Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares, married, father of 3, a lawyer, legal advisor for the CORA in Quillota, a member of the Socialist Party and Regional Secretary of said political group, was detained on January 17, 1974, at his law office in the city of Quillota by members of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), who were wearing civilian clothes.

He was initially taken to the Quillota Police Station and subsequently to the No. 2 "Aconcagua" Infantry Regiment in that city. He has been forcibly disappeared since that date. On January 19, 1974, according to the official version provided by Army Colonel Angel Custodio Torres, a military convoy was transporting political prisoners from the Regiment to the Quillota Cavalry School.

During the journey, six of them were shot and killed, and it was reported that two others had escaped. Among the latter two was the lawyer Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares. According to other accounts, there were 33 prisoners, and all of them were executed.

Six of the executed have been identified: Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Julio Arturo Loo Pardo, Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida, Angel Mario Díaz Castro, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, and Osvaldo Mario Manzano.

The escapees were identified as Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares and Pablo Gac Fuenzalida; nothing was said about Levi Segundo Arraño Sancho. In January 1974, military forces carried out numerous arrests of individuals who had been members of the Unidad Popular parties and/or who had held public or political positions in the town of Quillota and the surrounding rural areas.

The individuals were detained in their homes or workplaces and taken to the Carabineros Police Station and the Army Cavalry School located in Quillota. Other individuals were summoned to report to the No. 2 Regiment.

The detention of Rubén Cabezas occurred at his law office, where he practiced his profession; the office was located in the same building that housed the Governor's Office. The captors were members of the SIM (Military Intelligence Service) wearing civilian clothes.

The detainee was taken to the Police Station where, according to witness accounts, they were removed after a few hours in very poor physical condition and taken to a military facility. According to the official version, the events occurred as follows: the convoy carrying prisoners was attacked by a group of extremists, leading to a shootout, an opportunity the detainees used to escape.

The escape was prevented by "discharging" or killing six of the fugitives, while two others, Mr. Rubén Cabezas Pares and Mr. Pablo Gac Espinoza, managed to flee. This version has been rejected, given that one of the standard procedures for eliminating opponents was precisely the application of the so-called "escape law," under which prisoners are forced to run and are then riddled with bullets or simply executed, justifying the act with the claim that they were attempting to flee.

In the alleged confrontation, none of the attackers were killed or wounded, and regarding the soldiers, it was reported only that Captain Francisco Javier Pérez, who led the column, was slightly wounded, although it was later stated that it was a Sergeant.

It was announced that a summary investigation would be conducted by the Military Prosecutor. This investigation was never made public, and no judicial investigation into these events was ever carried out.

According to data from the Rettig Report, numerous deaths of opponents were justified in this manner. It notes in this regard: "Among these types of executions, the use of the so-called 'escape law' was frequent during the months following September 11, 1973.

The most common official explanations provided in these cases maintained that the uniformed personnel fired at prisoners who were attempting to escape and who did not obey the order to halt, as a result of which they died." The Report adds: "The Commission found that these explanations were implausible in all cases of the so-called 'escape law' it examined, and therefore considered them to be extrajudicial executions that were attempted to be justified with a false version of an escape." This Commission, when referring specifically to the Quillota massacre, states: "It is not plausible that it was necessary to kill all those affected to prevent their alleged escape, since they were unarmed and under heavy military guard." "Several detainees had presented themselves voluntarily to the military authorities, so it does not seem consistent that they would attempt to flee. Some of them had even made contact with lawyers to be defended in the proceedings that, as they had been told, would be initiated against them." "The alleged extremist attack supposedly occurred in a place that had heavy armed surveillance due to its strategic nature. It is also not plausible that an attack of such a nature could have been attempted during curfew hours and that none of the attackers were captured. For the same reason, it is not credible that the supposed fugitives were not found." A conscript who had the opportunity to see the scene of the events notes that the convoy consisted of a jeep and three military trucks. Only the last one carried 8 soldiers, and it is likely that the others carried as many. The military personnel who participated in this act were members of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), supported by commandos. According to this conscript's information, there were 33 detainees, all of whom were executed. Aidée Jara Valenzuela, the spouse of one of the executed, Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, states that she identified her husband's body at the Legal Medical Institute of Quillota and that she saw eight bodies, among which were those of Rubén Cabezas and a Quillota councilman (Pablo Gac was a councilman of Quillota). This version was never confirmed; the relatives of the other 5 executed men did not see these bodies. The bodies were handed over in sealed coffins, and their relatives were unable to see them. Rubén Cabezas had been detained on September 11 and had to remain for two days at the Quillota Engineer Regiment, after which he was placed on supervised release, requiring him to sign in weekly at the Carabineros station. Since his detention on January 17, 1974, Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares has been missing, and the official explanation that he had escaped on January 18, 1974, has never been verified; he has remained a forcibly disappeared person since then.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On July 6, 1990, Pablo Alejandro Cabezas filed a complaint for "Presumed Misfortune" (Presunta Desgracia) on behalf of his father, Rubén Cabezas, considering that he has been missing since January 17, 1974, and requested that the appropriate proceedings be ordered.

The complaint was filed before the Second Major Criminal Court of Quillota. Subsequently, he filed a second lawsuit against those found responsible for illegal burial. In relation to this case and others involving forcibly disappeared persons, the Quillota Court ordered an investigation into an illegal burial on the premises of the Quillota Cavalry School.

On December 26, 1991, Judge Raúl Beltramí was prevented from entering the aforementioned military facility to conduct the corresponding investigations by Colonel Francisco Javier Pérez Egbert, Commander of said School, who maintained before the Valparaíso Court of Appeals that the alleged crime was covered by the amnesty under Decree Law 2.191 of 1978 and that, if there were perpetrators, they would be protected by that Decree Law.

