I would like, in these brief lines, to remember a very dear person. Our beloved daughter Carmen Cecilia, who was forcibly disappeared on November 29, 1974, along with her boyfriend Jorge Muller Silva. Perhaps for many of you, she may be just one more number among the hundreds of forcibly disappeared in our homeland.

However, this testimony represents, like so many others, a deep wound in our lives, having been deprived in such a cruel and ruthless way of our beloved daughter. Facts like this prove once again the profound moral decomposition of the government that has subjected us to this long tyranny of 12 years.

Carmen Cecilia was born in Santiago on July 16, 1950; her childhood was spent in a Christian home, surrounded by the love and affection of her parents, siblings, relatives, and friends. From a young age, her intelligence and vivacity stood out.

As she grew, her charm, her joy for living, and her beauty—not only physical—shaped the gifts and qualities that would make her a very special and beloved person. A loyal friend and companion, honest in her convictions.

Her greatest longings for justice were centered on those who were always left behind; the misery of the most humble pained her, and for that, she would fight tirelessly. Perhaps all of us who loved her will no longer see her beautiful green eyes, where her tenderness and all the beauty of her being were reflected, but just remembering them makes us feel her love, her living presence.

She completed her primary studies at the "Sta. Teresa de Jesús" school. She attended secondary school at the Liceo N°1 de niñas in Santiago. Later, she entered the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, at the School of Communication Arts, where she studied film.

She did her first work with filmmaker Miguel Littin on the film "La Tierra Prometida." Later, with Silvio Caiozzi on the film "A la Sombra del Sol." She also joined the work group of filmmakers Jorge Di'Lauro and Nieves Yancovic, filming the Holy Year at the Votive Temple of Maipú in 1974.

After the military coup, the employment situation in her field became very uncertain, so she had to look for different sources of work. She made advertising shorts at the Chile Films studios, the place she was heading when she was detained and disappeared.

She also did photography and ventured into artisanal embroidery, where she once again developed her great creative spirit. From a very young age, what would become her vocation manifested in her: to capture in audiovisual imagery the living spirit of man and his surroundings, as well as to communicate and raise awareness about the great social problems of the country.

Nothing could dampen her will to serve; she had a clear awareness of the times being lived with the arrival of the new regime. There were many coworkers, artists, and film people who had been detained by the DINA intelligence services.

She was only 24 years old, in the prime of her dreams and achievements, beginning to rise in her profession, when she still had so much to give to her parents and siblings, who felt so proud of her. They cowardly deprived her of the chance to be a woman and, one day, a mother.

