On June 4, 1974, MIR militant Carlos Luis CUBILLOS GALVEZ was arrested on a public street in the commune of Ñuñoa. According to witnesses, he was taken to the DINA facility at Londres 38. Nothing further was heard of him.

The Commission is convinced that his disappearance was the work of State agents, who thereby violated his human rights.

Representative Position : Community leader of the Vietnam Heroico Camp. Community leader of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) in Ñuñoa Date of Detention : June 4, 1974

Carlos Luis Cubillos Gálvez, married, father of two, a militant of the MIR and a community leader, was detained by agents of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) on June 4, 1974, at approximately 11:00 a.m.

He was apprehended on a public street at the intersection of Grecia and Ramón Cruz, near his home, while waiting for a bus to head to his regular work as a street vendor selling perfume products.

Among the agents who participated in Carlos Luis's apprehension was Osvaldo Romo Mena, alias "El Guatón Romo," whom the victim had known when Romo lived in the Población Lo Hermida, as both were community leaders at that time.

The agents immediately transported Carlos Cubillos to the DINA detention and torture center known as "Londres 38," located in downtown Santiago at the address indicated by its name. There, he was seen by and was able to speak with other prisoners, including Raimundo Elgueta Pinto and Carlos Alberto Silva Valdebenito, to whom he recounted the circumstances of his detention.

Surviving witnesses testified that, while he was recounting these incidents on June 5, 1974, at approximately 10:00 a.m., Carlos Luis Cubillos Gálvez was taken to the torture and interrogation room on the second floor of the building.

He was returned to the room where the other detainees were held at around 7:00 p.m. in a semi-comatose state, with deep lacerations on his forearms and thighs caused by a "yatagán" (a type of blade). His chest, testicles, and penis were burned.

He was bleeding from his mouth and nose, delirious, and unconscious. He remained in that condition, lying on the floor, until midnight that day, at which point he was removed. Nothing further was ever heard of him, and all traces of him were lost.

On June 6, two days after Carlos Luis was detained, two individuals in civilian clothing arrived at his home in a red Chevrolet pickup truck, license plate EM 965 (the municipality of origin could not be determined).

They identified themselves to his wife, Mónica del Carmen Contreras Hidalgo, as military personnel and showed her light-brown identification cards featuring their respective photographs. After asking several questions, they acknowledged that her husband was being detained and asked about a friend of his named Luis Gómez, with whom Carlos Luis had been the day before his detention.

Mónica replied that she did not know how to locate him. The agents told her they were interested in speaking with him and that if she saw him, she should tell him to go to their address any day at 9:00 p.m.

Before the subjects left, Carmen asked them where they were holding her husband; they replied that if she told them where Luis Gómez was, they would release her husband. For one week, the same individuals returned to Carlos's home with the purpose of locating Luis Gómez. The last time these agents "visited" Mónica, on June 12, 1974, they told her she would hear nothing more about her husband.

Both Carlos Luis's wife and mother have carried out countless efforts, including inquiries to the Secretaría Ejecutiva Nacional de Detenidos (SENDET) and the Ministry of the Interior, without positive results.

LEGAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On July 29, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus), Roll Nº 817-74, was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of Carlos Luis Cubillos Gálvez. To process the writ, the Court requested reports from the Ministers of the Interior and Defense on July 30, 1974.

Responding only on December 12 (nearly five months later), the Ministry of the Interior reported that Carlos Cubillos Gálvez was not being held by order of that Ministry. For its part, the Aviation Command responded in the same vein on January 9, 1975.

On January 15 of the same year, the Chief of the State of Siege Zone for the Province of Santiago, Brigadier General Sergio Arellano Stark, indicated that no case was being brought against the person in question in the II Military Court, nor was he being held within the jurisdiction of that State of Siege Command, despite the fact that there was a pending arrest warrant against him for violation of the Recruitment Law, according to an investigative report.

On January 24, 1975, the writ of amparo was rejected based on the information provided by the Ministry of the Interior and the Military Courts. Along with this, the Court of Appeals ordered the records to be sent to the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago so that a summary investigation could be opened into the possible commission of a crime regarding the disappearance of Carlos Luis Cubillos Gálvez.

However, parallel to the processing of the amparo, a complaint for "Presumed Misfortune" (Presunta Desgracia) was filed before the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago, which was accepted for processing on October 15, 1974, under Roll Nº 11.337.

Due to the appearance of Carlos Luis Cubillos Gálvez's name in July 1975 on a list of 119 Chileans allegedly killed by their own comrades in "internal feuds" in other South American countries, the Court officially requested the Minister of Foreign Affairs to report whether there was official confirmation of such an event and, if so, to indicate the place where Carlos Cubillos had allegedly died.

On September 9, 1975, the Ministry responded:

"1) The news published by the magazine 'LEA' of Buenos Aires originated from Mexico via FONEL (Fondo Editorial Latinoamericano), a journalistic agency specializing in Marxist activities."

"Regarding 'O'DIA,' we have been informed that such a publication does not exist in Curitiba (Brazil), but that there is a tabloid in that city called 'Novo Dia,' with limited circulation, which published news on July 23 regarding Chilean extremists killed, wounded, or escaped in clashes with security forces in various parts of Argentina."

"2) There is no official record that the persons named in the lists published in 'LEA' and 'O'DIA' have died abroad."

"3) There is also no record that these persons have left the country (had they done so, it would have had to be clandestinely)."

"4) The authorities of the countries where, according to the publications, the events allegedly occurred, have reported nothing on the matter."

Subsequently, as established by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, the publication of the list of the 119 disappeared was the culmination of a disinformation maneuver orchestrated by the DINA, known as "Operation Colombo" or the "list of the 119," as it is known to the public.

It was also confirmed that the Argentine magazine Lea was a single issue of a publication with no formal existence or responsible parties; by tracing the origin of the edition, investigators arrived at a printing press linked to far-right groups of the Argentine government at the time.

In the case of the Brazilian newspaper Novo O'Dia, it was concluded that it was an occasionally published newspaper from the city of Curitiba, Brazil. The reason such peculiar publications were used was that more serious media outlets refused to publish the news, despite attempts to make them do so.

However, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission points out, "the Chilean press (of the time) quickly reproduced the news with scandalous headlines, initiating a campaign to discredit reports of disappearances, causing confusion in public opinion and humiliation and isolation for the victims' families and sectors linked to the defense of human rights."

On October 29, 1975, Judge Juan Rivas Larraín declared the case closed and ordered the temporary dismissal of the proceedings, a resolution approved on December 19 of the same year by the Santiago Court of Appeals.

In November 1992, former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo Mena was arrested in Chile after the Investigative Service located him in Brazil, where he was residing under a false identity, a situation that led to his expulsion from that country.

As of December 1992, Romo was being interrogated by various judges overseeing cases, especially those against MIR militants; as of that date, it is unknown whether he provided new information in the case of Carlos Cubillos Gálvez.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad