The Chilean justice system has left one of the most gruesome crimes committed during the dictatorship without sanction. The case of the victims burned with phosphorus at Dignidad remains unpunished. The court's resolution left one of the most gruesome crimes committed during the dictatorship without sanction, sparking despair and indignation among the victims' families.

The latest "Easter gift" from the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has left the families of the 22 forcibly disappeared persons from Parral with the feeling that they fought for 30 years to seek justice, but failed to achieve it.

Judge Alejandro Solís had sentenced the perpetrators of the kidnappings and disappearances to prison—17 years for Army Colonel (Ret.) Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela, 10 years for Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Pablo Caulier Grant, and 7 years for Carabineros Sub-officer (Ret.) Luis Alberto Hidalgo—but the five judges of the Criminal Chamber reduced the initial sentences and set them free.

Although Cardemil was sentenced to 5 years and Caulier to 4 years—Hidalgo had been acquitted by the Santiago Court of Appeals—the Criminal Chamber granted them "supervised release." The new "Supreme reduction"—as the systematic reduction of sentences for human rights violators has been described—carries special significance as it was applied in one of the most gruesome cases.

AT THE ESTATE

The 22 detainees were taken between September and October 1973 from the Parral jail and the Catillo police station in the VII Region, driven to the Linares Artillery School, where Cardemil served, and from there taken to Colonia Dignidad.

There, they were killed with the help of the Germans and buried in a clandestine grave. At the end of 1978, on instructions from Pinochet, Paul Schäfer ordered the "cleaning of the estate." The bodies were exhumed, placed in sacks, burned with chemical phosphorus, and the ashes were thrown into the Perquilauquén River.

The operation was led by Gerhard Mücke, as he himself acknowledged before Judge Jorge Zepeda.

THE OTHER PERPETRATORS

In this way, the judges of the Criminal Chamber, mainly magistrates Rubén Ballesteros and Nibaldo Segura—judges who favor absolute pardon for the criminals of the Pinochet regime—left one of the most moving and massive episodes of the past oppressive system in total impunity.

Judges Hugo Dolmetsch, Jaime Rodríguez, and the ad-hoc lawyer Juan Carlos Cárcamo set the sentences for Cardemil and Caulier at 5 and 4 years respectively, but granted them supervised release. Ballesteros and Segura were in favor of completely acquitting the perpetrators, as they are proponents of amnesty and the statute of limitations due to the passage of time, and of disregarding treaties and conventions of international criminal law that condemn crimes against humanity.

National associations of families of the forcibly disappeared and executed, plaintiff lawyers, and the relatives of the Parral victims have begun to express their indignation at this new resolution by the Criminal Chamber.

They have done so previously, protesting noisily against other cases at the doors of this court. Relatives of the Parral victims will travel to Santiago in the coming days to protest this decision, against which no further appeals can be filed.

The wave of sentence reductions in these types of trials will reach its peak when the president of this chamber, Alberto Chaigneau, retires next January upon turning 75. On many occasions, Chaigneau has tipped the scales with his vote in favor of achieving real justice for the crimes of the military regime, although he has also given his approval to substantially reduce some sentences.

Whoever succeeds Chaigneau will be vital in providing a majority in one direction or the other.

Source: La Nación, January 7, 2008

The magistrate initiated proceedings against the former governors of Parral, Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela and Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grant, as well as Carabineros Sub-officer Luis Alberto Hidalgo, as perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of 15 forcibly disappeared persons.

These were the first prosecutions issued yesterday by investigating judge Juan Guzmán following the definitive dismissal of the case against Augusto Pinochet. With this, the magistrate marked the path he will follow if he does not declare himself incompetent to continue presiding over the various cases accumulated in his hands, despite the definitive dismissal of the former head of the Army.

Judge Guzmán initiated proceedings against the former governors of Parral, Army Colonel Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela and Carabineros Colonel Pablo Caulier Grant, as well as Carabineros Sub-officer Luis Alberto Hidalgo, as perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of fifteen forcibly disappeared persons.

