On October 16, 1973, the following individuals were killed aboard the steamship «Laja» by personnel from the Maritime Governorate of Valdivia, which was under the authority of the Chilean Navy. Their bodies were thrown into the waters of Lake Ranco:

• Cardenio ANCACURA MANQUIAN, peasant, socialist militant;
• Teófilo GONZALEZ CALFULEF, 24 years old, truck driver, socialist militant;
• Manuel Jesús HERNANDEZ INOSTROZA, 42 years old, tailor, former candidate for Councilman for Lago Ranco and militant of the Socialist Party;
• Arturo VEGA GONZALEZ, 20 years old, bread baker, also a socialist.

All of them were detained on October 16, 1973, at their homes in Lago Ranco and taken to the Carabineros station in that town. On the night of that day, they were brought aboard the steamship «Laja», where they were executed.

Their bodies were thrown into the lake and have not been found to this day. This Commission is convinced that Cardenio Ancacura, Teófilo González, Manuel Hernández, and Arturo Vega were detained, executed, and their bodies forcibly disappeared by State agents in a grave violation of human rights. The circumstances that support this, among others, are as follows:

• It is duly accredited before this Commission that the affected individuals were detained at the Lago Ranco station on the day of their disappearance. Likewise, it is established that they were all previously detained at their respective homes;
• The deaths of all the victims were registered by order of the Military Prosecutor's Office of Valdivia, in case file 163473. Despite having requested said case file from the Fourth Military Court of Valdivia, the Military Prosecutor's Office of that city, and the Army's General Auditor's Office, it was not submitted to the Commission.
• The death certificates attest to the fact of the victims' deaths. It should be noted that the deaths were registered in 1974, which is why several of the family members did not learn of what had happened until long after the events took place;
• Through an official letter issued by the Military Prosecutor's Office of Valdivia on November 2, 1973, the Carabineros of Lago Ranco were requested to provide information on Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, who was disappeared at the time, treating the detention as a certain fact.
• None of the victims have been able to have a burial, as their bodies have not been found. It is contradictory that death certificates were issued for all of them without this fact having been materially verified.

Source: (Rettig Report)

The book "Breaking the silence of children and adolescents who were victims of political executions during the civil-military dictatorship 1973-1990" incorporates testimonies, photographs, letters, and other documents that families and friends provided or wrote specifically for publication.

The book was produced by the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons (AFEP) with the support of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, through the Unit of Culture, Memory, and Human Rights, and the Human Rights Chair of the University of Chile.

The publication, based primarily on the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and the Report of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (1996), seeks to reconstruct each of the victims' lives and stories in a comprehensive and careful manner.

During the research, the archive of the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons was accessed, where documents that families have preserved over the years are kept. Illustrations by Álvaro Gómez were also included. The creation process was a complex challenge that involved combining delicacy, respect, and methodological rigor to state a painful and inescapable truth in this work.

Source: cultura,gobierno.cl 20/4/2023

Date: 04-20-2023

The Chilean Supreme Court agrees to televise the hearing in the Vega González case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Santiago, Chile, January 23, 2023. More than 40 years after the end of the dictatorship in Chile, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights will judge the Chilean State in a case regarding the application of sentence reduction measures ("half-prescription") for perpetrators of crimes against humanity involving more than 40 victims.

Thanks to the efforts of the lawyers in the case, this historic moment will be broadcast by the Chilean judicial branch's television channel. The Supreme Court of Chile agreed to broadcast the public hearing that will take place before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica, on February 1, 2023.

This decision was adopted in response to a request presented by lawyers Karinna Fernández Neira, Magdalena Garcés Fuentes, and Boris Paredes Bustos, who have accompanied the case along with Jimena Reyes of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in the case of Vega González and others Vs.

Chile. A historic moment for the fight against impunity in the American continent The case of Vega González and others vs. Chile refers to the alleged international responsibility of the Chilean State for the application of "half-prescription" or "gradual prescription" within the framework of criminal proceedings related to crimes against humanity perpetrated against more than 40 victims in the context of the Chilean dictatorship that took place in the 70s and 80s in that country.

Under "half-prescription," provided for in the Chilean Penal Code, the Supreme Court reduced by half the sentences of perpetrators who had been convicted of crimes against humanity. "The case is important in the fight against impunity in the region, as the victims denounce that the appropriate penalty was not applied to perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

The FIDH values the decision of the Supreme Court of Chile to broadcast the public hearing, which demonstrates recognition and respect by the national judiciary for the decisions issued by the inter-American system," stated Jimena Reyes, Director for the Americas of the FIDH.

