Political Affiliation: Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR); in charge of printing and publications. Date of Detention: September 10, 1974

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas, married, publicist, and MIR militant, was detained on September 10, 1974, around 10:00 a.m., at his private office located in downtown Santiago. He was seized by civilians who identified themselves as members of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), who took him to the secret center for political imprisonment and torture of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), located at the corner of Calle José Domingo Cañas and República de Israel in the commune of Ñuñoa, where he was seen by witnesses and from where he was forcibly disappeared.

Along with him, Miguel Lathrop Cristi, 63 years old, Juan Orlando González Lizana, the building’s elevator operator, and a doorman who was not identified during the proceedings regarding the victim's disappearance, were also detained.

Carlos Freddy Pérez was the first of five siblings to suffer the direct consequences of the repression. Four others disappeared or died in confrontations with DINA agents.

On September 10, 1974, Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas went as usual to his office located at Calle Estado No. 360 (a building that corresponded to the former Hotel Splendid). At least 5 agents arrived there, identifying themselves to witnesses as members of the SIM.

At 10:00 a.m., Miguel Lathrop arrived at the office, finding the place occupied by civilians who were holding the victim and one of his employees, whose name the witness does not know. Without questioning him and apologizing to Lathrop for the inconvenience, the captors proceeded to blindfold them and take them away as detainees.

For his part, Juan Orlando González—the elevator operator—recalls that the agents claimed to be from the SIM and took them to a place he could not identify. One week later, both witnesses were released without having been interrogated, having spent that entire time blindfolded at the secret DINA facility located at José Domingo Cañas, a location identified through various testimonies.

The following morning, the victim was taken to the home of Mr. Vicente Claro, which was surrounded by about 27 armed men. A few of them entered the house, bringing Carlos Freddy with them. He appeared to be drugged, spoke with difficulty, and the captors pulled his hair and pushed his head back when they wanted him to speak.

His hands were tied, and one of them appeared wounded and lifeless. The agents raided the place, claiming they were looking for weapons and asking insistently about Dagoberto Pérez, the victim's older brother, a high-ranking leader of the MIR who was intensely sought by the Security Services.

At the time of his detention, Carlos Freddy had even commented to Miguel Lathrop not to worry because it was not him they were looking for, but his brother Dagoberto.

Also on that same September 11, 1974, four civilians arrived at the victim's private home. They identified themselves to Virginia Valenzuela Jiménez—the victim's spouse, a Costa Rican national and former Cultural Attaché at her Embassy—as DINA officials.

One of them proceeded to search the home without showing any identification or providing explanations for their actions. They left without taking anything. One of these agents was young, blond, tall, light-eyed, dressed in sports attire, with polite manners and fine features; a second was dark-haired, tan-skinned, tall, thin, with a bruise on his face, a flat nose, sideburns, and also dressed in sports attire.

On September 12, at 3:00 p.m., civilians arrived at the victim's home again. They claimed to be from the Military Intelligence Service and also raided the property, seizing numerous documents. Before leaving, they attempted to detain Virginia Valenzuela, who offered energetic resistance.

Faced with this, the agents desisted and told her that they were holding her husband on charges brought against his brother Dagoberto. One of these subjects was tall, thin, nervous, with an uneasy temperament, black hair, and dark eyes; he was polite and wore a navy blue jacket.

Another was about 40 to 50 years old, rather heavy-set, with broad shoulders, small light eyes, and was very observant; he wore a gray or beige coat. The third was shorter, thick-set, with fair skin and dark brown hair; he spoke little. They were traveling in a new light-blue Chevrolet pickup truck.

Meanwhile, the victim remained held at the house on Calle José Domingo Cañas. There, he was seen by detainees Cristián Van Yurick Altamirano and Rosalía Martínez Cereceda. The latter had been detained on September 22, 1974, along with her husband and María Cristina López Stewart (currently a forcibly disappeared person), and taken to the aforementioned facility, where she remained until October 5 of the same year.

Upon arriving at the house on Calle José Domingo Cañas, she encountered Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas, whom she saw in poor physical condition due to the treatment he received during interrogations. He told her that he only hoped to be reunited with his family soon.

A few days later, the witness recalls, Aldo Pérez Vargas (currently a forcibly disappeared person) also arrived as a detainee. Both brothers met and embraced, very moved. According to what Aldo told them, Osvaldo Romo Mena had detained him on the street because he mistook him for Dagoberto, whom he resembled greatly. The brothers were worried about the fate of their relatives.

According to testimonies, Carlos Freddy Pérez remained at the José Domingo Cañas facility until approximately the last week of September 1974, when he was taken to an unknown destination. He would never be seen in any other detention center again.

Subsequently, in July 1975, his name appeared on the list of 119 Chileans allegedly killed in confrontations abroad. The victim was included in the list published by the newspaper "O'Dia" of Curitiba, Brazil, a publication that circulated on that one occasion, without a responsible editor or printer's imprint.

Over time, the falsehood of this fact was proven; it was not ratified by any government, not even the Chilean one. In this regard, Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles, Head of the Human Rights Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, informed the various courts that requested it that there were no records regarding the deaths of those Chileans or their departure from the country.

Furthermore, on May 28, 1975, by Supreme Decree published in the Official Gazette of that date, a 1957 station wagon, license plate KO 284 of Providencia, owned by the victim, was declared state property.

The stated reason was that said vehicle "was acquired with MIR funds." Virginia Valenzuela—in a written statement to the Minister of the Interior, as it was an administrative measure—provided evidence that she had provided the money for it.

Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas was one of 6 children of the marriage of Osvaldo Pérez and Otilia Vargas, five of whom were MIR militants. Of that large family, only both parents and the youngest sister, Patricia, survived, and they sought asylum in Cuba.

The first to disappear was the victim. Days later, the DINA detained Aldo Pérez, who disappeared from Cuatro Álamos. On October 16, 1975, the oldest and most sought-after of the brothers, Dagoberto Pérez, died in a confrontation.

The events occurred at the Santa Eugenia plot in Malloco, where the high leadership of the MIR had been hiding: Andrés Pascal Allende, Nelson Gutiérrez, Martín Hernández Vásquez, Mary Anne Beausire Alonso (wife of Andrés Pascal), María Elena Bachmann, and Nelson Gutiérrez's young daughter.

While Dagoberto Pérez blocked the agents' path, the rest of the group managed to escape. Nelson Gutiérrez was wounded and had to leave the girl at the home of some peasants. Days later, the British doctor Sheila Cassidy treated the wounded man, and as a result, she was detained on November 1, 1975, at the House of the Columban Fathers.

