Efforts by the FACh (Chilean Air Force) to distance itself from the crimes committed during the military dictatorship have proven futile. A direct consequence of the investigative reports by journalist Víctor Gutiérrez published in the newspaper “La Nación” was the resignation of the fifth-ranking officer in the institutional chain of command, General Patricio Campos Montecinos, former head of the Civil Aeronautics General Directorate and the institution's liaison during the roundtable dialogue.

His wife, Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval (“la Pochi”), played an active role in the sinister Joint Command (Comando Conjunto), according to statements made to “La Nación” by the former agent “Colmillo Blanco,” whom the newspaper “El Mercurio” identified as retired FACh Colonel Otto Trujillo, currently prosecuted and held at the former Penitentiary.

The Joint Command was allegedly reorganized with the objective of distorting the information provided by the FACh to the roundtable dialogue and obstructing judicial investigations involving members of the Air Force, with the help of civilian lawyers funded by the institution.

The “La Nación” informant also mentioned Colonel Roberto Serón Cárdenas, Commander Juan Luis López López, and the civilian Alejandro Figari Verdugo (a former militant of Patria y Libertad) as repression agents who remain active.

Most were prosecuted by investigating judge Carlos Cerda in 1986 and later dismissed by the Supreme Court. Despite the significance of the allegations, the Court of Appeals rejected the appointment of an extraordinary judge, and the judicial investigation remained in the hands of the judge of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Mario Carroza, who oversees the majority of the cases involving victims of the Joint Command.

Furthermore, President Ricardo Lagos requested an internal investigation from the Air Force high command, and there was no shortage of calls for the departure of the commander-in-chief, General Patricio Ríos.

This is the second major crisis to shake the FACh under General Ríos’s command. Last year, his right-hand man, General Hernán Gabrielli, chief of the general staff and second in institutional seniority, was forced into retirement. He had been positioned as the future commander-in-chief until five lawsuits for torture thwarted his plans.

Regardless of whether the Joint Command has been reorganized or not, the former Air Force officers who are facing their torturers from the early days of the military dictatorship in court do not doubt that a plot has been hatched to obstruct justice.

One of them is Jaime Donoso Parra, an aeronautical engineer and retired FACh captain, who was part of the group of constitutionalist officers opposed to the coup d'état. “I have testified in many trials and participated in several confrontations, and all they do is deny what they did,” he says. “Then, one leaves the confrontation and in the courthouse hallways sees how the guy who just testified tells his lawyers everything he said to the judge.

That allows the next person summoned by the court to be instructed on what to say to avoid contradictions. I am convinced they are hiding information about the forcibly disappeared. Commander-in-Chief Patricio Ríos cannot be unaware of this, and it is very likely that there is interaction between the four institutions, which seems like a mistake to me because, in my judgment, those responsible for the crimes are individuals, not the institutions themselves.”

The testimony provided by former Captain Jaime Donoso concerns the repression exercised by the FACh against approximately 60 men from its own ranks in the early years of the military regime, specifically at the Air War Academy (Aga), a true training ground for those who formed the Joint Command in 1975.

One of the most brutal torturers at the Aga was the head of the nascent Joint Command, Edgar Ceballos Jones (“Commander Cabezas”).

BACHELET AND THE OTHERS

Captain Donoso, who had two years of seniority at the time of the coup d'état, had early evidence of what the high commands were preparing. Between May and June 1973, he served as the patrol officer for the Santiago Garrison, and on one occasion, he was ordered to inspect the Air War Academy at two in the morning. “When I identified myself to the guard non-commissioned officer, who knew me because I was a student at the Academy, he tried to prevent my entry.

That seemed extremely suspicious to me, so I drew my pistol and arrested him for preventing the patrol officer, the highest authority of the garrison, from entering the base. He then explained to me that General Gustavo Leigh, who was inside, had asked him not to let anyone in,” the former officer recounts.

He decided to take him at gunpoint to where General Leigh was; at that time, Leigh was chief of the general staff and the second-highest rank after the commander-in-chief, César Ruiz Danyau. Upon entering the base, he saw that the cars of almost all the generals were parked there.

The conference room was lit, but the door was closed. “I kicked it open, with my pistol in my hand and the non-commissioned officer at my side. The room was plunged into a spectral silence. Normally, when a captain kicks down a door, the least a general does is arrest him.

But they all stayed quiet. What was immediately etched in my mind was the map of Santiago, where they had placed airplanes designing circuits to attack La Moneda, the president’s house in Tomás Moro, and radio stations.

I had no doubt that a coup d'état was being planned. General Leigh asked me to excuse him, gave me every possible explanation, said they were playing a war game... Sure, at two in the morning! I imagine the insults the general who sent me to perform the patrol must have received.”

What did you do after having that evidence?

“It was a warning light for the five or six of us captains who were constitutionalists. We had been to university, most of us were engineers, and we had a relationship with society different from that of the pure military man.

We were not for the coup d'état, and we felt our mission was to denounce what was being prepared. We decided to group together more closely and seek political channels to deliver that information to the President of the Republic.

We met with senators Eric Schnake (PS) and Anselmo Sule (PR), and with Carlos Lazo, president of the State Bank. They managed to get an interview for some members of the group with President Salvador Allende, but he did not believe them.

He said he was convinced that the military would never stage a coup d'état because they had sworn loyalty to him. I think Allende was very proud. He was convinced he could handle the situation politically and that he would not be overwhelmed.”

Did you sympathize with any political party?

“No, we didn't even agree with Allende’s government, which by that point was not good, although I had voted for him because I liked his program. But we had the conviction that we had to respect the Constitution and the law, in accordance with what we had sworn.

For us, the supreme chief was the President of the Republic and not the commander-in-chief. That is why, until the very last moment, we continued to insist on delivering the information we had. When the coup d'état occurred, they arrested us all, along with generals Alberto Bachelet and Sergio Poblete, and Colonel Ernesto Galaz.

They attributed Marxist links to them, but they were only doing their duty.”

