In mid-1981, General Augusto Pinochet gave the order for the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), under the command of General Arturo Álvarez Scoglia, to assassinate Tucapel Jiménez, president of the National Association of Fiscal Employees (ANEF).

Jiménez had emerged as the primary Chilean labor leader and was planning, along with other opposition leaders, a major national strike against the military government.

Álvarez Scoglia created a special group to carry out the mission and designated three officers as members of the execution squad. However, the agents showed an evident "lack of commitment" to the assigned task, and the DINE command had to replace them by turning to two officers who had been members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

In 1981, these officers were attached to the National Information Center (CNI), created in 1977 to succeed the DINA. They were Lieutenant Colonel Maximiliano Ferrer Lima and Captain Carlos Herrera Jiménez, alias "Mauro" or "Bocaccio."

Both officers installed themselves at the beginning of November in the facilities of the Counter-Espionage Unit, which reported to the Department II of Counterintelligence of the Army Intelligence Corps (CIE), located at Avenida Echeñique 5995, in the commune of La Reina.

That unit was part of the intricate and highly secret structure of the DINE, led by Commander Víctor Pinto Pérez. Ferrer Lima and Herrera Jiménez, along with two teams of agents under their command, then dedicated themselves to preparing every detail of the plan to assassinate Tucapel Jiménez.

They were in the midst of this when the various services of the military dictatorship's intelligence community learned that former President Eduardo Frei Montalva had decided to check into the Santa María clinic to undergo surgery for a bothersome hiatal hernia.

As spring 1981 began, the CNI was certain that the much-feared opposition labor union unit was forming rapidly and that its primary architect was Tucapel Jiménez. The matter was even more serious because Jiménez was also holding conversations with several of the main political leaders of the opposition, including Eduardo Frei Montalva.

The ANEF leader and the former president had already met at the Vicarage of Labor Pastoral Care along with some dignitaries of the Catholic Church. CNI analysts reached the conclusion that a broad national strike with unpredictable consequences was being prepared, with the support, moreover, of numerous entities and governments from around the world.

The Task of the CNI

From its inception, the CNI exercised close surveillance over the labor world through the Labor Brigade or Political-Labor Brigade, which reported directly to the Metropolitan Intelligence Division, commanded by Army Colonel Roberto Schmied Zanzi.

The head of the brigade since 1979 was Carabineros Captain Miguel Eugenio Hernández Oyarzo ("Felipe Bascur"), who had performed similar functions in the DINA in 1977, from the "Ollagüe" barracks located on Calle José Domingo Cañas, in the commune of Ñuñoa.

By mid-1979, the brigade moved to a new secret barracks on Calle Agustinas and was divided into four groups, each under the command of Army Captain Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez ("Manolo Arriagada"), Héctor Lira ("Julián Reyes"), Nelson Fernández Franco ("Carlos Santander"), and Jorge Ramírez Romero ("Carlos de la Fuente"), respectively.

The Labor Brigade achieved a significant breakthrough when it managed to recruit Luis Becerra for its tasks—Frei Montalva's driver, a man who was also in the former president's absolute confidence.

Among the agents were Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Juan Araos Araos, Carlos Asalgado Martínez, Edmundo Alberto Asenjo Gálvez, Daniel Cancino Varas, Gustavo Caruman Soto, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Germán Erazo Ahumada, Ricardo Erazo Ahumada, Héctor Alfredo Flores Vergara, Segundo Gangas Godoy, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar, Luis Gutiérrez Uribe, Guido Jara Brevis, Jaime Márquez Campos, Luis Mora Cerda, José Mora Diocares, José Muñoz Leal, Enrique Naranjo Muñoz, Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Manuel Poblete Vergara, Luis Tomás Rojas Torres, Manuel Tapia Tapia, and Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera.

The Labor Brigade achieved a significant breakthrough when it managed to recruit Luis Becerra, Frei Montalva's driver, a man who was also in the former president's absolute confidence and knew the activities and the inner circle of the Christian Democratic leader very closely.

In 1977, the Ministry General Secretariat of Government created the National Secretariat of Guilds under the Directorate of Civil Organizations and placed Misael Galleguillos at its head. He was a mathematics professor at the Valparaíso branch of the University of Chile and an active militant of Patria y Libertad during the Popular Unity government.

His apparent mission was to form pro-government labor leaders, but in truth, his primary role consisted of monitoring and infiltrating opposition labor leaderships and passing all that information to the CNI.

