Chile marks anniversary of coup by Pinochet
SANTIAGO, Chile – President Michelle Bachelet marked Thursday’s anniversary of the 1973 military coup that toppled Marxist President Salvador Allende by urging Chileans to come forward with any information they might have about people forcibly disappeared during the country’s dictatorship.
About 40,000 people were killed, tortured or imprisoned for political reasons during the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and about 1,000 of them have never been found.
“Forty-one years have passed and the witnesses, survivors and victims who saved their own lives are now elderly people,” Bachelet said. “Many of them have died waiting for justice. Many have died in silence. We’ve had enough of painful waiting and unjustified silences.”
Group accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza
JERUSALEM – A leading international rights group on Thursday alleged that Israel committed war crimes during this summer’s Gaza war, saying it reached that conclusion after investigating three attacks on or near United Nations-run schools housing displaced Palestinians.
Human Rights Watch said it investigated the strikes at the schools in three separate locations in the war-battered Gaza Strip, attacks in which at least 45 people were killed.
According to its investigation, based on field research and interviews with witnesses, the New York-based group said no military targets were apparent in the area of the schools and that some of the attacks were indiscriminate.
Associated Press