No, it is not fair, and for that, we cry out for justice! On that fateful day of November 29, 1974, at approximately nine in the morning, when she was going with her boyfriend Jorge Muller Silva, a filmmaker and cameraman, to his workplace at the Chile Films studios, they were detained by two civilians and a woman and put into a van, as was later established, since she recounted her arrest to other detainees who were with them in the same detention centers, "Cuatro Alamos" and "Villa Grimaldi," places of detention and torture of the DINA, the former government intelligence service, today the CNI. It was difficult to accept that our ordeal would begin that day. It was difficult to accept that such despicable and cruel acts were happening in our homeland, such as kidnapping defenseless people for the sole reason of thinking differently regarding justice and freedom. From the beginning, our search was fruitless. Everything then led to the confirmation, once again, of the days of anguish and horror we were living through to find my daughter and her boyfriend alive—a fear that was latent, since by the date of their detention and disappearance, the number of those executed, detained, and disappeared by the new military regime was in the hundreds. We remained day after day requesting news at the SENDET information center and at the Tres Alamos detention center. The refusal was always the same, despite the fact that in the first days of her detention, the then-head of the Santiago plaza, Sergio Arellano Stark (General), had let us know through a mutual friend that Carmencita was being held by FACH personnel, information he would later deny when we requested his testimony in writing—a fact that today, as one might suppose, does not surprise us, as they will never have the moral courage to assume their responsibility for the denounced acts. In those days, we approached the Pro Paz Committee, where we filed the first writ of amparo for alleged disappearance, which was not accepted by the courts of justice. The remaining appeals filed throughout these long years of searching would meet the same fate, despite the fact that in later appeals there was irrefutable evidence of their detention and stay in the government's detention camps "Tres Alamos and Villa Grimaldi." I name only those, because Carmencita and Jorge Muller were seen there by other detainees who were in those places and were witnesses to the torture they had been subjected to. These witnesses had the courage to go and give statements before the magistrate while they were still being held at Tres Alamos. Likewise, other testimonies from people who were already out of the country were attached. Despite all the evidence accumulated, as was irrefutably established in the file at the Sixth Criminal Court, under Case No. 91.149 of 1975, the appeals were denied. In June 1975, Carmencita appeared on a list of 119 disappeared persons, supposedly dead in different countries of Latin America and Europe—countries that issued a resounding denial of this information, which was extensively publicized by organs addicted to the Government, thus leaving the evidence of what was behind this information: it was merely to distract attention from the fate suffered by Chileans arrested illegally by the DINA. At the request of the Ambassadors of the aforementioned countries, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time had to admit the falsity of the news. We knew that this was one more fallacy to weaken our denunciation; we knew positively that our daughter had been detained, as she had been seen by several witnesses, but even so, the pain, the anguish, and the helplessness did not stop upsetting our hearts, as we knew them to be capable of the worst and most horrendous crimes. Because the courts of our homeland did not accept our complaint, we had to resort to international public and private organizations, Embassies, and the UN High Commissioner (May 1976), the Honorable Commission on Human Rights, New York, USA (November 1976) Ref. Case No. 2047 of the OAS, members of the Honorable Commission of Jurists based in Geneva (December 1976), the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, His Holiness Paul VI (Rome, November 1975), His Eminence the Apostolic Nuncio of Chile (January 1977), the International Red Cross, and the ad-hoc group on Human Rights that visited Chile in July 1978. Subsequently, to every commission or organization that concerned itself with the violation of human rights in the country. All this was thanks to the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, where we were able to create the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, united in a common cause and a destiny in the search for our loved ones. Eleven years after the detention and disappearance of our dear and remembered daughter Carmen Cecilia and Jorge Muller Silva, we will continue as always fighting to achieve the truth of what happened to our loved ones. The truth will have to prevail, no matter how much they have tried to silence it with lies, cowardice, the rifle, and repression. Someday we will know where they left their last breath and whose murderous hand ended their lives. As Carmen Cecilia's mother, I would like in her memory to pay tribute to all the women, daughters, wives, and companions in our pain, and all those anonymous women of our homeland and other latitudes who have offered us their solidarity. I urge the suffering and selfless women of our people to remain united, combatively, in the defense of the right to life, to freedom, and to justice, so that never again in our homeland will such despicable acts as those we have had to suffer be repeated. May the testimony of life that they, our forcibly disappeared women, have given us—especially those who carried life in their wombs—be the light that illuminates our path. Until we find them! Her mother

Source: Her mother

"Operation Colombo": 65 DINA agents convicted for the disappearance of filmmakers.

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto Greisse, issued a conviction against 65 agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of the filmmaker couple Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes, 24 years old, and Jorge Hernán Müller Silva, 27 years old, crimes perpetrated starting on September 29, 1974, in Santiago.

The facts During the investigation stage, Minister Hernán Crisosto managed to determine the following facts: «On November 29, 1974, Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and her partner Jorge Hernán Müller Silva, militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), were detained on public roads, at the corner of Calle Francisco Bilbao and Los Leones in Santiago, by agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who forced them into a C-10 van and transported them to the clandestine DINA detention center known as "Villa Grimaldi," located at Lo Arrieta No. 8200, in La Reina, 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. The victims, Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Hernán Müller Silva, during their stay at the Villa Grimaldi and Cuatro Álamos barracks, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being in the former continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents who operated in said barracks with the purpose of obtaining information regarding members of the MIR, in order to proceed with the detention of its members. The last time the victims Bueno Cifuentes and Müller Silva were seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in mid-December 1974, and to date, there is no information on the whereabouts of both, and they remain disappeared to this day; The name of Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the magazine "LEA" of Argentina, dated July 15, 1975, which reported that Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes had died in Argentina, along with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal disputes that arose among those members. The publications that declared the victim Bueno Cifuentes dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad.»

The convictions

In the resolution, the court minister sentenced the former army officers and former DINA leaders to 20 years in prison as perpetrators of the crimes: César Raúl Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko.

