On the early morning of October 3, 1973, an operation was carried out in which thirteen other agricultural workers from the town of Paine were detained. On this occasion, the troops belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment arrived in a red truck, with their faces painted black.

They entered the homes from which they took the detainees, transporting them to San Bernardo and from there to the Cerro Chena Detention Center. These thirteen people were detained that night, along with others who were subsequently released:

• José Angel CABEZAS BUENO, 21 years old, single;
• Francisco Javier CALDERON NILO, 19 years old, single;
• Domingo Antonio GALAZ SALAS, 23 years old, single;
• José Emilio GONZALEZ ESPINOZA, 32 years old, married;
• Juan Rosendo GONZALEZ PEREZ, 23 years old;
• Aurelio Enrique HIDALGO MELLA, 22 years old, single;
• Bernabé del Carmen LOPEZ LOPEZ, 23 years old, single;
• Carlos Manuel ORTIZ ORTIZ, 18 years old, single;
• Héctor Santiago PINTO CARORA, 34 years old, married;
• Pedro Hernán PINTO CAROCA, 42 years old, married;
• Aliro del Carmen VALDIVIA VALDIVIA, 39 years old, married;
• Hugo Alfredo VIDAL ARENAS, 27 years old, married; and
• Víctor Manuel ZAMORANO GONZALEZ, single.

Several people who were detained at the Cerro Chena Detention Center report having been transported there along with the aforementioned detainees. In that place, they were generally kept blindfolded and subjected to torture and interrogation.

Subsequently, some of them were released. The relatives of the disappeared went on several occasions to that Detention Center, where the detention was not officially acknowledged. However, in the Writ of Amparo (Recurso de Amparo) 28379 filed on behalf of Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza, it was reported on April 16, 1974, by the Interior Zone Chief of the Departments of San Bernardo and Maipo that “the detainees Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza were discharged by the sentries of the Chena Prisoner Camp on October 4, 1973.” In the month of December, the relatives were informed at the Legal Medical Service that there was a record of the entry of the remains of all these detainees and that they had been buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. Around the same date, locals discovered human remains in the Cuesta de Chada area. The relatives went there and were able to recognize, for the most part, remains of the clothing that the detainees were wearing when they were taken from their homes. The remains, which were scattered at the site, were collected by Carabineros personnel and sent to the Legal Medical Service, where the corresponding forensic examinations were carried out, but the identities of the individuals were not determined. In the month of September 1990, the Minister of the Court of Appeals, Germán Hermosilla, went to that Medical Service in order to identify the remains that had remained unidentified since 1974. The bodies finally recognized correspond to the following people: José Cabezas Bueno; Francisco Calderón Nilo; Domingo Galaz Salas; Emilio González Espinoza; Juan González Pérez; Aurelio Hidalgo; Bernabé López; Héctor and Pedro Pinto Caroca; Aliro Valdivia Valdivia; Hugo Vidal Arenas, Manuel Zamorano González, Hector Castro Saez, and Juan Nuñez Vargas. According to the information indicated and gathered, the direct responsibility of State agents and civilians from Paine in the detention and death of the detainees on September 24 and October 3, 1973, is proven. Therefore, this Commission has formed the conviction that all of them are victims of a violation of their right to life, with the remains of sixteen of them having been identified: fourteen whose bones were recognized in 1990 and two whose execution was recognized by the authorities of the time.

Source: (Rettig Report)

In an interview with Interferencia, the journalist and author of A la Sombra de Los Cuervos (In the Shadow of the Ravens) reviews the full picture of what is known about the participation of the Kast family in the brutal repression that took place in the locality during the dictatorship, where this family had their home and main businesses.

This Wednesday, June 15, the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling, dismissed the statute of limitations requested for the case of the murder of 38 people in Paine during the dictatorship, and increased the sentences for members of the Army and Carabineros for their responsibility in the crimes that occurred during September and October 1973.

Finally, seven retired military personnel were sentenced to 10 years in prison, another former military officer was sentenced to seven years in prison, while three other Carabineros also received prison sentences.

The murders that occurred in Paine are emblematic cases among the crimes against humanity that occurred during the dictatorship, as they show the complicity between uniformed personnel and civilians in the planning and execution of these crimes.

Also, because a key testimony to elucidate these events was provided by Alejandro Bustos, a peasant who managed to survive a firing squad by hiding among the bodies of the victims who were beside him. His statement was key to reaching the truth in these cases.

