“What We Are, Where We Are Headed”: A Peace March Visits an Ex-torture Center

Abstract

This chapter examines the meaning and role of divided symbols in post-conflict situations through the case of the ex-torture center Villa Grimaldi in post-dictatorship Chile. A network of clandestine detention, torture, and extermination centers operated during Pinochet’s dictatorship, between 1973 and the early 1980s, in numerous cities and towns around the country. In sites such as Villa Grimaldi detractors of the regime experienced brutal state violence while normal life, albeit under dictatorship, went on around them in Santiago de Chile. Villa Grimaldi was demolished in 1987 when members of the intelligence services attempted to transform the site into a residential development. Human rights organizations responded to this attempted erasure with a petition to transform the site into a memorial. In 1994 the center became the Villa Gramaldi Peace Park, dedicated to promoting and defending human rights as well as reconstructing the historical memory of the site. Since then the park has hosted numerous peacebuilding efforts. In 2009, for instance, the Park was included in the route of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, which traveled through hundreds of cities and towns in five continents.