DINA agents arrived there, triggering a shootout to simulate a confrontation. Regrettably and painfully, the house employee, Enriqueta Reyes Valerio, was struck by bullets and passed away.

Dagoberto Pérez's body remained for a long time at the Legal Medical Institute as a "John Doe" (NN), despite the continuous claims made by relatives and lawyers. On December 11, 1975, officials from that agency reported that the body had been taken to the common grave of the General Cemetery the day before, only to later tell Mrs.

Otilia Vargas that the remains were in Patio 29, without informing her of the exact place where her son lay.

Months later, on February 24, 1976, the Pérez Vargas twins, Iván Renato and Mireya de Lourdes, 22 years old, died. They were living at an address on Pasaje Juan Ramón Jiménez, at the 14th bus stop of Vicuña Mackenna, along with Amador del Fierro Santibáñez, his wife Herminia Uberlinda Espíndola, and that couple's one-year-old daughter.

DINA agents arrived there, and a shootout ensued. Iván Renato Pérez and Amador del Fierro died at the scene. A young girl playing in the garden of the house, Susana Elizabeth Sanhueza Salinas, was also struck by bullets and passed away.

For her part, Mireya was taken out of the house alive, wounded in the legs, and driven by the agents to the secret DINA detention center known as "Villa Grimaldi." There are testimonies of her stay in that place, where she was killed.

Her body and that of her brother remained at the Legal Medical Institute for months, only being handed over on May 5, 1976, to a priest, a lawyer, and a social worker, who were the only ones to accompany them to the General Cemetery. Their parents could no longer do so. Osvaldo Pérez was in exile. Otilia Vargas and her only surviving daughter could not attend for security reasons.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On October 1, 1974, before the 6th Criminal Court of Santiago, Virginia Valenzuela filed a complaint for kidnapping regarding the victim, which was registered under No. 90.626. In the filing, she denounced the raids that had been carried out at her home, the fact that the agents identified themselves as belonging to the Military Intelligence Service, and that they stated they were holding her spouse.

She also noted that she had made arrangements through the Embassy of Costa Rica, of which she was a Cultural Attaché. However—"to my astonishment and surprise"—at the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), Commander Correa personally informed her that her spouse did not appear on the list of detainees and that, as far as he was concerned, he was disappeared.

Following a court order, on December 6, 1974, the Investigations police informed the Court that inquiries had been made to locate the whereabouts of Carlos Freddy Pérez. Officials from this agency went to the building at Estado 360, the former Hotel Splendid, where they were able to establish that the victim had indeed left there on September 10, 1974, accompanied by military personnel.

They then went to the La Moneda Palace, the Consular Section, and SENDET, but Pérez Vargas's name did not appear on the list of detained persons. Colonel Jorge Espinoza Ulloa, Executive Secretary of SENDET, officially informed the Court on December 23, 1974, that there were no records regarding the victim.

Based solely on the aforementioned reports, without any other investigative steps, the summary was closed on January 2, 1975, and the case was temporarily dismissed because "the perpetration of the crime was not completely justified." On March 20 of the same year, the Santiago Court of Appeals approved the resolution.

On July 29, 1975, Virginia Valenzuela requested the reopening of the case, noting that her husband's name had appeared on the list of 119 Chileans killed abroad. On that occasion, she requested that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be officially asked to report on the method used for the identification of the bodies, the registration of the death in the Civil Registry Book of the respective consular agency, and the possible repatriation of the remains.

Without reopening the case, the Judge ordered that SENDET be asked to report on the veracity and circumstances surrounding the facts presented to public opinion. Lieutenant Colonel Julio Fuenzalida Arancibia, Acting Executive Secretary of that agency, reported having no records on Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas.

On October 8, 1974, Virginia Valenzuela Jiménez filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) for the victim, which was registered under No. 1205-74. In the filing, she told the Court that her home had been raided twice after the victim's detention and that there were witnesses to his apprehension.

During the proceedings, the Minister of the Interior and Division General, Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas was not being held by order of an administrative authority and that his whereabouts were unknown (October 22, 1974).

He stated the exact same thing on November 5 of that same year. For his part, Brigadier General Sergio Arellano Stark, then Chief of the State of Siege Zone of the Province of Santiago, reported that the victim was not being held within the jurisdiction of that Headquarters (December 23, 1974).

On February 5, 1975—four months after it was filed and without further investigation—the Court rejected the amparo and sent the records to the corresponding Criminal Court.

On February 13, 1975, in the 1st Criminal Court of Santiago, case No. 106.634 was opened regarding the disappearance of Carlos Freddy Pérez. When summoned to testify on February 24 of that year, Virginia Valenzuela said, "to date, I have not known where my husband might be, much less if some misfortune has befallen him.

Arrangements have been made through the Embassy of Costa Rica, but no result has been obtained to date." After the witnesses to the victim's detention—Miguel Lathrop and Juan Orlando González—testified, the report submitted by the Investigations police to the Court was attached.

It stated that inquiries had been made with International Police, where it was reported that Carlos Freddy Pérez was not registered on the list of people who had left the country, nor on the list of those who had sought asylum. No positive results were obtained from first aid stations, hospitals, or the Legal Medical Institute (March 13, 1975).

Subsequently, the various cemeteries were contacted, and the victim's medical file was obtained. On July 30, 1975, as a result of the appearance of Carlos Freddy Pérez's name on the list of 119 Chileans allegedly killed abroad, the Court officially asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to report whether the victim had indeed died, whether his death had been registered, and where he was buried.

In this regard, the official letter from Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles was added to the case, in which he stated he lacked records of both the possible deaths and the departures from the country of those persons named in said lists. Regarding the newspaper "O'Dia," he stated that said publication did not exist in Curitiba.

On September 12, 1975, the summary was closed and the case was temporarily dismissed, as it was not proven that the victim's disappearance was due to a crime or quasi-crime. On January 13, 1976, the Court of Appeals approved said resolution.

In addition, Virginia Valenzuela carried out numerous administrative efforts to find her spouse's whereabouts, many of them with the support of the Embassy of Costa Rica. Letters were sent to authorities, she appealed to SENDET, the Ministry of the Interior, and requested the intervention of some Church officials.

Thus, on November 4, 1974, Army Lieutenant Colonel Luis Patricio Serre Ochsenius, Secretary to Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, responded—on behalf of the President—to Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, stating that the Head of State had ordered an investigation, the results of which were attached (referring to the political participation of Carlos Freddy and Dagoberto Pérez).

