated kidnapping of seven people during the regime. She fled Chile while on bail and is now living in Australia. Ms Pizarro is in Australia to raise awareness of an outstanding request issued by the Chilean government for Ms Rivas's extradition to Chile to face charges. So far there has been no movement on this front, and Adriana Rivas remains in Australia without having faced her country's judicial system.

Prosecution in a court of law is an important step towards closure for Chilean society and an essential move towards ending the culture of impunity for human rights violations during the Pinochet dictatorship. Ms Pizarro said, 'The aim of this campaign is that none of these crimes are ever committed again, but in order for this to happen we must have justice. In order to do that we must right the wrongs of the past and make sure the people responsible are held to account.' I stand with Ms Pizarro in her determination to restore dignity towards Chilean society and make sure the tragic crimes of the Pinochet government are never repeated. (Time expired)