The jurisdiction of the Court was also questioned. Regarding Commander Pérez's refusal to allow an investigation of the site of the possible burial, which turned out to be the premises of the Quillota Cavalry School, the judge of the 2nd Court of Quillota initiated a case in 1992 for denial of assistance to justice.

Finally, the Supreme Court consolidated both cases in the Military Prosecutor's Office of Valparaíso. That court dismissed the case for denial of assistance, and in the case for illegal burial, no progress had been made in the investigation by the end of 1992. Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares remains a forcibly disappeared person.

Source: Corporation Report

In the summer of 1974, terror continued to prevail in the country. Four months after the military coup, group executions, detentions, and disappearances of people continued; imprisonment, public and clandestine detention and torture centers remained full; thousands went into exile or sought refuge in embassies in Santiago.

Specifically, on January 18, events occurred such as the execution of 6 political and social leaders in the city of Quillota by members of the Cavalry School of the same city. The executed were Víctor Fuenzalida, 35, a PC leader; Manuel Hurtado, 35, a PS leader; Osvaldo Manzano, 32, President of the Rayon Said Union and a MIR militant; Julio Loo, 27, a textile worker and communist militant; Ángel Díaz, 41, a neighborhood leader and textile worker; and Hugo Aranda, 30, single, a peasant and neighborhood leader.

The previous day, in the same city of Quillota, Socialist militants Pablo Gac Espinoza, former mayor of Quillota, and Rubén Cabezas Pares, a lawyer and legal advisor for the CORA of Quillota, were detained and disappeared by agents of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM).

That same January 18, 1974, but in Santiago, a group of young people returning from a birthday party in downtown Santiago were surprised by two Carabineros who requested reinforcements. On Calle San Diego, near number 1255, Ramón Ortiz Orellana, 16, a student at Industrial School No. 3; Sergio Enrique Gutiérrez Seguel, 18, a worker; and Domingo Cubillos Guajardo, 19, a shoemaker, were detained in an operation that included military personnel, Carabineros, and armed civilians.

All were loaded into a police vehicle and remain disappeared to this day.

Source: resumen.cl, January 18, 2024

Date: 01-18-2024

The "Assault on the patrol" case refers to a simulated extremist attack on October 17, 1974, which was in reality the execution of eight people and the subsequent disappearance of two of them. The extraordinary visiting minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Julio Miranda Lillo, handed down a conviction against several individuals implicated in the so-called "Assault on the military patrol" case, which occurred in Quillota on January 17, 1974.

The magistrate determined sanctions for the perpetrators of the crimes of kidnapping with grave injury committed against Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares, Pablo Gac Espinoza, Levy Segundo Arraño Sancho, Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, Osvaldo Mario Manzano Cortés, and Arturo Julio Loo Prado.

The sanctions are detailed below

• Angel Custodio Torres Rivera: 6 years, without benefits.
• Sergio Carlos Arredondo González: 6 years, without benefits.
• Francisco Javier Pérez Egert: 5 years. The benefit of supervised release was granted.
• Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos: 5 years. The benefit of supervised release was granted.
• Daniel Javier Walker Ramos: 3 years and one day. The benefit of supervised release was granted.
• Pedro Alberto Durcurdoy Montandón: acquitted due to lack of participation.
• Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez: acquitted due to lack of participation.
• Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya: acquitted due to lack of participation.

Likewise, Minister Miranda Lillo determined to accept the civil claims filed and to condemn, jointly and severally, the Treasury and the convicted Ángel Custodio Torres Rivera, Sergio Carlos Arredondo González, Francisco Javier Pérez Egert, Daniel Javier Walker Ramos, and Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos to pay the plaintiffs who acted on behalf of the nine victims of this investigation the amount of nine hundred million pesos ($900,000,000), corresponding, consequently, to the figure of one hundred million pesos ($100,000,000) for each of the victims.

This is the second conviction handed down by Minister Miranda Lillo in human rights violation cases under his charge. Assault on the military patrol case The "Assault on the patrol" case refers to a simulated extremist attack on October 17, 1974, which was in reality the execution of eight people and the subsequent disappearance of two of them.

An official bulletin from the time reported that six prisoners died in a skirmish when extremist elements assaulted the patrol that was transporting them, under the command of then-Captain Francisco Pérez Egart.

The other two prisoners, former Quillota mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza and CORA legal advisor Rubén Cabezas Parés, were taken to the Cavalry School. The military command's bulletin reported that both had escaped. October 29, 2008

Source: afepchile.cl, Sunday, March 01, 2009

Date: 03-01-2009

"How to understand what you understood when you were very young and they took your father from you," said the chief prosecutor of Valparaíso, Pablo Gómez.

JUAN RIQUELME

It could not be overlooked. The complicated past of prosecutor María Inés Cabezas, "Mané" to her family and friends, was the center of the speech that her peer, the chief prosecutor of Valparaíso, Pablo Gómez Niada, delivered before the little more than fifteen hundred people who gathered yesterday in Quillota. "How to understand what you understood when you were very young and they took your father from you," noted the chief prosecutor of Valparaíso, Pablo Gómez.

Perhaps that was the phrase he repeated most in his speech, in which he highlighted again and again the fortitude the lawyer had in moving forward in her life, despite carrying the pain of not knowing the circumstances that surrounded the disappearance of her father.

SHE FOLLOWED HER PATH

In fact, it was he, with his example of life, who turned her toward social work. Her father, also a prosecutor—but for the Agrarian Reform Corporation—disappeared at age 46 in the maelstrom of the year 1974.