For its part, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a note addressed to the Embassy of Costa Rica on February 20, 1975, stated that "despite the exhaustive investigations carried out by the Ministry of the Interior, it has not been possible to determine the whereabouts of said person to date." It added that since the victim was not being held in any civil or military detention center under the Government, "it is legitimate to formulate the possibility that his detention on September 10, 1974, is the product of an extremist maneuver with unspecified purposes." Division General and Minister of the Interior Raúl Benavides Escobar also responded to a note from the Embassy of Costa Rica. In his response, Minister Benavides pointed out that as all inquiries were fruitless, it can be "confirmed that he is presumably disappeared." He added, "the above does not exclude the possibility that for personal reasons, he may have abandoned the country or is hiding in some unknown place under a false name and documents."

On April 26, 1991, Otilia Vargas, who traveled from exile, filed a criminal complaint before the 11th Criminal Court for the crimes of kidnapping and illicit association committed against her sons Carlos Freddy and Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas.

Along with recounting the circumstances of her sons' detention, she requested the summoning of witnesses to the imprisonment of both and the reopening and consolidation of the aforementioned cases. The case was entered into the system under file No. 59552-5, and as of December 1992, it was in the summary stage.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The Ecomemoria Project was born from the urgent need to keep the memory of the victims of the military dictatorship in Chile alive. This "living memory" has taken shape in the process of planting a native tree for every forcibly disappeared or executed person in Chile.

In its first phase, the Project has begun planting trees in different cities in Europe, and we will continue advancing through different countries and continents, creating a "virtual" forest across the planet.

At the end of the day, a forest of native trees will be planted somewhere in Chile, with the participation of local communities and regional, national, and international human rights and ecological groups.

It is in this context that the memory of the Comrades Aldo Gonzalo; Carlos Freddy; Dagoberto; Iván Renato and Mireya Pérez Vargas extends today to Italian lands. It is a tribute to what their lives, dreams, and ideals were, which motivate the creation of a better Chile for future generations.

That Chile that yesterday was crushed by the military boot and today is administered by those who applauded and celebrated the coup and the massacres, along with the social-democratic opportunists. In our country, there is institutionalized amnesia; that is why forgetting is easier.

But those of us who know that among the victims are the best sons and daughters of our homeland refuse to forget. Memory and justice are the foundations and fundamental pillars upon which a true democracy must be built, and those who do not judge and do not condemn become accomplices.

Recently, it has been published that the Joint Command has continued to operate; we have confirmed that the results of the dialogue table were false; we know that the wife of a high-ranking member of the Air Force belonged to the repressive apparatus; the name of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army has been muddied with accusations of having practiced torture on a minor; and General Pinochet is in a state of "dementia." Is this the justice and democracy we aspire to?

Was it for this that our victims gave everything? You know the answers, and it is for those answers that we must redouble our efforts for an unwavering struggle for Truth, Justice, and punishment for those guilty of human rights violations in Chile.

Chilean and Italian comrades, we invite you to reaffirm our commitment to recover and deepen our historical memory, to fight against Impunity by demanding the annulment of the Amnesty Decree Law, to demand that the Chilean State participate fully in international human rights treaties, to ratify the International Criminal Court and the end of Military Courts, the repeal of the 1980 Constitution—including the designated and life-long senators—the repeal of the law on political parties, and the restitution to the indigenous peoples of their ancestral lands and the right to their identity.

Let us make the planting of the trees for the Pérez Vargas siblings a day that sows the reaffirmation of our commitment to human rights, democracy, and life. Let us repudiate those who want to wipe the pages of history clean and deny us the unwavering right to a true democracy where Truth and Justice are privileged.

Source: archivochile.com, undated

Regarding the details of the resolution, it corresponds to a unanimous ruling that led the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court to rule out "error of law in the sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 12 years in prison, as authors of the crimes."

In recent hours, the Judiciary confirmed that "the Supreme Court rejected the filed cassation appeals and confirmed the sentence that condemned 19 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping of the brothers Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas and Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas."

Regarding the illicit acts, they were perpetrated starting on September 10 and 23, 1974, respectively, in the context of the so-called "Operation Colombo."

Regarding the details of the resolution, it corresponds to a unanimous ruling that led the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, and Raúl Mera—to rule out "error of law in the sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 12 years in prison, as authors of the crimes."

In parallel, the agents "Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Gerardo Godoy García, Nelson Paz Bustamante, Gerardo Meza Acuña, José Ojeda Obando, Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, Raúl Rodríguez Ponte, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Fuentealba Saldías, Francisco Ferrer Lima, and Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández must serve 10 years and one day in prison."

And Miguel Avendaño González and Alejandro Astudillo Adonis were sentenced to five years and one day in prison.

The details of the ruling

The document published by the Judiciary officializes some details of the ruling, pointing to a "multiplicity of presumptions that are based on real and proven facts based on witness statements (...) based on which it is concluded that Manríquez Bravo has responsibility as a mediate author."

Then, the document asserts that in the first-instance resolution, the investigating judge Hernán Crisosto Greisse managed to establish the facts detailed below.

On the morning of September 10, 1974, Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained in his office located on Calle Estado by agents who identified themselves as members of the Military Intelligence Service 'SIM', who transferred him to the clandestine DINA detention center called Ollagüe or José Domingo Cañas, located in the commune of Ñuñoa.

Subsequently, they took him "to the clandestine detention center Cuatro Álamos, located at Calle Canadá No. 3000, in Santiago, guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access."

During his stay at the house on José Domingo Cañas, "Carlos Pérez Vargas remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded, tied up, and continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks."

Specifically, these alluded to his party activities and the name and address of his political group comrades, and especially his brother Dagoberto, with the purpose of detaining them.

The setup deployed to cover up the disappearance of Carlos Pérez

The last time CARLOS FREDDY PEREZ VARGAS was seen alive was one day in October 1974, at which point he disappeared, and to date, there is no news of his whereabouts.

In fact, his name appeared on a list of 119 people published by the national press after appearing on a list made public by the magazine 'O'DIA' of Brazil, on June 25, 1975, in which they claimed he had died in confrontations in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR.

Additionally, the justice system determined "that the publications that declared the victim dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

The detention of his brother

On September 23, 1974, DINA agents detained Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), in the vicinity of Calle Fernández Albano, in La Cisterna.

What followed was his transfer to the clandestine detention center called 'Ollagüe' or 'José Domingo Cañas'. However, he was later taken to 'Cuatro Álamos', where he remained under the same conditions as his brother, that is, without contact with the outside world, blindfolded, and tied up in both places.

DINA agents continuously subjected Aldo to interrogations under torture. The sessions focused on his party activities and the name and address of his political group comrades and about his brother Dagoberto, in order to detain them.

Finally, the Judiciary details that the last time Aldo Pérez Vargas was seen alive was in November 1974, "remaining disappeared to this date."

Source: eldesconcierto.cl, 10/21/2021 Date: 10-21-2021

Otilia Vargas, mother of five fallen MIR combatants.

OTILIA Vargas at the Memorial where the remains of two of her five children murdered by the military dictatorship rest.

At the time of this edition’s closing, Mrs. Otilia Vargas, mother of the five Pérez Vargas siblings—members of the MIR murdered by the military dictatorship—was hospitalized in serious condition at the Hospital José Joaquín Aguirre.

Two of them are among the forcibly disappeared, and another, Dagoberto, is buried who knows where, thrown into the sea or exhumed and crushed by a bulldozer, who knows.

Otilia, a primary school teacher who would have turned 76 on April 15, is dying of the “mal de Chile,” that scourge that began on September 11, 1973, and has struck thousands of relatives of the forcibly disappeared and victims of political executions.

That is why, when I write about her, fervently praying to the God of my childhood that she does not leave us, I also think of all the Chilean women who suffer the same horror of seeing their hopes mocked.

Or of those who have already died without receiving a humanitarian gesture from those who know and remain silent, from those who ordered the killings and hide their shame behind impenetrable faces. Monsters of inhumanity roam out there, such as Marcelo Moren Brito, “El Coronta” or “El Ronco,” who enjoyed running over detainees’ legs with a truck, or Miguel Krasnoff Marchenko, “Captain Miguel,” the toughest among the DINA criminals, or Arellano Stark, the leader of the Caravan of Death, or Augusto Pinochet, the mafia boss.

All high-ranking officers of an army that debased itself by celebrating as heroic battles what were nothing more than the murders of thousands of men and women, the elderly and children, mostly defenseless and with their hands up.

Or those who died in the horror of the parrilla (grill), the submarine, the telephone, the “pau de arara,” and rapes in the vagina and anus in DINA and CNI barracks, attended by elegant officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Carabineros who, after their “workday,” would go home to their families at their country clubs or get drunk in their units’ casinos.

Otilia Vargas has always been spirited, of fragile physique—“at school, no one could believe I had had six children,” she would say. But she has a strong character and a subtle sense of humor. She is almost blind, and although she cannot read, she is always attentive to the news on the radio and television.

With Flora, my wife, we went to have tea at her house on Saturday, January 6. She had been in bed for a few days because she felt sharp pains in one leg. But she was already able to get up, albeit with help, and walked leaning on a cane the short distance between her bed and the dining table.

It is a small house—which has seemed larger since her husband, Mr. Osvaldo Pérez, died—where Otilia lives with her daughter Patricia. Once, five other children used to arrive at that house: Dagoberto, Aldo, Carlos, Iván, and Mireya, all murdered by the military dictatorship.

That day, we found her very frail and depressed—which is not natural for her—and above all, very agitated and tense. She was made that way by the announcements that the Armed Forces and Carabineros had finally decided to do what men do: tell the truth and face justice.

Otilia waited with anguish for the speech that President Ricardo Lagos would give on Sunday night to inform the public about what happened to the forcibly disappeared and where their remains are. Like thousands of mothers, wives, and sisters, she wanted to know.

But she was torn by a terrible contradiction: “I don’t know what I will do if María Luisa Sepúlveda calls me from La Moneda and tells me where my children are. Sometimes I think I don’t want to see those bones and have them tell me: these are your children. I don’t know if I want to know, I don’t know.” Otilia has, in a way, already gone through that experience.

Her fallen children occupy a full page of the Rettig Report.

The twins Iván and Mireya, 21-year-old university students murdered in February 1976, rest in the Memorial at the General Cemetery. But the remains of the eldest son, Dagoberto, a 27-year-old sociologist who fell while resisting a DINA raid on a plot of land in Malloco in October 1975, have not appeared.

Meanwhile, Carlos, a 25-year-old publicist, and Aldo, a 23-year-old student, have been forcibly disappeared since September 1974. Otilia herself and her daughter Patricia had to go into hiding before managing to take refuge in Cuba, where Mr.

Osvaldo Pérez was waiting for them. The traumatic experience of fleeing the DINA for months caused irreversible psychiatric damage to young Patricia. I told Otilia not to get her hopes up too high, that surely the “brave soldiers” would hand over a few names of the forcibly disappeared to continue negotiating impunity; that a long time would still pass before the true truth was known.

However, I realized that she had enormous hope in President Lagos’s speech. She was perfectly aware of the procedure they would follow to notify the relatives “selected” by the outburst of sincerity and honor that the Armed Forces and Carabineros seemed to be experiencing, committed to saving the dialogue table.

Lagos’s speech on January 7 passed, and nothing. He did not mention names. And Otilia got worse. On Monday, I called her, and she asked me if I “knew anything.” It was a way of saying: “Have they given any names, do you know anything about my children?” On Tuesday the 9th, the list of the 200 forcibly disappeared persons presumably thrown into the sea or buried in graves that still cannot be located appeared in “La Nación.” But the list did not include Otilia’s children, like almost no MIR members, except for the siblings Mario and Nilda Peña Solari, students aged 21 and 23, kidnapped in December 1974 and tortured to death at La Venda Sexy and the Clínica Santa Lucía of General Contreras and his ruffians. That day, we spoke again with Otilia, who did not know what had been published in “La Nación,” and we told her along with René Valenzuela, a friend of many years. Otilia made no comments. She simply sank into her pain. Three days later, she had to be taken by ambulance to the emergency service of the Hospital J. J. Aguirre. She presented with fever, dehydration, and an upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Tests later revealed a tumor in her gallbladder that will require surgeons to intervene. The insidious disease, doctors believe, could have been triggered by a psychosomatic factor such as her deep depression. Faithful friends are looking after her, making her feel their affection and working to solve the overwhelming economic problems that hospitalizations create for modest families.

What is important now is that Otilia regains an interest in living so that she can face the operation in good condition. Her case is that of many relatives of the forcibly disappeared, whose tragedy has been exacerbated by this new cruelty to which they have been subjected.

This bloody mockery should push with greater force the demand for truth and justice. To summon broad social and political sectors as was done in the fight against the dictatorship, to resume that democratizing impulse that was left by the wayside. It is the best way to show solidarity with women like Otilia Vargas, who one day will be honored by the Nation as examples of courage.

Source: cctt.cl 19/01/2019

Date: 19-01-2019

Operation Colombo: Santiago Court sentences 22 DINA agents for the kidnapping of the Pérez Vargas brothers.

In a unanimous ruling, the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced 22 former members of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of brothers Carlos Fredy and Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas, perpetrated starting on September 10 and 23, 1974, respectively, as victims of the so-called “Operation Colombo.” The appellate court sentenced agents César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 12 years in prison as perpetrators of the crimes.