Source: fidh.org 1/23/2023

Date: 01-23-2023

IACHR presents Chile case before the Inter-American Court regarding the application of "half-prescription" to crimes against humanity perpetrated against 48 people

This provision is applicable when the accused appears or is found after half the time assigned for the prescription of the criminal action has elapsed, which, in the case of the crimes of qualified kidnapping and qualified homicide, was 5 years and 7 and a half years, respectively.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) presented the case of Arturo Benito Vega González and others against Chile to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court) on November 19, regarding the application of "half-prescription" or "gradual prescription" in 14 criminal proceedings concerning crimes against humanity perpetrated against 48 people in the context of the Chilean civil-military dictatorship.

The Chilean Supreme Court of Justice, acting as a criminal cassation court in said proceedings, reduced the sentences imposed on those responsible for the events, applying for the first time the mitigating circumstance of "half-prescription" or "gradual prescription," enshrined in Article 103 of the Chilean Penal Code.

This provision is applicable when the accused appears or is found after half the time assigned for the prescription of the criminal action has elapsed, which, in the case of the crimes of qualified kidnapping and qualified homicide, was 5 years and 7 and a half years, respectively.

In its Merits Report, the Commission observed that the State identified those responsible for the grave violations suffered by the victims in the case and that these were crimes against humanity; it also analyzed whether Chile fulfilled its obligation to punish those responsible for such acts in an adequate and proportional manner, given the application of the aforementioned legal figure.

As a consequence of the application of half-prescription, the IACHR observed that there was a significant reduction in the amount of the prison sentence imposed on the convicted persons, since in no case did the custodial sentence imposed exceed the legal minimum provided in the Penal Code for the crimes of qualified homicide and qualified kidnapping.

Based on this reduction, the Supreme Court also granted benefits of conditional remission of the sentence and supervised release, meaning many of those responsible were not imprisoned. Furthermore, the Commission indicated that the State did not justify the compatibility of the sentence reduction with the American Convention and with inter-American standards regarding the proportionality of sanctions.

In this regard, the Commission took note of the recognition made by the State regarding the violation of this guarantee, by declaring that "the sentences that were handed down at the time by the Supreme Court did not conform to the standard of rationality and proportionality that must guide the conduct of the State in the exercise of its punitive power in relation to crimes against humanity." Likewise, according to the Supreme Court's rulings, the reduction responds to the idea that, as more time passes without a sanction being imposed, the State's punitive reproach should be less.

In this regard, the Commission considered that the progressive reduction of the criminal sanction for crimes against humanity, alleging only the passage of time and reasons of legal certainty, is incompatible with the obligations to adequately punish those responsible for grave human rights violations; and that it is problematic that the State's own inaction in investigating and identifying those responsible triggers the use of this mechanism.

Based on these considerations, the Commission concluded that the State of Chile is responsible for the violation of the rights to judicial guarantees and judicial protection enshrined in the American Convention, in connection with its Articles 1.1 and 2, as well as Articles I.b and III of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, to the detriment of the victims of this case and their families.

Among the IACHR's recommendations directed at the State are to provide comprehensive reparation to the victims, both in material and moral aspects; to leave without legal effect the sentences handed down by the Supreme Court of Justice in this case; and to ensure that the figure of half-prescription or gradual prescription of the sentence enshrined in Article 103 of the Chilean Penal Code is not applied to grave human rights violations.

Source: diarioconstituciona.cl 1/11/2022

Date: 01-11-2022

Supreme Court orders the treasury to indemnify family members of a forcibly disappeared person and political execution victim

This concerns the case of Arturo Vega González, murdered aboard the steamship Laja by personnel of the Maritime Governorate of Valdivia, which was under the authority of the Navy, and who was forcibly disappeared, and Fidel Bravo Álvarez, a bodyguard for former President Salvador Allende, murdered in September 1973.

