Occupation : Construction work; Civil Construction student.

Repressive Context : Former union leader at the Soc. Constructora de Establecimientos Educacionales. Member of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR). Date of Detention : December 18, 1976 Carlos Patricio Durán González, 25 years old, married, two daughters, civil construction student, former union leader, and member of the MIR, was detained on December 18, 1976.

Between November 29 and December 20, 1976, thirteen people were detained: eleven belonging to the Communist Party, some of whom were members of its Central Committee, and two to the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR).

The procedures used to detain them share similarities, particularly in the fact that their arrests were carried out on public streets, with one exception, and it is notable that the bulk of the arrests took place on December 15, 1976, affecting seven people on that day alone.

Another common note in their situations was the information officially provided by the military government, claiming that practically all of them had registered exits from Chile to Argentina between late December 1976 and early January 1977.

The falsity of this version was subsequently established judicially. Another characteristic common to all these people is that they remain forcibly disappeared to this day. The 13 people detained and forcibly disappeared to date are: Santiago Edmundo Araya Cabrera, member of the MIR, detained on November 29, 1976; Armando Portilla, Communist member, detained on December 9, 1976; Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allende, member of the Communist Party, detained on December 13, 1976; Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Luis Segundo Lazo Santander, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, all of them members of the Communist Party, detained on December 15, 1976; Lizandro Tucapel Cruz Díaz, Communist member, Carlos Patricio Durán González, member of the MIR, both detained on December 18, 1976; and Edras de las Mercedes Pinto Arroyo, member of the Communist Party, detained on December 20, 1976. Carlos Patricio Durán González, a member of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario, had been facing security issues for quite some time before being detained. Indeed, he had already been sought at his home in Valparaíso in late 1974. Subsequently, after the death of his brother-in-law Amador del Fierro in February 1976—also a member of the MIR, killed by the DINA along with two other people, the Pérez Vargas brothers—the search for him had intensified, leading him to decide to change his address; at the time of his detention, he was living in Santiago. When they were living in a house in the Población El Montijo in October 1976, they were visited on several occasions by a suspicious photographer who turned out to be a DINA agent. He wanted to know details about Carlos Durán, where he really lived, if he met with his wife Valentina, etc. Furthermore, Zenón Durán, the stepbrother of the victim's father, made inquiries after the disappearance and told Valentina Fierro that he had found out that Carlos Patricio was being intensely sought by the DINA because he faced several charges, such as "having been a sympathizer of the MIR at the U. de Valparaíso, having been a militant and friend of Amador Fierro, having been a dangerous union leader at the Empresa de Construcciones Habitacionales, and having been secretary of the Education Commission of the Administrative Council." In November 1976, civilians who did not identify themselves arrived at the home where his spouse and two daughters resided, with the intention of photographing the minors, who were 3 and 5 years old at the time, which was not permitted. Carlos Patricio Durán González disappeared on December 18, 1976. The specific circumstances of the detention are unknown. In this regard, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, in its final report, states that Carlos Durán's detention took place on a public street, that his captors were presumably DINA agents, and that he remained held in the secret detention center of that security agency, "Villa Grimaldi," from which all trace of him was lost. On December 18, his family saw him for the last time around 08:00 in the morning, when he said goodbye to his spouse and children, who were going to travel to Valparaíso. They agreed to meet again on the 20th, an appointment he did not keep. That same day, December 18, after 08:30, he informed a person that he had to attend a meeting with a Communist militant, Lizandro Tucapel Cruz Díaz. In case file Rol 2 77, which investigated the fate of 10 other forcibly disappeared persons at the end of 1976, the initial filing requested the appointment of a Visiting Judge for 13 detainees, including the name of Carlos Durán González. It was reported that the victim had registered an exit from the country on January 11, 1977, to Argentina, without indicating by what means he had done so. This case file investigated the case of Lizandro Cruz Díaz. The information regarding the exit from the country was recorded on a "roadmap" (hoja de ruta) of the Investigative Police (Policía de Investigaciones), which contained a total of 8 names of people leaving the country on January 11, 1977, through the Libertadores pass. In the section intended for vehicle data, if one was used, nothing was listed. It turned out that of the eight listed, six were part of a family group that actually crossed the Chilean-Argentine border with a final destination of Brazil in a private car, the details of which, as stated, were not recorded on the roadmap, even though this procedure should have been followed. One of the other two people who appeared, making the total of 8, was the victim Carlos Durán González. It was established in case file 2 77 that the family group that traveled by car did not transport either Durán or Cruz. The fact that they appeared together on the roadmap and left the country on the same date reinforced the evidence of the detention of both on the same day, December 18, 1976. In the same criminal investigation, Investigative Police Inspector Rolando José Pérez Villena admitted to having written the name of Lizandro Cruz Díaz and the other identification details on the aforementioned document. In the same statement he gave before Judge Carlos Cerda, in response to explanations or clarifications posed by the judge, the aforementioned officer replied: "... I cannot explain why, at first glance, three people have intervened in this document... I also cannot explain why International Police does not register the exit on that date of the person on line three (referring to one of the members of the family group). I also cannot explain why the International Police did not timely register the exit on that date (referring to January 11, 1977) of the individuals... I also do not know why a person is included on line seven who, as you inform me, would not exist... I do not know why my presence at the Libertadores outpost in January 1977 is not recorded in the service record on page 806...". Regarding the irregularities that Judge Cerda detected in relation to the potential exits from the country of forcibly disappeared persons, it must be noted that in what was clarified in the investigation of case file 2 77, two Investigative Police officers were charged with forgery of documents (roadmaps) in the cases of Reinalda Pereira and Edras Pinto Arroyo (see their cases). To date, the fate of Carlos Patricio Durán González remains unknown.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 27, 1976, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of the victim, registered under case number 1092-76, in which reports were requested from various agencies.

The Court only agreed to request a report from the Ministry of the Interior, refusing to do so from the DINA, the Ministry of Justice, or the International Police to inquire about a possible exit from the country by the person under protection.

More than 20 days after the filing of the appeal, it was certified that the Ministry of the Interior reported that "he is not detained by order of that Ministry." The Court, in view of the tenor of that response, requested a new report from that State Ministry in order to indicate whether the person had been detained "by any civil or military service or official." The Ministry of the Interior ratified its previous response, adding that "had he been detained by any Security Agency, this Secretariat of State would have been aware of it...".

Later, the appellant, arguing that despite the existence of an instruction issued by the Supreme Court stating that regarding detentions carried out under the powers of the State of Siege, only the Ministry of the Interior and not the DINA should be officially notified, insisted that a report be requested from the DINA service, but this was not granted.

Finally, on March 4, 1977, the Court of Appeals, with the information provided by the aforementioned Ministry, rejected the writ of amparo, but in view of the merits of the evidence, ordered it to be sent to the Third Criminal Court of Santiago so that it could immediately initiate a summary investigation into the disappearance, proceeding with the utmost speed and diligence.

Unfortunately, the result obtained in the investigation conducted in that Third Court is unknown, as is the resolution in the Eighth Criminal Court following the complaint filed for the case of Carlos Durán González in May 1977.

Another judicial action regarding Carlos Durán consisted of requesting the Supreme Court—together with the relatives of the other 12 forcibly disappeared persons from late December 1976, named above—the appointment of an Extraordinary Visiting Judge to hear the cases of disappearance of that total of thirteen detainees, due to the evident connection between their cases.

The request was made in January 1977. The Supreme Court agreed to that request, which led to the opening of a criminal case with the file number 2-77, which was in charge of an Extraordinary Visiting Judge appointed by the Santiago Court of Appeals.

In this investigation, ultimately, only ten cases remained for clarification, excluding those of Carlos Durán González, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, and Fernando Navarro Allende. On this point, it should be noted that, from the tenor of the Supreme Court's resolution, it is impossible to know why the majority of its judges were not in favor of including these three forcibly disappeared persons.

In any case, regarding Carlos Durán and the other forcibly disappeared persons of a group of ideologically related people, and due to the common procedures that affected them in the same period, it is important to consider what was investigated in case file 2 77, in which the victim appears leaving the country for Argentina on January 11, 1977, without indicating the means of transport.

Indeed, the roadmap related to the forcibly disappeared person from this same group of thirteen, Lizandro Cruz Díaz (see his case), was attached to said case file, regarding whom the official government version was also given, as in most of these cases, that they had left the country for the neighboring country.

For further background on case 2 77, see the case of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, forcibly disappeared on December 15, 1976.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

In memory of the academics, staff, and students of the Universidad de Playa Ancha who were victims of human rights violations, an emotional ceremony was held this morning in the gardens of the Central House, 45 years after the military coup of September 11, 1973.

Before the Human Rights monument by Chilean sculptor Lucy Lafuente and in the company of the university community, relatives, and friends of the forcibly disappeared, the rector Patricio Sanhueza paid tribute to the martyrs of this university. “We have human rights declared, but not fulfilled, and that is one of the tasks of States and Education,” said the highest authority. “But we in Chilean education have also not fulfilled this mandate of not only promoting, respecting, and disseminating human rights, but of creating a culture of human rights,” he specified.

