Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, married, father of three, a surgeon and member of the Communist Party, worked on August 4, 1976, as he did every day, at the Parochial Hospital of San Bernardo. At 16:00, he left to head to the San Francisco de La Granja school polyclinic, located at the 25th bus stop on Santa Rosa, where he was scheduled to see some patients.

At the moment Dr. Godoy was in the hospital parking lot, a staff member approached him to inform him that a patient was looking for him, to which Dr. Godoy replied that he would see the patient at his office at 18:00 that evening.

He then got into his green Citröen AX330 vehicle, license plate LOG11 of Calera de Tango, and departed for the indicated address. However, he never arrived at the La Granja polyclinic.

According to information provided by witnesses, the victim was detained along the way by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who had for some time been making anonymous calls to his home and inquiries to learn his schedules and movements.

Since that date, Dr. Carlos Godoy has remained in the status of forcibly disappeared. At the time of his disappearance, the victim was carrying all the documentation necessary for his identification. Previously, in 1973, he had been dismissed from his duties at the General Directorate of the Social Security Service, without any charges being filed against him.

In the course of that day, Communist militants Alicia Herrera Benítez and Hugo Vivanco Vega were also detained by the DINA. Likewise, during the night, Dr. Iván Insunza Bascuñán, a close friend and comrade of the victim, was detained on a public street; all of them remain in the status of forcibly disappeared.

Both doctors, Carlos Godoy and Iván Insunza, were taken to the DINA facility known as Villa Grimaldi, located on Avda. José Arrieta in the commune of Peñalolén, Santiago. Subsequently, they were held at "Cuatro Álamos," another DINA facility.

The doctors' presence in the aforementioned facilities is confirmed by the testimony provided by Isaac Godoy Castillo, a Communist militant detained on August 20, 1976, and released on August 26 of the same year, having spent six days at Villa Grimaldi.

In his account, he states that Pedro Silva (a detainee at the site, also disappeared) indicated to him that "about 15 days ago, he had seen them bring in doctors Carlos Godoy and Iván Insunza," adding that "Carlos Godoy became very energetic and they kicked him in the jaw and then he fell to the ground where they continued to beat him."

Regarding Dr. Godoy's stay at 4 Álamos, there is a record of an effort made by the victim's sister to her relative, Mrs. Alicia Godoy, spouse of the member of the Military Junta and General Director of the Carabineros, César Mendoza Durán, who informed her through another family member "that Mr.

César Mendoza had sent an aide of his to the 4 Álamos camp to investigate Dr. Godoy's case, and had managed to confirm that he was indeed there." Subsequently, in a telephone conversation, Mrs. Alicia Godoy communicated to the doctor's sister, Mrs.

Victoria Elisa, that her brother was indeed detained at 4 Álamos and that his case would soon be resolved. Despite the inquiries made by the wife of the member of the Military Junta, General Director of Carabineros César Mendoza Durán, Dr. Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue disappeared due to the actions of the DINA.

Regarding the situation of both doctors, the representative of the Government of Chile to the United Nations indicated to that body that, according to reports provided by the Chilean Investigative Police, the citizens Carlos Godoy and Iván Insunza had filed applications for admission to the Canadian Embassy in Chile on November 5, 1975.

This fact was denied by the diplomatic mission itself, stating that the victims had not visited their office and that there was only a record of a visa application requested by a sister of Dr. Insunza after the doctors' disappearance.

Dr. Carlos Godoy's vehicle also disappeared at that time and, to date, has not been found.

In 1974, through Supreme Decree No. 189, published in the Official Gazette on August 8, Dr. Godoy Lagarrigue's financial situation was declared under review, later being rendered void through a new Supreme Decree.

However, on October 21, 1976, when the victim's spouse went to the Banco del Estado branch in San Bernardo—where the doctor held his checking account—with the intention of withdrawing money, as she was authorized to do, the bank agent informed her that the account was "blocked," and she was unable to carry out the transaction.

All these facts constitute the circumstances of the forced disappearance of Dr. Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 6, 1976, Dolores González filed a Writ of Amparo (Habeas Corpus) on behalf of her spouse, Carlos Godoy, before the Santiago Court of Appeals under file No. 708-76. When the Minister of the Interior was notified, he responded twenty days later that the person in question was not being held by order of his Ministry.

On September 7, the Prefect of the Metropolitan Area of the Investigative Police informed the Court of Appeals, indicating that Carlos Godoy had not been detained by personnel of his institution. The General Director of the Carabineros responded similarly in mid-September.

On the 24th of the same month, the 2nd Military Court of Santiago reported that the person in question was not being prosecuted by the Military Tribunals.

On September 28, the Court ordered the person in charge of the "Cuatro Álamos" concentration camp to bring the detainee before them, and if he was not being held at that location, to inform the Court; as neither situation occurred, the petitioner requested that a Minister of the Court visit the aforementioned location.

Along with denying the request, the Court resolved to notify the Minister of the Interior to inform him of the disobedience on the part of the camp's director and to order him to comply immediately with the request.

On October 6, the Army General and Minister of the Interior, General Raúl Benavides, informed the Tribunal that his Secretariat had previously reported that Carlos Godoy was not being held, and that the National Intelligence Directorate had provided the same information.

That same day, the Court deemed that, based on the information provided by the consulted agencies, the detainee was not being held by order of the Ministry of the Interior; therefore, the amparo was rejected. It ordered the records to be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court.

On October 7, 1976, the resolution was appealed, which was confirmed by the Supreme Court on October 14, indicating that the Criminal Judge must inform the chamber every thirty days of the progress of the investigation.

On September 24, 1979, a writ of amparo was filed on behalf of Carlos Godoy by a group of French doctors.

When the Minister of the Interior was notified, he responded on January 21, 1980, stating that that Secretariat of State had not issued any order or resolution against the detainee. On January 23, 1980, the amparo was denied.

On October 29, 1976, a Complaint for the Kidnapping of Carlos Godoy was filed before the 1st Criminal Court of San Bernardo, registered under No. 45.419, which on May 4, 1977, was transformed into a Lawsuit for Aggravated Kidnapping.

Subsequently, on May 29, 1978, due to the issuance of Amnesty Decree Law 2191, the case was definitively dismissed, a resolution that was revoked by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which ordered the reopening of the summary proceedings and the continuation of the investigations.

On June 18, 1979, the case was dismissed again and reinstated to the summary stage on July 24, 1980. The processing of the case passed to the Extraordinary Visiting Minister Servando Jordán, appointed by the Santiago Court of Appeals to investigate the cases of forcibly disappeared persons in Santiago.

Subsequently, the process passed to the Military Justice system due to the incompetence of Minister Jordán, with the case being consolidated into file 553-78, corresponding to the lawsuit filed against Manuel Contreras and other DINA agents for the repeated kidnapping of persons.

That case had been filed on August 1, 1978, by relatives of 70 forcibly disappeared persons, before the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Army Colonel Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo.

The identities of other agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), information on the secret detention centers of the aforementioned agency, and other data regarding its structure and the means at the DINA's disposal were also provided to the Tribunal.

Without carrying out any proceedings, on May 10 of that year, the Judge of the 10th Court declared herself incompetent and sent the records to the Military Justice system; after several appeals, in May 1979, the case was established in the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago, under file No. 553-78.

In 1983, the Tribunal reviewed the four volumes of the Extraordinary Visit for cases of forcibly disappeared persons in the Metropolitan Region, which was substantiated by Minister Servando Jordán; they contained important information regarding the actions of the DINA and the responsibility of that security agency for hundreds of forcibly disappeared persons.

Without any proceedings being carried out for four years, on November 20, 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, Military Prosecutor General, requested the application of the Amnesty Decree Law (DL 2.191) for this case, because the process had the exclusive purpose of investigating alleged crimes that occurred during the period between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978, and because, during the 10 years of processing, it had not been possible to "determine the responsibility of any person." On November 30, 1989, the request was accepted by the 2nd Military Court, which dismissed the case totally and definitively—which was still in the summary stage—due to "the criminal responsibility of the persons allegedly accused of the reported facts being extinguished." The plaintiff parties appealed that resolution to the Martial Court, which confirmed the ruling in January 1992. A Complaint Appeal was then filed before the Supreme Court of Justice, which, as of December 1992, had not yet issued its resolution.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

"If we punish a person who is the perpetrator of 16 counts of aggravated kidnapping, and whose victims have been tortured, illegally detained, and whose bodies have been made to disappear, and we sentence them to 3 years and 1 day, and they are granted supervised release, then in this country we should not have a single person in prison," expressed the defense attorney for the victims' families, Alberto Espinoza.