The magistrate is also working on new prosecutions for other cases he is investigating, which he expects to issue in the coming days. The indictments were issued for the kidnapping and disappearance of: Enrique Carreño González, Rolando Ibarra Ortega, Edelmiro Valdés Sepúlveda, Haroldo Laurie Luengo, Hernán Sarmiento Sabater, Armando Morales Morales, José Luis Morales Ruiz, Aurelio Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Luis Pereira Hernández, Armando Pereira Merino, Oscar Retamal Pérez, José Riveros Chávez, Enrique Rivera Cofré, Hugo Soto Campos, and Víctor Vivanco Vásquez.

All were detained between September 11, 1973, and 1974 in Parral, taken to the police station and the city jail, but in several cases, their trail was lost after they were placed at the disposal of the local Military Prosecutor's Office. In some of the cases, their relatives have stated that there is evidence that they were taken to Colonia Dignidad, 40 kilometers east of Parral.

Of these, Carreño González, Morales Morales, Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Retamal Pérez, Riveros Chávez, and Soto Campos appear in the Armed Forces report issued by the human rights dialogue table as having been thrown into the Putagán River.

The magistrate issued these new arrest warrants immediately after returning last Monday from medical leave, which began on Monday, July 1, the date on which the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court issued the ruling that definitively dismissed the case against Augusto Pinochet in the Caravan of Death case, due to "mental alienation" caused by "incurable vascular dementia." Originally, this investigation began in Parral based on the 1991 Rettig Report; later, it was taken up by the judge of the Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago, Lientur Escobar, who was investigating the disappearance of MIR militant Alvaro Vallejos Villagrán at Colonia Dignidad. After multiple procedural shifts, the case reached the military justice system, from where it was rescued by lawyers from Codepu and ended up accumulated in the hands of Judge Guzmán. Plaintiff lawyer Julia Urquieta stated that "finally, justice is being done for the victims and the families of Parral. Several of the disappeared from Parral ended up in Colonia Dignidad," said the lawyer. Although these disappearances occurred in Parral before the DINA barracks began operating there in 1975, the head of the DINA Southern Brigade, Colonel Fernando Gómez Segovia, was implicated in the initial investigations.

Source: Primera Línea, July 10, 2002

Prison sentences in human rights case

Judge Alejandro Solís issued prison sentences of 10 to 15 years for the qualified kidnapping of 21 people in Parral. According to Canal 13, the cases, which occurred between September 1973 and January 1974, include a case of child abduction.

The first-instance sentence affects former governor and Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Pablo Caullier, Army Commander (Ret.) Hugo Cardemil, and Carabineros Sub-officer (Ret.) Luis Hidalgo. They will be notified today.

Source: El Mercurio, August 6, 2003

Parral: Four former uniformed officers prosecuted for human rights cases

The judge, with preferential dedication to human rights cases, indicted Army Colonel (Ret.) Hugo Cardemil and Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Pablo Caulier Grandt, as well as former uniformed police sub-officers Pablo José Duarte Vallejos and Luis Alberto Hidalgo, for qualified kidnapping.

One of the cases relates to the disappearance of Gaspar Hernández, a farmer with no political affiliation, who was detained on October 14, 1974, in a rural sector of Parral. Meanwhile, the second victim was José Riveros Chávez, also without affiliation, detained on October 11, 1973, by Carabineros officials.

In August of last year, the former uniformed officers were sentenced by Judge Alejandro Solís as perpetrators of nearly 30 qualified kidnappings. The sentences were 17 years for Colonel Cardemil, ten years for Colonel Caulier, and seven years for the former Carabineros officer Hidalgo.

Solís traveled today to the Seventh Region to take statements from nearly 12 former political prisoners, who could provide information regarding the human rights violation cases he is investigating.