Likewise, agents Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, Gerardo Godoy García, Ciro Torre Sáez, Nelson Paz Bustamante, Gerardo Meza Acuña, José Ojeda Obando, Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Hermon Alfaro Mundaca, Raúl Rodríguez Ponte, José Aravena Ruiz, José Fuentealba Saldías, Francisco Ferrer Lima, and Rosa Ramos Hernández must serve 10 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the kidnappings.

In addition, Orlando Manzo Durán, Manuel Avendaño González, Demóstenes Cárdenas Saavedra, and Alejandro Astudillo Adonis were sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas.

In the case, agents Armando Cofré Correa, José Mora Diocares, Moisés Campos Figueroa, Óscar Belarmino la Flor Flores, Sergio Iván Díaz Lara, Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel, and Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera were acquitted due to lack of participation.

According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, the following sequence of events was determined: On the morning of September 10, 1974, Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas, a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained at his office located at Calle Estado No. 360, in Santiago, by agents who identified themselves as members of the Military Intelligence Service “SIM,” who transferred him to the clandestine DINA detention center known as “Ollagüe” or “José Domingo Cañas,” located in the commune of Ñuñoa, and subsequently to the clandestine detention center known as “Cuatro Álamos,” located at Calle Canadá No. 3000, in Santiago, which were guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access; That Carlos Pérez Vargas, during his stay at the José Domingo Cañas facility, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks regarding his party activities and the names and addresses of his political group companions, and especially his brother Dagoberto, in order to proceed with the detention of its members; -That the last time Carlos Pérez Vargas was seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in the month of October 1974, and he remains disappeared to this day; -That the name of Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the Brazilian magazine “O'DIA,” dated June 25, 1975, which reported that Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas had died in clashes in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR; -That the publications that declared the victim dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad. -On September 23, 1974, Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas, a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained in the vicinity of Calle Fernández Albano, in the commune of La Cisterna, by agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who transferred him to the clandestine DINA detention center known as “Ollagüe” or “José Domingo Cañas,” located in the commune of Ñuñoa, and subsequently to the clandestine detention center known as “Cuatro Álamos,” located at Calle Canadá No. 3000, in Santiago, which were guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access; That Aldo Pérez Vargas, during his stay at the José Domingo Cañas and Cuatro Álamos facilities, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied, being in the former continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks regarding his party activities and the names and addresses of his political group companions and his brother Dagoberto, in order to proceed with the detention of its members; -That the last time the victim Aldo Pérez Vargas was seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in the month of November 1974, and he remains disappeared to this day.

Source: diarioconstitucional 11/03/2018

Date: 11-03-2018

OTILIA VARGAS (Published in “Punto Final,” edition No. 842)

Someday, when historical justice prevails in Chile, primary school teacher Otilia Vargas will receive the tribute that she and thousands of women who fought against tyranny deserve. Otilia and her husband, Osvaldo Pérez, born and raised in southern Chile, had six children.

But the military dictatorship snatched five of them away: Dagoberto, Carlos Fredy, Aldo Gonzalo, and the twins Iván Renato and Mireya de Lourdes, who were murdered by DINA agents. At 83 years old, in her agony, a victim of cancer, Otilia Vargas said that Osvaldo, her husband, who had passed away a few years earlier, had come to look for her. “But,” she added, “my children still need to come.” Her children were members of the MIR, and that was enough to condemn them to death.

The DINA was looking for Dagoberto Pérez Vargas, the eldest son, a 27-year-old sociologist and member of the MIR political commission. They detained Carlos Fredy, 25, married, a publicist, and tortured him to death at the secret barracks of José Domingo Cañas.

They did not obtain leads on Dagoberto. They immediately detained Aldo Gonzalo, 23, and murdered him under torture. On October 16 of the following year, the henchmen managed to locate the plot of land in Malloco where part of the MIR leadership was hiding.

Dagoberto Pérez fell while protecting the retreat of his companions, Andrés Pascal and Nelson Gutiérrez, and their wives. On February 24, 1976, the DINA killed Iván and Mireya, 21; wounded by a bullet in the leg, she was taken to Villa Grimaldi.

In the operation, another MIR member, Amador del Fierro, a 7-year-old girl who was playing in the area, and a DINA agent, Tulio Pereira, also died. In revenge, Mireya was executed in the presence of several agents.

Of the six Pérez Vargas siblings, only Patricia, the youngest, survived. Otilia and her daughter went into hiding until they managed to take refuge in Cuba, where Osvaldo, the father of this punished family, was already waiting.

On the island, Mrs. Otilia took up her children’s militancy and developed intense activity in solidarity with the resistance in Chile. With the help of historian Jorge Benítez, she wrote the book “The dictatorship snatched five children from me” and worked tirelessly to achieve truth and justice. She died on June 14, 2008.

Source: puntofinal.la December 3, 2015

Date: 03-12-2015

Otilia Vargas, mother of 5 children murdered by the dictatorship, passed away today

On June 14, at sunset, Mrs. Otilia Vargas Vargas passed away in Santiago. She was the mother of five MIR militants murdered during the military dictatorship, including her eldest son, Dagoberto Pérez Vargas (28 years old), a national leader of that organization, who fell in Malloco in October 1975.

In the photo (from Punto Final), she is shown next to the Memorial for the Forcibly Disappeared, remembering two of her sons who were forcibly disappeared: Carlos Freddy (Operation Colombo/list of the 119, 25 years old) and Aldo (23 years old), who was detained a few days later, that same September of 1974.

Otilia died of cancer, like many of the mothers of the disappeared. The pain of the loss and the helplessness felt over more than three decades of impunity regarding these crimes of the dictatorship finally manifested in the tumor that was only able to take hold when exhaustion and the passing years made it possible.

Because before that, Otilia gave herself no respite. She continued fighting, demanding justice, and encouraging us all with serenity, with love, and with the wisdom of a teacher—which was also her profession—and of a mother; and how well she knew how to be one!

She raised formidable children; she is survived by a beautiful daughter, struck by tragedy, whom she always sought to protect since those fateful days.

Crumbs of justice

It seems ironic, but a few weeks before Otilia’s death, on May 19, the investigating judge Alejandro Solís announced the indictment of several DINA agents for the kidnapping and execution (qualified homicide) of Mireya.

