Stolen at birth, Chilean American adoptee sues Chile over similar dictatorship-era crimes
A Chilean-American raised in the United States filed a criminal complaint against the Chilean government on Monday, alleging that it engaged in a systematic plan to steal thousands of babies from perceived enemies of the state in the 1970s and 1980s.
A Chilean-American raised in the United States filed a criminal complaint against the Chilean government on Monday, alleging that it engaged in a systematic plan to steal thousands of babies from perceived enemies of the state in the 1970s and 1980s.
The case filed by Jimmy Lippert Thyden González, 43, aims to advance the task of Chilean prosecutors and human rights groups working on accountability for crimes committed under Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
On Sept. 11, 1973, Pinochet led a coup to overthrow Marxist President Salvador Allende, ushering in a period of brutal repression until 1990 during which at least 3,095 people were killed and tens of thousands more were imprisoned and tortured for political reasons.
Little more than a year after learning about his origins as one of thousands of Chilean adoptees taken from their biological parents without consent during Pinochet’s dictatorship, Thyden González lodged his lawsuit in Santiago, Chile’s capital.He did it at a pivotal moment. On Monday, a new judge assumed control over the judicial investigations into the dictatorship’s child-trafficking operations, the latest action as the left-wing government of President Gabriel Boric seeks to strengthen Chile’s accountability efforts.
“First and foremost, we start with acknowledgement by the government that this has happened. Acknowledgment that there was a wrong,” Thyden González, a lawyer and former Marine who was raised in Virginia, told The Associated Press in Santiago. “From there we can build on what reparations look like.”
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