Parrilla (torture device)

The parrilla is a method of torture where the victim is strapped to a metal frame and subjected to electric shock.

The name "parrilla"

The Spanish word parrilla (/pa'riʎa/ or /pa'riʝa/) means a cooking grill or barbecue of the type commonly found in South American countries. By gruesome analogy, the metal frame used in the torture was given the same name because of its appearance and because the victim was placed on top of it like the meat on a barbecue. The parrilla is both the metal frame and the method of torture that uses it.

How the parrilla was used

The parrilla was used in a number of countries in South America, including Argentina during the dirty war in the 1970s and 80s and Brazil. In Chile during the Pinochet regime (1973 to 1990) it became notorious as a routine tool of interrogation.

The victim was made to strip naked, then lie on his or her back on a metal frame, often a bed-frame. Straps were used to restrain the victim in a position convenient for torture, with legs spread and arms either above the head or away from the sides of the body. The straps were tightened to prevent movement.

Electricity was drawn from a standard wall socket and fed through a control box to the victim by two wires terminating in electrodes. The control on the box allowed the torturers to adjust the voltage and thus the severity of the electric shocks.

A variety of ways were used to administer the shocks. A common method, chosen to maximise pain and distress, was for one of the electrodes to be fixed to the victim for the duration of the torture session and the second, in the form of a wire with a bare end or an electrode with a wooden insulating handle, to be moved around to touch different sensitive parts of the body in turn, so as to cause a current to flow through the body between the two electrodes. For a male, the fixed wire was clipped to his penis. For a female, it was attached to an electrode – either a short metal rod or, for better electrical contact, a wetted steel wool pan scrub - and this electrode was pushed into her vagina. The torturer then touched the second electrode to different places on the body, such as the feet, mouth, nipples, breasts and genitals. This caused pain, and sometimes damage, where the movable electrode was applied and at the point where the fixed electrode had been placed. It also made a current flow through the body from one electrode to the other, causing intense pain and violent muscle contractions. Typically the person being tortured was kept blindfolded to add to the sense of helplessness as it was impossible to predict where and when the moving electrode would next be touched to the body.

The victim's experience

In 1975, Sheila Cassidy underwent several sessions of torture on the parrilla at the Villa Grimaldi on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile. Her experiences were similar to those of many other victims. She was arrested by the DINA, the Chilean secret police, for medically treating a suspected political opponent of the regime. Her captors took her at once to be tortured. She writes Cassidy, Sheila (1977). "Audacity To Believe", Collins, London. ISBN 0-00-211858-0.] that in her first session, though naked and bound to the parrilla, she was given generalised electric shocks which she was able to endure long enough to construct a false story sufficient for the torture to be stopped.

In a second session, the torturers were irritated that she had wasted their time and got the better of them by giving false information. Again she was bound naked to the metal frame. This time she was worked harder from the start. She says that, with one electrode in her vagina and the second moving around the most sensitive parts of her body, the torture was much more intense and severe. This was due to the location of the shocks and increased voltage. The torturer applying the moving electrode made the shocks follow quickly on from each other so she had no time to think. Often she was temporarily paralysed by the shocks and could not speak. Understandably, she was terrified throughout this process. At times she wanted to answer some of the torturers' questions but was physically unable to indicate her willingness to cooperate. The shocks were continued even when she was giving truthful information. They continued to work on her until they had broken her completely and she had told them everything they wanted to know.

Effectiveness

Opinions differ as to whether any form of torture achieves the purpose of those who use it. Whether or not the parrilla was effective in that sense, it achieved a number of the torturers' objectives as effectively or more so than the other methods of torture available to them:

* The parrilla was easy for the torturers to use. Unlike beating and other forms of physical torture, it required no physical exertion on their part and the severity of the torture was finely adjustable by simply varying the strength of the shocks.

* It had a powerful psychological effect, even before any shocks were applied to the victim. Women, in particular, found the process of being prepared for a session on the parrilla degrading. For some women, part of their preparation was to be raped on arrival in the torture room in order to 'soften' them. Cassidy writes that she thought herself fortunate not to be raped as she knew other women had been. Even when there was no rape, many women found being forced to strip, being tied down in an exposed position, and then having an electrode inserted into them by the torturers, to be sexually abusive and intimidating. Instilling this feeling of degradation in the victims was intended by the torturers. A part of the torture process was that both female and male victims were made to feel utterly helpless and in the power of their torturers.

* Its physical effects were severe. When shocks were applied, victims say the experience was indescribably painful. Sometimes the violent muscle contractions in the restrained limbs caused them to fracture. Some prisoners even died.

Elsewhere in the world

Electric shock torture has been, and still is, used in many places in the world, and often the victim is restrained on a frame or table. Only in South America was this type of torture called the parrilla.

The parrilla as a symbol of oppression

The use of the parrilla has declined in many places where it was once common. In Chile it is no longer used, but its reputation survives. It appears to have been one of the most feared of all the methods of torture, possibly because many prisoners suffered it and it suited the authorities to make no secret of its widespread use. As a result, it has achieved an almost legendary status. For example, the current President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, has been asked in interviews about her own torture as a young woman in 1975. She says she was 'spared the parrilla', [ Michelle Bachelet interview by Ruth Valentini, 'Le Nouvel Observateur', 7 July 2005, translated from French ] so indicating in a single phrase that in her opinion her tortures were less severe than those of many of her fellow Chileans.

References

ee also

* DINA
* Villa Grimaldi
* Torture
* Ethical arguments regarding torture

External links

* [http://www.hospice-history.org.uk/byoralsurname?id=0020&search=c&page=0 Brief biography and photo of Sheila Cassidy] .
* [http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/chile/libros/represion/3a.html Page (in Spanish) containing an illustration of the parrilla in use] .