Like her twin brother Iván, Mireya (barely 21 years old) died at the hands of the DINA on February 24, 1976, under circumstances that Solís qualifies as a crime against humanity. Mireya Pérez Vargas—the ruling states—was wounded by a bullet in the leg when the DINA arrived firing at a house on Pasaje Juan Ramón Jiménez (located on Avenida Vicuña Mackenna, in the La Florida commune). "She was wearing green pants and a flowered silk blouse and was taken to Villa Grimaldi; there she was seen by several witnesses, she was interrogated, tortured, and in the afternoon she was killed in this facility in the presence of DINA agents." Iván, her brother, had been riddled with bullets by the DINA previously in the house's patio. Amador del Fierro, who also militated in the MIR, was also wounded to death, and in the events, a DINA agent, Tulio Pereira, and a seven-year-old girl who was playing in the area also died. Judge Solís states verbatim in the ruling: "because a DINA agent died in the operation, she (Mireya) was given different treatment than that used with (other) members of the MIR and was put to death in Villa Grimaldi in the presence of DINA agents, from which it follows that said crime is of a special nature, which differentiates it from a common crime, so that, in the terminology of International Criminal Law, it must be considered 'a systematic or generalized attack against fundamental legal assets,' such as life, against a part of the civilian population, with a specific ideological option, with the participation of the political power, through the intervention of State agents, assigned, 'on commission of services,' to the National Intelligence Directorate, and to conclude, therefore, that we are in the presence of 'a crime against humanity'."

The night I learned of the ruling, like other times when there was news related to the trials, I wanted to tell Otilia the news of the indictments of Manuel Contreras, former Director of the DINA, and his cronies Carlos López Tapia (Army Colonel (R), head of Grimaldi, former mayor of Hijuelas, involved in the Caravan of Death) and Miguel Krassnoff, the latter in command of the Halcón Brigade tasked with exterminating the MIR.

They are already serving sentences for other crimes at the "Cordillera" penal facility, as is Basclay Zapata Reyes. José Enrique Fuentes Torres, included in the resolution, must remain in preventive detention at the Telecommunications Regiment.

All of them were indicted as authors of the crimes of kidnapping and qualified homicide of Mireya. Fuentes Torres is being indicted for the first time; he acted in Rinconada de Maipú, passed through the Londres 38 torture center, was part of the Halcón group, and was also at the José Domingo Cañas house and Villa Grimaldi.

The official version of the dictatorship in those years was that Mireya had died during a confrontation. But the judicial investigation proved that she was tortured and executed in Villa Grimaldi. The ruling mentions Iván as a victim of political violence (citing the Rettig Report), but the indictments are only for Mireya, who was kidnapped and then tortured and finally murdered.

Otilia was always attentive to the news; she listened to the radio and TV and asked for magazines to be read to her, especially Punto Final. She was already practically blind, but her obstinate fight for truth and justice kept her alert.

I thought it would cheer her up to know about this late but necessary drop of justice, which joins the indictment of those responsible for the kidnapping of Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas (List of the 119) and his brother Aldo, issued by Judge Victor Montiglio at the beginning of May.

Judge Guzmán had initiated that investigation and had already issued indictments for Carlos's case in 2005. It is the long-delayed fruit of the efforts of Otilia and all human rights fighters. She herself, as well as many former prisoners who saw Mireya in Villa Grimaldi, had testified before Judge Solís, revealing the facts.

But that night Paty, her daughter, answered the phone and told me that Otilia's health had worsened, and I could no longer discuss it with her. When I said goodbye to Otilia this Tuesday the 10th, with a kiss on her forehead, she squeezed my hand with affection.

One of her closest people told me today that they found a way to tell her the judicial news and that they believed that had been for her a sort of final gift...

Otilia was 80 years old and was a primary school teacher. Her children Dagoberto, member of the MIR political commission; Carlos, Aldo, Mireya, and Iván Pérez Vargas, militants of that party, were murdered between 1974 and 1976. Carlos and Aldo are counted among the hundreds of forcibly disappeared under the tyranny.

Mrs. Otilia Vargas was in hiding after the military coup and later lived in exile in Cuba between 1976 and 1992, together with Patricia and her husband, Osvaldo, who passed away several years ago. She waged a long struggle for truth and justice. She wrote a book, “La dictadura me arrebató cinco hijos” (Editorial Mosquito), which recounts her family's dramatic experience.

Her remains will be waked at the Don Bosco Church, Gran Avenida 8340, and the funeral will take place on Monday, June 16, at noon, at the La Florida park cemetery.

Source: periodismosanador.blogspot.com 14/06/2008

Date: 14-06-2008

Judge Guzmán struck the DINA again

In one of the indictments that ended up dismantling one of the main fabrications of the past dictatorship, investigating judge Juan Guzmán charged ten former DINA agents, several of them from his senior staff, including former chief Manuel Contreras, for eight victims who disappeared in what is known as Operation Colombo.

This is the second indictment issued by Judge Guzmán for this fabrication that occurred in 1975, the first being the one decreed on September 2, when the magistrate indicted 16 former agents for 37 victims of the Colombo.

The resolutions adopted by Judge Guzmán in this episode constitute, as a whole, the most massive indictment issued so far by this judge, and one of those that covers the largest number of victims and defendants in the trials being conducted for human rights violations.

The defendants, all in retirement and declared prisoners as authors of qualified kidnapping, are, in addition to Contreras, the former head of the DINA Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, General César Manríquez Bravo, brother of Mario, a Colonel (R) charged as the intellectual author of the crime of Víctor Jara; the former second-in-command of the DINA, Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo; the former head of Villa Grimaldi, Colonel Marcelo Moren Brito; the former head of the DINA Cuatro Álamos facility, Gendarmerie officer Orlando Manzo Durán; the former head of the DINA Halcón group, Brigadier Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; the former head of the Army Intelligence Directorate's Secret Service and former member of the DINA senior staff, Colonel Francisco Ferrer Lima, who is serving a sentence in Punta Peuco for the crime of union leader Tucapel Jiménez; the former head of the DINA Tres Álamos facility, Carabineros officer Conrado Pacheco Cárdenas; Army non-commissioned officer Basclay Zapata Reyes; and former civilian agent Osvaldo Romo Mena.

The eight new victims of Colombo are: Aldo Pérez Vargas, Roberto Aranda Romero, Jorge Müller Silva, Modesto Espinoza Pozo, Carlos Pérez Vargas, Carmen Bueno Cifuentes, Rodrigo Ugas Morales, and Carlos Gajardo Wolf. The last five appear on the list of the 119 disappeared by this operation, but the first three do not.

The fabrication

The so-called Operation Colombo was born in the first months of 1975, when the DINA and the former dictator Augusto Pinochet himself, as well as other of his military ministers, began to disseminate information that the MIR was preparing "guerrillas" in different Argentine cities to have them enter Chile clandestinely through border crossings to fight the military regime.