Rubén Cabezas Parés was a regional secretary of the Socialist Party and former president of the Valparaíso student federation. This ascending life for "Mané's" father ended on January 17, 1974, when he was detained at his law office in Quillota by members of the Military Intelligence Service, who took him to the "Aconcagua" Infantry Regiment.

From there, nothing more was known clearly, except that after being detained, a military patrol was transporting them from the Regiment to the Quillota Cavalry School. During the journey, six of them were shot and killed, and it was reported that two others had escaped. Among them was the lawyer Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares .

Source: estrellavalpo.cl, Monday, October 15, 2007

Date: 10-15-2007

In 1991, a witness came forward and gave his version of what happened to my father to a local newspaper. In this testimony, it was indicated that my father was murdered by Army Captain Francisco Javier Pérez Egert (currently a retired general) and illegally buried at the Quillota Cavalry School, under the orders of then-Colonel Sergio Arredondo, linked to the so-called "Caravan of Death," in which Army officer Sergio Arellano Stark was also involved.

With this information, we went to a Court and attempted to enter the aforementioned military facility to verify the veracity of the testimony, an action that was prevented by the Army—that is to say, by General Augusto Pinochet through prosecutor Fernando Torres.

In such a situation, we filed a lawsuit against the commander of the Quillota Cavalry School, who, by strange coincidences of life, at that moment was the same Francisco Javier Pérez. For his part, the Judge informed the Valparaíso Court of Appeals of the denial of assistance to justice that he was subjected to.

The Judge accepted our lawsuit, and when the officer's indictment was imminent, the Supreme Court of Chile surprisingly revoked said indictment, ordered the case to be transferred to the Military Justice system, and reprimanded the two judges who acted in said case.

Obviously, upon moving to military justice, everything came to nothing, with the military judge focusing exclusively on finding out the name of the key witness, which he could not obtain, and I hope he never can for the sake of the witness's safety.

After the historic 1999 ruling by the 5th Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which allowed the investigation of a forcibly disappeared person to continue, considering that as long as his body is not found, it is a kidnapping, which cannot be subject to amnesty since it would still be in execution, our family filed a new lawsuit against Augusto Pinochet and all those found responsible for the disappearance, kidnapping, and death of my father, attaching it to the more than 50 lawsuits in the case currently being investigated by Judge Guzmán against Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.

The ceremony was attended by the Minister of Justice, Marcela Ríos, and was led by the president of the guild, Ramiro Mendoza. In the framework of a ceremony marked by respect and emotional memories, the Chilean Bar Association A.G. paid tribute to the registered lawyers who were forcibly disappeared or political executions during the dictatorship that Chile experienced starting on September 11, 1973.

In the activity, held at the guild's facilities, a commemorative plaque was installed in the Library. In addition, replicas of the plaque were delivered to the relatives of the honored lawyers. The ceremony, which was attended by the Minister of Justice, Marcela Ríos Tobar, was presided over by Ramiro Mendoza Zúñiga, President of the Chilean Bar Association A.G.; Macarena Carvallo Silva, President of the Human Rights Commission of the Order; and Alicia Lira Matus, President of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions.

Various social and guild authorities, Councilors of the Association, and politicians linked to Law were also present at the tribute, which showed the relevance of the ceremony. The tribute paid by the Chilean Bar Association A.G. was in memory of the registered lawyers Carlos Berger Guralnik, Julio César Cabezas Gacitúa, Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Parés, Arnoldo Camú Veloso, León Eduardo Celedón Lavín, Roberto Guzmán Santa Cruz, Sócrates Ponce Pacheco, Reinaldo Salvador Posek Pedreros, Arsenio Poupin Oissel, and Carlos Helen Salazar Contreras.

In his speech, the President of the guild, Ramiro Mendoza, highlighted the Association's commitment to not forgetting what happened during that period. "We do not want to abandon them; we want to remember them always.

That is why we made a plaque that will be here permanently, so that those who come to the Association can see it, as well as to tell Chilean society that the Bar Association has as its main element and pivot the respect for human rights and respect for the Rule of Law," he added.

Macarena Carvallo Silva, President of the Human Rights Commission of the Order, thanked the relatives for their presence and recalled the path taken to reach this ceremony. "These acts of reparation and recognition are necessary to, in part, alleviate the pain that the loss of a loved one meant for the families and to not forget that respect for human rights is an essential value in our society," she maintained.

For her part, Alicia Lira, President of the AFEP, referred to the honorees and the search for truth, justice, and memory, "the only way to guarantee that these events are not repeated." The leader especially valued the fact that the guild, unanimously—without distinction of the political preferences of the Council members—decided on the reparation and recognition carried out today, which symbolizes the memory that everyone should have regarding these painful events.

Finally, the Minister of Justice, Marcela Ríos, referred to the act at the Bar Association as an event "significant for the families, a symbolic and reparatory act that will allow us to ensure that the names of the registered lawyers who lost their lives as a result of state violence are remembered by generations to come; I think that is tremendously important for the families, society, and this Association."

Source: enestrado.com 6/14/2022

Date: 06-14-2022

MEMORIAL TO BE INAUGURATED FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES WHO WERE VICTIMS OF THE DICTATORSHIP

This Monday, September 8, the National Association of Public Employees (ANEF) will hold a ceremony to inaugurate a memorial in honor of the public servants who were forcibly disappeared and killed during the dictatorship, a tribute that will be attended by government authorities, social organizations, and Human Rights organizations. "This is done with all the respect that preserving the memory of our country has for us as an association.

On this occasion, we want to immortalize our civil servants and leaders, who also bequeathed to us their ethics and union struggle and who were murdered in the worst period of our history. And in remembering our fallen comrades, we also make a call for life and peace," commented the general secretary of the ANEF, Bernardo Jorquera.

