SANTIAGO, Nov. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Chilean Army chief General Juan Cheyre has admitted to torture in the army committed during the military regime of Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990, local mediareported Friday.

    "The Chilean army took the hard but irreversible decision to accept its responsibility for the acts of the past" that are morally unacceptable and are of criminal nature, Cheyre said in a report called "The end of a Vision" published by the daily La Tercera daily.

    Cheyre admitted there were torture, assassinations and disappearances of dissidents by the law-enforcement institutions under Pinochet's rule.

    He said that under the Cold War circumstances, the logic of confrontation affected Chile, but added: "Human rights violations never, and to nobody, could have an ethical justification whatsoever."

    Cheyre made these remarks days before the release of a government report on torture and imprisonment of dissidents duringthe military regime of Pinochet.

    The abundant cases of torture recorded in the report contradicted a claim in the past by the military that there was nosystematic policy of human rights violations in Chile, analysts said.

    The government report will be handed over to President Ricardo Lagos on Wednesday. Enditem