One of the actions with the greatest public impact by Galleguillos, who also directed the National Syndicalist Revolutionary Movement (MRNS), was the boycott of an ANEF press conference, in which Guillermo Henríquez, Jorge Salazar Hojman, Genaro Pozo, and Jorge Baldrich Camus burst in shouting "traitor" and "sellout" at Tucapel Jiménez.

The following day, Baldrich appeared photographed in El Mercurio. He later declared that the order had been given to him by the then-Minister Secretary General of Government, General Sergio Badiola Brodeg, who was assisted by the ministry's undersecretary, the lawyer Jovino Novoa Vásquez.

Galleguillos also counted on a secret informant among the opposition who anticipated all the activities of the "Group of Ten." This was Federico Mujica Canales, a short man of Radical origin, a constant pipe smoker, who presided over the Confederation of Private Employees of Chile (CEPCH).

Very soon, the CNI refined its methods of tracking, surveillance, wiretapping, and penetration. The information gathered was incorporated into individual files, and their contents were periodically replicated, with copies sent to the central barracks on Calle República.

There, they were received by Mirtha Espinoza Caamaño, the secretary to Colonel Roberto Schmied, head of the Interior Department, who was later appointed commander of the Metropolitan Intelligence Division, where the various anti-subversive brigades were located. Under Schmied's direct command were Major Zanelli and Captain Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, who were in charge of operational tasks.

One of the most secret paid informants that the repressive agency maintained within the leadership circles of the opposition labor movement could only be identified in the first half of 2009. This was the socialist Víctor Hugo Gac, a member of the executive committee of the CNS, a man then very close to Arturo Martínez.

The secretary recorded the information in control books, with the date of entry, the originating unit, and a brief description of the content. Acronyms and codes were used according to the respective units and sections. Thus, for example, F.1.1 corresponded to the head of the division; F-1.2 to the deputy head, and so on, according to the various departments into which the CNI was divided.

Leaders such as Tucapel Jiménez, Eduardo Ríos, Ernesto Vogel, and Manuel Bustos, among others, had their telephones tapped, and all correspondence sent to them and their families from abroad and within the country was reviewed at the unit the CNI maintained at the Post Office. A file was kept on each of them with their personal, work, and family history, in addition to their contact networks.

In 1976, a CNI agent nicknamed "Omar" recruited as an informant the employee who worked as an assistant at the ANEF, in its three-story headquarters located at the corner of Alameda and Riquelme. The "junior" was named Julio Olivares Silva and was the son of a friend of Tucapel Jiménez.

Twice a week, the young man delivered his reports to the Labor Brigade barracks, where he received a cash payment in exchange. In 1977, Olivares Silva was incorporated into the CNI staff under the cover name "Gabriel Carrasco González," although everyone called him "Barnabás."

Valericio Orrego, for his part, also became a paid collaborator of the CNI. He infiltrated Carlos Santa María, a leader of the Group of Ten, by recruiting one of his employees at a business he owned at the corner of Bandera and General Mackenna. The informant was named Patricio Pezoa and had to report periodically to "Manolo" or "Carlos de la Fuente," his control agents in the CNI.

One of the most secret paid informants that the repressive agency maintained within the leadership circles of the opposition labor movement could only be identified in the first half of 2009. This was the socialist Víctor Hugo Gac, a member of the executive committee of the CNS, a man then very close to Arturo Martínez.

The Hard Road to Unity

At the end of May 1976, ten important labor leaders, nine of them linked to the PDC, who claimed to represent 400 unions and more than 600,000 workers, sent a document to the military government protesting the new labor legislation being imposed and the marginalization of workers from political decisions.

The signatories were Tucapel Jiménez (ANEF), Ernesto Mellado (peasants), Pedro Cifuentes (IANSA), Antonio del Campo (bank employees), Guillermo Santana (Copper Workers Confederation, CTC), Manuel Bustos (textile workers), Ernesto Vogel (FIFCH), Federico Mujica (CEPCH), Antonio Mimiza (oil workers), and Eduardo Díaz (COMACH).

From that moment on, they were known as the Group of Ten, and very soon other important labor organizations joined them, such as the Plastic Workers Confederation, the Federation of Professionals and Technicians of the National Health Service, and the Federation of Unions of the Banco Español.

At the end of the summer of 1978, former deputy Gladys Marín entered the country clandestinely, followed by Manuel Cantero Prado, both members of the political commission. Two months later, in May, the new Interior Leadership Team (EDI) was constituted, headed by Marín, along with Cantero ("Miguel"), Oscar Riquelme ("El viejo Pablo"), and Nicasio Farías ("Héctor"), who took charge of the Infrastructure Front, entrusted with all logistical work and the search for resources and materials for clandestine tasks. "Mariana," meanwhile, had to assume the delicate management of the party's finances.

