VivirLatino

This is a brief summary of what happened in court on Monday with Victor Toro.

From an email:

The court entered in session at 9:30am. The court room was packed. The witnesses were asked out of the court room. The witnesses are Nieves, the daughter, his doctor, and a few other people-I don’t remember correctly. Basically from 9:30 to 11am Victor was interrogated by his attorney. His attorney mainly questioned him about his political affiliations in Chile specifically with MIR, the Pinochet regime, the history of torture, his exile and getting to the U.S.
He answered every question. He talked about his life, his history and the history of his country with so much respect and dignity. After he was questioned by he’s attorney, we were given a 2 hours break. During that period of time he was not allowed to talk to any of the witnesses. Also, people gathered outside 26 Federal Plaza and rallied in support of Victor. It was great. There was a lot of love and energy and about 40 people had gathered outside to rally.
Some of us went back up to the court room. During the second part of the day from around 1 to 4:30 pm Victor was interrogated by the prosecutor. Their main focus was to portray MIR as a terrorist organization by any means. Asking questions regarding where the funding came from, if MIR was ever linked to any terrorist group, alleging that they were armed, that Victor had led armed struggle, etc… Victor answered every question and he did very well because he came with the truth. At all times he kept his head up and clearly said that MIR was a revolutionary organization that fought for the rights of the workers, the poor and the peasants. Also, the prosecution attacked him a lot on he’s time and links to Cuba and even dared to asked if he had met with Fidel Castro to which Victor laughed and said no.
At the end he was questioned by the judge regarding not having petitioned for exile prior to 2008. To which he’s answered was that he was afraid that what’s happening today was going to happened if he had petitioned.
On a side note, the translation was weak and not accurate often times. Many of us reacted to this and some people were asked to leave the court room because they corrected the interpreter to which the judge said that we were not allowed to do and it was the responsibility of the attorney to object if the translation wasn’t accurate.
None of the witnesses were interviewed yesterday because of time constraint. The cross examination to Victor took the entire day. The case was adjourned until May 20, 2010.

It’s really interesting to note a few things here. One, the fact that Toro is being painted as a terrorist for resisting a military coup that was in part aided by the United States is concerning and should be of concern to all people who support real “democracy” in Latin America. Additionally, Toro’s case brings up the issue of why so many immigrants seeking refugee status choose to remain undocumented rather than go through/against a broken immigration system that first treats refugees as criminals by incarcerating them.