This past Thursday, April 9, the Eighth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals reduced and cleared some sentences for former DINA agents sentenced in 2017 for acts of "aggravated kidnapping" and "aggravated homicide" committed between 1974 and 1977.

The chamber presided over by Minister Juan Cristóbal Mera Muñoz, and also composed of Minister Mireya López Miranda and attorney Cristián Lepín Molina, reached the resolution based on various highly controversial legal arguments, which are refuted today by the families and their plaintiff attorney.

The Families Claudia Godoy, the daughter of Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, a surgeon who disappeared in August 1976, was nine years old when her father was kidnapped on his way to work. Now, Claudia has joined other relatives of victims of crimes against humanity to condemn the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals that releases the person responsible for her father's disappearance.

"This perverse attitude of these three judges is sending a hidden signal, releasing the ruling while a holiday is underway, but also while a pandemic is underway. Therefore, the perversion acquires a superior, and more dramatic dimension, because it leaves us trapped in horror," Claudia maintained in a conversation with El Desconcierto, stressing that this ruling dismantles the basis of the fight against impunity that had been achieved until now.

In that sense, Godoy added that the ruling "is a mockery. As relatives, it feels like reopening the initial pain, the one from 43 years ago."

Godoy also pointed out that one cannot ignore the political message that such a ruling implies in this context of social isolation.

"There is a disproportionality regarding the political and social signal that this implies at the moment it is released, in a moment of pandemic. We are aware of the disaster that a pandemic implies, and the loneliness into which we human rights organizations could fall, given that we no longer have the only weapon we have had, which is to go out into the street," she expressed in this regard.

Finally, regarding the actions of the Chilean justice system, Godoy criticized the "small, mediocre, deeply fascist attitude of these three judges, which, moreover, denotes a tremendous ignorance, because Chile has subscribed to international conventions, international treaties, and they are ignoring this."

In the same vein, the grandson of Mario Juica Vega, former president of the municipal workers of Renca who was detained by DINA agents on August 9, 1976, Camilo Villa Juica, expressed in a conversation with this media outlet that "it cannot be that they get off scot-free.

We feel a lot of pain, a lot of rage, because it is a human matter, and I hope that this ruling of the Court will be reversed when it has to be; as a family, we have that hope that it will be so, as has happened on previous occasions, and what this sentence has done is an offense not only to my family but to the history of the country."

Likewise, Juica lamented that "the excuse of the coronavirus is being used to release these beings who had little of human in them, and I doubt they have any to this day, if they haven't even repented for their crimes."

"The arguments are truly shameful" Attorney Alberto Espinoza represents almost half of the victims: Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas (husband of Ana González), Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González and Luis Emilio Recabarren González (their children), Nalvia Mena Alvarado (wife of Luis Emilio, pregnant), and Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, Daniel Palma Robledo, Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán, Miguel Nazal Quiroz, and Eduardo Canteros Prado.

In a conversation with El Desconcierto, the jurist referred to the arguments put forward by the judges in the ruling, stating that "the arguments upon which this impunity is built are truly shameful. First, it maintains that there was a pre-existing situation that placed these people at risk for the mere fact of being Communists.

That is to say, it is attributing responsibility for the detention and disappearance to the victims themselves, for the fact of being Communists, and that is unheard of."

Secondly, Espinoza added, the ruling "ignores that the DINA was a criminal organization that had a hierarchical structure, and it acquits the head of the DINA, Pedro Espinoza, who is in charge of the brigades that execute the criminal actions, and not autonomously, but by virtue of express orders they receive within the criminal policy that was executed during the dictatorship.

If the brigades here did not act on their own. So it is surprising that he is exempted from responsibility, despite the fact that it is recognized that he was the head of the DINA in the metropolitan area."

In that sense, for the attorney, "the legal arguments are very questionable; this, under any reasoning, cannot be. There are principles, there are international treaties, that establish that it is an obligation of states to punish with penalties proportional to the gravity of the facts.

And if we punish a person who is the perpetrator of 16 counts of aggravated kidnapping, and whose victims have been tortured, illegally detained, and whose bodies have been made to disappear, and we sentence them to 3 years and 1 day, and they are granted supervised release, then in this country we should not have a single person in prison."

Finally, regarding this last point, referring to the fact that in some of the cases the crime itself was not denied, but rather the sentence was simply reduced, Espinoza maintained that "that is precisely the perverse part of the ruling, because it convicts, but leaves them free, it gives them benefits."

Meanwhile, Espinoza confirmed that they will file a cassation appeal before the Supreme Court to reverse the controversial ruling.

Source: eldesconcierto.cl 12/04/2020 Date: 12-04-2020

The Dr. Carlos Godoy Family Health Center (CESFAM) is a health center with a family focus that aims to intervene in family problems (in a specific area near its geographical location), with a systemic view and a functionalist methodology for family intervention, taking the ethical principles of the WHO in its multidisciplinary work as a philosophical-ethical framework.

Some of its programs and activities are: health intervention with an integral approach, comprehensive home visits, self-care workshops, creation of self-help groups, multidisciplinary professional care (which includes general practitioners, midwives, nutritionists, psychologists, social workers, paramedic technicians, kinesiologists, dentists, among others), information workshops, institutional-level meetings, meetings with the community, among others.

It opened its doors to the community on October 22, 2007, and—as of June 30 of the current year—has an enrolled population of 31,940. On the other hand, it is necessary to point out that this Health Center is named "Dr.

Carlos Godoy" in tribute to CARLOS ENRIQUE GODOY LAGARRIGUE, who served as a doctor and stood out for his commitment to society, placing his professional resources at the service of the most needy, being a victim of the human rights abuses committed in Chile during the period between 1973-1990, and remaining to this day a forcibly disappeared person.

All sectors have a multidisciplinary lead team made up of a doctor, midwife, social worker, psychologist, nurse, nutritionist, kinesiologist, dentist, dental assistant, paramedic technicians, and administrative staff (2 SOME officials).

In addition, there is a transversal area: the yellow sector, intended for clinical procedures, vaccination, milk storage, pharmacy, IRA and ERA room, delivery of test results, intercultural facilitator module, OIRS (Information, Complaints, Suggestions, and Compliments Office), statistical records unit, secretariat, and Directorate, made up of the Director, Deputy Director, paramedic technicians, pharmacy technicians, dental hygienist, preschool educator, intercultural facilitator, gynecologist-sonographer, midwife, and administrative staff.

Source: saludmunicipalidadmaipu.blogspot.com (no date)

The Supreme Court sentenced 14 agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Luis Emilio Recabarren González, Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González, Nalvia Rosa Mena Alvarado, Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas, Clara Elena Canteros Torres, Alejandro Rodríguez Urzúa, Daniel Palma Robledo, Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán, José Eduardo Santander Miranda, Mario Jesús Juica Vega, Víctor Hugo Morales Mazuela, Carlos Mario Vizcarra Cofré, Miguel Nazal Quiroz, Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate, and Julio Roberto Vega Vega; and the aggravated homicide of Eduardo Canteros Prado. The crimes were committed between April and August 1976, in the province of Santiago.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 71.900-2020), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, María Cristina Gajardo, María Soledad Melo, and Eliana Quezada—revoked the sentence issued by the Eighth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals in April 2020, which applied the "half-prescription" (partial statute of limitations) to the accused.

In a replacement sentence, the Supreme Court sentenced former DINA leaders and former Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo and Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez to 15 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of 16 counts of aggravated kidnapping, and 10 years and one day as perpetrators of one count of aggravated homicide.

Meanwhile, Rolf Arnold Wenderoth Pozo was sentenced to two separate terms of 10 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of three counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of aggravated homicide; Juan Hernán Morales Salgado and Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of six counts of aggravated kidnapping.

In the case of former agents Sergio Orlando Escalona Acuña, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, and Gustavo Enrique Guerrero Aguilera, a sentence of 5 years and one day in prison was applied as perpetrators of a single case of aggravated kidnapping.

Likewise, former agents Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, and Carlos Eugenio López Inostroza must serve 7 years as accomplices to the 16 counts of aggravated kidnapping and 5 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the aggravated homicide.

Finally, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca must serve 7 years as an accomplice to 15 counts of aggravated kidnapping and 5 years and one day in prison as an accomplice to the aggravated homicide.

The criminals Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia and Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, who had been sentenced in the first-instance ruling issued by Minister Leopoldo Llanos in July 2017 to 20 years in prison, died during the course of the proceedings. Also deceased are those sentenced in the first instance: Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Orlando José Manzo Durán, and Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo.

In dismissing the "half-prescription," the Supreme Court establishes that: "(...) it is necessary to take into consideration that the matter under discussion must also be analyzed in accordance with international Human Rights regulations contained mainly in the Geneva Conventions, which prevent prescription, total or gradual, regarding crimes committed in cases of non-international armed conflicts."

The resolution adds that: "The same conclusion is reached considering both the norms of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons and those of the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, since, in accordance with that regulation, gradual prescription has the same nature as total prescription."

"From another perspective, doctrine on this matter has expressed that its foundations are found in the same considerations of social stability and legal certainty that gave rise to Article 93 of the Penal Code, but that it is intended to produce its effects in those cases in which the realization of the ends provided for prescription does not occur naturally but after a gradual process, that is, when the time necessary to prescribe is about to be fulfilled, which would justify the mitigation of the penalty," it adds.

"However—it continues—it is evident that that conclusion is for cases that do not present the characteristics of crimes against humanity, since these are imprescriptible. Consequently, for such mitigation to be appropriate, it is necessary that it be a crime in the process of prescribing, which does not happen in this case, so the passage of time does not produce any effect, because social reproach does not diminish with time, which only occurs in cases of common crimes."

The Facts In the first-instance ruling, the special judge Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá established that, within the framework of the systematic repression of opponents of the military regime, in the months of April and August 1976, the detentions of a series of people occurred, all of them militants of the Communist Party.

On April 29, 1976, in the sector of Santa Rosa and Sebastopol streets in the commune of San Miguel, the brothers Manuel Guillermo, 22, and Luis Emilio Recabarren González, 29, were detained by DINA agents, along with Nalvia Rosa Mena Alvarado, 20, and her two-year-old son. The minor was abandoned near his home in the evening hours.

The following day, April 30, at 7:00, Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas, 50, was detained shortly after leaving his home in the same sector and as he was preparing to board a public bus.

All the detainees were taken to the clandestine detention and torture center 'Villa Grimaldi'; Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González and Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas were also seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' facility, and Luis Emilio Recabarren González at 'Cuatro Álamos'. From those facilities, the DINA made them disappear.

On July 23, 1976, around 20:00, at the intersection of Rojas Magallanes and Panamá streets in the commune of La Florida, the young Clara Elena Canteros Torres, 21, was detained by DINA agents. She was subdued as she got off public transport.

She was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi' where she was seen by witnesses, and on August 20, 1976, she was taken out of that facility along with fellow detainees Mario Juica Vega and Óscar Ramos. Since then, they have been disappeared.

At 21:40, Eduardo Canteros Prado, 48, Clara Elena's uncle, a civil engineer, was detained on a public street by DINA agents, in front of his home located on Panamá street, in the commune of La Florida. He was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi'. In 1990, his remains were found at the Las Tórtolas farm in Colina, a facility that belonged to the Army until 1980.

On July 27, 1976, around 17:15, Alejandro Rodríguez Urzúa, 49, was detained by DINA agents from his office located at Mallinkrodt 70, Barrio Bellavista. They took him to the 'Villa Grimaldi' facility.

On August 4, 1976, Daniel Palma Robledo, 61, a businessman, was detained in the morning hours on Matta Avenue, between San Diego and Arturo Prat streets; after picking up his mail, he bought a newspaper, and at the moment of leaving, he was detained and taken to an unknown destination, but he was seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' extermination barracks.

On that same August 4, at 15:00, the doctor Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, 39, was detained. They captured him during the trip he was making between the Parochial Hospital of San Bernardo and his private office, located at Barros Arana and Arturo Prat streets. He was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi' and, subsequently, to 'Cuatro Álamos', from where he was made to disappear.

In the evening hours of August 4, the surgeon Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán, 43, was detained by DINA agents while driving his vehicle. He was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi' and then to 'Cuatro Álamos'.

On August 6, 1976, shortly after leaving his home, around 9:30, the student leader and member of the Central Workers' Union (CUT), José Eduardo Santander Miranda, 29, was detained by DINA agents; surviving witnesses saw him at the 'Villa Grimaldi' facility.

On August 9, Víctor Hugo Morales Mazuela, 45, a carpenter and construction worker, union leader, and organization head of a regional branch of the Communist Party, was detained in the morning hours in the vicinity of the 'Villa México' neighborhood in the commune of Maipú and was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi'. Subsequently, he was seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks.

On that same August 9, Mario Jesús Juica Vega, 34, a merchant, was detained around noon in the vicinity of Plaza Egaña, in the commune of Ñuñoa, and taken to 'Villa Grimaldi', a place where he was seen by numerous witnesses. On August 20, he was taken from that facility along with two other detainees, and since then the DINA has made them disappear.

On August 11, 1976, at 9:00, while leaving his home located on Chiloé street, between Santa Rosa and Gran Avenida, in the commune of San Miguel, the merchant Miguel Nazal Quiroz, 44, was detained by DINA agents. He was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi'.

In the evening hours of that same August 11, Carlos Mario Vizcarra Cofré, 31, a body shop worker, was detained at his home in Quinta Normal by agents who took him to 'Villa Grimaldi', a facility where witnesses saw him until August 25 of the same year. Subsequently, he was seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' facility.

On August 13, Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate, 55, a union leader and photoengraver, was detained around noon while traveling from his home in Conchalí by DINA agents in the vicinity of the Mapocho Station. He was taken to Villa Grimaldi.

On August 16, 1976, at 11:30, the worker Julio Roberto Vega Vega was detained by DINA agents on Presidente Balmaceda Avenue, between Cueto and Libertad, in the commune of Santiago. Several witnesses saw him held both at 'Villa Grimaldi' and at the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, July 30, 2023 Date: 30-07-2023

STUDENTS INVITE YOU TO CONNECT TO THE 2021 ACT OF MEMORY

LMS students invite you to connect to the 2021 Act of Memory in commemoration of the people detained, disappeared, and tortured during the dictatorship.

Due to the health context, the meeting will be virtual and will take place from 18:00 on Friday, September 10, through the networks of the LMS Student Assembly.

September 11 is approaching, the date on which, 48 years ago, the country experienced the civil-military coup that began a brutal dictatorship commanded by Augusto Pinochet, and the Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas is present through the Act of Memory, to commemorate those people detained, disappeared, and tortured during that period.

This traditional meeting that brings the school community together around the memory of the victims of human rights violations, due to the health crisis context, will take place in a virtual format, on Friday, September 10, at 18:00, through the platforms of the LMS Student Assembly.

"We invite the entire community to join this activity that has historically been so important to us," point out the Organizing Committee.

The call is to gather between artistic interventions and memories, in an emotional space that the students wanted to link with the political imprisonment of those who fought in the revolt that began on October 18, 2019, with the slogan "Facing all the prisons of yesterday and today, the peoples in struggle for the comrades in prison."

We take this opportunity to remember our fallen students and teachers, for whom this Friday we will say together: "Present!" María Inés Alvarado Börgel, Jaime Buzio Lorca, Arnoldo Camú Veloso, Luis Alberto Corvalán Castillo, Alejandro de la Barra Villaroel, Martín Elgueta Pinto, Sergio Gabriel Flores Durán, Luis Fernando Fuentes Riquelme, CARLOS ENRIQUE GODOY LAGARRIGUE, Luis Julio Guajardo Zamorano, Jorge Mario Jordán Domic, Hugo Martínez González, Littré Quiroga Carvajal, Jaime Eugenio Robotham Bravo, and Edwin Van Yuric Altamirano.