One of the main tasks of the EDI was to rebuild internal structures and, in particular, the labor fabric. To this end, Moisés Labraña, responsible for that sector in the Communist Youth (JJ.CC.), was promoted to the party's labor liaison and integrated into the EDI.

Labraña had a determined team that included Héctor Cuevas, Alamiro Guzmán, and José Lecaros, among others. The PC labor activists managed to refine links with the main labor leaders of the Christian Democrats, including Manuel Bustos of the textile workers, Eduardo Ríos of the maritime workers, and Ernesto Vogel of the railway workers, as well as other historical figures like the octogenarian Clotario Blest.

Left-wing labor activism, meanwhile, grouped together in the National Labor Coordinator (CNS), created under the wing of the Center for Labor Studies, which was dependent on the Cardijn Foundation, which in turn was closely linked to the Catholic Church.

The CNS appeared publicly in 1978, claiming to represent some 400 grassroots unions, mainly industrial, small and medium-scale mining, and peasant unions. Among the members were the Mining Confederation, FENSIMET, FENAMEX, FIEMEC, Ranquil, UOC, the Pensioners Association, Sanitation Workers, the Painting Federation, and the Graphic Union.

There was also the Unitary Workers Front (FUT), a small formation of Christian labor activists led by Carlos Frez, the dismissed president of the Port Workers Union, who had been linked long before to the Young Christian Workers and the Christian Workers' Action Movement.

Thus, more than three thousand workers from these three labor groups converged on May 1, 1978, toward Plaza Almagro, a few blocks south of La Moneda, to commemorate Labor Day. The Carabineros forced them to disperse, but they regrouped a few blocks away at the San Francisco church, next to the Alameda Bernardo O’Higgins, where they were driven away again.

By mid-afternoon, pickets of workers were still shouting slogans in various places in downtown Santiago. By nightfall, the toll of the demonstrations indicated nearly 400 detainees, including several foreigners and religious figures. The military dictatorship and the pro-government press were forced to acknowledge, for the first time, the dissident street demonstrations.

Neither the PC nor the other left-wing parties, nor the Christian Democrats, perceived well the effects that the Labor Plan designed by Minister Piñera would provoke among the workers.

On May 22, relatives of the forcibly disappeared occupied the offices of UNICEF and the parishes of Jesús Obrero, on General Velásquez, in the western sector of the capital; La Estampa, in Independencia, a few meters from Plaza Chacabuco, in the northern sector; and Don Bosco, on Gran Avenida, in the southern zone.

They remained there until June 7, demanding to know the fate of their relatives. Neither the CNI nor the police dared to evict them because the Catholic Church was involved, and furthermore, the demonstration coincided with the arrival in the country of five high-ranking representatives of the American AFL-CIO and a visit by prosecutor Eugene Propper, who was investigating the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington.

On June 7, two surprise marches took place through the streets of downtown Santiago in solidarity with the relatives of the disappeared. The presence of dissident pamphlets in crowded places became frequent during those days, and graffiti began to multiply on walls in neighborhoods and on the city's main avenues.

In university headquarters, flash rallies emerged, and folk music clubs (peñas) multiplied under the wing of religious venues and some nightclubs. In the working-class neighborhoods, meanwhile, all kinds of community organizations began to be created, and in the factories, slowly, workers dared to meet to voice their grievances.

In August, at the Chuquicamata division of CODELCO, near the city of Calama, copper miners decided to go to the cafeterias at lunchtime with their empty "lunchboxes." The prolonged protest movement for labor demands was called the "viandazo."

At the beginning of September, surprised and angered by the symptoms of labor unrest, the dictatorship decreed a state of siege in the degree of internal commotion. The right of amparo (habeas corpus) before the courts of justice was limited, the arrest and internal exile of persons were authorized, as well as the cancellation of nationality and the prosecution of detainees in military courts.

Almost a month later, on October 20, 1978, the illegality of the main entities that made up the CNS was decreed; union headquarters were raided, assets and bank accounts were confiscated, and numerous leaders were arrested.

At the same time, the renewal of union leaders in the private sector was decreed, and many businessmen took the opportunity to fire opposition workers who could be elected. In the following weeks, some nine thousand labor leaders were replaced.