Journalist Javier Rebolledo deeply investigated the relationship between uniformed personnel and civilians in the human rights violations that occurred during the dictatorship, and especially the Paine murders, which involve nearly 70 victims, most of them peasants who benefited from the agrarian reform applied during the Unidad Popular.

One of these crimes is the “Paine Massacre,” as the execution where Bustos survived is known. Rebolledo’s investigation was captured in his 2015 book, A la Sombra de los Cuervos, Los Cómplices Civiles de la Dictadura.

In this interview, Rebolledo comments to Interferencia on the impact the level of violence and hatred from the civilians who participated in these murders and disappearances had on him, and the role the Kast family played, especially the father and brother of the former presidential candidate, José Antonio Kast, in these crimes.

• The case of the Paine murders, which you investigated, is shocking; it even involves a person who survived a firing squad and thanks to his testimony it was possible to know what happened. You have already investigated other cases of human rights violations. What in particular caught your attention about the Paine murders?
• What caught my attention was that this was a revenge by civilians, in conjunction with uniformed personnel, both Carabineros and military, in different operations and on different days. I would tell you that the civilians to a large extent—without removing responsibility from the Carabineros or military—provided information to the uniformed personnel, worked in conjunction with them with an impressive hatred, a hatred rarely seen. The level of cruelty, of viciousness, even after the crimes, is something that at least I don’t know if I had seen before, with as much viciousness as in these cases.

Paine, as a commune, has the highest number of forcibly disappeared and executed persons of the dictatorship by population density. There are 70 victims in a small population, which gives a high percentage of those who were murdered.

An example of this is that there is a place in Paine that was called “the alley of the widows,” and that place was called that because a military unit went to look for almost all the men on that street, where the women were practically left alone to this day.

The case you mention, where there is a survivor of a firing squad, Alejandro Bustos, known as “el colorín,” is important because he can locate civilians who participated in these crimes, and among others, Christian Kast, who is the former president of Cecinas Bavaria, and also brother of José Antonio Kast and Miguel Kast—ideologue of the economic changes of the dictatorship, as recognized by Joaquín Lavín.

In that case, known as “the Paine massacre,” the victims, after being executed, had their eyes gouged out and their tongues cut off with corvos (military knives). And of course, the level of violence, the level of cruelty that these civilians had, in conjunction with the military and Carabineros, in the detentions, torture, crimes, and forced disappearances that were carried out, is impressive.

• How does the Kast family participate in these murders and executions? What role did they have in these crimes?
• There is, among several testimonies, that of the sister of Pedro Vargas Barrientos—currently a forcibly disappeared person—Silvia, who says that her brother Pedro, along with his whole family, worked at Cecinas Bavaria and helped generate wealth for the company, when the Kast family had just started with their first sandwich shop on the side of the North-South highway, in the Buin sector. And this young man, Pedro Vargas, continued working there and over the years organized a union, which was his “biggest mistake,” because they moved him to night watchman, gave him a weapon, and later he had to leave his job. Pedro was one of the first people to be detained at the Paine barracks.

His sister went to plead for Pedro’s life to Michael Kast—who was the father of José Antonio, Christian, and Miguel Kast and grandfather of Felipe Kast—and Michael Kast did not provide any help; he told her to go home and on the contrary...

In these cases, it has never been determined, judicially, exactly which vehicles participated in the detentions that ended in each of the executions and forced disappearances. But the concrete case is that Michael Kast himself acknowledged that he provided a truck with a driver to the Carabineros to “carry out their work,” and the work at that time was the detention of people, although he did not acknowledge it in that way.

And he died as an accused person by the justice system for this case. That is why his final responsibility for the events could not be pursued, because he died. There is the testimony of a Carabinero, Osvaldo Dominguez Muller, who points out that at the Paine police station—which, by the way, was the place from where people disappeared—he saw Michael Kast’s car parked there on the days when there were murders and disappearances.

And there is the testimony of Christian Kast himself, who acknowledges that he went out “to patrol,” along with other civilians, with military and Carabineros. “And Christian Kast was not prosecuted because the justice system determined that at the time of these crimes he was a minor, that is why his responsibility was not pursued, for that reason.

And he himself acknowledged, when he was interrogated, that he was at the police station.” Added to all this is the testimony of Alejandro Bustos, who says that he was beaten at the Carabineros station, and that Christian Kast was present.

And when they executed him—where he survived—although those who fired were uniformed, several civilians were present with their vehicles, among them Christian Kast. And Christian Kast was not prosecuted because the justice system determined that at the time of these crimes he was a minor, that is why his responsibility was not pursued, for that reason.