The appeals for cassation filed by the State Defense Council were rejected. The highest court argued that the State "cannot invoke its own internal law to evade its international obligations, for if it does so, it commits an illicit act that compromises its international responsibility." Unanimously, the Supreme Court rejected the appeals for cassation filed by the State Defense Council and confirmed the rulings ordering the State of Chile to pay indemnifications to family members of victims of human rights violations, whose criminal cases had been previously resolved by the country's highest court. In the first ruling, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court determined that the treasury must pay 300 million pesos to the maternal siblings of ARTURO VEGA GONZALEZ, who was a victim of forced disappearance in October 1973 and a victim of the episode known as Lake Ranco. The Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Milton Juica, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and judicial prosecutor Juan Escobar—concluded that the kidnapping of Vega is a crime against humanity that must be repaired, both in the criminal and civil aspects. In the criminal aspect, on September 5, 2007, retired Navy officer Sergio Rivera Bozzo was sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison for the kidnapping of Arturo Vega González, a socialist militant, along with 3 other people. In the second ruling, the same Penal Chamber ordered the State to pay 260 million pesos to the spouse and children of Fidel Bravo Álvarez, a socialist militant executed in September 1973 at the port of San Antonio. In the criminal resolution of November 19, 2011, retired Army members Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda were sentenced to 7 years in prison, and David Miranda Monardes to 6 years in prison, for their responsibility in the homicide of 22-year-old Fidel Bravo Álvarez, a former member of the escort for former President Salvador Allende, a member of the Personal Friends Group (GAP), and five other victims. The State of Chile cannot evade its legal responsibility Both civil resolutions state that "the indemnification of the damage produced by the crime, as well as the action to make it effective, are of maximum importance when administering justice, compromising the public interest and aspects of material justice." "In the case under analysis, given the context in which the illicit act was verified with the intervention of State agents during a period of extreme institutional abnormality in which they represented the government of the time, and in which—at least in the case at hand—that power and representation were clearly abused, producing grievances of such gravity as the one studied here, the State of Chile cannot evade its legal responsibility to repair said debt," the Supreme Court adds. "The State is obligated to this by International Law, translated into Conventions and Treaties that, by clear constitutional provision, are binding upon it, as occurs for example and among others, with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties itself, which has been in force in our country since January 27, 1980, which establishes in its Article 27 that the State cannot invoke its own internal law to evade its international obligations, for if it does so, it commits an illicit act that compromises the international responsibility of the State," the rulings specify. "The right of the victims to receive the corresponding compensation implies, of course, the reparation of all damage that has been caused to them, which is made possible by the reception of International Human Rights Law into our internal legislation, in accordance with the provisions of Article 5 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, which states that 'the exercise of sovereignty recognizes as a limitation the respect for the essential rights that emanate from human nature'," it points out. Reparation, indemnification, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition "Thus, in the present case, the norms of internal law provided for in the Civil Code regarding the prescription of common civil actions for damages, invoked by the Chilean Treasury, are not relevant, as they are in contradiction with the norms of International Human Rights Law, which protect the right of victims and family members to receive the corresponding reparation, an international normative statute that has been recognized by Chile," the judges explain. "The State is subject to the rule of responsibility, which is not foreign to our legislation, as the appellant in the case maintains, since Article 3 of the 1907 Hague Regulations states that 'The belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said Regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.' Complementing the above is Article 2.3a of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that 'Any person whose rights or freedoms as herein recognized are violated shall have an effective remedy,' which implies the right to seek and obtain full reparation, including restitution, compensation, satisfaction, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition," it expresses. The Supreme Court relied on point 15 of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. This resolution points out that "the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in its Resolution 2005/35 of April 19, 2005, states that 'In accordance with its domestic law and international legal obligations, a State shall provide reparation to victims for acts or omissions which can be attributed to the State and constitute gross violations of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law'," the magistrates of the Second Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court conclude.

Source: villagrimaldi.cl 04/13/2008

Date: 04-13-2008

SUPREME COURT CONVICTS FORMER NAVY OFFICER FOR CRIMES IN LAKE RANCO

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court convicted, but reduced the sentence to five years and one day in prison for, a former Navy officer as the perpetrator of four qualified homicides, recorded within the framework of the episode of human rights violations known as Lake Ranco.

In a split decision, the highest court decided to reduce the 15-year sentence that the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals had applied on November 8 of last year against retired Navy Colonel Sergio Rivera Bozzo.

The former Navy Colonel Rivera Bozzo is charged with the homicides of Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teófilo González Calfulef, Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, and ARTURO VEGA GONZALEZ, recorded on October 16, 1973, in the locality of the Los Lagos Region.

WHAT THE RETTIG REPORT SAYS ABOUT THE LAKE RANCO CASE

According to the Report, it is noted that "on October 16, 1973, the victims were murdered aboard the steamship 'Laja' by personnel of the Maritime Governorate of Valdivia, which was under the authority of the Chilean Navy, and their bodies were thrown into Lake Ranco." The victims are: Cardenio Ancacura Manquian, peasant, socialist militant; Teófilo González Calfulef, 24 years old, truck driver, socialist militant; Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, 42 years old, tailor, former candidate for Councilman for Lago Ranco and militant of the Socialist Party; and ARTURO VEGA GONZALEZ, 20 years old, bread baker, also a socialist. The victims were detained on October 16, 1973, at their homes in Lago Ranco and taken to the Carabineros station in that town. On the night of that day, they were brought aboard the steamship "Laja," where they were executed. Their bodies were thrown into the lake and have not been found to this day. This Commission, the Report adds, "is convinced that Cardenio Ancacura, Teófilo González, Manuel Hernández, and Arturo Vega were detained, executed, and their bodies forcibly disappeared by State agents in a grave violation of human rights." The circumstances that support the conviction of the human rights violation are as follows: It is duly accredited before this Commission that the affected individuals were detained at the Lago Ranco station on the day of their disappearance. Likewise, it is established that they were all previously detained at their respective homes. "The death of all the victims is registered by order of the Military Prosecutor's Office of Valdivia, in case file 1634 73. Despite having requested said case file from the Fourth Military Court of Valdivia, the Military Prosecutor's Office of that city, and the Army's General Auditor's Office, it was not submitted to the Commission," it states. "The death certificates attest to the fact of the victims' deaths. It should be noted that the deaths were registered in 1974, which is why several of the family members did not learn of what had happened until long after the events took place," the Rettig report adds. Likewise, it indicates that "Through an official letter issued by the Military Prosecutor's Office of Valdivia on November 2, 1973, the Carabineros of Lago Ranco were requested to provide information on Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, who was disappeared at the time, treating the detention as a certain fact." It concludes that "None of the victims have been able to have a burial, as their bodies have not been found. It is contradictory that death certificates were issued for all of them without this fact having been materially verified."