Several of the main global labor organizations intervened, and the powerful American AFL-CIO threatened a boycott of Chilean exports starting in early 1979. Alarmed, the military government announced the appointment of a new Minister of Labor, the economist José Piñera, who took office on December 26, pledged to normalize labor relations, and announced the promulgation in mid-79 of a Labor Plan that would put an end to the problems.

Pérez Zujovic, Frei, Jaime Castillo, and Modesto Collados

Neither the PC nor the other left-wing parties, nor the Christian Democrats, perceived well the effects that the Labor Plan designed by Minister Piñera would provoke among the workers. In July 1979, the main decrees that imposed the new labor institutional framework were promulgated: union membership was no longer mandatory, and the formation of several unions within the same company was authorized; collective bargaining became company-based rather than industry-based; the dismissal of workers "due to company needs" was authorized; the right to strike was restricted to 60 days, with the possibility of replacing workers after that period; and the retirement age was postponed from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 60 for women, among other measures. Those provisions were devastating; the labor movement was extremely weakened, and the fear of "losing the job" was imposed.

In 1980 and 1981, despite the protests of labor leaders, Piñera's Labor Plan was consolidated. The Group of Ten was transformed into the Democratic Workers Union (UDT), although without several Christian Democratic leaders who were marginalized, such as Manuel Bustos, who became the leader of the new National Labor Coordinator (CNS).

The Hour of the Executioners

When the plan to assassinate Tucapel Jiménez was already underway and the military dictatorship learned that Frei Montalva would check in for surgery, an apparent parallel operation was activated to eliminate the former president and cover up the homicide as a series of post-surgical complications. However, Judge Alejandro Madrid was unable to specify the details of the conspiracy.

He convicted former Captain Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez, a former member of the CNI and later of the DINE, and the driver Luis Becerra, but he could not clarify from which branch of the military dictatorship the order to assassinate him came.

Lillo Gutiérrez was the agent who controlled Becerra and Genaro Cerda Weber, a DC militant and husband of Hilda Navarro Varas, secretary of that same party. Lillo, transferred in the late 80s to the DINE, participated in the assassination of the chemist Eugenio Berríos in Uruguay, and for that crime, he was sentenced in August 2013 to ten years and one day in prison.

For many years, it was presumed that the chemist Berríos was the one who had inoculated the former president with some poison or other toxic substance while he was in the clinic. In fact, the former director of the Investigative Police (PDI), Nelson Mery, asserted during the trial that Berríos was assassinated to prevent him from speaking about the assassination of Frei Montalva.

Judge Madrid also convicted four doctors: one—gastric surgeon Patricio Silva Garín—as the principal author; another—Pedro Valdivia Soto, a former member of the DINA—as an accomplice; and the remaining two—pathologists Helmar Rosenberg Gómez and Sergio González Bombardiere—as accessories.

The magistrate also failed to establish whether these doctors conspired among themselves for the crime and/or obeyed orders to commit it.

Human rights lawyers, very close to the PDC, who requested that their names be withheld, told INTERFERENCIA that they considered the more than 800-page ruling very weak and that, in their opinion, both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court will have to make strenuous efforts to draft a new and better resolution.

Source: interferencia.cl, December 19, 2019

44.-) Statement of Raúl Iturra Muñoz, from page 4294, who stated that he was detained on January 4, 1974, and taken to the Londres 38 detention center. Two days later, he was transported in a refrigerated truck to a facility that turned out to be Tejas Verdes, where he remained until April 1974, when he was transferred to the San Antonio Public Jail.

In July 1974, members of the DINA transferred him, along with others, to "Cuatro Álamos." They arrived at night; the facility had about 13 rooms. The person in charge of the facility, whom they called "cara pálida" (pale face), turned out to be Orlando Manzo.

Over time, he became friends with a guard named Carlos Alberto Matus Carrasco, known as "Mauro," which made it easier for him to help distribute food, and in this way, he got to know the facility. During the time he was held at "Cuatro Álamos," between July 1974 and the end of December of that same year, he saw the Andrónico Antequera twins, "el negro" Calderón (Mario Calderón Tapia), "el pelao" Wolf, Palominos, Argomedo, Muriel, and others whose names he does not recall.

Néstor Agüero, Ariel Salinas, and a priest with the surname "Güido" also arrived in his room. There were no interrogations at that location; detainees were taken to other secret DINA facilities for those purposes.

He is certain that a detainee named Luz Arce received privileged treatment. He saw three agents remove people from "Cuatro Álamos": "el guatón" Romo, Krassnoff, and Basclay Zapata. They would enter the facility, point out the detainees they needed, and take them away.