Meanwhile, the former officers were sentenced to 12 years in prison, also as perpetrators: Orlando José Manzo Durán, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, and Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana.

The same sentence must be served by the agents: Alejandro Francisco Astudillo Adonis; Demóstenes Eugenio Cárdenas Saavedra, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, Manuel Heriberto Avendaño González, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Silvio Antonio Concha González, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, José Mario Friz Esparza, Luis Rigoberto Videla Inzunza, Jorge Segundo Madariaga Acevedo, Teresa del Carmen Osorio Navarro, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Pedro René Alfaro Fernández, Luis René Torres Méndez, Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Luis Fernando Espinace Contreras, Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Héctor Wacinton Briones Burgos, and Leonidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno. Likewise, Minister Crisosto sentenced the following agents to 6 years in prison as accomplices to both crimes: Daniel Valentín Cancino Varas, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Raúl Alberto Soto Pérez, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Eugenio Jesús Fieldhouse Chávez, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, José Stalin Muñoz Leal, Juan Carlos Escobar Valenzuela, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Víctor Manuel San Martín Jiménez, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Reinaldo Alfonso Concha Orellana, Osvaldo Octavio Castillo Arellano, Guido Arnoldo Jara Brevis, Hugo Hernán Clavería Leiva, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Miguel Ángel Yáñez Ugalde, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, and Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas. In the case of agent Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia, a sentence of 3 years and one day in prison was applied for his responsibility as a perpetrator, with the benefit of supervised release. Meanwhile, a total of 6 agents were acquitted as their responsibility for these crimes was not proven.

Source: Resumen.cl, November 28, 2015

My sister Carmencha was born on July 16, 1950, in Santiago, grew up in a middle-class Christian family, and was the third of five siblings. The cobblestones of Calle República saw her play; she studied at the Liceo N°1 and in the early 70s entered to study film at the School of Communication Arts of the Universidad Católica.

Carmencha had a gaze that left a mark on you; she was a determined and bold woman, brave in breaking prejudices, rebellious at the family level. She was very prone to falling in love, a committed girlfriend, dedicated to her loves, and very affectionate.

Very pretty, she had green eyes, long hair, and a beautiful smile; she was spoiled but had a strong character. I remember that my sister taught me to tie my shoelaces, and even though we were 16 years apart, her life opened a window to a different world for me.

She began to militate in the MIR along with my sister Loli when they were very young, and they were very close companions. Her commitment to art led her to act in the Littin film "Tierra Prometida" and to participate in the production of "A la Sombra del Sol" by Caiozzi and Perelman, where she met her partner Jorge Müller.

In '74, she was working on the documentary "Año Santo Chileno" with a collective of filmmakers. Creative, I always remember her with her hands busy, embroidering and knitting. That day in November '74, she was going to Chile Films with Jorge when they were detained by individuals in civilian clothes.

We never saw them again. She is Carmen Bueno Cifuentes, forcibly disappeared since November 29, 1974, and I am Verónica Bueno Cifuentes, her younger sister, and I remember her. Remember her yourself, remind others of her.

Technical sheet

To create this micro-biography, Verónica Bueno was interviewed; she recorded this radio capsule in October 2014 at the studios of Radio Juan Gómez Millas, of the School of Journalism of the Universidad de Chile, where it was subsequently mixed. It was broadcast through Radio Universidad de Chile.

Source: loslatidosdelamemoria.cl, no date

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto Greisse, issued heavy sentences against 56 agents of the National Intelligence Directorate for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of the filmmaker couple Carmen Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Müller Silva, perpetrated starting on September 29, 1974, in Santiago.

In the resolution, the court minister sentenced the agents: César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 20 years in prison as perpetrators of the crimes.