Source: El Mostrador, January 16, 2004

Sentences reclassified for former military personnel involved in Parral crimes

The Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals reclassified in the second instance the sentences issued by Judge Alejandro Solís against three uniformed officers accused of the qualified kidnapping of 21 dissidents of the military regime, in events that took place in Parral between September 1973 and January 1974, and which include a case of child abduction.

On August 6, 2003, Judge Solís sentenced former governor and Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Pablo Caullier Grant, Army Commander (Ret.) Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela, and Carabineros Sub-officer (Ret.) Luis Hidalgo to prison terms of between 10 and 15 years.

In a split vote (2-1), the capital's appellate court, composed of judges Alejandro Madrid, Juan Muñoz Pardo, and Humberto Provoste, resolved to increase the punishment imposed on Hidalgo from seven to ten years and one day; maintain the ten-year prison sentence for Caulier; and decrease the sentence for Cardemil Valenzuela from 17 years to 15 years and one day of major imprisonment.

The investigation, initiated at the beginning of this decade by retired judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, made it possible to determine the responsibility of the accused in the disappearances of Enrique Carreño González, Rolando Ibarra Ortega, Edelmiro Valdés Sepúlveda, Haroldo Laurie Luengo, Hernán Sarmiento Sabater, Armando Morales Morales, José Luis Morales Ruiz, Aurelio Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Luis Pereira Hernández, Armando Pereira Merino, Oscar Retamal Pérez, José Riveros Chávez, Enrique Rivera Cofré, Hugo Soto Campos, and Víctor Vivanco Vásquez.

All were detained between September 11, 1973, and 1974 in Parral, taken to the police station and the city jail, but in several cases, their trail was lost after they were placed at the disposal of the local Military Prosecutor's Office.

In some of the cases, their relatives have stated that there is evidence that they were taken to Colonia Dignidad. Of these, Carreño González, Morales Morales, Peñailillo Sepúlveda, Retamal Pérez, Riveros Chávez, and Soto Campos appear in the Armed Forces report issued by the human rights dialogue table as having been thrown into the Putagán River.

Originally, this process began in Parral based on the 1991 Rettig Report; later, it was taken up by the judge of the Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago, Lientur Escobar, who was investigating the disappearance of MIR militant Álvaro Vallejos Villagrán at Villa Baviera.

Source: La Nación, June 16, 2005

Supreme Court reduces sentences for former uniformed officers

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court resolved yesterday to confirm the sentences for Army Colonel (Ret.) Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela and Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Pablo Caulier Grant as perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping perpetrated during the dictatorship against 15 forcibly disappeared persons from Parral.

The reduction is due to the fact that the highest court accepted the application of the partial statute of limitations and reduced the sentence for Cardemil from 15 years and one day to 5 years, and for Caulier from 7 years to 4 years.

Furthermore, it granted them the benefit of supervised release. The same chamber acquitted six former Carabineros officers sentenced for the qualified kidnapping of brothers Guido and Héctor Barría Basay, socialist militants, which occurred in October 1973.

Those favored by the ruling are Hans Eduart Schernberger Valdivia, José Hernán Godoy Barrientos, Robert Santiago Teylor Escobar, Quintiliano Rogel Alvarado, Pedro Segundo Soto Godoy, and José Rómulo Catalán Oyarzún.

Only in a final ruling did the court resolve to maintain the sentence issued against Carabineros officer Rubén Osvaldo Barría Igor for the crime of qualified homicide against 6 young people who were gunned down at the Puente Bulnes in Santiago in October 1973.

In that same ruling, he was sentenced for the crime of frustrated homicide against Luis Abraham González Plaza, who survived the execution. The change in criteria in the chamber was due to the fact that there were different compositions for each case.

Source: La Nación, December 28, 2007

CRIMES AT COLONIA DIGNIDAD

Gerhard Mücke, Schäfer's bodyguard, confessed the final destination of the prisoners. In an article by Jorge Escalante published in La Nación on Sunday [07/23/06], the fate of the disappeared from Colonia Dignidad is revealed.

