Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“One of the ways that brutal right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet would terrorize the Chilean people into patriotic submission to his authority was by disappearing people. This was different from simply torturing and executing them. He and his goons certain did that too. But disappearing people was different. With executions and bodies, families at least had certainty with respect to what had happened to their loved one. With disappearances, they never could be certain that their loved one really was dead. … In a sense, disappearing people is what the U.S. government has been doing with immigrants that it is sending to El Salvador. Once U.S. officials deliver people into the clutches of El Salvador’s brutal dictatorial regime, the U.S. government ostensibly loses control over them. … Equally important, the inmate is denied any contact with the outside world.” (05/19/25)