Did they keep you at the Aga?

“Yes, and the aggression against us was brutal because they considered us traitors... to them. When we talked, we told them that they were the ones betraying the Constitution and the country. They beat us, performed mock executions, applied electricity to the most sensitive parts—even on open wounds—and burned us with cigarettes.

They also used drugs and hypnosis. Some were hung from hooks, like in a butcher shop, and whipped. The Air War Academy was an atrocious torture center. The generals were kicked on the ground by the enlisted men. They sought the maximum degradation of our personality. There were prisoners who had their fingernails pulled out. Others were torn apart, cut just like a butcher cuts a pig.”

Who was in command?

“Leigh was involved there. I saw him giving precise instructions on what had to be done. I had been a flight instructor for General Orlando Gutiérrez, and later he was my torturer. He was the boss; he witnessed everything.

Leigh was also present when they tortured General Poblete. He told me about it in a letter he wrote to me, which is in the trial. They burned his chest and hands. In the Air Force, in 1973, torture was established as a standard procedure for interrogating prisoners.

They didn't ask what to do with a prisoner; they simply tortured him and said, ‘this is what you have to confess.’ It was a standard procedure.”

Were you prosecuted?

“After the torture, they held the famous wartime summary trial called ‘FACh against Bachelet and others,’ which we are now challenging before the Court of Appeals. Unfortunately, the court indicated that the case should go to military justice, which is an aberration.

We are going to continue insisting because we want it recognized that due process was not followed and that they give us the documentation that belongs to us. After the summary, we were put on trial where we had no defense; our lawyers were not allowed to argue torture.

I, who had denounced the coup, was accused of ‘incitement to sedition,’ ‘treason to the country,’ ‘creator of Plan Zeta,’ and the ‘Escape Plan.’ None of that existed. They sentenced us in December 1973, five to the death penalty and others to prison.

My sentence was 20 years. Later, they reduced it to 15 years, and for those sentenced to death, to 30 years in prison. I was a prisoner for two years in different military centers, and in the end, they took us to the General Mackenna public jail. In 1975, they applied Decree Law 504, which allowed us to go into exile.”

Did you ever meet General Alberto Bachelet?

“We were together in jail. General Bachelet had a heart problem that was perfectly treatable, but if they applied electricity, things got complicated. That is what happened. One day they took him out to take him to the War Academy.

He returned with cigarette burns, electrode marks, and violent tachycardia. Dr. Alvaro Yáñez, who was one of the prisoners, said he was very ill and needed special care. Shortly after, he died. On one occasion, Leigh said how could anyone think the Air Force could do such things. The cynicism of the torturers was incredible.”

Have you had the opportunity to face your torturers?

“I have been confronted with those who were my direct torturers in different trials led by judges Juan Guzmán, Mario Carroza, and Rubén Ballesteros. I have testified against Hernán Gabrielli, General Orlando Gutiérrez, and a whole list of torturers.

In the confrontations, I have verified the smallness of these men who, when they were torturing and had all the power, surpassed human rationality. At the Academy, they killed a sergeant with a gunshot, and General Gutiérrez congratulated the soldier who shot him.

And now I see some seriously damaged, like Edgar Ceballos Jones; commanders Ramón Cáceres and Sergio Ulises Swain; General Orlando Gutiérrez. At that time, they walked around the Academy like real peacocks; now I see them hidden and crestfallen in the courthouses.

One says to them, ‘coward, damned coward, how can you not acknowledge what you did?’ They lower their heads and answer, ‘I don’t remember.’”

Do they show no remorse?

“I don’t think so, but they do show shame, because they don’t dare to look you in the eye. And they never give their addresses. They are damned cowards; there is no other way to say it. Happily, they have fallen into contradictions.

The big difference with them is that we walk with our heads held high, we show ourselves anywhere, and we go to the courthouses openly, without any fear, because we have a clean conscience.”

THE GABRIELLI CHAPTER

The former FACh prisoners lived in exile in different countries, but they always maintained ties of friendship among themselves. Jaime Donoso Parra went to England, where he studied advanced aeronautics and earned a doctorate in aerodynamics and fluid mechanics at the University of London.

He became a highly qualified scientific researcher and developed a successful professional career in the private sector. He invented four high-tech methods to solve complex mathematical problems, which were duly patented. With one, he won a National Science and Technology Award in 1997 granted by the Ministry of Defense. He lived his last years of exile in Switzerland.

When did you initiate legal action?

“We former FACh prisoners could only return to Chile at the beginning of the 90s, when it was impossible to bring a trial against the Armed Forces because the de facto powers had their power intact. But we thought we had to do something, and we participated actively in the process of creating the law for exonerated persons.

Finally, some people decided to sue for physical and moral damages. There are former prisoners who are insane in England, confined in psychiatric hospitals. Others have damage to their ears, some immobilized limb, bone diseases from the beatings and electricity, or some parts of their brain don’t work well and they forget things.

That is how we found Codepu, which has advised us in the trials, and the problem of General Hernán Gabrielli. In February 2001, Carlos Bau Aedo, a former executive of the Industria Nacional de Cemento S.A. (Inacesa), denounced that Gabrielli had tortured him and other prisoners in 1973 at the Cerro Moreno air base in Antofagasta, then in charge of Commander Marcial Vargas del Campo.

Joining his complaints were former detainees Juan Ruz, a doctor in pedagogy and current official of the Ministry of Education, and Héctor Vera, a doctor in communications and vice-rector of the University of Antofagasta.

All three were victims of physical and psychological torment and witnessed how the then-sub-lieutenant Gabrielli savagely tortured Eugenio Ruiz-Tagle Orrego, manager of Inacesa, who, along with Corfo manager Mario Silva Iriarte, was machine-gunned on October 19 by the Caravan of Death.

The affected parties initiated a torture trial against Hernán Gabrielli, in which the former FACh prisoners have participated as witnesses. According to statements by one of them, then-aviation sub-lieutenant Ricardo Navarro Valdivia, Hernán Gabrielli not only tortured him but also a 14-year-old boy, causing him sequelae that ended his life in the Antofagasta hospital.