September 11, 1973, was one of the most dramatic events in the history of Chile—the rector maintained—which divided the country radically, because the facts, the persecution, the torture, the exile, and the death of many people became known.

And a very wounded Chilean family remains, not only for one generation, but also for many others, because justice takes too long to repair part of that. “Our Universidad de Playa Ancha also suffered in 1973 and the years that followed.

We have martyrs in this process whose names as academics, staff, and students we have been rescuing and honoring in this monument, which represents intertwined hands crying out for justice to heaven,” he continued.

Sanhueza highlighted that in the face of inequalities, discrimination, exclusions, and personal interests that conspire against peaceful coexistence, the Universidad de Playa Ancha has a fundamental role. “We have to commit ourselves to a culture of human rights, because this relationship is not only between the State and individuals, but it is a relationship of respect between people, simply because there exists a human being who has dignity, the same dignity as everyone else.” Finally, he referred to future lessons regarding the fact that coexistence must yield space and compromise, “because the most important thing is the stability of a country for it to survive, as well as continuing to fight for the ideals of justice and equity.” Culture of dignity Following the guitar performance of “Cadenas,” a folk song by Margot Loyola, and a tribute to Víctor Jara by the academic of the Faculty of Art, Daniel Díaz, the comptroller and director of the Human Rights chair, Luis Bork, referred to the symbols and signs that allow for the construction of a country's memory. “Still, 45 years after the civil-military dictatorship, there are silences, the pain of people who do not know where their loved ones are, and privileges for the torturers. And the significance of meeting on this date is that of the duty to build a culture of human rights, which is nothing more than the culture of the dignity of people,” expressed Bork. A sign and symbol also of meeting in a commemorative ceremony, he stated, relates to the desire to continue building the memory of a country, but not as a recollection, but to build a different culture. “Today we are here to continue dreaming that at some point we will encounter our true history so as to never return to what happened 45 years ago,” the authority asserted. Following his words, those attending the ceremony placed red carnations at the Human Rights memorial.

Source: upla.cl 9/11/2018

Date: 09-11-2018

Government asks to investigate removal of remains at Cuesta Barriga

Fulfilling the verbal commitment made to the relatives of the victims of Cuesta Barriga, the government, through the Human Rights Program, requested that Judge Héctor Carreño instruct a summary investigation into the case of the disappearance of thirteen leaders in 1976 and investigate the evidence that would demonstrate that there was a removal of remains at that location.

If the Program's request is accepted, a new front of investigation will be opened, since the mandate granted by the Supreme Court to Héctor Carreño and Amanda Valdovinos—in charge of the search for twenty bodies at Fuerte Arteaga—was extremely restrictive from the moment they were designated as special judges, as they were only commissioned to confirm the veracity of the information from the Dialogue Table (Mesa de Diálogo) and find the bodies that were supposedly at those coordinates, but nothing was said about clarifying the circumstances of the disappearances under investigation.

Thus, ten months after this resolution, there has only been progress in terms of finding bone remains. In fact, since the investigation began on January 9 in the shaft of the Los Bronces mine, located at kilometer 12 of Cuesta Barriga, the process has been clouded by the limitations imposed by the highest court.

According to the relatives of the victims of Cuesta Barriga, one cannot pretend to find bodies, identify them, and then leave the case abandoned. They assert that every judge must have truth and justice as their main mission and, on that level, determine who were the culprits of the 1976 crimes and who removed their bodies.

Therefore, they anticipate that if the Program's presentation fails, they will file complaints to determine the removal of their relatives' remains, which they ensure was carried out, with 90 percent certainty, in 1987.

The 1987 removal A fundamental piece for investigating the removal of remains will be the information provided by two witnesses to the Investigative Police and the court itself, who declared that in 1987, Army trucks traveled through the area and carried out operations, moving bundles.

This thesis gains strength because the expert reports from the Legal Medical Service (Servicio Médico Legal) have determined that the bodies were exhumed between five to ten years after their burial, which is evidenced by the fact that the remains that remained in the mine correspond to those that fall freely when moved and do not present the fractures typical of a corpse that is not in an advanced state of decomposition.

If one adds to this that former Admiral Jorge Arancibia himself, when he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, confirmed that the information about remains at Cuesta Barriga was provided by his institution, the possibilities that Judge Carreño will initiate an investigation in that area once again place members of the Armed Forces as the main suspects.