Source: Ims.cl 7/09/2021 Date: 07-09-2021

Relatives of crime victims: "An aberrant ruling"

The following is a public statement released by relatives of victims of crimes against humanity committed under the dictatorship regarding the reduction of sentences for those convicted of human rights violations.

The ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals last Friday has moved public opinion and is an offense to the families of the victims. The ruling contravenes international law and erases the little that has been done for justice in the face of these aberrant crimes. Here we share this statement:

The Santiago Court of Appeals, through Minister Juan Cristóbal Mera Muñoz, Minister Mireya López Miranda, and attorney Cristián Lepin Molina, has issued a second-instance ruling that represents in all its extremes the position of Pinochetism within the judiciary: they are judges nostalgic for the civil-military dictatorship, who vindicate human rights violations by giving impunity to the DINA agents who committed kidnapping, torture, homicide, and forced disappearance during the military dictatorship, maintaining that the victims, due to their political circumstances—all militants of the Communist Party—were in a pre-existing situation of risk. There is no other explanation for a sentence that acquits the Director of Operations of the DINA, despite the fact that the operational brigades and executors of the detentions, the torture, and the disappearance were under his direction and dependency; that sentences Ricardo Lawrence, until recently a fugitive from justice, to a penalty of 3 years and 1 day of minor prison in its maximum degree as the perpetrator of 16 crimes of aggravated kidnapping, committed against the persons of Luis Emilio Recabarren González, Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González, Nalvia Rosa Mena Alvarado, Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas, Clara Canteros Torres, Alejandro Rodríguez Urzúa, Daniel Palma Robledo, CARLOS ENRIQUE GODOY LAGARRIGUE, Iván Insunza Bascuñán, José Eduardo Santander Miranda, Mario Juica Vega, Víctor Hugo Morales Mazuela, Carlos Vizcarra Cofré, Miguel Nazal Quiroz, Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate, and Julio Roberto Vega Vega. The same Ricardo Lawrence is sentenced to a penalty of 541 days of minor prison in its medium degree as the perpetrator of the crime of homicide of Eduardo Canteros Prado; Jorge Andrade Gómez is sentenced as the perpetrator of 15 counts of aggravated kidnapping, to the penalty of 3 years and 1 day of minor prison in its maximum degree and to the penalty of 541 days as the perpetrator of a crime of homicide; Juan Morales Salgado is sentenced as the perpetrator of 6 counts of aggravated kidnapping to the penalty of 3 years and 1 day of minor prison in its maximum degree; Ciro Torré Sáez is sentenced to 3 years and 1 day as the perpetrator of 3 crimes of aggravated kidnapping; Sergio Escalona Acuña, Juvenal Piña Garrido, Jorge Diaz Radulovich, and Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, sentenced as perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of Daniel Palma Robledo to the penalty of 3 years and 1 day, and Gladys Calderón Carreño, sentenced as the perpetrator of 6 crimes of aggravated kidnapping to the penalty of 3 years and 1 day of minor prison in its maximum degree. To all of them, without exception, Mr. Juan Cristóbal Mera Muñoz, Mireya López Miranda, and Cristián Lepin Molina granted supervised release as a substitute penalty, which means that for this case and by the will of these judges, these people, convicted of crimes against humanity, will not spend a single day in prison; this is, simply and plainly, impunity.

Source: elclarin.cl 13/04/2020 Date: 13-04-2020

The ruling by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which acquitted and reduced the sentences of 17 former agents of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) from the dictatorship that operated between 1973 and 1977, caused indignation among some people.

Specifically, the panel composed of judges Juan Cristóbal Mera Muñoz, Mireya López Miranda, and lawyer Cristián Lepín Molina acquitted seven DINA agents in the case involving the forced disappearance of 16 people and the murder of a 17th, events that occurred in 1976, where the victims were last seen at the Villa Grimaldi detention center.

The victims are the following militants and leaders of the Communist Party: Luis Emilio Recabarren González, Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González, Nalvia Mena Alvarado, Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas, Clara Canteros Torres, Alejandro Rodríguez Urzúa, Daniel Palma Robledo, Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán, José Eduardo Santander Miranda, Mario Jesús Juica Vega, Víctor Hugo Morales Mazuela, Carlos Mario Vizcarra Cofré, Miguel Nazal Quiroz, Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate, Julio Roberto Vega Vega, and Eduardo Canteros Prado (the only one who was not forcibly disappeared).

In light of this controversy, INTERFERENCIA investigated the criminal records of these State agents who, at the time, were part of the machine of political imprisonment and torture, forced disappearance, and homicide that systematically violated human rights, fundamentally during the 1970s.

Most of those who benefited are involved in other cases of similar characteristics, and therefore will remain in prison.

The acquitted

1. Pedro Espinoza Bravo. Former Army brigadier and former deputy director of the DINA. He was convicted for the murder of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, former Army Commander-in-Chief General Carlos Prats, and Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria.

He was part of the Caravan of Death and a material author of the murders of American journalists Charles Horman Lazar and Frank Randall Teruggi Bombatch. He also received convictions in France for "kidnapping accompanied by torture and acts of barbarism" in the cases of French citizens Jorge Klein, Etienne Pesle, Alfonso Chanfreau, and Jean Yves Claudet.

The Santiago Court of Appeals acquitted Espinoza exclusively of the crimes committed at the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture center. "There is no evidence that he led any brigade that operated in Villa Grimaldi, much less the Delfín group, during the year 1976, which is what matters for these purposes," the ruling states.

Specifically, he is exempted from responsibility in the kidnapping and forced disappearance of 17 victims, carried out through the so-called Delfín group in 1976.

2. Rolf Wenderoth Pozo. Former Army colonel and deputy director of Internal Intelligence of the DINA. He was a member of the Mulchén Brigade, known for the use of sarin gas in several murders and for being responsible for the murder of Carmelo Soria.

Wenderoth was the liaison agent for Luz Arce, a member of President Salvador Allende's GAP, who was turned through torture to become a DINA agent, and he was part of the teams in charge of the Villa Grimaldi and Belgrano detention and torture centers.

3. Hermón Alfaro Mundaca. Former PDI commissioner and DINA agent. He was part of Villa Grimaldi from 1975 and was prosecuted along with 97 other agents for the forced disappearance of 41 people in the context of the Operation Colombo case and the Case of the 119, a disinformation operation by the dictatorship in collusion with El Mercurio and La Tercera to hide forced disappearances.

The famous headline in La Segunda on July 24, "Exterminated like rats," corresponds to this case.

4. Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo. Former Army non-commissioned officer and DINA agent. He was part of the Lautaro Brigade, which—among other criminal missions—was in charge of the "Death Flights," through which the DINA disposed of the bodies of its victims using Army Puma helicopters.

The case of Marta Lidia Ugarte Román, a victim of a death flight whose body was returned by the sea, corresponds to this operation; for this cause, Bitterlich was convicted as one of the authors of qualified kidnapping, along with Pedro Espinoza and several other agents.

He was also implicated in the cases known as Operation Colombo, Calle Conferencia I and II (aimed at the extermination of the Communist Party leadership), and Operation Condor (in which the repressive agencies of several Southern Cone dictatorships colluded to commit and cover up crimes beyond their borders).

5. Claudio Pacheco Fernández. Former Carabineros non-commissioned officer and DINA agent. He was also part of the Lautaro Brigade. He was implicated in Operation Colombo.

6. Orlando Torrejón Gatica. Former Army non-commissioned officer and agent of the DINA and the CNI. He was part of the Lautaro Brigade and went on to be part of the Green and Blue Brigades of the CNI, the repressive organization that succeeded the DINA. He was prosecuted in the Calle Conferencia II case.

7. Orlando Altamirano Sanhueza. Former Navy non-commissioned officer and DINA agent. He was also part of the Lautaro Brigade.

8. Carlos López Inostroza. DINA agent. Implicated in the Calle Conferencia I case and the Marta Ugarte case.

Those who received sentence reductions

9. Ricardo Lawrence Mires. Former Carabineros lieutenant colonel and DINA agent. According to Memoria Viva, he is one of the agency's main and cruelest torturers, having been the one who pressured Luz Arce before her conversion.