Navarro testified from Spain in an interview with Televisión Nacional: ‘The entire Air Force knew and knows that Gabrielli is a torturer.’ Other FACh witnesses who were victims or witnessed torture carried out by the man who became chief of the general staff of that institution are Captain Juan Muñoz and Sub-lieutenant Oscar Navarro, officers of the FACh finance branch in Antofagasta, and second corporals Luis Gabriel Torres Valeria and Antonio Jara Castro.”

Did you know former General Gabrielli?

“We met at the Aviation School; we were friends, and I had a lot of esteem for him. When we were in jail, prisoners from Antofagasta began to arrive, like Carlos Bau and some non-commissioned officers, who described Gabrielli as one of their torturers.

There was no doubt. I wrote him two letters between 1999 and 2000, before the trials, so he could see a way to compensate those of us who were from the Air Force. First, in the moral aspect, which is what interests us most, and then material, because they cut our lives short at 30 years old.

He never answered those letters. The lawsuit that Gabrielli filed against Carlos Bau, Juan Ruz, and Héctor Vera for defamation, insults, and slander was closed after three months by Judge Ballesteros, making it evident that Gabrielli tortured, although this continues to be one person’s word against another’s.

He continues to deny it, but everyone who saw him and suffered the torture will continue to testify. According to what is legally established, we will have these people on the front line until at some point they have to break.

A pilot or non-commissioned officer will eventually appear who will tell how they cut open the prisoners’ bellies and threw them into the sea! We have to keep looking for mechanisms to corner them.”

What kind of torturer was Gabrielli?

“There were ‘professional’ torturers, like those at the Air War Academy, and others who were occasional, who were the ones on guard duty. In this latter group was Gabrielli, who at that time was a 24 or 25-year-old lieutenant.

The ‘official’ torturers of the Cerro Moreno base, like Commander Gonzalo Pérez Canto, told the young lieutenants to ‘soften up’ the prisoners before they went into interrogation. And although they could have avoided it, because it was not their obligation, they grabbed them and beat and kicked them.

I call them ‘clumsy torturers.’ This happened at all the bases, including Quintero, where General Patricio Ríos, the current commander-in-chief, was. All the lieutenants and sub-lieutenants of that time, if they were on duty, must have had contact with prisoners.

Also, the ensigns and sub-ensigns, who today are the generals under Ríos, must have participated at least in the ‘mop-up operations,’ where there was also torture. Who hit more and who hit less, history will have to determine.

That is why we are conducting these trials. We are going to dig until we find witnesses who dare to testify, because the truth is that many in the Air Force still haven't taken that step. In the years 96-97, some asked me please not to name them, because they and their families had been threatened.

But now we have a press law that allows us to speak. That is why I am writing a book with my memoirs where I will say what I saw of history, from the place it put me. And it put me on this side, because I had different principles than theirs, as simple as that.”

Have you ever been threatened?

“Indirectly, I was sent threats by phone when I filed an amparo appeal against General Fernando Rojas Vender, at the time he was commander-in-chief. But I was never afraid; I am doing what is right.”

Why that amparo appeal?

“It relates to another problem we have. When we retire or are discharged, they have to give us a document that says one is an Air Force officer who has been discharged, retired, exonerated, or whatever.

They haven't given us that document, and that is why they don't allow us to enter some FACh places. They have even obstructed my passage at the Ministry of Defense. To what level does the enclosure of the uniformed personnel reach that they don't even allow the Minister of Defense to intervene in this!

It should be enough for Minister Michelle Bachelet to tell the commander-in-chief to give us the documentation, because that is what is legally appropriate. At this moment, an agreement is being sought, but if there isn't one, I am going to sue the Air Force high command.

Previously, I filed an amparo appeal against General Rojas Vender and Jaime Lavados, rector of the University of Chile. It happened that both institutions called for a diploma in Aeronautical and Space Law, and I applied like any other citizen.

The classes were held at the Air War Academy. The rector of the University of Chile consulted the FACh, and they sent him a letter signed by Rojas Vender saying that I could not enter. Clumsily, he forwarded that letter to me.

And with it in hand, I filed the appeal. Fernando Rojas delayed the processing of the appeal as much as he could and in the end sent a letter to the Supreme Court saying that I had no prohibition to enter the Academy.

He presented it on August 28, and the course ended on September 1. That is the dirty mentality these people have! But nothing can be surprising from someone like Fernando Rojas Vender, who took furniture to his house as war supplies.

He has a dark history within the FACh, because he was always of bad character. Of course, all the generals who traveled abroad at that time brought jet skis and furniture as war supplies, in circumstances where the law allows them, just like diplomats, to bring goods of up to 15 or 20 thousand dollars without taxes. But they brought much more!”

Have you ever faced Hernán Gabrielli?

“He has refused to talk to me. The day we had a confrontation before Magistrate Mario Carroza, he went to the United States and left the judge and me standing. He didn't show up for another confrontation before Judge Ballesteros either.

I have no doubt that he tortured; we have witnesses tortured by him and others who witnessed those tortures. That is what I have testified in three courts. Judge Carroza is going to call me again, because I asked him that I want to see Gabrielli and face him.

General León Duffey, a brute of a man who knew how to hide very well, tortured with Gabrielli in Antofagasta and later moved to the War Academy. He was seen very little at the Academy, just like Florencio Dublé, who became chief of the general staff when Fernando Rojas Vender was commander-in-chief.

But we identified them well. They are all being prosecuted and will have to testify. They must be judged, but not with the goal of having them punished. The only thing that interests me is that they acknowledge what they did to us and that their guilt is clearly established.”

FACh Torturers The following officers, non-commissioned officers, and civilian personnel of the Air Force, mainly from the Air War Academy , participated in, practiced, or directed the torture sessions to which the accused were subjected in the “FACh against Bachelet and others” trial, according to a list compiled by retired Captain Jaime Donoso: General Engineer Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, operational head and prosecuting attorney in the trial.