They were burned with chemical phosphorus. Gerhard Mücke, a leader of the Parral sect, confronted his boss, Paul Schäfer, demanding that he assume his responsibility. He told the judge about the dramatic final hours of the prisoners inside the estate. They exhumed them in 1978, chemically burned their remains, and threw the ashes into the Perquilauquén River.

THE DISAPPEARED OF COLONIA DIGNIDAD

By Jorge Escalante With the lights of the old Fuchs backhoe turned on, Erich Fege left the inhabited sector of the estate after dark and traveled five kilometers to the Chenco sector, within Colonia Dignidad.

He had Schäfer's order to dig a wide and deep hole. Fege, born in Germany in 1926, made the excavation, and he was ordered by radio: "Get 200 meters away from the place and stay alert!" A group of Army personnel was already inside the property. They came from Parral, but belonged to the Linares Artillery School.

The "Doc," as the military called Schäfer, called Gerhard Mücke and ordered him to lead the guests to the pit dug by Fege. He obeyed without question and, with a friendly demeanor, guided the visitors.

Upon approaching the indicated place, Mücke [mosquito] lagged behind a little, but first showed them the prepared site. From a pickup truck, the military unloaded a group of detainees, presumably five, shot them to death, and threw them into the pit.

Mücke, the bodyguard of "Glasaugen"—as Schäfer was also called because of his glass eye—called Fege by radio to bring the machine closer: "Now cover the hole and don't ask any questions!" he ordered. Immediately, he guided the officers, sub-officers, and soldiers toward the houses of Dignidad, where the "Doc" entertained them with the typical delicacies of the Bavarian tradition.

Inside the sect's barbed wire, the first political prisoners were falling and disappearing. Only a few weeks had passed since the 1973 military coup. Other prisoners—settlers subjected to the violence and terror imposed by Schäfer and his leaders—survived well-fed on the property, but suffering like peons at the service of the evil rigor.

A few days later, Schäfer repeated the order to Fege. "Go out after dark!" he told him. With the old Fuchs that operated with a track system, the German headed toward the same place and dug another similar hole.

A new contingent of the Army arrived at the estate from the vicinity. Once the task was completed, Fege moved away again to wait for them to call him by radio, shortly after hearing the gunshots. Presumably, this time the detainees were also five. They died in the same way and had the same fate. The entertainment was repeated. "Glasaugen" was an excellent host, although a very bad neighbor.

THE DISAPPEARED OF PARRAL

The macabre ritual was repeated at least two more times. In total, during the two months after the coup, "about 20" prisoners were eliminated and buried inside Dignidad, recalls Mücke in the judicial process against Colonia Dignidad.

This figure is close to the 22 people from Parral who disappeared between September and October 1973 on four different occasions. First, on September 26, five detainees were transferred from the Parral jail to an unknown location by order of the area governor, the now Colonel (Ret.) of the Linares Artillery School Hugo Cardemil Valenzuela.

Another five disappeared from the police station between October 11 and 15, 1973. The third group, also of five, disappeared on October 13 from the Catillo police station, about 10 kilometers from Colonia Dignidad. And, finally, on October 23, seven prisoners were taken from the Parral jail by order of Cardemil.

The data coincides with the memories of Mücke and Fege. They do not mention other detainees eliminated in the colony, although they do point out that in 1974 another group of prisoners arrived, but were later taken by the DINA to an unknown destination.

However, the material author of the 40,000 files on friends and enemies of the colony, businessmen, military personnel, priests, nuns, and political authorities of various eras, the "philosopher" Gerd Seewald Lefevre, always presented as the "director of the Villa Baviera school," reveals that other prisoners did indeed disappear from the estate.

He mentions Hernán Sarmiento Sabater and Haroldo Laurie Luengo, detained in Parral; Pedro Merino Molina, in Coronel; Adán Valdebenito Olavaria, in Lota; and José Hilario San Martín Llancán, who does not appear on any official list, and another with the surname Santibáñez.