Joining the ANEF leaders who announced the memorial was Deputy Tucapel Jiménez—son of the ANEF union leader of the same name, murdered by Army agents in 1982—as well as the leader of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, Alicia Lira.

There are more than 380 cases that will appear on a plaque at the ANEF headquarters, which will be inaugurated on Monday, September 8, at 11:00 AM. The list was provided to the guild by the Ministry of the Interior, and includes President Salvador Allende Gossens and Tucapel Jiménez. "This inauguration dignifies the working class and union movements," said Alicia Lira, who is the widow of a Treasury official murdered in the first days after the Coup d'État. "These acts of keeping memory alive, remembering the fallen, are important because memory is fragile and it is good to keep it alive.

We want young people to never again live through that dark history that we went through as a country, and that is why it is important to remember the fallen and seek truth and justice, with the purpose that these things never happen again," affirmed Deputy Jiménez.

Source: cronicadigital.cl 9/5/2014

Date: 09-05-2014

Discontent over sentence in "Assault on the Patrol" case

Relatives of the nine socialist leaders murdered in the setup known as the "Assault on the Patrol" in 1974 described as insufficient the sentence that the Supreme Court handed down last Thursday for five retired military personnel implicated in the case that shocked the Quillota community. 37 years after the events, the son of the former mayor of Quillota, Pablo Gac Espinoza, Pedro Pablo Gac, stated that the only redeemable thing about this ruling is the fact that it was clarified that the victims had no culpability whatsoever in the matter and that they remained as "heroes of the Chilean revolution." It should be mentioned that the sentence handed down by the Supreme Court for these five military personnel was 5 years with the benefit of supervised release for Ángel Custodio Torres Rivera and Sergio Arredondo González, while for Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos, Daniel Gálvez Ramos, and Francisco Pérez Egert, a sentence of 4 years in prison was applied. Meanwhile, the Highest Court acquitted Pedro Alberto Durcudoy Montandon, Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez, and Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya, as their participation in this process was not proven. In the event that occurred on January 18, 1974, which took place in the San Isidro sector in the commune of Quillota, the military simulated a terrorist attack on a patrol of the Quillota Cavalry School, shooting in the back Pablo Gac Espinoza, former mayor of Quillota; Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Pares, official of the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA); Levy Segundo Arraño Sancho, peasant leader; Mario Manzano Cortés and Arturo Julio Loo Prado, union leaders; Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, Agrarian Reform executive; Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Treasury official; neighborhood leader Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna; and Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, agricultural leader.

SYMBOLIC SENTENCE

For the son of the former mayor of Quillota, the sentence from the Supreme Court is a simple symbolic act, since for him, in cases like the Assault on the Patrol, there is no appropriate sentence, as the gravity of the events is immensely superior to any type of punishment that justice can apply.

On the other hand, he said that the fact that Justice has handed down a sentence 37 years after the events occurred is regrettable. In this sense, Gac asserted that "Chilean Justice acts according to the ups and downs of the country. 16 years were lost for reasons that are not worth delving into; the regrettable thing here is that 20 more years were lost." Meanwhile, the son of the former CORA official Rubén Cabezas, Pablo Cabezas, declared that the ruling in this case was "expected," considering the behavior of the Highest Court in recent days.

Despite this, he valued that after almost 20 years of the case being open, it was possible to find the truth and sentence the military personnel as the real culprits, beyond the sentence they received.

"UNHEARD OF" SENTENCE

For his part, Deputy Hugo Gutiérrez, who as a lawyer worked in the 90s as a plaintiff in several Human Rights cases, described the sentence applied by the Highest Court in this case as "unheard of," arguing that the low sentence will only cause new damage to the victims' relatives, and stated that these events demonstrate that there is no State committed to human rights cases.

The communist deputy explained that the investigation lacked rigor, since the other individuals implicated in the case (Durcudoy, Muñoz, and Hernández) were not sentenced for not having been material authors of the crime, without having considered their intellectual participation.

Source: mercuriovalpo.cl, Monday, April 25, 2011

Date: 04-25-2011

Gac, Cabezas, and Arraño were thrown into the sea

The then-Army Captain Daniel Walker allegedly delivered the "coup de grâce" to a prisoner who remained alive. The bodies of the nine victims had been taken from the site of the massacre to the Engineering Regiment.

According to an officer who provided testimony, when Walker realized that one was still alive, he ordered him to be put into a jeep and taken to the place where they had staged the fake "assault on the patrol," and there, on a pile of dirt, he shot him to death.

Afterward, they returned to the Regiment with the corpse. To this day, it is not known which of the victims was so coldly executed by the uniformed officer.

These and other chilling details are established—thanks to witness statements—in the voluminous file of Case Rol No. 35.738, which is being investigated by the visiting judge Gabriela Corti for kidnapping and qualified homicide, referring to the episode wrongly called the "assault on the patrol," which in the early hours of January 18, 1974, left nine leftist militants dead in Quillota.

The background information flows from about thirty pages of the proceedings, a photocopy of which was provided to this media outlet by the son of one of the massacre victims.

On that occasion, the military authority carried out a setup to kill the nine leaders and later maintain that the detainees were being transported from the Engineering Regiment to the Cavalry School, and that on the way, the patrol had been assaulted by "extremist elements," leaving six prisoners dead.

The remaining three—the former socialist mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza, the lawyer and socialist leader Rubén Cabezas Parés, and the peasant leader Levi Arraño Sancho, of the MAPU—had allegedly escaped, according to the communiqué issued at the time.