• Pilot Group Commander Sergio Lizosain Mitrano, presumably second in the chain of command of the torturers.
• Squadron Commanders Edgar Ceballos Jones (engineer), Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, and González Pérez Canto (pilots). The latter operated at the Cerro Moreno base and was well known for his sadism.
• Pilot Squadron Commander Jaime Lavín Fariña (later promoted to general and prohibited from entering the U.S. for his participation in acts of torture).
• Pilot Flight Captains Alvaro Gutiérrez (also recognized for his aggressiveness and sadism), Víctor Mettig, León Duffey (operated in Antofagasta and Aga, later promoted to general), and Florencio Dublé (also promoted to general).
• Lieutenants Juan Carlos Sandoval (engineer), Hernán Gabrielli Rojas (pilot, operated in Antofagasta and was promoted to general), Franklin Bello, and another with the surname Dumont.
• Non-commissioned officer Juan Norambuena, aviation sergeant Hugo Lizana, and aviation corporal Gabriel Cortés.
• Legal advisors Víctor Barahona, Jaime Cruzat, and Cristián Rodríguez.

Retired General Sergio Poblete and other former FACh prisoners identified lieutenants José García Huidobro, Alberto Waschtendorf, and John Ramírez —most with military intelligence degrees obtained in Panama, Brazil, and the United States—as well as Colonel Lawyer Julio Tapia Falk , who was an auditor in the war council that sentenced the defendants.

That council was presided over by Brigadier General Juan Soler Manfredini and included colonels Eduardo Fornet Fernández (later promoted to general), Humberto Berg Fontecilla (doctor), Sergio Sanhueza López (engineer), Javier Lopetegui Torres , and pilot group commander Carlos Godoy Avendaño.

Source: Revista PuntoFinal.cl Edition 529

Fuero Judge Jorge Zepeda submitted two (R) colonels of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) to prosecution for the crime of repeated application of torment against former Minister of Defense and socialist militant José Tohá.

They are the former officers Sergio Contreras and Ramón Cáceres , former assistants to the late former FACH prosecutor Horacio Otaíza . Both were notified this Thursday by the magistrate, to subsequently be transferred to a facility of the Armed Forces branch, presumably at the Colina air base.

The lawyer for the Tohá family, Deputy Juan Bustos (PS), expressed his full satisfaction with the new direction the case is taking and predicted that more indictments will come in the coming months. According to the representative, Magistrate Zepeda’s charges will point to the material authors and accomplices of what he described as the "homicide" of the former head of Defense.

Along with highlighting the virtual reclassification of Tohá’s cause of death, he explained that it would have been difficult for him to have committed suicide, considering that his deteriorated physical condition (47 kilos in weight and a height of 1.90 meters) prevented it.

According to the background information provided by the so-called Rettig Report, the Secretary of State of Salvador Allende’s government died on March 15, 1974, at the Military Hospital of Santiago. On September 11, 1973, Tohá was arrested at the Palacio de la Moneda along with a group of authorities and collaborators of the deposed government.

Subsequently, he was transferred with them to the Military School, from where he went to Dawson Island, a place where he was subjected to repeated mistreatment and illegitimate coercion by the military personnel in charge of the facility.

In a state of critical malnutrition and a quite deteriorated psychological condition, the former minister ended up committing suicide in his room at the military hospital, according to the authorities of that time to the family.

Zepeda’s motives In one of the considerations, in which Zepeda gives an account of the background to prosecute the former officers, he establishes that the investigation does not prove the fact that Tohá committed suicide.

This is because the summary trial in charge of the respective Second Army and Carabineros Prosecutor’s Office was not attached to this process, as it was impossible to find it. However, the magistrate did establish that Tohá was deprived of his liberty for more than six months, without a trial being instructed or charges being filed against him during that prolonged period.

Along with this, he determined that during his captivity, he was the object—by agents of the FACH intelligence service—of “cruel and degrading” acts, with the purpose of harming his psychic and physical integrity.

Indirectly, the magistrate establishes in his document, the repeated torments were intended to instill fear in a sector of the population. On the other hand, Zepeda confirmed that the former minister was secretly transferred from the Military Hospital to the Air War Academy facility to be cruelly interrogated, as he was considered “a source of information.” These illegitimate coercions were also applied to him in the same healthcare facility, “as proven by the manuscripts discovered in the present investigation, found in the room where Tohá died.” Such documents had been prepared by President Allende’s own collaborator and by the agent who coerced him and asked the questions in writing.

Source: El Mostrador, April 21, 2005

Nine (r) FACh officers prosecuted for genocidal illicit association

The Santiago Court of Appeals revoked the decision adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who had dismissed the petition to prosecute the former military officers. Furthermore, the appellate court indicted three of them for qualified kidnapping.

The Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals accepted the petition to prosecute nine retired officers of the Air Force (FACh) for the crime of genocidal illicit association, based on evidence identifying them as the perpetrators of illegal detentions, torture, and disappearances within the Air War Academy (AGA) following the 1973 coup d'état.

With the dissenting vote of Justice Rosa María Maggi, Justice Carlos Cerda and ad hoc judge Andrea Muñoz voted to revoke the first-instance decision adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, who had denied these indictments.

Thus, the appellate court indicted Ramón Pedro Cáceres Jorquera, Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, Juan Bautista González Figueroa, Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, Omar Arturo Insunza Melo, Juan Luis Fernando López López, Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán, Roberto Francisco Serón Cárdenas, and Luis Campos Poblete as perpetrators of the crime of genocidal illicit association.

"It is established that in 1974, a group of individuals organized to work in a coordinated manner in the persecution of persons who might hold Marxist ideology or non-party leftist activism, with the objective of exterminating these social groups, criminally attacking their members or followers," the ruling states.