Meanwhile, the following agents must serve 12 years in prison, also as perpetrators: Orlando Manzo Durán, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, Alejandro Francisco Astudillo Adonis; Demóstenes Eugenio Cárdenas Saavedra, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Manuel Heriberto Avendaño González, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Julio José Hoyos Zegarra, Silvio Antonio Concha González, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, José Mario Friz Esparza, Luis Rigoberto Videla Inzunza, Jorge Segundo Madariaga Acevedo, Teresa del Carmen Osorio Navarro, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires; Ciro Ernesto Torré Sáez; Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Pedro René Alfaro Fernández, Luis René Torres Méndez, Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez, Juan Ángel Urbina Cáceres, Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Luis Fernando Espinace Contreras, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, Hugo Rubén Delgado Carrasco, Carlos López Inostroza, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, Héctor Wacinton Briones Burgos, and Leonidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno. Likewise, Minister Crisosto sentenced the following agents to 6 years in prison as accomplices to both crimes: Daniel Valentín Cancino Varas, Fernando Enrique Guerra Guajardo, Jorge Antonio Lepileo Barrios, Lautaro Eugenio Díaz Espinoza, Raúl Alberto Soto Pérez, José Jaime Mora Diocares, Eugenio Jesús Fieldhouse Chávez, Jaime Humberto Paris Ramos, José Stalin Muñoz Leal, Juan Carlos Escobar Valenzuela, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Víctor Manuel San Martín Jiménez, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Reinaldo Concha Orellana, Osvaldo Octavio Castillo Arellano, Guido Arnoldo Jara Brevis, Hugo Hernán Clavería Leiva, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Olegario Enrique González Moreno, Miguel Ángel Yáñez Ugalde, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Gustavo Galvarino Caruman Soto, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, and Héctor Carlos Díaz Cabezas. In the case of agent Samuel Fuenzalida Devia, a sentence of 3 years and one day in prison was applied for his responsibility as a perpetrator, with the benefit of supervised release. Likewise, agents Alejandro Francisco Molina Cisternas, Nelson Alberto Paz Bustamante, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Carlos Enrique Letelier Verdugo, Herman Eduardo Ávalos Muñoz, and Raúl Bernardo Toro Montes were acquitted.

The facts During the investigation stage, Minister Hernán Crisosto managed to determine the following facts: «On November 29, 1974, Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and her partner Jorge Hernán Müller Silva, militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), were detained on public roads, at the corner of Calle Francisco Bilbao and Los Leones in Santiago, by agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who forced them into a C-10 van and transported them to the clandestine DINA detention center known as "Villa Grimaldi," located at Lo Arrieta No. 8200, in La Reina, 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; The victims, Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Hernán Müller Silva, during their stay at the Villa Grimaldi and Cuatro Álamos barracks, remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied up, being in the former continuously subjected to interrogations under torture by DINA agents who operated in said barracks with the purpose of obtaining information regarding members of the MIR, in order to proceed with the detention of its members; The last time the victims Bueno Cifuentes and Müller Silva were seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in mid-December 1974, and to date, there is no information on the whereabouts of both, and they remain disappeared to this day; The name of Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the magazine "LEA" of Argentina, dated July 15, 1975, in which it was reported that Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes had died in Argentina, along with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal disputes that arose among those members; The publications that declared the victim Bueno Cifuentes dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad.» In the civil aspect, Minister Crisosto ordered the State of Chile to pay compensation of $50,000,000 (fifty million pesos) to the daughter of the victims.

Minister Crisosto sentences retired Carabineros general for the homicide of an architecture professor The visiting minister Hernán Crisosto sentenced retired Carabineros general Sergio Jiménez Albornoz to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, as the perpetrator of the crime of aggravated homicide of Leopoldo Raúl Benítez Herrera, which occurred in Santiago on September 17, 1973.

The magistrate determined that

«On September 17, 1973, around 8:00 PM, with the "Curfew" already in effect, which was decreed by the Military Junta that had deposed the constitutionally constituted government days earlier, and under circumstances where Leopoldo Raúl Benítez Herrera, a Professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a left-wing sympathizer, was at the home of his in-laws located at Calle Los Olmos No. 2930, in the current commune of Macul, a raid on the home was carried out by a group of personnel belonging to the Carabineros School of Non-Commissioned Officers, at that time called the Center for the Improvement of Non-Commissioned Officers, under the command of an officer, who, within the framework of a selective repression of sympathizers of the deposed government, proceeded to take Benítez away, against his will, in a minibus manned by personnel from the same institution, which was witnessed by relatives who were accompanying him in the home,» the ruling states.

It adds that

«a few minutes after Leopoldo Benítez Herrera was taken away, relatives heard a burst of machine-gun fire. On September 24, 1973, the lifeless body of Leopoldo Raúl Benítez Herrera was found by relatives at the Legal Medical Service of Santiago, the cause of death according to the autopsy report being "multiple gunshot wounds," with the records showing that the body was found by military personnel on public roads around 1:00 AM on September 18, 1973, with gunshot wounds.