And he himself acknowledged, when he was interrogated, that he was at the police station, where barbecues were held with Carabineros and civilians, and that there he saw a detained person nicknamed “el harina seca,” Luis Nelson Cádiz Molina, and he says he saw him come out with his head shaved, bald.

And well, Cádiz is a forcibly disappeared person; I wonder if one knows that a person is a forcibly disappeared person, and Christian Kast says he saw him, didn’t he have an obligation to report the fact?

He was probably one of the last people to see him alive, who could provide a clue about the whereabouts of this person, and he did not approach the justice system to collaborate; it was the other way around, the justice system had to go look for him, many years after the events occurred.

• Is it possible that José Antonio Kast did not know about these events?
• I cannot work with conjectures. I know what Christian Kast declared and what his father Michael Kast declared, I know the past of Michael Kast, the work that Miguel Kast had during the dictatorship, and I know what Alejandro Bustos declared regarding Christian Kast. One knows what political stance José Antonio Kast has, and I cannot know if he knew or did not know. What I can say is that he cannot say “my family had nothing to do with it,” that they did not patrol, that they did not support the repression, nor provide vehicles, nor that someone from his family was not identified at a firing squad; that he cannot say.

“José Antonio Kast has said that there is nothing judicial against his family, but he does not say the reasons, and one reason is that his father died as an accused person, he died before he had a conviction.” And that is what he has said, he has said that there is nothing judicial against his family, but he does not say the reasons, and one reason is that his father died as an accused person, he died before he had a conviction; and secondly, his brother Christian Kast was not pursued for criminal responsibility because it was determined that he was a minor at the time the crimes occurred.

• What you say is also relevant because among those convicted for dictatorship crimes in Paine is a civilian, who was the first civilian convicted for human rights cases during the dictatorship in Chile, the businessman Francisco Luzoro, in 2017. In matters of memory, civilians and companies that participated in these crimes are spoken of as “third-party actors.” Do you think that progress can continue to be made in the justice system in these cases that involve “third-party actors”?
• It should be that way. But we know that a lot of time has passed, the whistleblowers, the relatives, the perpetrators are dying, and this case has been left to languish... I don’t have much hope, honestly, I see it as difficult; I think Luzoro’s case is an isolated example, there are a couple more civilians convicted, but I don’t see that the path is going that way.

Whenever a conviction comes out, at least it is a bit of justice. In this case, they are convictions; perhaps they are not the highest convictions, as one might expect, but it is a bit of justice. One celebrates that there is some justice, but on the other hand, there is also criticism, because one expects more to be done.

One sees a positive side and a negative one, since the conviction is low and one thinks about how the relatives and society in general take it.

Source: interferencia.cl 06/17/2022

Date: 06-17-2022

Paine Case comes to an end: Supreme Court convicts 11 former uniformed officers for the homicide of 38 peasants