Source: unidadmpt.worpress.com 9/05/2007

Date: 09-05-2007

Former naval officer sentenced to 15 years for the kidnapping of four peasants

In an unprecedented ruling, the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals applied this high sentence, the highest handed down by an appellate court in cases supposedly covered by the Amnesty Law, after accepting the arguments of the plaintiffs to modify the charge of qualified homicide that weighed against Héctor Rivera Bozzo to that of qualified kidnapping.

Retired Navy officer Héctor Sergio Rivera Bozzo was sentenced to 15 years and one day in his maximum degree as the perpetrator of the qualified kidnapping of four peasants from the commune of Lago Ranco, in the Tenth Region, which occurred on October 16, 1973.

The decision was adopted, in a split ruling, by the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, with the votes of Minister Mario Rojas and member lawyer Nelson Pozo, and with a dissenting opinion from magistrate Jorge Zepeda.

In this way, the court revoked a ruling by Minister Joaquín Billard, who in February had sentenced Rivera Bozzo to five years and one day in prison for the qualified homicides of Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teofilo González Calfulef, Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, and Arturo Vega González, all without known political affiliation.

This is the highest sentence handed down by an appellate court for human rights violations recorded during the military dictatorship and which, supposedly, are covered by the Amnesty Law, that is, those perpetrated between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1978.

In fact, it is only surpassed by a first-instance ruling that Judge Alejandro Solís handed down in January, which sentenced Army Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Guerra Jorquera to 18 years in prison for 11 qualified kidnappings of peasants in the Tenth Region in October 1973.

The appellate court also considered that the investigation of the case is incomplete, so it resolved to reopen the summary proceedings for Billard to investigate the responsibility that civilians Javier Vera Jumemann, Rodolfo Mondión Romo, Christián Borquez Bernucci, and Julio Vera Arraigada might have had, who were identified as members of the far-right group Patria y Libertad.

In this way, a resolution in consultation from June 25, 2002, which had favored them with a partial dismissal of the case, was revoked. From homicide to kidnapping In its ruling, the magistrates accepted the arguments of the plaintiff lawyer Hugo Gutiérrez, who had raised the need to modify the charge of qualified homicide for which the former military officer had been convicted to that of qualified kidnapping.

In that line, the ruling expresses among its arguments that, being a kidnapping of a permanent nature, "a state is originated in which the typical conduct is prolonged in time until the cessation of the coercive conduct, and in such circumstances, the prolongation of the coercion or attack against the freedom of the other determines the permanence of the illicit act in time." It adds that "the crime of kidnapping that affects the victims to the present day and which is framed in Article 141 of the Penal Code, corresponds, furthermore, to the crime described in Article II of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, signed in Belém do Pará, Brazil, on June 9, 1994," which "points out the extreme gravity of this crime and its continued or permanent character, as long as the destination or whereabouts of the victim are not established." The Lake Ranco case The ruling bases its conviction on the fact that "on October 16, 1973, at dawn, in the town of Lago Ranco, Los Lagos Region, a group of subjects, led by the accused Héctor Sergio Rivera Bozzo, proceeded to the detention of 4 people: Cardenio Ancacura Manquián; Teofilo González Calfulef; Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza and Arturo Vega González." It adds that all of them "were embarked aboard a vessel, which went into the waters of Lake Ranco, a site from which all trace of said persons was lost, with the current whereabouts of the aforementioned detainees being unknown." Background information provided during the course of the investigation indicates that the victims were denounced by neighbors after the military coup of September 11 as supposed sympathizers of the government of Salvador Allende and, subsequently, detained by Carabineros. The first prosecutions had been ordered by former judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, who in April 2002 ordered a reconstruction of the scene aboard a vessel on Lake Ranco, an occasion in which former uniformed personnel and witnesses participated.

Source: November 15, 2006 El Mostrador

Date: 11-15-2006