In the civil aspect, the Treasury was ordered to pay total compensation of $310,000,000 (three hundred and ten million pesos) to the victim's relatives for moral damages.

Source: reddigital.cl, January 12, 2020 Date: 01-12-2020

On the occasion, the audiovisualist Marcelo Cuevas received the 2017 Enrique Eilers Award.

The Day of Chilean Cinema is established as a tribute to Jorge Hernán Müller Silva and Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes, who were forcibly disappeared on November 29, 1974, during the military dictatorship.

As is customary every year, in an emotional ceremony, the 2017 version of the Enrique Eilers Award was presented; this year it was awarded to the regional audiovisualist and cultural manager Marcelo Cuevas, who has an extensive career in the area, with an emphasis on promoting film dissemination and appreciation and safeguarding the audiovisual heritage archive; he is also the creator of the Araucanía Audiovisual Short Film Festival, which celebrated its fifth version this year.

The award presentation took place within the framework of the central commemoration activity of the 2017 Day of Chilean Cinema, held in the Aula Magna of the Universidad de La Frontera and attended by about 200 people.

On the occasion, the film "A Fantastic Woman," directed by Sebastián Lelio and awarded at the Berlin Festival, was screened with free access, and the Araucanía Film Commission project was presented. The event was attended by the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Humanities of this university, Juan Manuel Fierro, the Director of Culture Pedro Mariman, and the academic and representative of Trac Araucanía Bruno Toro, among others.

The award-winning filmmaker Marcelo Cuevas stated that "receiving the Enrique Eilers Mohr award is very significant and exciting for me because it represents that inalienable love for cinema that has accompanied me always, which Mr.

Enrique transmitted to all of us who were his students. The love for moving images and everything they make us feel. It is a motivation to continue on this path, as a filmmaker and as a manager. Thanks to Trac Araucanía, to the CNCA, to my fellow travelers, and especially to my family for their support and patience; I hope to be able to continue this journey, creating and working on dissemination, audience training, and film appreciation from early childhood." (excerpt)

Source: araucaniacuenta.cl, 11/28/2017 Date: 11-28-2017

Carmen Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Müller Silva, a young couple of filmmakers and members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), were detained on November 29, 1974, by DINA agents as part of Operation Colombo, known as the case of the 119. To this day, they remain forcibly disappeared.

Carmen enrolled in the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, at the School of Communication Arts, where she studied film. She completed her first works with filmmaker Miguel Littin on the film "La Tierra Prometida".

Later, she worked with Silvio Caiozzi on the film "A la Sombra del Sol". She was also part of the production team for filmmakers Jorge Di’Lauro and Nieves Yancovic during the filming of the "Año Santo en el Templo Votivo de Maipú" in 1974.

After the military coup, the labor situation became uncertain; dozens of artists were detained, censored, and harassed, film schools were closed, and universities were placed under military control. Consequently, she had to seek different sources of work.

She made advertising shorts at the Chile Films studios, the place she was heading when she was detained. Her mother stated at the Vicaria de la Solidaridad that "From a very young age, her vocation was evident: to capture in audiovisual images the living spirit of man and his surroundings, in addition to communicating and raising awareness of the country's great social problems.

Nothing could dampen her desire to serve; she was clearly aware of the times being lived with the arrival of the new regime."

Jorge trained at the Film School of the Universidad de Chile in Viña del Mar. In 1970, he began his cinematographic work with the film "Reportaje a Lota", where he portrayed the life and struggle of coal miners.

Later, he inaugurated his fiction cinematography work with the films "A la Sombra del Sol", by Silvio Caiozzi and Pablo Perelman, and "La Tierra Prometida", by Miguel Littin. He also worked with Raúl Ruiz on his films "La expropiación" and "El realismo socialista".

But without a doubt, his most outstanding work was the trilogy "La Batalla de Chile" by Patricio Guzmán, where it was his gaze that managed to immortalize the greatest portrait of the Chilean revolutionary process; with camera on his shoulder and long sequence shots, he managed to capture the essence of the characters, the passion, the hatred, the faith, and the tension of the moment.

The Detention

Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and Jorge Hernán Müller Silva were detained on November 29, 1974, around 9:30 am, on a public street at the corner of Bilbao and Los Leones, by civilians traveling in a pickup truck.