Conversely, there were other agents who would arrive and hand a list with the names of certain detainees to the guards, and the guards would go to look for those detainees in the different rooms and hand them over to the agents.

Among the guards appearing in the photograph, he recognizes Manzo, Juan Araos Araos, Alejandro Astudillo Adonis, and the one who was Mauro's companion, who appears identified as Juanito. Approximately on December 15, 1974, he was transferred to Tres Álamos.

FOURTH: That Manuel Heriberto Avendaño González, in his statements on pages 3591 and 3596, stated that he joined the DINA in August 1974, when he was transferred from the Third Central Police Station of Santiago to the Department of Transitional Commissions under the Carabineros.

At first, he was assigned to José Domingo Cañas, where he remained for approximately two weeks. Since all the other officials were more experienced, having attended the course at Rocas de Santo Domingo, he was sent to work at Cuatro Álamos as punishment.

When he arrived at Cuatro Álamos, the facility was in charge of an Army non-commissioned officer named Lucero; he also remembers a chief named Rodríguez. The following officials provided services there: Carabineros Juan Manuel Araos Araos and the undersigned; from the Army, Rubén Delgado and Juan Araneda Araneda; and civilian employees Mauricio Carrasco, "el loco" Morales, and Richard González.

From the Air Force, as conscript soldiers who later became civilian employees, were Alejandro Astudillo and Demóstenes Cárdenas Saavedra. Thus, they formed a team of eight people. He also remembers that the civilian employee named Morales, whom they called "el loco," was the messenger and driver for the chief, Orlando Manzo Durán.

ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST: That the accused José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, in his inquiries on pages 3094 and 3641, states that as a Corporal of the Carabineros, he was assigned to the DINA in November 1973 along with one hundred students, mentioning some of them.

They went through a basic course at Rocas de Santo Domingo, were received by César Manríquez, and Contreras informed them that they would take an intelligence orientation course. Upon finishing, they were assigned to brigades; his was Cóndor, under the command of Ciro Torré.

He worked at Londres 38, where brigades composed of Army officials commanded by Moren operated, and Caupolicán, in charge of Krassnoff. Later, there was another restructuring, forming the Lautaro Brigade, assigned to the Simón Bolívar facility, where he was located.

Lautaro was commanded by Morales Salgado. There was also a Mehuín Brigade; the brigade chiefs, Lawrence and Barriga, reported to Morales Salgado. His first assignment as Cóndor was at Londres 38, he estimates at the end of 1973, which was composed of its chief, Ciro Torré, Juan Araos, Gustavo Guerrero, Montre, Camilo Torres, Luis Urrutia, Jorquera, Avendaño Orozco, Orellana de la Pinta, and Pichunmán.

The chief of this facility was Moren Brito, and Torré worked in an office on the first floor. There were areas for detainees, but he did not stay in the facility; he would arrive to receive orders and deliver them.

His partner was Juan Araos. He points out that he did not see detainees entering this facility, but he did see them inside, sitting on chairs, blindfolded and tied up, no more than ten detainees at the times he saw them.

Their length of stay was relative, as the chief of the facility would send them to Tejas Verdes; they would leave in closed trucks from the Pesquera Arauco. He did not participate in the transfer of detainees, nor did he participate in interrogations. He estimates that as a consequence of his investigative duties, detentions must have occurred.

Source: Judiciary, May 20, 2015

Case File 2182-98, "Operation Colombo: Francisco Aedo and others" episode

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH: That Daniel Alberto Galaz Orellana, who was accused of the crimes established in considerations 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, and 31, in his inquiries on pages 12,891, 15,690, 15,940, and 16,425, maintained that he joined the DINA in November 1973, while serving as a student at the Carabineros de Chile Non-Commissioned Officers School.

After the intelligence course in Rocas de Santo Domingo, his first assignment within the DINA was the Londres No. 38 facility. The chief of this facility was Army officer Marcelo Moren Brito, and he was assigned to the "Cóndor" group, which was under the command of a Carabinero officer named Ciro Torré.

Among the colleagues who performed duties in that unit, he remembers Luis Soto Villalobos, Manuel Saldivia, Vallejos, Ampuero, Manuel Pérez Millaldeo, Carlos Correa Habed, Juan Araos Araos, and Gustavo Guerrero.

The duties he performed at the Londres No. 38 facility involved investigating, together with his colleague Manuel Saldivia, the investigation orders or "ocones" that were delivered by a Carabinero non-commissioned officer named Torres, who performed the staff duties for the group.