To this end, "they proceeded to detain them without a prior order issued by a legitimate authority, to then confine them in the Air War Academy of the Chilean Air Force, located in the Las Condes commune of this city, where they were kept incommunicado for prolonged periods and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and other varied forms of physical and psychological torture," it added.

Likewise, the Sixth Chamber ordered the issuance of arrest warrants against all these military personnel, given that the gravity of the imputed crime makes their preventive detention necessary.

Qualified kidnapping

On the other hand, the appellate court indicted Sergio Fernando Contreras Mejías, Juan Bautista González Figueroa, and Víctor Manuel Mattig Guzmán as co-perpetrators of the crime of illegitimate deprivation of liberty of José Luis Baeza Cruces.

As stated in the resolution, the evidence in the case is also sufficient to justify the existence of the illegitimate deprivation of liberty of the aforementioned victim, an illicit act that, at the time of its perpetration, was described and sanctioned in Article 141, third paragraph, of the Penal Code.

José Luis Baeza Cruces, married, father of 2, a leader of the Central Unica de Trabajadores (CUT) and the Communist Party, was detained on July 9, 1974, by security personnel belonging to the FACh, presumably at the residence located at El Mirador 1868, Santiago.

After his capture, he was transferred to the AGA, where he was seen until August 29 of that same year, in very poor physical condition as a result of the torture to which he was subjected. (Source: memoriaviva.com)

Source: El Mostrador, December 19, 2006

Supreme Court releases torturers from the Air War Academy

The Air War Academy (AGA) was one of the first torture centers established after the 1973 military coup and the cradle of the Joint Command, an organization tasked with exterminating the Communist Party.

In the facilities in Las Condes, war councils were held against airmen loyal to the Constitution and President Allende. The numerous sentences included life imprisonment and death. A significant portion of these were later commuted to exile.

The current Undersecretary of Aviation, Raúl Vergara, and General Alberto Bachelet passed through the AGA. At that time, the father of the President of the Republic was 51 years old and had three children.

His role as secretary of the National Directorate of Supply and Marketing during the Unidad Popular was enough to justify his detention, marked by the brutal torture inflicted by his former students. Due to his dire health condition, resulting from the torments, the general was transferred to the FACh Hospital. He died on March 12, 1974, in the Public Prison.

Although more than 700 detainees passed through the AGA, most of them members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), the facility did not develop the sad celebrity of similar installations run by the DINA.

However, separate lawsuits filed in 2001 and 2002 by former members of the MIR and airmen detained at the AGA, to which a civil claim for compensation was added, have just established a milestone in human rights matters. Almost a month ago, the Supreme Court recognized these tortures as crimes against humanity and ordered one of the convicted to pay 10 million pesos per victim.

Despite the historic nature of the highest court's decision, the ruling did not completely satisfy the plaintiffs. Economic compensation was achieved, but the criminal conviction was low and favored only 17 victims out of a total of 46 original complainants.

Furthermore, only two officials who operated at the AGA were found responsible: retired Colonels Edgar Cevallos Jones and Ramón Cáceres Jorquera.

Difficult process

It was a complex process. The case reached the hands of Judge Eduardo Fuentes Belmar in June 2005. On September 9 of that same year, he declared himself incompetent, arguing that, since the crimes were committed by personnel and within a military facility, it was up to military justice to investigate.

The plaintiff side appealed the civil court's decision, considering that this venue did not provide guarantees of independence and impartiality. In any case, the judge transferred the case on September 22 to military justice.

However, on the 28th of that month, this venue also declared itself incompetent, generating a conflict that was resolved by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the case should remain in the hands of Fuentes.

The testimonies of the detainees, collected in the investigation, account for the brutality with which the AGA officials operated, a department that shortly thereafter would be organized as the Air Force Intelligence Directorate and would later derive into the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA), the main member of the Joint Command.

According to the statements of those detained at the AGA between 1973 and 1975, both Cevallos and Cáceres were a fundamental part of a bestial group of torturers. The then-Aviation Colonel, Augusto Galaz Guzmán, declared that on September 14, 1973, he was detained from his office at the Ministry of Defense along with the current Undersecretary of Aviation, Raúl Vergara, General Bachelet, and Colonel Rolando Miranda.

After taking them to the Aviation Prosecutor's Office and the Colina Air Base, where they were interrogated, they were taken together to the AGA. In the process, Galaz pointed out that they were kept hooded "during the interrogation, lifting us with cords placed between our legs, applying needles to the base of our fingernails, and punching us in the face." Galaz added that Cevallos and Cáceres were in charge of the mistreatment.

It was not difficult to recognize them: both had been his students at the Aviation School.

According to the first-instance conviction, issued in 2006 by Judge Fuentes, both members of the Armed Forces and individuals belonging to leftist groups, opposed to the military regime, were detained at the AGA. They were kept blindfolded in a basement and interrogated by members of the FACh.

"And on occasions, they were subjected to various psychological or physical duress, the latter consisting of keeping them constantly blindfolded, with legs or arms flexed; passing a stick between their limbs and leaving them suspended in the air (pau de arara); applying electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, such as the tongue, genitals, temples; forcing them to remain standing for many hours or days without water or food; subjecting them to mock executions," the first-instance conviction states.

Fuentes ruled, for both Cevallos and Cáceres, a sentence of 541 days with remitted imprisonment. He did not consider that the crimes committed were crimes against humanity, but rather framed them within Article 150 of the Penal Code, which describes illegitimate duress. The judge applied the mitigating factors put forward by the culprits to the maximum.

The judge's argument for applying this punishment was the irreproachable prior conduct of the defendants, with no criminal records. Regarding Cevallos Jones, the conviction states that "said mitigating factor will be considered as highly qualified, since in his past behavior there are special connotations, such as his qualified professional preparation, work ethic, and exemplary social behavior.

Indeed, from the case records, it appears that the defendant is a qualified aeronautical engineer and satisfactorily fulfilled his entire career in the Air Force."

Regarding Cáceres Jorquera, Judge Fuentes considered his thirty-year tenure in the Air Force and his completion of a master's degree in political science and a postgraduate degree in War Economics, all added to his "harmonious family relations," as a highly qualified mitigating factor.