The highest court convicted 10 Army officials as authors of the qualified homicide of 38 people and one Carabinero for the qualified kidnapping of two victims. The Court reclassified the crimes, increasing the sentences of those convicted. 49 years after the events occurred, the Supreme Court issued a final ruling in one of the most emblematic cases perpetrated by the military dictatorship; through its Second Criminal Chamber, it convicted former uniformed officers for the qualified homicide of 36 agricultural workers and 2 businessmen, all from the town of Paine, who were executed at the Cuesta Chada and the Los Quillayes ravine, on October 3 and 16, 1973, respectively, at the hands of officials from the San Bernardo Infantry School. Ministers Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, María Teresa Letelier, and the participating lawyers Diego Murita and Leonor Etchebery, in a historic ruling, sentenced Jorge Romero Campos and Arturo Fernández Rodríguez, Army captain and second lieutenant, respectively, to 20 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as authors of the qualified kidnapping of the victims. In this case, the highest court increased their sentences in relation to the second-instance ruling issued by the San Miguel Court of Appeals, in which Romero had been sentenced to 15 years and Fernández to 10. Similarly, the Court increased the sentences for Corporal José Vásquez Silva and conscripts Carlos Lazo Santibáñez, Juan Opazo Vera, and Carlos Durán Rodríguez from 5 to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, also as authors of qualified homicide. The same sentence was received by conscripts Roberto Pinto Labordarie, Jorge Saavedra Meza, and Víctor Sandoval Muñoz. In the case of conscript Raúl Francisco Areyte Valdenegro, the Court increased his sentence from 5 to 6 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as the author of 14 qualified homicides. It should be noted that for all the aforementioned convicted persons, the highest court reclassified the crimes in relation to the second-instance ruling, from qualified kidnapping to qualified homicide. Similarly, the ministers recognized the collaboration that the conscripts provided through their statements, which reportedly contributed to the identifications, and applied the special mitigating factor of substantial collaboration and irreproachable prior conduct. Meanwhile, Carabineros Captain Nelson Bravo Espinoza was sentenced to 10 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree, whose sentence was increased by 5 years and his crime was reclassified from author of simple kidnapping to qualified kidnapping of Ramón Capetillo Mora and Mario Muñoz Peñaloza, which occurred between October 8 and 10, 1973. Meanwhile, Osvaldo Magaña Bau, Juan Guillermo Quintanilla, and Carlos Kylling Schmidt, who had been convicted during the process, were dismissed due to being deceased, as was Víctor Pinto Pérez. Plaintiff lawyer Nelson Caucoto, who represents the relatives of 37 victims, was satisfied as the Court accepted all the cassation appeals they presented and celebrated the ruling, stating that “tomorrow will be a brighter day for the relatives of the victims of Paine, executed by soldiers of the San Bernardo Infantry School, a day filled with new sensations and hopes.” Caucoto, who has handled the case since its inception, stated that “The highest court of the Republic has issued a final sentence in this case, which speaks of a massacre that occurred 49 years ago in that rural locality. Impunity, indolence, and barbarity have been overcome. What the Supreme Court has done is an act of healing for those relatives and for Chilean society in general. One of the unforgivable crimes of the civil-military dictatorship has been resolved by the Chilean justice system in a civilized manner. Despite the long time that has passed, Justice is possible.” It should be mentioned that the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, the Association of Relatives of Political Executions (AFEP), the Federation of Students of the Catholic University (FEUC), and lawyer Luciano Fouillioux, as representative of the father of lawyer Pamela Pereira, Andrés Pereira Salsberng, also acted as plaintiffs in the arguments. In civil matters, the res judicata that had been decreed by the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which prevented some relatives of the victims from accessing reparations, was rendered void.

Source: dario.uchile.cl 6/15/2022

Date: 06-15-2022

Relatives of executed person won civil lawsuit

The head of the 18th Civil Court of Santiago, Juan Polanco, ruled that the treasury must pay 150 million pesos to the siblings of the political execution victim Bernabé López López, who was detained one month after the military coup and remained disappeared until 1991.

The civil action for moral damages was filed by three siblings of the victim, Manuel, Margarita, and José, who are represented by lawyer Nelson Caucoto. It is expected that the first-instance ruling will be appealed by the State Defense Council (CDE) before the Santiago Court of Appeals.

Bernabé López was detained on October 3, 1973, in Paine, and was transported by troops from the San Bernardo Infantry School to the Cerro Chena facility. Subsequently, he was executed along with 13 peasants in the Cuesta de Chada.

His remains were found by locals, who filed a report with the Carabineros. The bones remained stored in the Legal Medical Service between 1974 and 1991, until their identification was carried out.

Source: El Mostrador July 12, 2002

Date: 07-12-2002

Bodies of 14 peasants were collected in sacks by their families: New stage in the investigations into executions in Paine

The minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, who is leading new proceedings in the investigation, highlighted that the bodies of the peasants remained for 16 years in cold storage at the SML, without being handed over to their relatives.

A new stage has begun in the investigations into the case of 14 peasants from the Viña El Escorial Settlement in Paine, who were detained and executed in 1973 by agents of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

The minister in extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, led a series of proceedings last Monday, November 25, along with officers from the Investigative Brigade of Crimes against Human Rights of the Investigative Police (Bridehu) and personnel from the Legal Medical Service (SML) to carry out an exhaustive analysis of the terrain where soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School executed the 14 peasants in October 1973.

The proceedings will last for a week and include the use of a drone, a metal detector, and excavation of both the property and the settling ponds located at the foot of a ravine. “We are at Cuesta Chada, kilometer 38, to begin the proceedings decreed in case 14-2024 for illegal burial.

In this place, in the year 1973, precisely on October 3, soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School executed 14 peasants from the El Escorial sector,” indicated the visiting minister. A new stage has begun in the investigations into the case of 14 peasants from the Viña El Escorial Settlement in Paine. “That day, after their execution, the bodies were abandoned and relatives were only able to find them in the month of January 1974.

On that occasion, no work was done at the crime scene; rather, the bodies were collected by the relatives themselves and, after the local Carabineros were notified, they were placed in three burlap sacks.