He was assigned to the Londres 38, José Domingo Cañas, and Villa Grimaldi torture centers. Lawrence has recently been known for having been a fugitive and one of the most wanted by the PDI for the homicide of Alfonso Chanfreau, having turned himself in to the Carabineros' OS-9 on January 10.

10. Jorge Andrade Gómez. Former Army lieutenant colonel and agent of the DINA and the CNI. He was part of the School of the Americas, an entity created by the United States to teach repression and torture techniques that would be used in the dictatorships of the 70s in Latin America.

He was a lieutenant to Miguel Krassnoff after his time at Villa Grimaldi and was implicated in the Calle Conferencia and Condor operations, as well as numerous kidnappings. In the CNI, he was part of Operation Alfa Carbón I, in which the CNI killed seven MIR militants, and he was convicted for the 1985 murder of 20-year-old Paulina Alejandra Aguirre Tobar of the MIR.

11. Juan Morales Salgado. Former Army colonel and director of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade. Also known for his participation in the 1974 homicide of Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, in the city of Buenos Aires.

For this crime, he was sentenced to 15 years and 1 day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree, as well as for illicit association. This retired Armed Forces officer only entered prison in 2010. Likewise, he faces another conviction for the kidnapping of five young people in an episode known as the Linares Case, for which Morales Salgado received a sentence reduction from the Supreme Court in 2011.

12. Gladys Calderón Carreño. Former Army lieutenant, nurse, and agent of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade. She was convicted in 2018 by visiting judge Mario Carroza for her actions in the events involving Operation Condor, for her authorship in the qualified homicides of Ricardo Ignacio Ramírez Herrera, Jacobo Stoulman Bortnik, Matilde Pessa Mois, Hernán Soto Gálvez, and Ruiter Enrique Correa Arce.

Also, as published by El Mostrador, she participated in the Calle Conferencia operation and the detention of Víctor Díaz López of the Communist Party.

13. Ciro Torré Sáez. Former Carabineros captain and administrative chief of the DINA. According to the Memoria Viva website, Judge Llanos sentenced him in 2017 to fifteen years and one day of imprisonment in its maximum degree as the author of the qualified kidnapping of Luis Emilio Recabarren González, Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, and Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán.

Previously, Torré had been convicted by the Supreme Court for the qualified homicide of Lumi Videla Moya, a member of the MIR, who was kidnapped along with her husband by the DINA in 1974, dying at the José Domingo Cañas detention center. The highest court sentenced him to 5 years and one day in 2009.

14. Orlando Escalona Acuña. Former Navy non-commissioned officer and member of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade. He was previously convicted as a co-author of the 1976 kidnapping and qualified homicide of Víctor Díaz López, a Communist Party militant who in 1973 attained a leadership position in the Central Única de Trabajadores de Chile (CUT).

In addition, the Supreme Court issued a sentence against him for the kidnapping of former communist deputy Bernardo Araya Zulueta and his wife María Olga Flores Araya in 1976.

15. Juvenal Piña Garrido. Army non-commissioned officer and member of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade. He received the same sentence reduction as Sergio Orlando Escalona Acuña, both involved in the kidnapping of Daniel Palma Robledo.

Piña is also serving a sentence for the qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio.

16. Jorge Díaz Radulovich. Air Force non-commissioned officer and member of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade. The Supreme Court convicted him for the 1976 kidnapping of former deputy Bernardo Araya Zulueta and his wife María Olga Flores Araya to 5 years and one day of imprisonment as a co-author of the crime.

According to Memoria Viva, Díaz was mentioned in the book La Danza de los Cuervos as a member of the Martyrs' Avengers Command.

17. Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera. Carabineros non-commissioned officer and member of the Lautaro Brigade. He was implicated in the Calle Conferencia operation. He originally received a ten-year sentence for the kidnapping of Daniel Palma Robledo, but his sentence was reduced to three years and one day of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree.

Source: interferencia.cl 13/04/2020

Date: 04-13-2020

DINA agents convicted for the 1976 murder of 17 PC members

The minister for extraordinary causes regarding human rights violations at the Santiago Court of Appeals, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, sentenced 19 former members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán, Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue, Daniel Palma Robledo, Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas, Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González, Luis Emilio Recabarren González, Nalvia Rosa Mena Alvarado, José Eduardo Santander Miranda, Mario Jesús Juica Vega, Miguel Nazal Quiroz, Clara Canteros Torres, Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate, Víctor Hugo Morales Mazuela, Julio Roberto Vega Vega, Carlos Mario Vizcarra Cofré, and Alejandro Rodríguez Urzúa; and for the aggravated homicide of Eduardo Canteros Prado. These crimes were perpetrated at Villa Grimaldi and the Simón Bolívar Barracks in 1976.

In the ruling (case file 2182-1998), the presiding minister sentenced former army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia, Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez, and former Carabineros officer Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires to 20 years in prison as authors of the 16 aggravated kidnappings, and to another 20 years in prison for the aggravated homicide of Canteros Prado.

Meanwhile, former officer Juan Hernán Morales Salgado and agent Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño must serve 18 years and 15 years and one day in prison, respectively, for their responsibility as authors of six aggravated kidnappings.

Former officers Rolf Arnold Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, and Orlando José Manzo Durán were sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as authors of three aggravated kidnappings.

For former troop agents Sergio Orlando Escalona Acuña, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, and Gustavo Enrique Guerrero Aguilera, Minister Llanos determined sentences of 10 years and one day in prison for their responsibility as authors of one aggravated kidnapping.

Former agents Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Carlos Eugenio López Inostroza, and Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca were sentenced as accomplices in the 16 cases of aggravated kidnapping; they must serve 5 years and one day in prison for the kidnappings and 7 years for the homicide of Eduardo Canteros Prado.

The Facts

During the investigation phase, the presiding minister established the following facts:

"From late 1975 and at least throughout the year 1977, the DINA maintained the 'Simón Bolívar' Barracks, located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8630, in the commune of La Reina. This facility housed the brigade known as 'Lautaro,' whose primary function—in addition to repressive tasks involving the detention of political dissidents—was the protection of the DINA Director, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and his family.

This brigade was led by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado, who was also the head of the barracks and under the strict supervision of the DINA Director, who was also his direct evaluator;

In 1975, a restructuring of the brigades and operational groups based at 'Villa Grimaldi' took place, merging the groups led by Army Captain Germán Barriga Muñoz and Carabineros Captain Ricardo Lawrence Mires.

These groups were composed of numerous agents from different branches of the Armed Forces and Carabineros, and were designated as the 'Delfín' (or 'Mehuín,' according to other versions) brigade or group.

The purpose of this brigade was the repression of the Communist Party, carrying out surveillance and detention of leaders and militants of that Party, which took place throughout 1976. Thus, during that period, dozens of Communist Party militants were captured, many of them members of successive leaderships that were formed as the previous ones were dismantled by the aforementioned repressive organization.

The detainees were taken to the 'Terranova' or 'Villa Grimaldi' barracks, where they were interrogated under torture. Some of them were subsequently taken, while still deprived of their liberty, to the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks—to which the 'Delfín' or 'Mehuín' brigade moved in May or June 1976—which became the main operations center for the aforementioned brigade, and from where operational groups departed to carry out detentions, in addition to transferring the Communist Party detainees who were held at 'Villa Grimaldi';

To fulfill the functions described above, the so-called 'Delfín' or 'Mehuín' brigade incorporated members of the 'Lautaro' brigade, led by Juan Morales Salgado, into its repressive activities. In said barracks, the detainees were interrogated under torture, after which their trail was lost and their current whereabouts remain unknown; however, there is evidence that several of these individuals were killed, their bodies removed and buried clandestinely, and others were thrown into the sea from helicopters, without their remains having been recovered to date;

Under these circumstances, the detentions of the following individuals, all Communist Party militants, occurred:

a. MANUEL GUILLERMO RECABARREN GONZÁLEZ, 22, and LUIS EMILIO RECABARREN GONZÁLEZ, 29, were detained along with NALVIA MENA ALVARADO and her two-year-old son, Luis Emilio Recabarren Mena, by DINA agents in an operation carried out on April 29, 1976, in the area of Sebastopol and Santa Rosa streets.