Everything was planned

According to the background information collected during the two years of investigations led by Judge Corti, the order to detain the militants and leftist leaders Manuel Hurtado, Hugo Aranda, Arturo Loo, Eduardo Manzano, Ángel Díaz, and Víctor Fuenzalida (some of whom were already in prison), along with Pablo Gac and Rubén Cabezas, was allegedly given by Colonel Sergio Arredondo González, who had been the operational chief of the "Caravan of Death"—which left a hundred dead throughout Chile—and who at the time was the director of the Cavalry School.

Levi Arraño had allegedly been detained previously at the same School.

The massacre had been planned in advance, with the participation—even—of civilians, who advised the military and collaborated by supporting the actions.

The nine prisoners were gathered on the night of January 17, 1974, at the Engineering Regiment, where the officers and non-commissioned officers summoned for those purposes also arrived. The entire operation was allegedly in charge of the then-Captain Francisco Pérez Egert.

Some of the participants acknowledge that they were summoned "only to collaborate in the transfer" of the prisoners from one military unit to another.

Grenades and machine-gun bursts

What has been established is that at the Regiment itself, the three detainees who would be declared fugitives were separated from the remaining six. Everyone left after midnight in a caravan of four vehicles that headed along Yungay to Freire and from there to the Camino a San Isidro, which leads to the Cavalry School.

But meters from the railway underpass, the caravan stopped and Captain Pérez ordered all the detainees to get out, handcuffed as they were, placing them to the side of the vehicles. On each side of the road, about 80 meters from the site, military personnel were positioned to prevent the passage of vehicles.

Behind the scene of the massacre, a civilian watched from the house on his plot of land, with the mission of notifying the Cavalry School as soon as it had concluded.

At Captain Pérez's order, the explosion of grenades and bursts of machine-gun fire directed at the nine prisoners began. It lasted a few seconds; enough to murder the nine leaders and set fire to one of the caravan's jeeps, with which they intended to make the massacre appear as an "extremist assault on the patrol" that was transporting detainees.

Removal of the bodies

Once the shooting ended, Captain Pérez ordered the bodies to be picked up and taken back to the Regiment. There, after realizing that one of the executed men remained alive, the then-Captain Daniel Walker ordered him to be put into a military vehicle to personally transport him to the place where the setup was carried out.

There, he had him placed on a pile of dirt and allegedly fired the "coup de grâce."

Once the corpse was returned to the Engineering Regiment, it was ordered that the bodies of the three who would be declared fugitives be taken to the Cavalry School, from where, before ten o'clock the following morning, they were removed by a Navy helicopter to be thrown into the sea off the coast of Quintero.

The remains of the other six murdered leaders were sent to the morgue of the Quillota Hospital, where doctors Jorge Abde (now deceased) and Orazio Bruzzone—who testified before the Judge—performed the autopsies. Subsequently, the corpses were handed over to the families in closed and sealed coffins by a funeral home chosen by the military themselves.

This entire procedure deviated absolutely and arbitrarily from those that correspond judicially, because the military removed the bodies without waiting for the forensic examinations by the Investigations police, which should have intervened immediately at the scene of the incident.

Everyone denies their participation

From the pieces of the file to which the victims' families and ZonaImpacto.cl had access, it flows that each of those involved and prosecuted in this case continues to systematically deny their participation, apparently respecting the already known "pact of silence." Colonel (ret.) Arredondo, who ordered the entire operation, claims to have arrived just that early morning, unaware of everything that had happened.

The then-Captain Walker says he had no knowledge of what happened, as does his colleague Pedro Durcodoy, while Captain Pérez Egert also claims to have been passing by the place casually when he was surprised by the explosion of a grenade, which caused his vehicle to go off the road and caused him a traumatic brain injury and serious injuries to an arm.

He lost consciousness—he maintains—and therefore knows nothing of what occurred.

However, Judge Corti has obtained overwhelming evidence that allowed her to establish participation "as authors" of kidnappings and qualified homicides by the seven former military personnel and one former carabineer whom she indicted last July.

They are retired Colonels Sergio Arredondo, Francisco Pérez, Pedro Durcodoy, and Daniel Walker; retired Major Raúl Muñoz; Sergeant Majors Leonardo Quilodrán and Sergio Placencia, all from the Army; and retired Carabineros Sergeant Major Laureano Hernández. With the exception of Colonel Arredondo, all those prosecuted obtained release on bail.

Thirty years later

As yesterday marked thirty years since the massacre that shocked—until now—life in the peaceful city of Quillota, the victims' families expressed themselves as very distressed after learning the details of what happened, but also somewhat relieved because they perceive that the diligent work of the Visiting Judge is managing to get decisively closer to establishing the whole truth, which will allow those responsible to be sanctioned.

Yesterday, Sunday, the day of the thirtieth anniversary of this cruel slaughter, the families and human rights organizations of Quillota remembered the date with an audiovisual exhibition next to the Monument to the Victims of Human Rights Violations, in the Plaza de Armas, and then a candlelight vigil in the same place.

Surprising encounter between the son of the murdered former Mayor and two of those prosecuted as authors of crimes

On the morning of Wednesday, January 14, teacher Pedro Pablo Gac went to a commercial establishment in Quillota to photocopy part of the file on the homicides of his father—former Mayor Pablo Gac—and eight other leftist militants, perpetrated on January 18, 1974.

He had promised to deliver said photocopy to this journalist for the drafting of reports for this and other media outlets, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the massacre.

During the previous night and early morning, he had read the pages of the summary over and over again, and he was still shocked by the chilling details described therein.

While a clerk at the business was making his photocopies, he noticed with unusual surprise that at another machine, the official in charge was photocopying identical writings and parts of the same file.

After hesitating for a few minutes, he asked the customers who were carrying those documents who they were.

Moments later, still excited by the unusual encounter and in the calm of a café table, he tried to recover from the impression and organize his ideas.