All correspond to the 1974 period, the year in which a large number of prisoners were interned in Dignidad. At that time, Schäfer commented to Seewald: "Sie dürfen nicht überleben" [they must not survive]. Those mentioned appear in files seized last year on the German property.

"THEY WERE ALL BURNED"

Paul Schäfer continues to deny everything, but his "faithful" spoke. It was 1978 when one day Schäfer summoned his faithful "Uncle Mauk," as they called Mücke, and ordered him: "We have to clean the estate!

Go, take them out and get rid of them!" The house painter, as Mücke calls himself before the judges, asked Rudy Collen and Willy Malessa for help. The "cleaning" took them a couple of weeks. It was during that year that, by order of Pinochet, "Operation Television Removal" began.

In the various military garrisons, clandestine graves were to be located, the bodies of the murdered detainees exhumed, and thrown into the sea, tied to a piece of rail to make them disappear forever. The alarm had sounded in the barracks shortly after the remains of 15 disappeared peasants were located in an abandoned mine in Lonquén.

Although it was suspected, until now it was not known that the order also reached Colonia Dignidad.

This time the old Fuchs was operated by Collen, while "Uncle Mauk" directed the work and got his gloved hands dirty. The work progressed under the supervision of the "Doc," determined to fulfill his general's order.

After exhuming the already putrid bodies, "although still with soft parts," as "Mauk" recalls, he and Collen put each one in a well-tied sack and then placed it inside another "that had a substance that was phosphorus and that burned strongly.

All the bodies were burned," confessed Mücke. When the sinister operation concluded, "the ashes were thrown into the Perquilauquén River in a truck," said the German with his thick, strained baritone voice.

And he refined the calculation: "There were between 18 and 21 bodies and I counted four or five graves." A version, even more gruesome, unconfirmed but not foreign to the sophisticated ferocity of the "benefactors," indicates that the waste might have been thrown to the pigs.

FACE TO FACE

Twenty-eight years later, imprisoned and answering to justice for crimes against humanity, Mücke and Schäfer were confronted in July. Mücke faced his boss for the first time: "Enough! It is time you recognize your responsibility.

You gave the orders and then you told me: now we have to clean the estate. Take them out, and get rid of them!" Schäfer looked at Mücke coldly and in broken Spanish said: "I have no idea what this gentleman is talking about." Mücke counterattacked: "The military entered the estate by your order and you ordered me to guide them along the interior roads!" "Well, they entered the villa and did whatever they wanted, they were the Government.

It is true that hundreds of military and Carabineros passed through. They arrived without warning. But I know nothing of what you say. We were together for 40 years, Gerhard, and everything that was done was decided in community!" "No, sir, you gave the orders!" "Mauk" snapped.

Disappointed, "Mosquito" joined what had been the harsh complaints before the justice system a couple of weeks earlier by another dangerous man from the Dignidad politburo, Kurt Schnellenkamp, against the "Ewige Onkel" [the "Permanent Uncle"]: "Paul deceived us all and on top of that he kept our money." Something similar had been uttered in the trial by the "philosopher" of the files, Seewald.

Born in 1922, he maintains that he studied philosophy at the University of Hamburg and there he learned "how to file." "He managed us all," he stated. Now, everyone felt deceived by the extreme cunning of the former Nazi corporal who, they say, did not lose his eye in the war, but by untying his bootlaces with a fork.

FROM CARRASCO TO MERTINS

Kurt Schnellenkamp, the "manager" of the arsenal and right-hand man of "Glasaugen." "Ku," as Schnellenkamp is still called inside Dignidad and by his Chilean friends outside, had plenty of reasons to be angry with the "Doc." For years, it was he who faced the music in the south and north to fulfill Schäfer's order to obtain weapons and ammunition to defend themselves "from the communists." A task he carried out in parallel as head of the Bulnes crushing plant, where they produce gravel and other materials that they still sell to construction companies and, they even say, to the State.