The minor was left abandoned near his home during the night. The following day, the father of the first two, MANUEL SEGUNDO RECABARREN ROJAS, 50, was apprehended at 07:10 hours as he was leaving his home at Calle Cantares de Chile No. 6271, bus stop 16 of Santa Rosa, in the commune of San Miguel, as he was preparing to board a bus.

All detainees were taken to 'Villa Grimaldi'; Manuel Guillermo Recabarren González and Manuel Segundo Recabarren Rojas were also seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' facility, and Luis Emilio Recabarren González was seen at 'Cuatro Álamos.' The current whereabouts of the victims remain unknown.

b. CLARA ELENA CANTEROS TORRES, 21, a militant of the Communist Youth, was detained on July 23, 1976, around 20:00 hours on a public street at the intersection of Panamá and Rojas Magallanes streets in the commune of La Florida, while getting off public transport.

Hours later, her uncle, Eduardo Canteros Prado, was detained. She was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi,' where she was seen by witnesses, and on August 20, 1976, she was removed from that facility along with fellow detainees Mario Juica Vega and Óscar Ramos. Her whereabouts remain unknown to date.

c. EDUARDO CANTEROS PRADO, 48, a civil engineer, was detained on July 23, 1976, around 21:40 hours, on a public street in front of his home located at Calle Panamá No. 8807, in the commune of La Florida, by DINA agents traveling in three cars, and was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi.' In 1990, his remains were found at the Las Tórtolas estate in Colina, a facility that belonged to the Army until 1980.

d. ALEJANDRO RODRÍGUEZ URZÚA, 49, was detained on July 27, 1976, around 17:15 hours from his office located at Mallinkrodt 70, Barrio Bellavista; he was taken away in his light blue 1970 'Chevrolet' 'Chevy' vehicle, license plate DY-821.

He was taken to the 'Villa Grimaldi' facility; that same day, his office was raided at night, and various documents and valuables were stolen, including $2,000 and an address book.

e. DANIEL PALMA ROBLEDO, 61, a businessman, was detained on August 4, 1976, in the morning, on a public street on Avenida Matta, between San Diego and Arturo Prat streets; after picking up his mail, he bought a newspaper and was detained as he was leaving, and was taken away along with the vehicle he was driving, a light blue 1972 'Renoleta' model 4 S, license plate VI-552 from the commune of Ñuñoa, a vehicle that was later found in the possession of DINA agents.

Daniel Palma Robledo was seen at 'Simón Bolívar.' f. CARLOS ENRIQUE GODOY LAGARRIGUE, 39, a doctor, was detained on August 4, 1976, at 15:00 hours, by DINA agents during his commute between the San Bernardo Parochial Hospital and his private practice, located at the corner of Barros Arana and Arturo Prat; he was apprehended along with his green 'Citroën' vehicle, license plate LOG-11 from Calera de Tango, by DINA agents, and was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi' and subsequently to 'Cuatro Álamos.' g.

IVÁN SERGIO INSUNZA BASCUÑÁN, 43, a surgeon, was detained on August 4, 1976, at night, while driving his gray 1969 'Renault' 4 S vehicle; he was also carrying a fixed-term deposit from a financial institution, which was cashed in Viña del Mar on September 3, 1976, by third parties.

He was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi' and then to 'Cuatro Álamos.' h. JOSÉ EDUARDO SANTANDER MIRANDA, a student leader and member of the Central Workers' Union (CUT) who had worked at the General Treasury of the Republic, was detained upon leaving his home at approximately 9:30 hours on August 6, 1976, by DINA agents who forced him into a vehicle; witnesses saw him at the 'Villa Grimaldi' facility.

i. VÍCTOR HUGO MORALES MAZUELA, 45, a carpenter and construction worker, union leader, and organizational head of the Communist Party's West Regional of Santiago, was detained on August 9, 1976, in the morning, in the vicinity of the 'Villa México' neighborhood in the commune of Maipú and was taken to 'Villa Grimaldi.' Subsequently, he was seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks.

j. MARIO JESÚS JUICA VEGA, 34, a merchant, was detained on August 9, 1976, around noon, in the vicinity of Plaza Egaña, forced into a vehicle, and taken to 'Villa Grimaldi,' where he was seen by numerous witnesses; on the 20th of the same month and year, he was removed from that facility along with two other detainees.

k. MIGUEL NAZAL QUIROZ, 44, a merchant, was apprehended on August 11, 1976, at 9:00 hours, as he was leaving his home located on Calle Chiloé, between Santa Rosa and Gran Avenida, near bus stop 9, in the commune of San Miguel, by DINA agents who took him to 'Villa Grimaldi.' l.

CARLOS MARIO VIZCARRA COFRÉ, 31, a worker and auto body repairman, was detained on August 11, 1976, at night in the commune of Quinta Normal by DINA agents who took him to 'Villa Grimaldi,' a facility where witnesses saw him until August 25 of the same year; he was even seen repairing a DINA vehicle. Subsequently, he was seen at the 'Simón Bolívar' facility.

m. JULIO ROBERTO VEGA VEGA, 61, a worker, was detained on August 16, 1976, at 11:30 hours, on a public street on Avenida Presidente Balmaceda between Cueto and Libertad, by DINA agents. Several witnesses saw him detained at both 'Villa Grimaldi' and the 'Simón Bolívar' barracks.

n. JUAN AURELIO VILLARROEL ZÁRATE, 55, a union leader and photoengraver, was detained on August 13, 1976, around noon by DINA agents who took him to 'Villa Grimaldi,' where he was seen by several witnesses.

That day at 11:30 hours, he took a public bus at the stop near his home located at Calle Juan General Gambino No. 4584, in the commune of Conchalí, and got off at Estación Mapocho with the intention of going to an aunt's house in the commune of Cerrillos.

The consequences of these detentions are that the aforementioned individuals—with the exception of Eduardo Canteros Prado—remain in the status of forcibly disappeared, as they have been deprived of their liberty and have not made contact with their families; they have not carried out administrative procedures before State or private organizations, nor are there records of them entering or leaving the country, nor is there any record of their death.

Regarding Eduardo Canteros Prado, it was established through forensic evidence that his death was caused by violent means, and given the circumstances surrounding his detention and clandestine imprisonment, it can be established that it was due to the actions of third parties."

Source: resumen.cl 29/07/2017

Date: 29-07-2017

Minister Solis to prosecute five former uniformed officers for the disappearance of PC members

Two former officers and three former non-commissioned officers of the DINA will be prosecuted for the aggravated kidnapping of thirteen people, including communist doctors Carlos Godoy and Iván Insunza, in 1976.

Five members of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) will be notified of their prosecution and held in the Military Police Regiment facilities in Peñalolén, as part of the investigation into the aggravated kidnappings of thirteen people, including communist doctors CARLOS ENRIQUE GODOY LAGARRIGUE and Iván Sergio Insunza Bascuñán, in events that occurred in August 1976.

The proceedings were ordered by Minister Alejandro Solís for crimes allegedly committed at the property located at Simón Bolívar 8630, and indicate that retired officers Gladys Calderón Carreño and Juan Morales Salgado, and former non-commissioned officers Carlos López Inostroza, Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo, and Eduardo Reyes Lagos participated in the illicit acts.

For these same events that occurred during the military regime headed by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the former director of the repressive organization Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Eugenio Fieldhouse, Pedro Espinoza, Marcelo Moren Brito, Ricardo Lawrence, Orlando Manzano, Ciro Torré, Claudio Andrade, and Rufino Astorga, among other former uniformed officers, were prosecuted.

In this regard, lawyer Eduardo Contreras, the first plaintiff in human rights violation cases against Pinochet, stated that "this resolution contributes to the clarification of a specific case, that of doctors Insunza and Godoy, and also contributes to clarifying the issue of the annihilation of the Communist Party leadership in 1976."

He added, "this demonstrates that all the pretensions to set deadlines for the courts to close human rights cases, or for the judges to give deadlines to the investigative police, have a certain 'stench' of impunity. This shows that even as the years pass, justice finally arrives."

Source: adnradio.cl 15/07/2009

Date: 15-07-2009

Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue and Lola González

DOCTOR GODOY Carlos Enrique Godoy Lagarrigue had energy and perseverance to spare. When he set his mind to something, there was no one who could dissuade him. Like when he set out to win over his "Lola," like when he decided to give his very life for his party, the Communist Youth.