The newspapers El Mercurio, La Tercera, Las Últimas Noticias, and the evening paper La Segunda were in charge of publishing them.

The peak of the fabrication occurred between July 17 and 19, 1975, when first the Brazilian newspaper O Dia, which had a short circulation time, reported that 59 Chileans had been executed in Argentina by their own leftist comrades, attributing the deaths to political "settling of scores." On the 19th, the Argentine magazine Lea published in its only issue that the same had happened to another 60 Chileans, most of them from the MIR.

In April 1975, a body destroyed by an explosion appeared in a basement in Buenos Aires with a sign that said "discharged by the MIR." It was said to be the communist forcibly disappeared David Silberman.

However, it was not him. On July 12, 1975, two other bodies appeared in Buenos Aires, shot and burned, with a similar legend. The dictatorship reported that they were those who had been listed as disappeared in Chile, Jaime Robotham Bravo and Luis Guendelman Wisnik. Which also turned out to be false.

On July 24, 1975, La Segunda published on its front page perhaps the most representative headline of the invention: "Exterminated like rats: 59 Chilean Miristas fall in military operation in Argentina."

Objective and origin of the action

The objective of Operation Colombo was to make people believe that dozens of people, whom their families, lawyers, and churches in Chile considered to be forcibly disappeared, had actually left clandestinely for Argentina to prepare in guerrilla warfare to return to Chile to fight.

And that in the meantime, abroad, they had settled political scores by killing each other or falling in military operations in Argentina, a country that was experiencing political and military upheaval in the final months before the March 1976 coup d'état.

Regarding the origin of the name Operation Colombo, it refers to statements by former DINA civilian agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, who admitted in Buenos Aires in 1978—accused of "espionage"—that in 1975, agent Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann (former head of the DINA Exterior Department and current retired general) arrived in that capital to make a "Chilean subversive" named "Simelman or something similar" appear dead in Argentina.

It was Silberman. According to Arancibia Clavel, Iturriaga told him that it was Operation Colombo, in which they had the collaboration, among others, of the Argentine civilian and member of the Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) Martín Ciga Correa.

Source: LA NACIÓN - January 4, 2004

Date: 04-01-2004

Sentence against 31 DINA agents for the crime of 2 Pérez Vargas brothers

The minister for extraordinary cases of human rights violations of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto Greisse, issued a sentence against 31 agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the qualified kidnappings of CARLOS FREDDY and Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas, perpetrated starting on September 10 and 23, 1974, respectively.

Both were militants of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) and brothers of Dagoberto, a high-ranking MIR leader who was executed in a confrontation that occurred in the town of Malloco in October 1975. Carlos Pérez Vargas is part of the 119 forcibly disappeared victims of the so-called "Operation Colombo."

In the resolution, Minister Crisosto sentenced the former Army officers and DINA hierarchs Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, César Raúl Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 20 years in prison as authors of both crimes.

For their part, the former Carabineros officers Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, and Ciro Ernesto Torre Sáez, and the Army officers Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos and Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima were sentenced to 12 years in prison, also as authors of both crimes.

The agents Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Gerardo Meza Acuña, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Hermon Helec Alfaro Mundaca, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías, and Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández were sentenced to the same 12-year term.

Meanwhile, the former DINA members Orlando Manzo Durán, Manuel Heriberto Avendaño González, Demóstenes Eugenio Cárdenas Saavedra, and Alejandro Francisco Astudillo Adonis were sentenced to 10 years in prison, but only as authors of the qualified kidnapping of Aldo Pérez Vargas.

Agents Armando Segundo Cofré Correa, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Moisés Paulino Campos Figueroa, Óscar Belarmino La Flor Flores, Sergio Iván Díaz Lara, and Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel must serve 5 years and one day in prison as accomplices to both crimes.

Meanwhile, Minister Hernán Crisosto issued an acquittal for both kidnappings in favor of agent Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, and released Orlando Manzo Durán, Manuel Avendaño González, Demóstenes Cárdenas Saavedra, and Alejandro Astudillo Adonis from charges only for the crime of kidnapping Carlos Pérez Vargas.

The facts According to the background information collected during the investigation stage, the following sequence of events was determined: "On the morning of September 10, 1974, Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was detained at his office located at Calle Estado No. 360, in Santiago, by agents who identified themselves as members of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM), who transferred him to the clandestine DINA detention center called 'Ollagüe' or 'José Domingo Cañas,' located in the Ñuñoa commune, and subsequently to the clandestine detention center called 'Cuatro Álamos,' located at Calle Canadá No. 3000, in Santiago, which were guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access; That Carlos Pérez Vargas, during his stay at the José Domingo Cañas facility, remained without contact with the outside, blindfolded and tied, being continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks regarding his party activities and the name and address of his political group companions and especially his brother Dagoberto in order to proceed with the detention of its members; That the last time Carlos Pérez Vargas was seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in October 1974, and he remains disappeared to this day; That the name of Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the Brazilian magazine O’DIA, dated June 25, 1975, which reported that Carlos Freddy Pérez Vargas had died in confrontations in Argentina, along with 58 other people belonging to the MIR; That the publications that declared the victim dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad."

Meanwhile

"On September 23, 1974, Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), was detained in the vicinity of Calle Fernández Albano, La Cisterna commune, by agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who transferred him to the clandestine DINA detention center called 'Ollagüe' or 'José Domingo Cañas,' located in the Ñuñoa commune, and subsequently to the clandestine detention center called 'Cuatro Álamos,' located at Calle Canadá No. 3000, in Santiago, which were guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access; That Aldo Pérez Vargas, during his stay at the José Domingo Cañas and Cuatro Álamos facilities, remained without contact with the outside, blindfolded and tied, being in the first one continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks regarding his party activities and the name and address of his political group companions and about his brother Dagoberto in order to proceed with the detention of its members; That the last time the victim Aldo Pérez Vargas was seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in November 1974, and he remains disappeared to this day."

The brothers Carlos and Aldo Pérez Vargas are part of a family group of five members who are listed as forcibly disappeared or political executions. In the case of Mireya Lourdes Pérez Vargas, executed on February 24, 1976, Minister Alejandro Solís issued a sentence in March 2010, which was confirmed by the Santiago Court of Appeals.

In the case of Iván Renato Pérez Vargas, also executed on February 24, 1976, Minister Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá issued a first-instance sentence on May 13. Iván and Mireya were twins. While, as indicated, Dagoberto Pérez Vargas was executed on October 15, 1975, in a confrontation in the town of Malloco, a case that remains in the investigation stage.

