The Judge and the General a Film by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco
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n o s a e 21 P.O .V. S Discussion Guide The Judge and the General A film by Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco www.pbs.org/pov n o s Discussion Guide | The Judge and the General a e 21 S Letter from the Filmmakers SAN FRANCISCO /S ANTIAGO , J ULY 2008 Dear Viewer, We had both wanted for many years to explore in a documentary what happened in Chile after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973. Patricio is Chilean and lived through it all. Elizabeth helped make a film in Chile in the early 1970s and has been haunted ever since by what happened there. She brought to The Judge and the General years of work as a print and television foreign correspondent. Patricio, a producer and musician, brought an insider’s view of the matices, the different shades of inference and doubt at work in a place like Chile. Filmmaker Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco. Elizabeth was especially Photo courtesy of Pat Johnson Studios, San Francisco, CA interested in understanding the phenomenon of “the Good German,” the conscientious person of high ideals who goes along with state terror because it offers safety and order in a time of chaos. Patricio was driven to explore more deeply the nature of hope. Faced with state terror, how did Chileans from so many different backgrounds dare to hope and act as if someday justice would return? We had first worked together in Chile in early 2000, producing reports for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Later, when we separately met Judge Juan Guzmán, we each realized his was the story we had been waiting to tell. He had been appointed by judicial lottery to investigate the first criminal charges filed against Pinochet in Chile in 1998. (Judges there both investigate and try cases.) Because Guzmán was politically conservative and had welcomed the 1973 Pinochet coup, human rights lawyers and victims’ families feared he would never seriously investigate the alleged crimes of the general he had supported. Those skeptics had often risked their own lives gathering evidence during the Pinochet years in hope of eventually bringing torturers and murderers to trial. Why should they trust a Johnny-come-lately? There was little basis for hope that Guzmán might change. © American Documentary, Inc. 2 n o s Discussion Guide | The Judge and the General a e 21 S Letter from the Filmmakers By the end of The Judge and the General , viewers will know whether the skeptics were right or wrong. The documentary is a detective story told by Guzmán and his witnesses, focusing on two specific crimes. As a NewsHour correspondent, Elizabeth was used to leading viewers through the labyrinth of a complex story with a voice-over narration, but here the main characters tell the tale. Our toughest job in editing was sticking with this mode of storytelling and keeping the present in the forefront while also flashing back to the past to explore the context of the crimes. At our sides as we solved creative dilemmas were executive producer Dick Pearce, a documentary and feature filmmaker (Hearts and Minds, Country, The Long Walk Home, Leap of Faith), who also had experience in Chile and continually urged us to craft a film that spoke to the heart as well as the head, and editor Blair Gershkow, who argued for the primacy of suspenseful storytelling every step of the way. As Guzmán travels ever deeper into what he calls the “abyss” of the past, he benefits from evidence that was gathered as the crimes were occurring by victims’ relatives, journalists and human rights lawyers. The hope implicit in their determination to gather every available shred of evidence to lay the groundwork for future trials is a defining moment in the worldwide human rights movement and stands in direct contrast to the actions of those who went along with — or even aided — the repression, including Judge Guzmán. We believe his journey — as he uncovers long-buried truths from the past and confronts his own role in the tragedy — holds meaning for us all at a time when terror, torture, rendition and secret prisons, all part of the Chilean experience, make news in the United States almost every day. Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco , Producers/Directors © American Documentary, Inc. 3 n o s Discussion Guide | The Judge and the General a e 21 S Table of Contents Credits, Acknowledgments 5 Introduction Writer 6 Background Information Faith Rogow, PhD 9 Timeline of Events Insighters Educational Consulting 11 Chile Today Research Editor 11 Judge Juan Guzmán Daniel McDermon 12 Selected People Featured Guide Producers, P.O.V. in The Judge and the General Eliza Licht 15 General Discussion Questions Director, Community Engagement and Education, P.O.V. 16 Discussion Prompts Jessica Lee 20 Taking Action Outreach and Development Coordinator, P.O.V. 21 Resources Irene Villaseñor 24 How to Buy the Film Youth Views Manager, P.O.V. Research Editor: Daniel McDermon Design: Rafael Jiménez Copy Editor: Joan D. Saunders Thanks to those who reviewed this guide: Elizabeth Farnsworth, Filmmaker, The Judge and the General Shelley Figueroa, Coordinator, Education & Outreach, WXXI Public Broadcasting Patricio Lanfranco, Filmmaker, The Judge and the General © American Documentary, Inc. 4 n o s Discussion Guide | The Judge and the General a e 21 S Introduction The Judge and the General , a feature-length (87 minutes) documentary explores the criminal investigation of General Augusto Pinochet, who led a military regime in Chile for nearly 20 years. In 1973, Pinochet led a military coup that ousted the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. In the service of his anti-Communist crusade and with U.S. help, Pinochet’s military and intelligence community consolidated power with a campaign of violence that included secret prisons, torture and murder. Hundreds of “disappeared” were arrested, never to be seen again. In 1998, relatives of victims filed suit against the former dictator and a judicial lottery assigned the case to a conservative judge, Juan Guzmán, considered to be a longtime Pinochet supporter. The filmmakers, who were granted unique access to Judge Guzmán’s criminal investigations, might have expected to document a cover-up. Instead, they witnessed a profound personal transfor - mation as the judge descends into what he calls “the abyss,” uncovering a past that includes his own role in the tragedy. As an outreach tool, The Judge and the General tells a cautionary tale about violating human rights in the name of “higher ideals.” In a time when terrorism, torture and rendition are top stories and human rights abuses make headlines on a regular basis, the film will challenge viewers to learn from history. Police arrest journalist Mónica González (kneeling) in 1984. Photo courtesy of Mónica González © American Documentary, Inc. 5 n o s Discussion Guide | The Judge and the General a e 21 S Background Information Police detectives and a forensic anthropologist exhume bodies Many Chileans refer to “the other 9/11” — the September 11, during Judge Juan Guzmán's investigation. 1973, coup led by General Augusto Pinochet against the Photo courtesy of Samy Carrasco democratically elected government of Socialist Salvador Allende. The coup left thousands of Chileans dead, tortured or “disappeared.” Allende committed suicide. The ensuing 17-year That double assassination, committed by the DINA, Chile’s dictatorship was embraced then, and even now, by a large secret police under Pinochet, helped begin the slide in the segment of Chilean society. In the United States, CIA complicity regime’s international legitimacy as domestic opposition in the coup was hotly debated, and the 1976 car-bomb assassi - reignited and spread. The murder would later be identified as nation in Washington, D.C., of anti-Pinochet exile Orlando being part of Operation Condor, in which the Pinochet Letelier, along with his American associate, Ronnie Moffit, government pursued Chilean exiles, targeting dissidents for alienated many of the general’s North American supporters. kidnapping, rendition, detention, torture and death. Because it © American Documentary, Inc. 6 n o s Discussion Guide | The Judge and the General a e 21 S Background Information took place in the United States, the assassination triggered an FBI investigation that would ultimately reveal some of Pinochet’s abuses and contribute to his downfall. By the late 1980s, Pinochet and his colleagues sensed the waning of their military rule and engineered a transition to civilian government intended to guarantee them a heavy hand in succeeding governments — and immunity from prosecution. Pinochet’s immunity was not challenged throughout most of the 1990s by elected center-left governments. When relatives of victims filed a criminal complaint against Pinochet in 1998, no one expected anything to happen — an expectation reinforced when the case was assigned by lottery to appellate court judge Juan Judge Guzmán after an all-day investigation on Chile's Pacific coast. Guzmán. (For human rights cases in Chile, judges are Photo courtesy of Juan Guzmán responsible for investigating and prosecuting, as well as trying, cases.) flew in a helicopter from town to town, marking on lists the Guzmán was seen as a conservative judge who, as a young law names of those to be executed. Guzmán’s disinterment of clerk, had penned some of the denials of habeas corpus, which Donoso’s remains, which proved that he had been murdered were signed by higher judges. A man from a wealthy and rather than killed in a road accident as the army claimed, patrician family, Guzmán believed the Pinochet version of provides a dramatic foreground to the heart-rending account of events: that the army had saved the country from a Communist Mónica Moya, Donoso’s widow, of his arrest and torture.