On August 4, 1976, when he was leaving his shift at the San Bernardo Hospital, a nurse came out to tell him he had forgotten his radio. From his Citroën, he managed to tell her not to worry, that he would be back in a couple of hours.

The only thing that has been known about Doctor Godoy since is that his vehicle was seen ten years ago in Colonia Dignidad by a married couple who managed to escape that facility and file the corresponding complaints. By Lola González, his wife.

"I am Godoy, a medical student," Carlos said, taking off the beret he always wore. It was the winter vacation of '58, my first year as a pedagogy student in Spanish. The FECH headquarters was full, and this handsome man, the finance secretary of the Communist Youth, did not miss the opportunity to introduce himself to the newcomers with the excuse of registering us for dues.

It was not love at first sight. Strictly speaking, I was just one of the girls who seemed interesting to him that day. Later he confessed to me that when he found out I was Spanish, that my parents had arrived on the Winnipeg, and that everyone called me "Lola," he went crazy because he admired the history and culture of Spain very much.

He started to pursue me. He went to my house very often with his finance notebook in his hand. I considered his visits mere meetings of "comrades." That is how he got closer to me, and between conversations about the Party, one Sunday he ended up sitting at the table of the González Barragán family, praising my mother's Valencian rice and winning the affection of my whole family with his charisma.

The only one who didn't enjoy his visits much was a lady who helped us in the kitchen. Every time he arrived, she would complain, "here comes that one they call the 'comrade' to eat all the cake for tea..." I played dumb regarding the romantic side of the story, until during a walk through the Forestal Park, Carlos laid his cards on the table and we started dating.

He always remembered that it had been on July 20, the same date our first child was born several years later. In '63 we got married. The celebration was at the Gilo pressure gauge factory, a Spanish family who were very good friends of ours.

They cleaned and whitewashed the whole place. We covered the machines with white cloths, and like good women from an immigrant family, my mother and I spent long hours preparing everything: from the canapés to the cake.

We lived for several years in Melipilla, where Carlos did his general zone service. Our first two children, Pedro and Claudia, were born there. I did my "provincial" work as a teacher in a night school and dedicated myself to the kitchen.

I remember I asked my mother for all the recipes, and since I wasn't good with measurements, I made huge amounts of food. We gained a good few kilos in that time. He was a fanatic for apples; he would eat one after another, and the juice would drip down to his elbows.

He always smelled like apples. In 1970 we returned to Santiago. Four years later, Carlitos, the youngest of our children, was born. Carlos was a very devoted husband to us, very affectionate. He would call us all day to know what we were doing, to talk about anything.

The last time we were together, before he disappeared, we had strong differences due to his excessive attachment to his militancy. Once he told me that for him, his party came before his family. I found it terrible. We argued many times about that matter; I felt I had to open his eyes to everything that was happening. Carlos was too trusting; he didn't measure what could happen.

Source: repositorio.uchile.cl No date

Tribute to Carlos Godoy and Iván Insunza

On Tuesday the 2nd, the Chamber of Deputies paid tribute to doctors Iván Insunza Bascuñán and Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue, on the 30th anniversary of their kidnapping by the DINA. It is still unknown where they are.

Both were doctors, friends, and militants of the Communist Party. They were kidnapped on August 4, 1976, according to witness accounts, detained and tortured at Villa Grimaldi. A tragic coincidence is that while the Chamber was holding this tribute, through the words of PPD deputy Jorge Insunza, the mother of his uncle Iván, Violeta Bascuñán de Insunza, passed away at 96 years of age.

On the 4th, the exact date marking 30 years since the kidnapping, the funeral of Mrs. Violeta took place.

This Friday, August 4, marks 30 years since Carlos Godoy Lagarrigue and Iván Insunza Bascuñán were kidnapped by the DINA. We still do not know where they are.

Both were doctors, they were friends, and they were militants of the Communist Party.

Carlos Godoy was 39 years old. He had married Dolores, a beautiful daughter of Spaniards who had arrived in Chile on the ship Winnipeg, which, thanks to Pablo Neruda, brought a group of Republican refugees from the Spanish Civil War. He had 3 children: Pedro, Claudia, and Carlos, who was just a year and a few months old.

While writing these lines, I realized that Carlos was, at that time, almost exactly the same age I am now.

Iván Insunza, my uncle, was 43 years old. He had 2 children. The eldest, Iván, is his almost exact reproduction, physically and—as they tell me—also in his character. Iván, my cousin, is also 43 years old now.

His second son, Felipe, had not yet been born when he disappeared. He didn't get to meet him; it seems he didn't even know about his gestation, and as if it were a twist of fate, Felipe died at 18 in a tragic accident.

One rainy night, he fell into the San Carlos Canal. Hours and days passed, and he did not appear. A new anguish ran through us. History was repeating itself. In the end, once the canal was drained, he was found and could be buried.

The year 1976 was very brutal. The repression was very intense, very massive, and very bold. It is the same year as the assassination of Carmelo Soria and the attack on Orlando Letelier in Washington. The DINA and the Joint Command were determined to annihilate all leftist parties.

Only in that year did they manage to detain the leaderships of the Communist Party. In March '76, José Weibel fell. In May '76, Jorge Muñoz, Mario Zamorano, Uldarico Donaire, and shortly after, Víctor Díaz fell.

Between July and August, there was a horrific succession of detentions, including that of Carlos and Iván. A few days later, Miguel Nazal fell, they took Vicente Atencio from his home, and they found Marta Ugarte brutally murdered on a beach in Los Molles. Later, in December, Fernando Ortiz, Waldo Pizarro, and several others were detained.

That count impacts me personally, because my father, Jorge Insunza, was part of that first PC leadership, and today he is here with me at this tribute to his friend and his cousin, because they—his comrades—urged him to leave Chile a few months earlier. My dad was saved from being a forcibly disappeared person.

And I cannot stop thinking, what would it have been like for me to live with that pain? I cannot fathom it, but I know that everything would have been very different.

Iván liked to help and was too proud to let himself be overcome by fear. He was never very interested in positions, but he assumed the responsibilities given to him. During the government of President Allende, he was Director of Sermena and, later, in the first years of the dictatorship, he organized communist professionals.

In addition, he was one of the doctors who attended to leaders living in hiding. A few days before his detention, he had received Marta Ugarte in his office, and perhaps through him, they wanted to reach my father.

Even among the lies with which Manuel Contreras responded to the writs of amparo was that Iván had gone to Argentina to meet with Jorge Insunza because he was his liaison-courier. That lie exposes Contreras's responsibility, because the DINA knew that my father had left Chile: "Guatón Romo" had recognized him in Argentina when he left clandestinely at the end of '75.

The only thing similar to that liaison role was that our uncle Iván helped us on several occasions—me, my sisters, and my grandmother Raquel—to see my dad during his years in hiding. I remember it well; I was 7 or 8 years old.

Carlos's courage was enormous. He accepted joining the leadership of the Communist Party after the team led by Víctor Díaz fell. He became part of the Central Committee that, in those months, was led by Víctor Cantero and Fernando Ortiz.

It was not an easy decision, because he was a well-known figure. Carlos was a candidate for deputy for Melipilla in '69 and, at the beginning of the dictatorship, he was investigated because he was the owner, along with architect Miguel Lawner, of the land where the Magallanes radio antenna was located.

They were agonizing months. They knew the risk they were taking. They knew perfectly well that a wave of detentions surrounded them, some very close. On July 27, Alejandro Rodríguez, an architect who worked with them on the same team of communist professionals, had been detained.

Dolores, Carlos's wife, tells me that in those days he was nervous and more irritable. One day she heard them talking with Iván, very tense, about everything that was happening, but they didn't want her to be alarmed. They knew they were in danger.

But what was going through their minds? Why didn't they react? Why didn't they hide or leave the country? Looking back from the distance of the years, I can only reconstruct and venture some reflections.

Iván had a kind of oath: he was not going to leave Chile; he was not going to leave his country. He lived that stoic spirit of his generation and believed in the transcendence of what he was doing. He was part of a cause.