The previous night, both had attended the Las Condes cinema for the premiere of the film "A la Sombra del Sol" by Silvio Caiozzi and Pablo Perelman, in whose production they had participated. At the end of the film, they went with other members of the film crew to the house of one of them to celebrate the premiere, where they stayed all night.

The next morning, they left with the intention of going first to Müller's home and then to their workplace, Chile Films; however, they did not arrive at either place.

The detained couple was taken to Villa Grimaldi (a secret DINA facility), located at Avenida José Arrieta 8200, in the Peñalolén sector, where they were placed in separate rooms. In this place, they were subjected to torture, and some detainees reported hearing Carmen's screams when she was being harassed.

Both were transferred, a few days apart, to the Cuatro Álamos incommunicado camp (a center for political imprisonment and torture) in mid-December and were seen by several other detainees. According to the site memoria viva: "Witnesses coincide in stating that Jorge and Cecilia communicated in this facility through signs when the women were taken to the bathroom.

Around December 17, they were surprised in these communications by an agent they called 'Dum Dum,' and Müller was taken to the office of the facility's Chief, Orlando Manzo Durán, who reprimanded him and told him he would be punished.

The day after this incident, the couple was taken out of Cuatro Álamos by three DINA officers who transported detainees, a date from which they were never seen again anywhere."

Both filmmakers were a contribution to national cinema and to the rescue of Latin American and popular identity, being part of a cinema committed to the processes that reality was experiencing, and they managed to immortalize the social effervescence of the 70s in moving images. A cinema that recorded, created, and stood with the people.

Source: laizquierdadiario.cl, September 8, 2017

Date: 09-08-2017

CNCA pays tribute to artists who were victims of the dictatorship

As part of the "Month of Memory," the National Council of Culture and the Arts held a tribute to artists who were victims of the military dictatorship, an event where the writer Jorge Montealegre presented his book "Memorias Eclipsadas. Duelo y resiliencia comunitaria en la prisión política" (Eclipsed Memories: Mourning and community resilience in political imprisonment).

An emotional tribute to artists, cultural practitioners, and artisans who were victims of the dictatorship took place this Friday, September 9, in Valparaíso, at the Extension Center of the Council of Culture and the Arts (Centex).

The head of the Memory and Human Rights Unit of the National Council of Culture and the Arts, Francia Jamett Pizarro, highlighted the institution's role in observing symbolic reparation policies. "The celebration of commemorations and tributes to victims of human rights violations are part of the values and principles of the Council expressed in the Cultural Policies 2011-2016.

This recognition of the artists who were victims of the dictatorship responds to an institutional commitment that seeks to highlight their lives and their works, and to build new narratives around symbolic reparation," the official stated.

The writer, Jorge Montealegre, presented his book "Memorias Eclipsadas. Duelo y resiliencia comunitaria en la prisión política," where he recounts how artistic and cultural creation, under the conditions of living in prisoner camps, allowed those who were imprisoned for political reasons to endure the ongoing human rights violations they suffered in a more dignified manner.

The "Month of Memory" cycle, organized by the CNCA, began last Friday, September 2, with a symbolic internal tribute to remember the legacy of Galia Díaz Riffo and Romina Irarrázabal Faggiani, officials who died five years ago in the Juan Fernández plane crash.

Source: cultura.gob.cl, 9/9/2016

Date: 09-09-2016

Court orders State to pay $100 million to relatives of the disappeared

The Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the Treasury to pay compensation of $100 million to the father and sister of filmmaker Jorge Müller Silva, who has been detained and disappeared since November 1974 and is one of the victims of the so-called "Operation Colombo."

In a split decision, the capital's appellate court for the first time addressed the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which sentenced the State of Chile for the application of the 1978 Amnesty Law to deny compensation to victims of military repression.

In that sense, it determined that the Treasury has responsibilities that are imprescriptible in cases of repressive policy. In the first instance, in August 2001, the 29th Civil Court of Santiago had denied the payment of compensation, but the members of the Third Chamber of the court reversed that measure, ordering the aforementioned payment.