For the relatives of the victims, this evidence is so overwhelming that it warrants requesting the Army to report on these works and partially break the secrecy that the Dialogue Table offered to the people who provided this data, since in their opinion, they would have some participation in the crime of exhumation and removal of bodies.

Among the relatives, there is a belief that the totality of the remains of their parents and siblings will never be found, as they point out that after removing the remains, the habitual practice was to dynamite or destroy them, and it is very unlikely that operations to throw bodies into the sea were carried out during that period.

Slow identification While the relatives of the disappeared wait with hope for the result of the action requested by the Program, the Legal Medical Service has begun the long task of establishing the identity of the bones, which according to the agency would correspond to at least ten people.

The 200 pieces found have only allowed for certainty of the identity of two people to date: Horacio Cepeda and Fernando Ortiz, thanks to the comparison of dental pieces with X-rays that their relatives kept, although their remains will have to be evaluated like all the others with DNA tests, an investigation that will last at least a year.

This is despite the fact that the relatives hope that the process will be shorter than expected, considering that groups of common bones were checked to facilitate the expert reports. The report of the Dialogue Table only records that the bodies of Lincoyán Yalu Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Luis Segundo Lazo Santander, Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allende, Juan Fernando Ortíz Letelier, and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, all of them detained on December 13, 1976, would be at the Cuesta.

But human rights groups and the Rettig Commission Report add the names of Santiago Edmundo Araya Cabrera (detained on November 29, 1976), Armando Portilla (detained on December 9, 1976), Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza and Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, detained in the operation of December 13, 1976; Lizandro Tucapel Cruz Díaz and Carlos Patricio Durán González, both arrested on December 18, 1976; and Edras de las Mercedes Pinto Arroyo, arrested on December 20, 1976.

To date, forensic reports have established "approximations" to the identities of Héctor Véliz, Alfredo Navarro, Luis Lazo, and Lincoyán Berríos, as their medical records present significant correspondences with the bone pieces examined at the Legal Medical Service. Lizandro Cruz and Carlos Durán, who are among the victims of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR), are also mentioned.

Source: Primera Linea 18 October 2001

Date: 18-10-2001

Human remains found at Cuesta Barriga

The discovery was confirmed by the visiting judge in charge of the proceedings, Héctor Carreño, and they would correspond to some vertebrae. Human remains were found this afternoon in an area near the abandoned mine of Cuesta Barriga, a place where six Communist leaders who were forcibly disappeared in 1976 are allegedly buried.

The discovery was confirmed, after 9 hours of work, by the visiting judge in charge of the proceedings, Héctor Carreño. The bones found are vertebrae and ribs, but the magistrate maintained that it is still premature to say whether it is one or more people or if they effectively correspond to the remains of the six disappeared Communists. "I am not yet in a position to be able to say if it is or is not what we are looking for.

I am also not in a position today, Friday, to be able to say if it corresponds to one or more people. The only objective thing at this moment is that we have found the bone remains that I have referred to," the magistrate stated.

For her part, María Estela Ortíz, daughter of Fernando Ortíz, one of the victims who was allegedly buried at Cuesta Barriga, pointed out that according to the information provided by personnel from the Legal Medical Service, they would be human bone remains with a time of death of 20 to 30 years. "We feel shocked.

With hopes that they are our relatives. Without a doubt, we are entering another stage, a stage in which hopes are different and in which the pain is also different. It is very difficult to explain what we have felt when we learned that we had found bone remains," added the woman.

At the site where the excavations and tracking were carried out, the magistrate worked with personnel from the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin), the Legal Medical Service (SML), the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police, as well as officials from the General Cemetery and archaeologists.

The bones found must be sent to the Legal Medical Institute to undergo the necessary analyses in order to determine if they effectively correspond to the six Communist leaders who, according to information from the Armed Forces, were buried at the site.

In this sense, the head of the Identification Unit of the SML, Patricia Hernández, confirmed that the parts found correspond to human remains, but added that "a lot of work is still missing" to be able to determine if they are effectively the remains of the disappeared.

Source: emol.com 26/01/2001

Date: 26-01-2001

Received by Memoriaviva on 15-4-07

I am Valentina Del Fierro from Chile, wife in 1976 of Mr. Carlos Patricio Durán González, a Chilean citizen who in December 1976 was kidnapped by the military dictatorship. I am referring to the fact that on your website memoriaviva.com, an error appears regarding my husband's political affiliation.

On the page "Desaparecidos en Chile," letter D, last paragraph, "also mentioned are Lisandro Cruz and Carlos Durán who are among the victims of the Communist Party," it should say that they are among the victims of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR).

Source: Valentina Del Fierro