The coordinator of the FACh Prisoners of War Group and torture survivor at the AGA, Mario González (see interview), considers that Fuentes' argument falls to zero "from the moment they give the first blow to a defenseless detainee, without even considering whether they were men or women, then applying electricity.

There was premeditation and a repetitive procedure. That is why the irreproachable prior conduct in the institution or their subsequent studies do not apply here," he criticizes.

In this same line, the Court of Appeals, in a ruling on November 6, 2008, in addition to increasing the sentences of both to three years, still with remitted imprisonment, dismissed this argument for not being duly accredited.

Regarding the payment of compensation to the victims, Judge Fuentes exempted the State Defense Council and Ramón Cáceres from this responsibility, among other aspects, because the deadline to initiate legal actions for this concept expires at four years, which was confirmed by the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

Cevallos will have to pay the victims exclusively because his defense did not answer the civil lawsuit in time. If it were not for that legal error, no one would receive a peso for the consequences of their traumatic time at the macabre AGA in Las Condes. According to the Dicom registry, Cevallos has two properties in his name, fiscally valued at 200 million pesos.

A few weeks ago, however, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court not only confirmed the second-instance sentence that increased the sentences of Cevallos and Cáceres to three years with remitted imprisonment.

It also added that "according to the evidence gathered during the inquiry, it is appropriate to conclude that we are in the presence of what the legal conscience has come to call crimes against humanity." Thus, this ruling is the first in which the highest court recognizes torture as crimes of this nature.

Federico Aguirre, executive secretary of the Corporation for the Defense of the People's Rights (Codepu), a plaintiff organization, highlights that this case sets a precedent for other similar ones, but "we consider that the sentences imposed are not consistent with the damage caused.

They are not proportional to the serious attack on physical and psychological integrity that the crime of torture entails."

Although Fuentes Belmar only prosecuted Cevallos and Cáceres in the AGA torture case, in the case of the disappearance of José Luis Baeza Cruces and the crime of Alfonso Carreño Díaz, both occurring at the facility, the Court of Appeals decided in 2006 to prosecute nine members of that department for the crime of genocidal illicit association.

This, after Judge Fuentes, who also handles this case, refused to do so following the request of the Human Rights Program. Currently, the case is in the stage prior to the first-instance sentence.

"The position of the justice system is incredible" Mario González, coordinator of the FACH Prisoners of War group -Who was with General Bachelet in his final moments? -Practically all the FACh personnel prosecuted in the Metropolitan Region at that time were in the Public Prison together with General Bachelet, who died on March 12, 1974, after a long day of interrogation at the AGA. -Did you or your companions have to take care of him? -The morning he felt ill, we all noticed his condition when he retired to his cell to rest.

We were attentive to everything that was happening. Before noon, it was already known through Álvaro Yáñez, our doctor, also a prisoner, that the general was dying of a heart attack. -What do you feel as a body of former airmen regarding the sentence increased to 3 years, but with remitted imprisonment, the same as the first instance? -We consider that the sentences imposed and their confirmation by the highest court is insufficient.

First, because of the gravity of the crime, which is classified as illegitimate duress and not as torture. And the three years, which are with remitted imprisonment. But we are happy, since it was proven that there was torture to extract false confessions in the processes and war councils implemented as a way to frighten the rest of the Air Force personnel. -What do you think about the fact that only in the case of some of you were the tortures accredited? -Here we consider that there was a serious error and that it is totally discriminatory.

The judge looked for sequels of torture and not the torture as such. After so many years, it is difficult to find physical sequels. In many of us, he did not find them or ignored them, in circumstances where there are medical certificates from the date that prove the effects of the procedures they used. -Why do you think only two of the perpetrators of the torture crimes were convicted? -The position of the justice system is totally incredible.

This personnel was part of a repressive system created by the FACh to dismantle, according to them, a whole group that would be dedicated to plotting against the institutional command and that would have civilian agents close to the government and political parties, doing infiltration work in the FACh with the aim of carrying out a self-coup, Plan Z, and others with that objective. -You, as airmen, have a judicial action before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where does it stand? -As the FACh Prisoners of War Group, we have had a filing with the IACHR since 2003, accusing the State of Chile of denial of justice, due to the Supreme Court's rejection of our request for review of the war council against Bachelet and others. This filing was admitted, and I was in Washington as coordinator at a hearing granted by said commission. The parties were called to reach an amicable solution in October 2007, but it has not been possible to reach a successful conclusion due to the government's lack of interest in resolving our request for reparation for the damage caused.

Source: La Nación, October 25, 2009

The FACH and the torture of General Bachelet

It is undoubtedly a step forward to point out and sanction the torturers who operated under the protection of the military dictatorship; hopefully, this is also the beginning of a process of identification and bringing to justice all those who seized military institutions, in this case, the Air Force, to commit one of the most reprehensible acts: treason, murder, and torture against innocent people in the name of freedom and military duty.

May this not be another frustrated attempt; there are many expectations of justice, that these issues related to torturers, to human rights violations, do not continue to be negotiable for political ends or to maintain impunity.

No one asked us Chileans if we agreed with the 1978 amnesty law that protects hundreds of military and civilian perpetrators or accomplices of what happened in Chile; it was imposed on us.

It is time for these issues to leave the barracks and the halls of Congress, making them a great national debate to which we have a right. In Chile, the curtailed democracy we live in does not allow us to participate in decisions, which is why it is time for the citizen's opinion to be heard on the broad spectrum of human rights.

We have always maintained that it must be the high military commands, the senior and junior officers, the involved permanent cadre personnel, political leaders, and businessmen who colluded to conspire against a legitimate and democratic government, who must answer for their acts before the justice system.

Today, a pending truth has been corroborated: that former Colonels Edgard Ceballos and Ramón Cáceres tortured General Bachelet and that they are guilty of his death, that they did the same to a hundred of their former brothers-in-arms, who opposed the coup d'état and the transformation of the FACH into an institution at the service of ambitious politicians and businessmen, both national and foreign.