"It was a short guy, with a mustache, about 65 years old, and another taller one, somewhat younger," he told ZonaImpacto.cl. "I asked them who they were and they introduced themselves, shaking my hand: one was retired Army Sergeant Major Sergio Placencia and the other, retired Carabineros Sergeant Major Laureano Hernández."

Two of those prosecuted as authors of the qualified kidnapping of his father, whose status as forcibly disappeared still remains. They are also being prosecuted for the kidnapping of Rubén Cabezas and Levi Arraño, along with the homicide of six other leftist militants.

They deny everything, everything...

Pedro Pablo Gac was greatly impressed by the attitude of the two prosecuted men.

• They looked haggard, diminished. Nothing in them reflects the haughty and arrogant subjects of before, those who detained and tortured, as I understand it.

Did you know them from before?

• Not at all. I had heard about them and seen their names in the indictment. Nothing more.

Did they appear humble?

• I would say so, although they were rather extremely kind to me. They told me about the functions they claim to have performed at the time of the massacre and assured me that they had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes.

What explanation do they have?

• I don't know, I didn't retain much, I was very impressed and I also confess that I didn't believe what they were saying.

Didn't they seem sincere to you?

• In reality, they were striving to seem so; they told me they were at my disposal, that they would like to talk again... but Judge Corti has investigated meticulously for two years, has been connecting the dots, and prosecuted them as authors. I have no doubts about the Magistrate's work, so I must suspect that they are not telling the truth.

Did they ask you for forgiveness?

• No! If they claim they are innocent! So the only thing they did was justify themselves, argue that they had no participation, and put themselves at the disposal of us, the families, to "help us" discover the truth.

But they must know it...

• They maintain that they know nothing of what happened, that it never occurred to them to find out, that they heard nothing, that it was not their job to investigate.

Don't they even acknowledge having had collateral participation?

• Former Carabineros officer Hernández says he only acted as a driver in several detentions, but he doesn't know who the detainees were and doesn't remember the names of the captors.

What feeling remains with you after this experience?

• That they are cowardly people who do not want to assume their responsibilities and are not willing to pay with prison for their participation in the very serious crimes in which they participated. I think they were convinced that the hand of justice would never fall upon them and I fear that thirty years ago someone—or more than someone—must have guaranteed them total and eternal impunity. It gives the impression that now they feel bewildered, fearful, and abandoned. I was left with the feeling that they are afraid... very afraid.

Process established participation of civilians in the planning of the homicides

An indeterminate number of civilians participated in the planning and execution of the homicides perpetrated by the military on January 18, 1974.

The file records interrogations of several of them, both in Chile and abroad; the former carried out directly by the investigating Judge and the others by personnel of the Fifth Department of Investigations.

The pieces of the summary known to ZonaImpacto.cl demonstrate not only the meticulous and tireless work carried out by Magistrate Gabriela Corti but also by the civil police officers, who did not leave any diligence unfulfilled.

Civilians

An Army sergeant major, in his testimony, mentions agricultural businessman Claudio Monreal Navarro, maintaining that "this person was a 'helper' of the Army, who witnessed these events; furthermore, he himself commented to me that he was aware in advance of the planning of how the 'assault on the patrol' was going to occur; they prepared him for this and it was his job to make the phone call to the Cavalry School to report what happened, just as he facilitated vehicles and even coordinated with the funeral home that transported the deceased.

This is an elderly person and he has indicated to me that he is willing to collaborate, but he is scared."

Apparently, he had to overcome his fear, because he finally testified as a witness, just like Osvaldo "Guatón" Romo and Ismael Villavicencio Carrasco.

The same sergeant major says he gathered a series of background information on this episode, "finding out that it was not an assault but a 'show' carried out by military comrades of that time to eliminate a series of political people opposed to the military government, simulating a confrontation between a military patrol that was transporting political detainees and subversive elements."

He also mentions names of other military personnel who had participation: Eladio Lara Valenzuela, René Olivares Faúndez, Carlos Retamal Salazar, René Gutiérrez Herrera. Also a carabineer: Orlando Tapia Tapia.

General Juan Arenas Franco, meanwhile, mentions a certain "Pepe" as another of the military's helpers: "The only thing I remember from that night (the night of the massacre) is that I was on patrol accompanied by a civilian named Pepe, who was the owner of a plot of land located in front of the Cavalry School, who facilitated his pickup truck for this type of duty."

Did the informers' dinner exist?

Upon learning these details, along with the demonstration that the slaughter of Quillota leaders was coldly planned, the denunciation made a few years ago by Pablo Cabezas Salamanca, son of the lawyer Rubén Cabezas, gains strength.

Pablo Cabezas claimed to have knowledge of a "social" dinner that took place days before this episode, shortly after the arrival of the then-lieutenant colonel as Director of the Cavalry School.

The new military chief had allegedly selected a group of civilians who were businessmen—especially farmers—and right-wing political leaders or wealthy people who had harbored hatred toward the people of the overthrown Popular Unity.

On that occasion, the attendees had allegedly drawn up for Arredondo a fateful list of the "most dangerous" leftist political leaders in the area.

That would have been the death sentence for nine prominent social leaders of the city.

There are many names circulating about the attendees of this "social" meeting, but the versions highlight that of a farmer who was a high executive of a state company during the Pinochet regime.

Other forcibly disappeared

In all the interrogations of military personnel, Magistrate Corti did not fail to ask them if they knew the fate of two forcibly disappeared persons whose final whereabouts she wishes to establish.

Invariably, all those interrogated claim to have no idea nor to have heard those names before.