These orders consisted of investigating abandoned addresses and finding out the name of the owner of said property and the address of these people. On that date, he did not have to raid or detain people; he limited himself to performing investigative work.

He remembers that at the Londres No. 38 facility, there were detainees who were brought in by the unit's operational personnel, among whom he remembers Miguel Krassnoff with his team composed of "el guatón" Romo, "el Troglo" Zapata, and Tulio Pereira.

The detainees remained in rooms on the first floor and were guarded by Army personnel, who were mostly conscript soldiers. The detainees were blindfolded and sitting on chairs in dark rooms, and since he had no contact with them, he does not know if they were in good or bad physical condition.

The detainees were interrogated by the same arresting team in a room located on the second floor of the facility. I only heard from other agents that the detainees were subjected to electric shocks on a metal cot using a telephone magneto and were tortured, but he never saw it; it was only rumored.

Closed three-quarter-ton trucks also arrived at the Londres No. 38 facility; some had the "pesqueras" (fishery) logo and others were completely white, which were used for the transport of detainees.

In July or August 1974, he was transferred along with part of the personnel to perform duties at the José Domingo Cañas facility, which was in charge of Captain Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and his operational group, which was "Halcón." In this facility, special teams were formed to take statements from the detainees; these groups were under the command of Investigations sub-commissioner Hermon Alfaro Mundaca.

I remember that in this facility, there were detainees who were brought into the unit by Miguel Krassnoff's operational groups, and at that time, they were working only on the MIR; the operational groups had been separated to work on different parties or groups opposed to the Military Government.

His function in this facility was to transport the detainees from the cells or rooms to the area designated for interrogation. He received this order from Hermón Alfaro Mundaca, who was the person who interrogated the detainees under illegal duress based on a memo left by the arresting agents.

He can also indicate that the detainees' hands and legs were bandaged so that they would not suffer injuries when they were tied to the metal cot and electric shocks were applied. After this procedure, and when the detainee was already "softened" or began to cooperate, they proceeded to take a statement by typewriter, and this function was in charge of Carabinero non-commissioned officer Carlos Correa Habed.

I cooperated with him in this work by asking the detainees questions, and Correa proceeded to transcribe the statements of these people on the typewriter. All the information provided by the detainees was copied three times: one for the arresting personnel, another copy was sent to the General Headquarters through the staff, and the third was archived in the interrogators' team kardex.

Subsequently, at the end of 1974, they were transferred to the Villa Grimaldi facility; this facility was located on José Arrieta Street. Among the officers who performed duties in this facility, he remembers Marcelo Moren Brito as chief of the facility and the Caupolicán brigade, Miguel Krassnoff, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, Ricardo Lawrence, Gerardo Godoy, Fernando Lauriani, Eugenio Fieldhouse, Daniel Cancino Varas, Luis Videla, and Juan Urbina Lobos.

At the Villa Grimaldi facility, all the groups under the command of the Caupolicán Brigade operated, among which he remembers Halcón, Águila, Tucán, and Vampiro, which were under the command of officers Miguel Krassnoff, Ricardo Lawrence, Gerardo Godoy, and Fernando Lauriani.

In this facility, he performed the same duties he carried out at the José Domingo Cañas facility, but in addition, more groups were formed for the interrogation of detainees.

Source: Judiciary, May 30, 2017

When Chilean trade unionists were watched, followed, and listened to

From its inception in 1977, the CNI exercised close surveillance over the trade union world through the Labor Brigade. The head of the brigade from 1979 was Carabinero Captain Miguel Eugenio Hernández Oyarzo ("Felipe Bascur"), who had performed similar functions in the DINA.

By mid-1979, the brigade moved to a new secret facility on Agustinas Street and was divided into four groups, each under the command of Army Captain Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez ("Manolo Arriagada"), Héctor Lira ("Julián Reyes"), Nelson Fernández Franco ("Carlos Santander"), and Jorge Ramírez Romero ("Carlos de la Fuente"), respectively.

Among the agents were Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Juan Araos Araos, Carlos Asalgado Martínez, Edmundo Alberto Asenjo Gálvez, Daniel Cancino Varas, Gustavo Caruman Soto, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Germán Erazo Ahumada, Ricardo Erazo Ahumada, Héctor Alfredo Flores Vergara, Segundo Gangas Godoy, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar, Luis Gutiérrez Uribe, Guido Jara Brevis, Jaime Márquez Campos, Luis Mora Cerda, José Mora Diocares, José Muñoz Leal, Enrique Naranjo Muñoz, Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Manuel Poblete Vergara, Luis Tomás Rojas Torres, Manuel Tapia Tapia, and Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera.