The justice system knows that there were other torturers at the Air War Academy: the now-General Gabrielli, the then-Squadron Commander Pilot Jaime Lavín Fariña, the Flight Captain Pilots Álvaro Gutiérrez, Víctor Mettig, León Duffey, Florencio Dublé, Juan Carlos Sandoval, and Lieutenant Dumont.

The non-commissioned officers Aviation Sergeant Hugo Lizana, Aviation Corporal Gabriel Cortes, among others. It also knows that in December 1973, the director of the Air War Academy was General Fernando Mathei, of the best-known detention and torture center of the era.

And that this general was at the head of the military facility during the period in which General Alberto Bachelet and we, former members of the FACh, were tortured in that place.

I do not know if there is a greater cowardice than hiding behind the military uniform, power, or due obedience and amnesty laws to justify or commit violations, cruel tortures inflicted on handcuffed people, or clandestine murders.

To do this, their authors have justified themselves by saying they were waging a war against communism and Marxism, which has been proven false; that the confrontations were nothing more than some pockets of brave and heroic resistance to the firepower of the Armed Forces against a defenseless people.

As a reward for "the battles" that all these brave soldiers fought in the torture chambers, with handcuffed, mistreated, and unarmed enemies, they pinned hundreds of medals to their chests and decorated each other, some blessed by the church, feeding the false ego of duty fulfilled.

It is good to remind these gentlemen that the fulfillment of military duty and honor, military values, and patriotism are concepts that materialize and are proven in real life, in the practice of military work.

That the military is worth what its values are worth and the way they live them, the example of which is in the figure of General Alberto Bachelet, of Non-Commissioned Officers Enrique Reyes and Ivan Figueroa, among others.

That is why we proudly reclaim what we did; it was these torturers who accused us of treason to the country and of failing in our military duties, because we propagated the freedom to think as part of military professionalism, the freedom of conscience to exercise command and obey on the basis of conscious discipline, identifying ourselves with respect for those who, dreaming of their freedom, chose Salvador Allende as President responsibly and peacefully.

We believe it is time for the Armed Forces to look at their history, the good and the bad of their actions, because they need to redeem themselves on the basis of their combative potential, which is their relationship with the Chilean people.

Rescuing that necessary identity involves recognizing the period in which the Armed Forces were instruments of state terrorism exercised by a military dictatorship.

A noble action that would allow, once and for all, for many families to know the whereabouts of their disappeared loved ones, which would facilitate rebuilding the identity between Chileans and their army.

As we have stated before, the history of Chile cannot be cut in two, between the current reality and that of that era, because both periods correspond to a process and are the basis of a coherent explanation of why we are still a divided country.

That is why we recognize the importance of what the justice system has done by identifying and judging former Colonels Ceballos and Cáceres, because the path of forgetting is not being followed, which, as has been shown, helps no one; on the contrary, it is a historical mistake that does a lot of damage to the country.

Especially to young Chileans, who, without having lived through this difficult and very hard stage, are direct or indirect victims of it, for which they remain condemned to live in a divided country.

It is also very important because, by having justice, it allows us Chileans to enter the future, reading our own past. And that will indeed allow society as a whole to make a judgment of the facts and decide the course to follow on this delicate issue.

But there is still more to do, and we must advance in this effort. Judicial rulings like this one in no way alter the functioning of the Armed Forces; on the contrary, they open a necessary path to establish institutional recognition of past events and responsibilities in each of the investigated cases.

The younger generations of military personnel have the right to know the history of their country, that Army officers not only tortured their brothers-in-arms but also murdered the General and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Rene Schneider, to prevent Allende from assuming the government in 1970.

They have to know that officers and non-commissioned officers of the Armed Forces murdered General Carlos Prats, Ministers of the Unidad Popular government, José Toha, Orlando Letelier. That the Commander of the Chilean Air Force, Gustavo Leigh, ordered the bombing of La Moneda and the presidential house with the objective of murdering Salvador Allende and that they are responsible for more than four thousand Chileans being murdered and that many of them remain disappeared.

For quite some time, we have manifested that we were witnesses to the outcome of a history that we tried to denounce and a military offensive that we tried to oppose. For this reason, we can attest that the Chilean Air Force, led by Leigh and company, were part of a war plan and assumed the responsibility of bombing La Moneda, so that later on the ground, the army with the Infantry forces would finish the task of liquidating every vestige of resistance of "the enemy."

We have denounced that the Hawker Hunter planes carried out a tactical bombing mission when they attacked the Government Palace, the most important symbol of democracy in Chile, assuming that "enemy troops" and the command post of the Allende government were entrenched there, with the mission of annihilating them.

We have also stated that to execute this mission, they had to have a prior and studied plan, in addition to practicing it, which demonstrates not only the conspiracy but that this action was planned with the explicit mission of murdering Salvador Allende and all those who were resisting in the presidential palace.

If anyone has doubts about this, check the journalistic reports of the time; the planes discharged the rockets over the Presidential Palace, one entered through a window into the presidential hall and the other impacted the ceiling of a hallway on the second floor, and in total, they passed in low-level flight eight times, discharging 18 rockets in 20 minutes.

Today, the justice system knows that the practices of the bombing of La Moneda were carried out at Cerro Moreno and that the then-Lieutenant Ernesto Amador González Yarra and Lieutenant Fernando Rojas Vender, Captain Eitel Von Mühlenbrock, and Lieutenant Gustavo Leigh Yates, son of the commander-in-chief of the FACH and member of the military junta, participated.

However, those who are still alive from this group of officers have declared to the justice system and have refused to acknowledge their participation, alleging a secret of honor.

Declarations that are an offense and an insult to our intelligence; these gentlemen forget that we are living witnesses to their misdeeds and that we know they acted in a premeditated and conscious manner, making use of all the firepower against enemies created by them to justify their actions.