They are Jorge Eduardo Villarroel Vilches, from Limache, then a leader of MOPARE (an organization affiliated with the government of Salvador Allende), who was detained on April 19, 1974, when he appeared at the San Pedro Carabineros Station, where he had been summoned.

The second disappeared person is Bernardino Rodríguez Cortez, a saddler who lived in Cerro Mayaca, a member of the Communist Party, detained on March 6, 1974, inside a leather shop on O'Higgins Street in Quillota. The detention was carried out by Quillota Investigations officials, among whom were Sub-inspector Omar Mercado and detectives Juan González and Hugo Olivari.

Former military governor

It has drawn attention that the then-Governor, Military Chief of Quillota, and commander of the Engineering Regiment, Ángel Custodio Torres, has not testified nor was he prosecuted. The authority may not have participated directly, but at the very least he would be an accessory, since he signed the communiqué deceiving the community with the version of the extremist assault.

The parts of the file known to this media outlet do not shed full light on the detail, but sources close to the process assured us that the former governor is affected by total dementia. In the file, there is a medical certificate that accuses partial memory loss due to his pronounced alcoholism.

Placencia's confusion

A curiosity of the process is the initial statement of Sergeant Major (ret.) Sergio Placencia to the effect that former Captain Daniel Walker gave the "coup de grâce" to one of the victims who did not die instantly.

But when both were confronted, doubt entered Placencia's mind: "I maintain what was previously declared regarding the wounded man in the assault on the patrol who was subsequently finished off by an officer on the International Road.

But now, seeing my Major Walker, I cannot specify with certainty that this was said officer, maintaining in this regard the doubts that I expressed previously; that is, if it was him or if it was Jaime Bachler..."

But then, faced with this last officer, he is "confused" again: "I maintain my previous statements. Now that I have Officer Bachler in front of me, I cannot say that this was the officer who finished off the wounded man. I insist the doubt persists if it was him or Major Walker and to clear up said doubt I refer to the confrontation that was carried out with the latter."

Source: January 21, 2004 Zonaimpacto.cl

Date: 01-21-2004

Chilling details of the 1974 massacre in Quillota

One of the six executed in the setup staged by Army personnel on January 18, 1974, did not die immediately at the site of the massacre but was transported along with the five corpses of his companions to the Engineering Regiment, where he arrived dead.

The bodies were handed over to their families in coffins tied with barbed wire and they were forced to bury them in consecutive niches in the El Mayaca Cemetery, where they remained guarded by armed soldiers, who for some time prevented the mourners from approaching even to leave them flowers...

Those are some of the chilling details contained in the Resolution issued by Judge Gabriela Corti when indicting eight retired uniformed officers as authors of the crimes of qualified homicide of six leftist militants and the qualified and repeated kidnapping of three political leaders: former Mayor Pablo Gac Espinoza (PS), lawyer and socialist leader Rubén Cabezas Parés, and peasant leader, MAPU militant, Levi Arraño Sánchez.

Judge Corti went to the Second Criminal Court of Quillota to notify the plaintiff lawyers about the indictments issued last Saturday against eight former uniformed officers implicated in the slaughter. Originally, there was talk of ten prosecuted, because the judge only notified them one by one, sending them detained to Army and Carabineros units, but the names or charges were not made public.

Visiting Judge

The judge of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Gabriela Corti, no longer has the status of "Ministra de Fuero" (Judge with special jurisdiction) for this case, because with the definitive dismissal of the former dictator and former senator-for-life Augusto Pinochet, there is no defendant or accused with special immunity (in this case, parliamentary).

In such circumstances, and as a Visiting Judge, Judge Corti set the Second Criminal Court of Quillota as the seat for her work, where the first complaints and lawsuits regarding this case were filed.

On this occasion, Judge Gabriela Corti met with all the lawyers sponsoring the various lawsuits accumulated in her investigation: Héctor Salazar, Hugo Gutiérrez, Nelson Caucoto, Julia Urquieta, and Hiram Villagra. They were joined yesterday by Quillota lawyer Elmita Puebla, who sponsored the first lawsuits immediately after the events occurred, and the CODEPU prosecutor, Federico Aguirre.

The prosecuted

The indictment, of only six pages—a document of at least 15 was expected—does not abound in details about the facts established by the magistrate, limiting itself to a brief summary that, however, allows confirming many of the suspicions and background information that both the victims' families and this journalist handled.

After the detail of the statements, confrontations, reports, and documents viewed, she indicted Sergio Carlos Arredondo González (lieutenant colonel and director of the Cavalry School in 1974; he had arrived at the end of 1973 after having participated as an operational officer in the Caravan of Death), Francisco Javier Pérez Egert (then-captain, personally directed the "operations" to murder the nine victims), Pedro Alberto Durcudoy Montandón, Daniel Javier Walker Ramos (both officers of the Cavalry School, with direct participation in the murders), Leonardo Quilodrán Burgos (sergeant major, one of the cruelest repressors known in the area), Sergio Placencia Sepúlveda (sergeant major, specialized in "intelligence," participated in the planning and detentions), Raúl Aurelio Muñoz Gutiérrez (Army sergeant major, participated actively), and Laureano Enrique Hernández Araya (Carabineros sergeant major, also characterized by the cruelty of his repressive actions).

The document details that the aforementioned former uniformed officers are charged "as authors of the crime of qualified homicide, in a repeated nature, of Hugo Hernán Aranda Bruna, Julio Arturo Loo Pardo, Manuel Hernán Hurtado Martínez, Eduardo Manzano Cortés, Ángel Mario Díaz Castro, and Víctor Enrique Fuenzalida Fuenzalida, provided for and sanctioned in Art. 391 of the Penal Code, and as authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping, in a repeated nature, of Pablo Gac Espinoza, Rubén Guillermo Cabezas Parés, and Levi Segundo Arraño Sancho, provided for and sanctioned in Art. 141 Inc. 4 of the same Code."