It is in his recent words in the Colonia Dignidad process that new names of high-ranking officers appear who, during the dictatorship, had close ties to the sect. Dedicated to obtaining war supplies or military scrap that they creatively transformed inside the estate, he stated that "it was on this occasion that I made contact with some gentlemen officers from Concepción, such as Washington Carrasco, Luciano Díaz Schneider, and Dante Iturriaga, and others whose names I do not remember at this moment." Whether they also received prisoners from them who were taken to the property, he does not say. Likewise, he related with armorer sub-officers from different regiments in the country, with whom he also obtained some weapons and ammunition under the table "in exchange for cheese and things of that type." The Germans had decided to increase their arsenal, which later "moved up in class" and sophistication, for example, in deals with the international arms trafficker and former officer of the Hitlerite SS Gerhard Mertins. This becomes the first open acknowledgment of these deals with Mertins made by a member of the hierarchy of this criminal illicit association.

ALONE WITH WILLOUGHBY

"Ku's" memory also does not fail him in remembering that one day in 1974 he drove the colony's Mercedes Benz bus to the Talca stadium: "The trip was to transport about 15 prisoners to Villa Baviera. When I arrived back, I left them in the potato shed in the middle of the night and said to Paul: mission accomplished!" What happened to them afterward he is not sure, he says, but he states that it seems to him that the DINA took them out on a bus.

In July 1974, Schäfer told Schnellenkamp: "You are going to take me to the Las Palmas estate, between Melipilla and Las Cabras. On the way, we will talk." When they arrived at the place, Schäfer explained to him: "Well, now you wait for me here because I have an important meeting with Mr.

Federico Willoughby, he is like a minister of our Government." "Ku" maintains that he waited for about an hour. When the "Doc" came out and they left back in the vehicle, he told him: "The DINA agent Miguel Becerra died in the villa, and it is not convenient for it to be known that he died inside.

When we arrive, you and Rudi [Collen] are going to load his pickup truck onto the Magiruz [Deutz, a truck] with his body inside. You take it out, in Parral you unload the pickup with his body, Rudi returns, and you drive the pickup to the highway in Linares.

You turn off onto some road that is not very busy and leave him there, sitting at the wheel. Make it look like anything. Someone will follow you to bring you back." "That's what I did. The body was already decomposed.

I think Becerra, whom we nicknamed 'One' because he was always alone and lived with us inside, wanted to get out of the DINA," "Ku" recounted in the process. Who knows why, "Glasaugen" seemed to regain the gift of memory when, questioned about the Becerra episode, he expressed almost in an allegory: "Someone came one day to show me a chewed apple that was in Becerra's room.

I cut a piece and gave it to the mice. They fell dead immediately. Becerra liked to eat an apple at night. My theory is that they poisoned him, because of the mice, I think."

MAGAÑA'S LITTLE DOG

The military operation that the Germans called "Cerro Gallo," a mountain located east of the Perquilauquén River, which crosses the 17,000-hectare property, was carried out in 1974. According to Mauk, "Ku," Fege, and a new witness, Franz Baar—a Chilean stolen from his parents as a child and adopted illegally—a contingent of about 500 Army troops arrived at Dignidad one afternoon.

They slept inside and at dawn went out on a hunt, but a human one, supported by helicopters. None of them said until now if people were detained, although some presume so. However, the episode yielded another name unknown until now—outside of those of Manuel Contreras, Pedro Espinoza, and Pinochet himself, who walked through the estate.

An officer with the surname Magaña who, according to the witnesses, belonged to the Chacabuco Regiment of Concepción, was in charge of the operation. "He was walking around with a little dog under his arm," Baar and Mücke recalled.

What seemed out of all military martiality to them was that Magaña, before the sweep operation began, made a big scene because his pet had been lost and put Germans and soldiers upside down looking for it. "The strange thing is that, when they found it, he got on the helicopter with the little pet," "Uncle Mauk" commented sarcastically.

At the end of the operation, Magaña gave Schäfer a diploma of appreciation that read: "To the General, Doctor, and Professor."

Source: La Nación, June 23, 2006