The majority opinion, supported by Judge Mario Rojas and the participating lawyer Hugo Llanos, states that "this Court considers that the preparation and execution of the detention and subsequent torture and disappearance of the victims could not have been perpetrated without superior orders from police leadership and State agents, or without the collaboration, acquiescence, and tolerance manifested in various actions carried out in a coordinated and concatenated manner by members of the police and intelligence services."

"These not only seriously failed in their duties of prevention and protection of the rights of the alleged victims, enshrined in Article 1.1 of the American Convention, but they used their official status and resources granted by the State to commit violations (...) the State became the main factor in the serious crimes committed, configuring a clear situation of State terrorism," the resolution adds.

Furthermore, the ruling maintains that "the question of the statute of limitations for the action cannot be resolved from the norms of private law, because these attend to different ends. If this thesis were accepted, it would certainly violate not only the American Convention on Human Rights (...) but also Article 5 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, which, in addition to recognizing the binding nature of international law instruments, establishes for State bodies the duty to respect and promote fundamental rights, among which must be placed the right to compensation that has been invoked in these proceedings."

The ruling also makes an extensive analysis of the resolutions in which the IACHR has condemned different states for cases of human rights violations, to support the payment of compensatory damages to the victims' relatives.

In the minority vote, Judge Gloria Ana Chevesich maintains that the facts are time-barred, since the claim for compensation was filed only in 2000, 26 years after the events occurred.

The filmmaker and his partner

Jorge Müller Silva was a 27-year-old young filmmaker at the time of his detention and was captured along with his partner, fellow MIR militant Carmen Bueno Cifuentes (24), at the corner of Avenidas Francisco Bilbao and Los Leones on November 29, 1974.

Both young people had participated the night before in the premiere of the film "A la Sombra del Sol" at the Las Condes cinema, as they were part of the film's production team.

Müller was also one of the most prominent cameramen of his time and had participated in the recording of the documentary "La Batalla de Chile," by Patricio Guzmán, which portrayed the Chile of the Popular Unity and the presidential campaign of Salvador Allende, and which has become one of the most internationally awarded works of cinema.

At the time of their detention, the couple was working on the filming of the "Chilean Holy Year," an event that took place days before their arrest at the Templo Votivo Maipú and which had been organized by the Episcopal Conference of Chile.

The couple was taken to the Villa Grimaldi center, where they remained detained and subjected to intense torture by State agents, who were particularly harsh with Bueno, as she was accused of having given a dog to the then-leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), Miguel Enríquez.

They were later transferred to the Cuatro Álamos facility, where they were seen by several witnesses who coincide in stating that both communicated through signs when the women were taken to the bathroom. Their communications were discovered by DINA agents, and the next day their trail was lost.

Source: El Mostrador, March 30, 2007

Date: 03-30-2007

Judge Guzmán strikes again at the DINA

In one of the prosecutions that ended up dismantling one of the main setups of the past dictatorship, investigating judge Juan Guzmán indicted ten former DINA agents, several of them from its 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 setup that occurred in 1975, the first being the one decreed on September 2, when the magistrate prosecuted 16 former agents for 37 victims of Colombo.

The resolutions adopted by Judge Guzmán in this episode constitute, as a whole, the most massive prosecution 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 chief of the DINA Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade, General César Manríquez Bravo, brother of Mario, a retired colonel 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 chief of Villa Grimaldi, Colonel Marcelo Moren Brito; the former chief of the DINA Cuatro Álamos facility, Gendarmerie officer Orlando Manzo Durán; the former chief of the DINA Halcón group, Brigadier Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; the former chief 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 chief of the DINA Tres Álamos facility, Carabineros officer Conrado Pacheco Cárdenas; Army non-commissioned officer Basclay Zapata Reyes; and former civil 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 setup

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 Ultimas Noticias, and the evening paper La Segunda were in charge of publishing them.

The peak of the setup occurred between July 17 and 19, 1975, when first the Brazilian newspaper O Dia, of short circulation, 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 with 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 forcibly disappeared communist 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 relatives, 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, they had settled political scores abroad by killing each other or falling in military operations in Argentina, a country that was experiencing political and military turmoil 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 civil agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, who admitted in Buenos Aires in 1978—accused of "espionage"—that in 1975, agent Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann (former chief of the DINA Foreign 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 of, among others, the Argentine civilian and member of the Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) Martín Ciga Correa.