In a first reading, the paragraphs described above make it clear that the six crimes perpetrated at the San Isidro underpass and the three executions committed inside the Cavalry School, from where the remains were made to disappear, were committed by the same uniformed officers.

Interrogations and confrontations

During her almost two years of inquiries, Judge Corti interrogated more than thirty witnesses, defendants, suspects, accused, and family members of the victims, many of whom are named in the indictment.

Great responsibility for the success of the inquiries rests with the Investigations detectives, both from the Fifth Department and Interpol. While the former were in charge of a huge number of procedures in the country, the latter located and interrogated witnesses in various cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

The participation of some of those prosecuted was until now unknown to the victims' families, such as officers Pedro Durcudoy and Daniel Walker and Sergeant Major Raúl Muñoz.

Also, several of the people who provided statements both in the country and abroad are unknown to the families. Such are the cases of retired Army officer Mario René del Carmen Díaz Pérez, interrogated by Interpol in the United States, and Ángel Rafael Muñoz Pavez, interrogated in Amsterdam, Holland, whose statement remained protected in a separate volume of the main file.

The relationship of Marcelino Bugeño Bugueño, Segundo Aladino Jofré Morales, Ismael Enrique Villavicencio Carrasco, and José Arnoldo Escobar Ojeda is also unknown, all of whom are declarants in the process, some of whom were military personnel. Like Carlos Varas Frederick, who was an officer at the Cavalry School, where he stood out as an equestrian.

On page 572, the statement of civilian Osvaldo Romo Mena is recorded, a former leftist militant who became one of the cruelest torturers in the operations and detention centers in Santiago, but whose relationship with the events in Quillota was unknown until now.

Brief account of the facts

The account of the facts established by the judicial investigation is brief in the document that prosecutes the eight former uniformed officers. For this reason, the plaintiff lawyers requested the Visiting Judge to have access to the summary, which they will be able to do only from this Friday; that is, one day after the deadline for the prosecuted to appeal or file any legal recourse expires.

However, omitting some background information, it reveals chilling details about what happened in the early hours of January 18, 1974.

The document specifies that based on the background information, interrogations, confrontations, and accumulated reports, "it can be established" that on January 17, 1974, "military personnel took six people out of the Quillota Public Jail, union leaders, all leftist militants or sympathizers, who were led by them to the Engineering Regiment No. 2 'Aconcagua' of said city, where they remained detained; a place to which that same day three others also presented themselves voluntarily, also leftist militants, after a summons that had been made to them at their homes and workplaces by military personnel, this time dressed in civilian clothes, also remaining detained, the latter being the Mayor of the city, the Prosecutor of the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA) based in the city of Quillota, and the president of the Peasant Committee of the San Isidro sector." The latter are Pablo Gac, Rubén Cabezas, and Levi Arraño, respectively.

"It could be called an ambush"

The account of the established facts continues by pointing out that in the last hours of January 17 or the first of January 18, 1974, all the detainees were put into vehicles that, "in the number of four and heavily guarded by a military contingent, would transport them to the Armored Cavalry School of Quillota, which said military column did not reach."

The trajectory was interrupted, according to the document, "due to the fact that as it crossed the underpass called San Isidro, in what could be called an ambush since 'grenade explosions' and 'machine-gun bursts' occurred from both sides of the pass, which reached the vehicles that composed it," it was verified later that one of the jeeps had caught fire.

It was also verified that "of the military contingent, only one resulted in an injury whose nature was not accredited."

Indeed, we recall that Captain Pérez Egert appeared with a bandaged hand and it was reported that he was the only soldier wounded in the "extremist assault" and "intense skirmish with terrorists."

One detainee did not die immediately

The account contained in the judicial Resolution adds that after the explosion of grenades and machine-gun bursts, on the other hand, among the detainees, "one of them was wounded and five were deceased as a consequence of the multiple injuries caused to their bodies by projectiles" (the words in bold have been highlighted as such in the judicial document).

In Quillota, it was learned days later that the autopsy protocols—performed by doctors Oracio Bruzzone and Jorge Abde—established that all of them presented dozens of bullet impacts fired from behind.

The Resolution of the indictments details that after the attack with heavy fire by the military against the unarmed and handcuffed civilians, the bodies of the five murdered and the wounded man "were taken back in the same vehicles toward the Regiment from which they had left moments before, a place from which all were transported by military personnel toward the local morgue, because the detainee who remained wounded had also died."

It is not detailed in what circumstances the sixth victim died, who could have been finished off with a coup de grâce or have died on the way from bleeding or the effects of the projectiles.

It is pointed out next that all these victims were handed over by the Military Governor (Colonel Ángel Torres) to their families "in closed coffins tied with barbed wire, leaving the face of each of them exposed for their recognition, which were then buried in adjoining niches in the local Cemetery, said niches remaining open for a space of two or three days, always guarded by military personnel, for the purpose that the families could obtain authorization from the Governorate for their burial in family vaults."

All of the above, according to the Magistrate, "constitutes the crime of qualified homicide, in a repeated nature" of the six leftist militants already enumerated.

Three forcibly disappeared

Regarding the forcibly disappeared, the document expresses that "the other three detainees, Pablo Gac Espinoza, Rubén Cabezas Parés, and Levi Arraño Sancho, were seen there—San Isidro underpass—for the last time, a situation that persists until today, so that, their current whereabouts being unknown, it is established that their detention has been prolonged for more than fifteen days, thus constituting the crime of qualified kidnapping, in a repeated nature."

Source: July 18, 2003 Zonaimpacto.cl

Date: 07-18-2003