Source: June 2, 2015

Testimony for the Pérez Vargas Family

I wish to thank the authorities and the people of the city of Alessandria, the Committee of Chilean Workers Exiled in Italy, and the Ecomemoria Project of London for having invited me to this act. Before accepting this invitation, I spoke with Otilia, mother of these 5 comrades of whom I will speak to you.

I think there are comrades who can do it better and perhaps with greater authority. Otilia felt very moved to learn of this event and happy for my participation, replacing the family.

Otilia entrusted me, in her name and that of Patricia, her only surviving daughter, to present their greetings and thanks for this act of testimony and recognition of the eternal legacy left to us by these 5 Mirista comrades (Movement of the Revolutionary Left, MIR - Chile) who valued the struggle for Social justice more than their own lives.

These five trees, a symbolic representation of the lives of Dagoberto, Carlos, Aldo, Iván, and Mireya, will give us shelter, will bring water from the clouds that, after traveling through five continents, will help to reforest this planet with hope.

I met the Pérez Vargas family again 6 years ago (through mutual friends), being immediately invited to their home. There I had the opportunity to share with Otilia, Osvaldo (who passed away years ago), and Patricia.

They are part of a Southern family attached to good customs and traditions, people with very deep roots in the land of Southern Chile, who moved to Santiago to facilitate their children's studies. Dago once told Otilia that "they were lucky to belong to a well-constituted family, united by strong bonds of affection and friendship, and therefore proud to have such understanding parents who always gave them support, unlike other parents who went to the extreme of throwing their children out of their homes for being Miristas."

First, a few words about Otilia. No one can imagine the pain as a mother that the Chilean Dictatorship caused her by snatching away five children. The anguish, the helplessness of not being able to act personally in the defense of her fallen children as her instinct commanded her, to be able to recover their bodies, since she risked being arrested, tortured, murdered, or disappeared at the hands of the brave soldiers of the Chilean homeland... but even all that did not stop her.

She wrote letters to Chilean and international authorities, and when she had the first opportunity, she presented complaints to international human rights bodies and became a tireless fighter with strength and constancy for justice, for truth, and for Human Rights.

Patricia, the youngest sister of the family, was hidden in my house when she was 11 years old. The whole family was aware, including her, that they were being sought by the intelligence services in order to pressure Dago to surrender.

Today Patricia is a psychiatric case; how could one explain to her the reason why her brothers one by one were detained, made to disappear, or murdered? When I saw Patricia again, she said some very tender words to me: "I always remember when we lived together.

I think it was a great joy to meet you in my childhood because thanks to your affection and attention, today I am a happy woman. In other houses they only hid me, but you included me in your family, you gave me homework and checked it in the afternoon, you played with me and your daughter.

You took us on picnics, to fly kites, you treated me like the girl I was in those times." Otilia and Osvaldo offered their five children, with their generous hearts, who belonged to a generous generation, where one studied to improve the conditions of our country, of our people; we took care of books and materials so they could be used by future generations, we studied medicine to soothe the illnesses of the poor, engineering to put it at the service of the construction of the future, or sociology to understand our society and transform it;

Dagoberto 28 years old, sociologist, member of the Political Commission of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left MIR, murdered on October 15, 1975, by the repressive forces of the military regime. - Carlos 25 years old, publicist, detained September 10, 1974, by agents of the Intelligence Directorate "DINA," subsequently disappeared. - Aldo 23 years old, electronic technician and sociology student, detained September 23, 1974, by agents of the Intelligence Directorate "DINA," subsequently disappeared. - Iván and Mireya, twins, 21 years old, university students, murdered on February 24, 1976, by the repressive forces of the dictatorship.

Dagoberto Osvaldo Pérez Vargas

To remember Dago, for those of us who remember him with affection and respect, I will use a portion of a posthumous letter written by his mother Otilia: "A final goodbye to my dear son Dago. You were privileged to be born and to die.

Yes... it is a privilege to arrive in the world as the first child of a couple full of illusions. You were born unexpectedly... A day when I was not yet expecting you. Perhaps as a foreshadowing of your life so fast, so active, so full of obstacles...

You grew up full of love and tenderness. However, the rebellious spirit prevailed in you, which was your guide in your actions. Since you were a child, you demonstrated outstanding qualities, intelligence, audacity, personality.

As a student, you gave your parents great satisfaction. You always had a critical eye for society. ... My pain is very great... However, I must accept, as I said at the beginning, you had a privileged death.

Your heroic sacrifice will allow, through your physical disappearance, your image to be an imperishable memory for those who in some way felt linked to you; and your example will pass to posterity. Goodbye!

Your mother, November 7, 1975 (Day of your birthday)." We will remember Dago for many things; today we will rescue his last act, protecting with his life the retreat of the rest of the party's Political Commission.

Carlos Fredy Pérez Vargas

I know about Carlos through the family and the description made by his wife Virginia (who passed away 3 years ago) in the testimonial book "Desaparecido"; this small book is a song to love, which like the song of the sirens breaks the eardrums of the soul.

Carlos was disciplined, analytical, and like the whole family, had an attachment to the home. Carlos and his brother Aldo find themselves in a torture center and embrace for the last time, they share the concern for the rest of the family, and a couple of days later they are separated and never seen again.

Aldo Gonzalo Pérez Vargas

After the first attempted coup d'état in June '73, I lost contact with the organization; days later I reconnected with the party through Aldo, we talked and shared for a long time. We said goodbye fraternally, and later I learned that we had a series of mutual friends.

I found out through Iván, his brother, that Aldo had been captured by the DINA; he was worried because he was just recovering from an operation; they decided not to tell Otilia, who was suffering from the detention of Carlos days before.

Mireya de Lourdes Pérez Vargas

I met Mireya through Iván; I knew she loved to study, read, and was a good typist, a very useful skill in those times. A friend detained in another detention center remembers that Mireya arrived alive although wounded. Before being interrogated and then executed, Mireya demanded her glasses from her captors. Her voice was not heard again, after bursts of machine-gun fire.

Iván Renato Pérez Vargas

Iván and I met in the underground; he was disciplined, punctual, very mature for his age, always cheerful and optimistic; I shared several of his concerns, the failed asylum attempt of his parents, the pain, rage, and helplessness of the fall of each of his brothers.

On February 23, 1976, when I was detained in the concentration camp with much sorrow, pain, and rage, I heard about the confrontation of the comrades with the police forces, and the confirmation on the guards' radio that Iván and Mireya had fallen, plus the comrade Amador del Fierro.

Again, in the name of Otilia and Patricia, I thank you for this tribute to the human values of their children born in the new extreme.

City of Alessandria, Province of Alessandria, Italy. March 29, 2003 _

Source: archivochile.com no date