In 1977, the Ministry General Secretariat of Government created, under the dependency of the Directorate of Civil Organizations, the National Secretariat of Guilds and placed Misael Galleguillos at its head, a Mathematics professor from the Valparaíso branch of the University of Chile, an active militant of Patria y Libertad during the Popular Unity government.

His apparent mission was to train pro-government union leaders, but in truth, his main role consisted of monitoring and infiltrating opposition union leaderships and passing all that information to the CNI.

The directorate of the Secretariat of Guilds had its offices in the Diego Portales building, but most of its officials and collaborators worked near there, in a three-story house that stood on the corner of the Alameda and Victoria Subercaseaux Street, next to Santa Lucía Hill.

Galleguillos, enthusiastic about his task, recreated the National Revolutionary Syndicalist Movement (MRNS)—inspired by an old movement of the same name—headquartered in a large house at 180 Vergara Street, in the old República neighborhood, southeast of the center of Santiago, and closely linked to the CNI.

Several of the main pro-government union leaders gathered there, including René Sotolicchio, president of the National Association of Municipal Employees; Valericio Orrego Salas, president of the Association of Employees of the Ministry of Public Works; Carlos Navarrete, president of Union No. 1 of Street Markets of Santiago; and Jaime Tramont Castillo, a union leader from Valparaíso.

Galleguillos also summoned Werner Anís Bischosausen, Eugenio Cáceres Contreras, Ramón Callís Arrigorriaga, Iván Catalina Sánchez, Gustavo Cuevas Torrealba, Héctor Larenas Bugueño, Luis Lillo Abarca, Lázaro Maluenda, Claudio Matte, and Pedro Urquieta.

Claudio Matte and Héctor Larenas financed the rent of the headquarters, where the security officers were Hugo Cabezas Freire, a member of the CNI, and Rigoberto Moreno, a former Navy official.

The leadership of the movement, headed by Galleguillos, was composed of José Fernández Jorquera, Arturo Marshall de Amesti, Alfredo Urrutia, Fernando Muñoz Parra, and Marcelo Retamal Moreno, who focused on planning shock actions, producing propaganda, and scheduling union training courses for the cadres and leaders they summoned to their meetings.

Luis Lillo Abarca was in charge of training, and Héctor Larenas Buqueño was in charge of propaganda and public relations.

Black shirts and Nazi salutes

In another property, located at 8081 Larraín Street, in front of the Tobalaba airfield, or in a vacant lot in Farellones, paramilitary training was carried out for the militants who made up the shock groups. This task was performed by Fernando Muñoz, Genaro Pozo, and Manuel Hernández. The use of black shirts, the Nazi-style raised-arm salute, and the singing of military anthems were mandatory.

Other militants such as Pablo Medina, Jorge Salinas (former Patria y Libertad, nicknamed "Bombero Loco"), and Santiago Schesta took on the preparation of explosives that they installed in previously determined areas, which press releases attributed to leftist groups.

One of the MRNS actions with public repercussions was the boycott of an ANEF press conference, in which Guillermo Henríquez, Jorge Salazar Hojman, Genaro Pozo, and Jorge Baldrich Camus burst in shouting "traitor" and "sellout" at Tucapel Jiménez.

The next day, Baldrich appeared photographed in El Mercurio. He later declared that the order had been given to him by the then Minister General Secretary of Government, General Sergio Badiola Brodeg, who was seconded by the undersecretary of the portfolio, the lawyer Jovino Novoa Vásquez.

Galleguillos also had a secret informant among the opposition who anticipated all the activities of the "Grupo de los Diez" (Group of Ten). It was Federico Mujica Canales, a short man, a constant pipe smoker, who presided over the Cepch.

As early as 1975, in the glory years of the DINA, opposition union leaders were closely watched and their meetings recorded by agents or collaborators infiltrated among them. Marcia Merino, "la flaca Alejandra," a MIR member who collaborated with the DINA, received from Rolf Wenderoth at the central headquarters on Belgrado Street verbatim transcripts of the meetings of the Group of Ten, the National Union Coordinator (CNS), and the Unitary Front of Workers (FUT).

Her task was to analyze the contents and infer probable courses of action for the unionists, then returning them to Wenderoth's offices.

After the installation of the CNI in 1977, the DINA's replacement continued the same method of tracking, surveillance, eavesdropping, and penetration. The information gathered was incorporated into individual files, and their contents were periodically replicated, with copies sent to the central headquarters on República Street.