The officers and non-commissioned officers who participated in all the operations before, during, and after the military coup were part of the insane declaration of war that the Armed Forces made against the supporters of the Unidad Popular government, enemies who, as we have said, were not captured in combat, but were ordinary Chilean citizens taken from their homes and taken to different military barracks, handcuffed with hoods on their heads to then be cruelly tortured and mistreated.

These junior officers at that time feel proud of what they did, a sentiment shared by General Mathei, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force, who feels honored, as he declared some time ago, "to have participated in the military government, as a minister and as a member of the Government Junta."

It is time, then, for the justice system to help Chile unmask so much lying and hypocrisy; there are many witnesses and evidence that allow for progress in this very important and decisive aspect for national coexistence.

The Armed Forces of today must assume the moral obligation before the nation and recognize, without half-measures, the acts against human dignity committed by members of our institutions during the military dictatorship.

During that period, the Air Force was part of and involved in state terrorism and set up torture centers in its military units and under its jurisdiction. The most important was the Air War Academy, a situation shared and accepted by the institutional high commands and, through them, passed on to the entire chain of command of the institution.

This is a topic that should awaken the interest of academics and jurists in the heat of this type of post-dictatorship trials, linked to the extermination programs carried out by people like the two recently prosecuted.

The profuse amount of documentation and testimonies that were made public in the reports of the Rettig and Valech commissions, in addition to everything compiled by the UN itself, by Amnesty International, show the world a complex state bureaucracy placed almost exclusively at the service of crime and torture, that is, of state terrorism.

Having been part of the structure of the Armed Forces, we affirm that those evidences also demonstrate the degree of responsibility of their executors. If we start from those who carried out the murders with their own hands, at the Air War Academy, for example, and ascend through the chain of command of the organizational structure of the army and the dictatorship, until reaching Pinochet himself, as we move away from the executors, not only does the responsibility for the facts increase, but also the domain over the decision of what came to be called war against Marxism.

On the contrary, as one descends the chain of command, the domain over the concrete configuration of the murders increases, until reaching those who were in charge of taking care of the victims or leading them to the military torture and death facilities.

Finally, the complex issues that are linked to this topic manifest themselves above all regarding state criminality, given that the structure of the State itself, with its enormous economic and human resources, and its chains of officials forming a gigantic bureaucracy, turns out to be the organization that adapted and placed itself at the head of all this.

It is also necessary to note that, in the case of a criminal organization of this magnitude, the realization of the crime in no way depends solely on the individual executors. They occupy a subordinate position in the power apparatus, they are interchangeable, and they cannot prevent the man behind, the "author from the shadows," from achieving the result, since it is he who at all times retains the decision regarding the consummation of the planned crimes.

That is why in our country there are a few unspoken truths and a few sympathizers and officials of the dictatorship who try to wash their image, either by claiming that they voted NO in 1989 or by distancing themselves from what they themselves promoted.

It is pending to prosecute those who held power in Chile since 1973 and headed a scheme of state terrorism against those they considered enemies of the regime, to condemn them as mediate authors in relation to the homicides, kidnappings, tortures, and robberies that were proven in each case.

In the case of Chile, the members of the Military Junta first and the military government as a whole always maintained control over the executors and must answer as mediate authors of the crimes committed.

It is also true that they built a power apparatus parallel to the formal one, based on the military structure, and that they ordered, through the chain of command of both the military and state security forces, to act in illegality, serving themselves of that clandestine apparatus; not only that, they guaranteed the cadres not to interfere in their actions, and most importantly, they assured them of the impunity of their actions by all means within their reach.

From the Center for Studies of Exonerated Air Force Personnel 1973, we will continue to contribute to the truth meeting justice. We have the moral stature to do so; we were loyal to our oath and to our people.

Dr. Enrique Villanueva M. Vice President, Center for Studies Exonerated Air Force Personnel 1973

Source: radio.uchile.cl, July 19, 2012

Alberto Bachelet Case: Judge Carroza issued a 3-year sentence for former FACH colonels

Judge Mario Carroza issued a sentence against retired FACH colonels Edgar Ceballos Jones and Ramón Cáceres Jorquera for the crime of torture against General Alberto Bachelet, father of the President of the Republic.

According to a report by the Legal Medical Service (SML), General Bachelet died due to the illegitimate duress he suffered after being detained and accused of treason to the country following the coup d'état led by dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

After being detained, Alberto Bachelet was sent to the public prison and was periodically transferred to the Air War Academy, where he was tortured daily, demanding information related to the government of Salvador Allende.

General Bachelet finally passed away at the age of 50 due to cardiorespiratory arrest on March 12, 1974. The convicted Jones and Cáceres must remain behind bars for a period of three years.

Source: La Nación, November 21, 2014

Supreme Court revoked parole for General Bachelet's torturer

Retired FACH Colonel Ramón Cáceres is convicted for the application of torments to the father of the former President in 1974.

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court unanimously revoked the parole granted to retired Chilean Air Force Colonel Ramón Pedro Cáceres Jorquera, who is serving a sentence for the application of torture to General Alberto Bachelet, father of former President Michelle Bachelet, who died due to the torments suffered in 1974.

Thus, the decision of the Santiago Court of Appeals, which on December 4 and in a split vote had accepted the protection appeal (recurso de amparo) presented by Cáceres' defense after the Parole Commission denied him the benefit, was annulled.

As reported by the newspaper La Tercera, Justice Hugo Dolmestch and ad hoc judge María Cristina Gajardo concluded that "the inmate must effectively serve the imposed custodial sentence before being able to apply for the granting of parole, in proportion or consideration to the gravity of the crimes subject to the convictions and the sentences imposed for them."

"The determination of the period that the inmate must serve the custodial sentence effectively before parole can be granted cannot ignore the gravity of the imputed crimes. The sentenced person has not served the minimum time required, that is, two-thirds of the imposed sentence, which prevents accessing the sought-after parole," the magistrates added.

Source: cooperativa.cl, December 28, 2018