William Beausire

William Robert Beausire (born 1948) (also known as Guillermo Roberto Beausire Alonso[1] – his official name in Chile) was a British stockbroker with dual British and Chilean nationality, abducted while in transit in Buenos Aires airport in November 1974, then taken to a torture centre in Chile and never seen since. He is among the list of people deemed disappeared under the Pinochet regime.

Biography

William Beausire was a British businessman who had a British father and a Chilean mother, and had dual nationality.[2] He and his sisters grew up in Chile. He was abducted in Buenos Aires Ezeiza airport by plain clothed agents of the Argentine security forces on 2 November 1974, as he was on his way to France.[3] From there he was taken to Chile to the offices of DINA, the Chilean secret police, in calle Jose Domingo Cañas, Santiago, where his mother and sister Diana were being interrogated, and subsequently to the Villa Grimaldi torture centre.[4]

It is thought Beausire was a target for DINA because his sister Mary-Anne did oppose the regime, and was living with Andrés Pascal Allende, a revolutionary and leading member of the MIR, now in the underground opposition to the military regime and nephew of deposed Popular Unity Chilean president Salvador Allende. It is thought Beausire was targeted in an attempt to find out where Mary-Anne and Andres Pascal were.[5]

Witnesses say that Beausire was given electric shocks, had sticks forced into his rectum and was hung in the air. On 17 May 1975 he was taken to another DINA centre in Calle Irán, Santiago. The last anyone heard of William Beausire was on 2 July of that year, when witnesses reported seeing DINA officers taking him from a building in Iran Street, Santiago, since when he was never seen again. His mother, Ines Beausire, and his sister Diana started a fruitless search for him. In June 1976 the UK Government referred the case to the United Nations.[2] Beausire was 26 years old when he was arrested. His mother died in 1995.

In 1981 his case was highlighted when featured in the BBC TV "Prisoners of Conscience" series, with Beausire being played by Richard Griffiths.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ GUILLERMO ROBERTO BEAUSIRE ALONSO, Memoria Viva (Spanish)
  2. 1 2 Briton William Beausire 'returns' to haunt Pinochet, BBC News, 26 October 1998. Accessed online 30 June 2008.
  3. ↑ Chile/UK: UK shirks its obligation to cooperate in human rights investigation, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE, 23 April 2002. Accessed online 30 June 2008.
  4. ↑ Why Pinochet should not go free – A briefing, 1 November 1998. Accessed online 30 June 2008.
  5. ↑ An interview with Juana Francisca Beausire, World Socialist WebSite, 18 November 1998. Accessed online 30 June 2008.
  6. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498171/
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