There, they were received by Mirtha Espinoza Caamaño, the secretary of Colonel Roberto Schmied, head of the Interior Department, who was later appointed commander of the Metropolitan Intelligence Division, where the various anti-subversive brigades were located. Under Schmied's direct command were Major Zanelli and Captain Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, in charge of operational tasks.

The secretary recorded the information in control books, with the date of entry, the originating unit, and a brief description of the content. Acronyms and codes were used according to the respective units and sections. Thus, for example, F.1.1 corresponded to the head of the division; F-1.2 to the deputy head, and so on, according to the various departments into which the CNI was divided.

Close surveillance was exercised over the trade union world through the Labor Brigade or Political-Union Brigade, which depended directly on the Metropolitan Intelligence Division, commanded by Colonel Schmied Zanzi.

The head of the brigade from 1979 was Carabinero Captain Miguel Eugenio Hernández Oyarzo ("Felipe Bascur"), who had performed similar functions in the DINA in 1977, from the "Ollagüe" facility, located on José Domingo Cañas Street, in the commune of Ñuñoa.

By mid-1979, the brigade moved to a new secret facility on Agustinas Street and was divided into four groups, each under the command of Army Captain Raúl Lillo Gutiérrez ("Manolo Arriagada"), Héctor Lira ("Julián Reyes"), Nelson Fernández Franco ("Carlos Santander"), and Jorge Ramírez Romero ("Carlos de la Fuente"), respectively.

Among the agents were Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Juan Araos Araos, Carlos Asalgado Martínez, Edmundo Alberto Asenjo Gálvez, Daniel Cancino Varas, Gustavo Caruman Soto, Juan Evaristo Duarte Gallegos, Germán Erazo Ahumada, Ricardo Erazo Ahumada, Héctor Alfredo Flores Vergara, Segundo Gangas Godoy, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar, Luis Gutiérrez Uribe, Guido Jara Brevis, Jaime Márquez Campos, Luis Mora Cerda, José Mora Diocares, José Muñoz Leal, Enrique Naranjo Muñoz, Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Manuel Poblete Vergara, Luis Tomás Rojas Torres, Manuel Tapia Tapia, and Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera.

Leaders such as Eduardo Ríos, Ernesto Vogel, Manuel Bustos, and Tucapel Jiménez, among others, had their telephones tapped, and all correspondence sent to them and their families from abroad and within the country was reviewed at the unit the CNI maintained at the Post Office. A file was kept on each one with their personal, work, and family background, as well as their contact networks.

In 1976, a CNI agent, nicknamed "Omar," recruited as an informant the employee who worked as an assistant at the ANEF, in its three-story headquarters located at Alameda and Riquelme. The "junior" was named Julio Olivares Silva and was the son of a friend of Tucapel Jiménez.

Twice a week, the young man delivered his reports to the Labor Brigade headquarters, where in exchange he received a cash payment. In 1977, Olivares Silva was incorporated into the CNI staff under the alias "Gabriel Carrasco González," although everyone called him "Barnabás."

Infiltration of leaderships

Valericio Orrego, for his part, also became a paid collaborator of the CNI. He infiltrated Carlos Santa María, a leader of the Group of Ten, recruiting an employee of his in a business he had on Bandera with General Mackenna. The informant was named Patricio Pezoa and had to report periodically to "Manolo" or "Carlos de la Fuente," his control agents in the CNI.

One of the most secret paid snitches that the repressive organization maintained in the leadership circles of the opposition trade unionism could only be identified in the first semester of 2009. It was the socialist Víctor Hugo Gac, a member of the executive committee of the CNS, a man then very close to Arturo Martínez, the current president of the CUT, to whom the CNI paid 40,000 pesos per month for his reports.

Thus, at the beginning of the spring of 1981, the CNI had the certainty that the much-feared opposition union unity was being achieved and that the main architect of it was the president of the fiscal employees, Tucapel Jiménez.

The matter was even more serious because Jiménez was also holding conversations with some of the main political leaders of the dissidence, including Eduardo Frei Montalva. The ANEF leader and the former president had already met at the Vicariate of the Workers' Pastoral along with some dignitaries of the Catholic Church.

The CNI analysts reached the conclusion that a national strike with unpredictable consequences was being prepared, with the support, moreover, of numerous instances and governments from all over the world.

The information gathered by the CNI reached La Moneda, and in the following weeks, the director of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINE), General Ramsés Arturo Álvarez Sgolia, received the order from General Augusto Pinochet to eliminate Tucapel Jiménez.

by Manuel Salazar Salvo

Source: interferencia.cl, May 5, 2020