He was fighting for what he believed in and loved. That same feeling, in Carlos's case, was accompanied by how he felt about the exile of the Spanish Republicans. He loved his father-in-law very much; he admired him, they were very good friends.

Carlos resisted repeating that story. His father-in-law had been out of Spain for more than 30 years. In Chile, the dictatorship had been in power for almost 3 years, and Pinochet wanted to be like Franco in everything. Leaving was imagining another drama, it was submitting to another tearing apart.

Partly because of the sense of duty they had and partly because of that famous communist discipline in which they had been trained, they were only going to leave their responsibilities if the party asked or demanded it of them. Both felt they could not abandon their tasks. To do so was to wound their own dignity, their sense of personal honor. In a way, it was betraying themselves.

I also believe that, despite the repression and so many murders around them, it seems they were not fully aware of the risk. Perhaps they thought that if they were detained, they would face torture and other horrors, but not death. They were mentally prepared to face that brutality, but they did not weigh the possibility of dying.

It was a strange time. That year, '76, no one yet conceived of what we now know as the forcibly disappeared. They did not imagine that miserable cowardice. They knew perfectly well about the initial executions, the operations in which they had killed PS and MIR leaders, the tortures in secret places.

There were still concentration camps. In those same months, some of the prisoners who had previously been in Dawson, Ritoque, or other places were being expelled into exile. Fernando Flores, who is here with us, was expelled from the country on August 9, '76. Don Luis Corvalán was exchanged on December 16, '76, one day after they kidnapped Fernando Ortiz.

That August 4, they did not arrive home. There was no trace of them. Carlos was taken around 4 in the afternoon, Iván around 9 or 10 at night.

In those first days, their relatives thought it was just a detention. They filed writs of amparo, which, like almost all at that time, were formally processed by the Courts and dismissed with the mere denial of the Ministry of the Interior or the DINA.

They had partial versions and, later, some accounts from people who came out of those detentions alive: that they could be at Villa Grimaldi or Cuatro Álamos; that they were going to be exchanged for other people or that they would be released later. They said they had fled the country or also tried to install the despicable version that they had left with other women.

No one thought they would make them disappear.

My uncle Alfonso, Iván's father, was called on several occasions to ask for money in exchange for information, and they even offered him a paid ransom. Like any father, he did what they asked to save his son.

His brother, Alfonso, was the one who led the legal filings and investigations. To this day. He has lived every detail of all this. And, think about it, he was always the first to know what Iván had to face at Villa Grimaldi.

Let me tell you something. When I was reconstructing this whole story with Iván, with Claudia, with Dolores, with my dad, and with my mom, their expression was that of a gaze fixed on the horizon, reconstructing the passages of a pain. The tone is somber, of a contained sorrow.

But when I said to them, "tell me, what was he like," a light immediately appeared in their eyes, a smile, and their gaze became direct, as if saying "there are so many things to tell."

Both had a similar character. They were very cheerful, laughing, with a great sense of humor. They were not the prototype of solemn communists.

Iván was simple, he had no pretensions. He was passionate about his things and more than once defended his friends with his fists. He stuttered a little and was approachable; he didn't have problems starting a conversation.

He was also tenacious, demanding, and had explosions of bad temper. My grandmother Raquel was once offended by him because he shouted from the stairs for the visitors to lower their voices because they wouldn't let him study in peace.

She, who was strict and traditional in those matters, thought he should be scolded. On the other hand, my grandfather Jorge didn't give it importance. That was a family hallmark.

As an older brother, he was quite bossy. He liked to exercise his authority. He reprimanded his sisters for wearing short skirts or a pronounced neckline, even though he prided himself on being a ladies' man and a seducer.

Carlos was very warm, an open book. He told everything that happened to him; he was not good at keeping secrets. He was a rural doctor for a long time and cultivated that closeness of the countryside. He was very spontaneous.

Even sometimes, when he invited friends to his house and he already felt tired, he would tell everyone: "well, I'm going to bed; if you want, you can stay for a while, but I'm going." And he would leave. He played a lot with his children; he infected them with his enthusiasms.

I have a vague memory of him, an image, because after September 11, we were hidden in his house.

All of us who were left without them live their absences.

My grandmother Raquel had a photo of Iván on the dresser in her room. That's how I knew about him, by asking about that photo.

I only became aware of his death in '86, when, talking with Alfonso in his apartment in Villa Frei, he told me: "I think Iván didn't last long, because with the character he had, the most likely thing is that he confronted the DINA agents." And there are witnesses who recount that both Carlos and Iván confronted the agents who were at Villa Grimaldi.

Uncle Alfonso, his father, died in '87 with infinite sorrow. I always felt that pain in his eyes. Sometimes I saw him smile, but his eyes remained full of sorrow. Aunt Violeta, his mother, lived all this in reserve, with modesty, within herself.

With Claudia and Carlitos, we would come home together from the Liceo Manuel de Salas, walking along Brown Sur. One day, my sister, Roxana, told me about our whole relationship. From then on, we became like siblings.

Dolores tells me that shortly after Carlos's detention, Pedro and Claudia assumed their roles within the house. Pedro goes to buy kerosene for the heater, Claudia turns off the lights at night, and together they tell Carlitos stories about his dad.

Iván had lunch with him every day at his grandparents' house. The day after his detention, he arrived and saw the whole family gathered, looking at him as soon as he entered the house. He doesn't forget that image, because he immediately knew that something had happened to his dad.

A few years ago, Iván told me that for him it was terrible to face the versions that there could be forcibly disappeared people alive in Colonia Dignidad. He couldn't help but have hope and then suffer the disappointment of news that, in the end, is diluted and no one confirms or denies.

The same feeling of rage and impotence overwhelms them when it is reported at the Dialogue Table that they were thrown into the sea off the coast of San Antonio, and then to see how the remains of other disappeared people, who were said to be in the sea, end up appearing on solid ground.

What none of us can imagine, however, is how difficult it is to feel rage, anger, toward these already absent fathers. Why didn't they take care of themselves? Why did they continue? Why didn't they stop?

Why didn't they choose us? That claim of love, which does not doubt their love but asks for a privilege, is not easy to face; it is not easy to allow oneself that feeling. But there is nothing more normal than that complaint, and in the end, there is no other alternative but understanding. You just have to love them.

We have a task left: to find them.

Allow me one last reflection.

The recognition of human rights violations still lacks a consistent truth, especially regarding the fate of the forcibly disappeared. We do not know where they are.

The criminals have not had the courage to assume their responsibility. They not only evade it but also—in an act that makes things worse—have systematically tried to hinder the investigations. They provide false information or half-truths, which affect or delay the investigations.

These criminals continue to be miserable little characters, cowards who have no sense of honor.

And so, I ask myself, how are we going to face this need to know where they are? What else do we have to do? Claudia Godoy told me something very true: we have already had symbolic reparations, but we lack knowing where they are. None of us will renounce that, ever.

The Rettig Report and the Dialogue Table did not achieve that objective. Only through Justice, through the struggle that has taken place in long judicial processes, have we managed to know the final fate of some of them.

What is missing is for those responsible to speak and not continue to hide behind the Amnesty Law to remain silent. The alternative we have left, in the face of their cowardice, is to eliminate that law.

Chile has already made the historical judgment. We have that peace of mind. In the end, Pinochet is ending as all dictators end, under a mantle of shame. The historical judgment is always, in the end, a moral judgment.

The dictatorship dishonors our moral history as a country, and Pinochet dishonors the Army. I am sure that the new generations of officers will no longer see in him a respectable military leader, but quite the opposite.

In the future, he will be seen as a dictator who perversely used power, who participated in the assassination of his predecessor, General Prats; who did not have the sense of military honor before Justice, who was more prone to trickery than to integrity; and who was shown to be a corrupt ruler who enriched himself personally and involved his family in those thefts and shady deals.

That awareness creates the possibility of a different future. And that future is possible thanks to the tenacity and integrity of the struggle for human rights.

After all, what value is there in our Chamber of Deputies paying tribute to them and, with them, to so many others? Perhaps only two things.

The value of memory, so that their remembrance sustains our values as a society toward the future.

And to tell you, dear Carlos and Iván, that you are in our hearts.

Jorge Insunza G./Deputy of the Party for Democracy.

Source: elmostrador.cl 9/8/2006