ALMOST 15 years after the end of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, Chileans have been confronted with the magnitude and cruelty of the torture it inflicted. After hearing the testimonies of 35,000 political detainees, an official commission has concluded that torture was a habitual practice of the armed forces and police throughout the dictatorship.

The evidence, of course, was always there. Some victims, if not many, talked about it. A few wrote books. And the main methods of torture described in the report released this week, such as repeated beatings, electric shocks and mock executions, are no surprise, although the sexual violence suffered by almost all women detainees—some raped by specially trained dogs, others bearing torturers' children—is particularly shocking.

However, perhaps more importantly, the report overturns the myth that torture was just the work of sick-minded, over-enthusiastic subordinates. Instead, it is revealed as a systematic policy, financed by the budget and practised in more than 1,100 detention centres around the country. And, even more importantly, not even the armed forces dispute the facts.

Indeed, for them, the report is a hard blow. Among serving officers, there is reportedly frustration at being caught up in the blame for events that happened under a different leadership. But ahead of the report's publication, Juan Emilio Cheyre, the army commander, admitted—if somewhat ambiguously—the army's responsibility for "morally unacceptable" practices; the police and air force later followed suit. This week the navy publicly admitted that a training ship, the Esmeralda, had been used as a torture centre.

Such admissions are a sign of how Chile has changed. In 1991 a truth commission reported on deaths and disappearances (although not torture), but many of the regime's supporters continued to claim that the almost 1,200 people who disappeared had just gone underground or were in exile. That myth finally fell apart in 2001 when the armed forces, weakened by General Pinochet's arrest in London in 1998, admitted to the secret disposal of bodies. The arrest also encouraged torture victims to start lobbying, contributing to the torture commission's creation last year.

But early reactions suggest that many victims ultimately want punishment for their torturers. That will be not be easy. Apart from the difficulties of getting evidence that would stand up in court, the dictatorship left in place an amnesty law for crimes between 1973 and 1978, when most of the torture occurred.

In addition, by respecting the victims' confidentiality, the commission has made their task more difficult, says Sebastian Brett of Human Rights Watch, a New-York-based organisation. The report includes only anonymous extracts of testimonies, and not the identities of alleged torturers. Not even the courts can have that information unless a victim presents it. That will make it hard for a victim pressing charges to get corroborating evidence from other testimonies. "We hope Congress will change this situation; in practice, it protects perpetrators," says Mr Brett.