Israel May Release 19,000 Documents Showing Ties with Pinochet Regime

The Israeli Defense Ministry will review an official request submitted by two Chileans demanding the release Israel’s security and foreign relations with Chile during dictatorship period of Augusto Pinochet, lawyer Itai Mack told Spanish media outlet EFE on Wednesday.

“Until now, they have refused to even consider the proposal on the basis that the government does not have the sufficient human resources available to fulfill the request,” Mack told EFE.

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The request to release over 19,000 documents pertaining to Israeli-Chilean diplomatic relations was issued last year by Daniel Silberman along with Lily Traubmann, the children of parents who were killed and disappeared during the brutal military regime of Augusto Pinochet, which lasted from 1973-1990.

Pinochet rose to power in Chile in a bloody military coup, displacing socialist leader Salvador Allende, as part of a continent-wide movement to suppress the left known as Operation Condor. General Pinochet’s regime killed or "disappeared" 3,000 people and tortured some 38,000, according to estimates.

“This is an issue of historic and personal justice,” Mack told EFE news agency.

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In his interview with EFE, Mack highlighted evidence from official U.S government documents released during the 1990’s under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, citing the Israeli government as one of the principle weapons exporters to the Pinochet regime during the ladder stages of his rule.

As part of the legal petition, Silberman and Traubmann are also requesting the launch of an additional investigation into identifying the extent of the Israeli government’s knowledge of the disappearance and political assassinations that were carried out by the Chilean government.