The bones were disarticulated, fragmented, and were transported to the Legal Medical Service,” she explained. “Subsequently, in the month of March of that year, at the Legal Medical Service, a study of these bones was carried out, managing to determine that it involved approximately 14 people,” she added.

Cifuentes highlighted that the victims’ bodies remained for 16 years in cold storage without being handed over to their relatives. “After that, the bodies were not handed over to their relatives, but were placed in cold storage at the Legal Medical Service and remained there for 16 years until 1990, the date on which Minister Germán Hermosilla of the San Miguel Court of Appeals ordered that a study of those bones be made and he went to this place,” she recounted, as reported in a press release from the Judiciary. “On that occasion, he was present on October 16 and 17, 1990, managing to find bone evidence, ballistic evidence, and even cultural evidence again. But it was not done with the latest technology either, and therefore, although the case related to these events, which is the main Paine case, has a final judgment, a complaint was filed by the Human Rights Program within the framework of the National Search Plan with the aim of carrying out an exhaustive study of the terrain, which is what is going to be done on this occasion,” she concluded. Kidnapping and homicide of 14 peasants from Paine According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, the visiting minister established the following facts: “That, on October 3, 1973, in the early morning, at the El Escorial Settlement in Paine, soldiers of the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School, under the command of Second Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Magaña, detained, without legal right, Francisco Javier Calderon Nilo, Domingo Octavio Galaz Salas, José Emilio González Espinoza, Juan Rosendo González Pérez, Aurelio Enrique Hidalgo Mella, Bernabé del Carmen López López, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, Hernán Pinto Caroca, Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, and Víctor Manuel Zamorano González, to then execute them along with Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, Héctor Castro Sáez, and José Cabeza Bueno, in the Cuesta Chada sector, to which they were transported in the red Dodge truck referred to previously, driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez, shooting them with the firearms they carried, their bodies being found, some time later, abandoned in the aforementioned place.”

Source: elciudadano.cl, November 27, 2024

Testimony of José de la Cruz López López (Brother of Bernabé López) (excerpt)

I am José de la Cruz López López, brother of Bernabé del Carmen López López, detained and executed in September 1973 in El Escorial, Huelquén, where he had been living and working for ten years. Our family was from El Maitén in the commune of Navidad.

We were seven children of José Arriaza and Sara López, six men and one woman, but we only carry our mother’s surname because they never lived together. My father worked in the fields and later married another woman and had I don’t know how many more children.

We had very little contact with him, but he surely found out that they had killed Bernabé. I was about 13 years old when Bernabé left with a family from where we lived, to live and work in El Escorial de Paine.

My brother was in school at that time, and he studied until the third grade. Meanwhile, at home, we took care of the animals; we had some cows, goats, a couple of pigs, a horse, a mare. We didn’t work for others because the pay was low and the hours were very long.

My brother enjoyed the animals and wanted to take a course to drive trucks, but he didn’t do it. He left home because our economic conditions were not good in Navidad, and when one is young, one gets enthusiastic about what they tell you: “There is work there, there is money, you will do well.” He went with Mr.

Zoilo Soto and Mrs. Servanda Garrido, the parents of María Soto. My mother, with my grandmother, Lorenza del Carmen Bustos, with whom we lived, had land and they farmed it on shares and with sharecroppers.

We still have a house in Navidad where two of my brothers live; the house is made of wood and is not in good condition, but at least one has a place to go; it is a property of about three hectares of dry land.

Although a stream passes through, at this moment nothing is planted because there is a savage drought and there are few people, since all the young people have migrated. When I was about 15 or 16, I managed to plant in a low-lying area there; at that time we didn’t have a way to get water, but since it rained so much, it was almost not necessary to irrigate.

Some time later we bought those gasoline engines. The small farm was plowed, for example, in August and then in September we already planted things like corn, squash, lentils. I was three years older than Bernabé, and when I was working in Isla de Maipo, I went to visit him several times in El Escorial.

At that time it was difficult to get to Paine because there was no transportation, the roads were dirt, and if you wanted to go by bicycle, it was also very difficult. My brother was very happy when he saw me, but if I went on a weekday, the foreman thought it was bad, although I didn’t take up much of his time because while Bernabé was plowing in the vineyard with a horse, we would walk and talk.

He came to visit us in El Maitén once, and my mother and my brother Amador went a couple of times to work in the grape harvest in Paine and took the opportunity to see him. He remained single and without children. (excerpt)

Source: germina.cl 2014 (excerpt)