Source: La Nacion, January 4, 2004

Date: 01-04-2004

Takeover of Liceo Nº1 pays tribute to former students who were forcibly disappeared

The students of Liceo N°1 took a break from the takeover they have been carrying out for more than three months and paid tribute, in a beautiful, delicate, and significant act, to six former students who were forcibly disappeared by the Dictatorship, young women who, like them, gave meaning to their lives in a project of commitment and joy for the benefit of all.

Beautiful hope are the young women of today who, with sensitivity and courage, recognize and fight for their ideals, the same ones as yesterday.

Cecilia Gabriela Castro Salvadores, Forcibly Disappeared on November 17, 1974

Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes, Forcibly Disappeared on November 29, 1974 Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Forcibly Disappeared on June 20, 1975 Nilda Patricia Peña Solari, Forcibly Disappeared on December 10, 1974 Carmen Angélica Delard Cabezas, Forcibly Disappeared on January 10, 1977 Gloria Ximena Delard Cabezas, Forcibly Disappeared on January 17, 1977

A tree was planted for each of them.

Source: afepchile.cl, September 10, 2011

Kidnapping of Jorge Müller and Carmen Bueno: DINA agents are convicted for the disappearance of the filmmakers

The members of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate, César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, will receive a sentence of 20 years in prison for their role as authors.

In a unanimous ruling, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 20 years in prison, in their capacity as authors of the crime.

The highest court rejected the appeals for cassation in form and substance filed against the sentence that convicted agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of the filmmaker couple Jorge Hernán Müller Silva and Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes. Crimes committed starting on November 29, 1974.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 43.971-2020), the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court—composed of judges Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Judge María Teresa Letelier, and lawyer (i) Pía Tavolari—confirmed the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which convicted César Manríquez Bravo, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 20 years in prison, in their capacity as authors of the crime.

Meanwhile, Orlando Manzo Durán, Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, Alejandro Francisco Astudillo Adonis, Sylvia Teresa Oyarce Pinto, Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Manuel Heriberto Avendaño González, Nelson Aquiles Ortiz Vignolo, Silvio Antonio Concha González, Pedro Ariel Araneda Araneda, Luis Rigoberto Videla Inzunza, Jorge Segundo Madariaga Acevedo, Teresa del Carmen Osorio Navarro, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Pedro René Alfaro Fernández, Luis René Torres Méndez, Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, Carlos López Inostroza, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, and Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana must serve 12 years in prison as co-authors.

"That, in this way, the elements of the examined illicit act and the participation in them of these accused were considered verified by the first-instance court, conclusions that the second-instance judiciary made its own, endorsed in the 7th consideration of the challenged sentence," the ruling states.

The resolution adds: "That, consequently, and even ignoring the serious formal defects of the examined substantial nullity appeals, the infractions denounced by the defenses of Carlos López Inostroza, Jerónimo Neira Méndez, Luis Videla Inzunza, Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, and César Manríquez Bravo have not been configured in the case, since the facts established in the challenged sentence and the participation in them of these accused have been adjusted to the laws regulating evidence, so that no reproach can be raised in this regard to the challenged sentence, so that the substantial nullity appeals under examination will be entirely dismissed."

Operation Colombo

In the first-instance sentence, the investigating judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Hernán Crisosto Greisse, established the following facts:

On November 29, 1974, Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes and her partner Jorge Hernán Müller Silva, members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), were detained on a public street at Calle Francisco Bilbao with Los Leones in Santiago by agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who forced them into a C-10 pickup truck and transported them to the clandestine DINA detention center called 'Villa Grimaldi', located at Lo Arrieta N° 8200, in La Reina, and subsequently to the clandestine detention center called 'Cuatro Álamos', located at Calle Canadá N° 3000, in Santiago, which were guarded by armed guards and to which only DINA agents had access.

During their stay in the Villa Grimaldi and Cuatro Álamos barracks, they remained without contact with the outside world, blindfolded and tied, being continuously subjected in the former to interrogations under torture by DINA agents operating in said barracks for the purpose of obtaining information regarding members of the MIR, to proceed with the detention of its members.

The last time the victims Bueno Cifuentes and Müller Silva were seen alive occurred on an undetermined day in mid-December 1974, and to date, there is no information on the whereabouts of both, and they remain disappeared.

The name of Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes appeared on a list of 119 people, published in the national press after it appeared on a list published in the Argentine magazine 'LEA', dated July 15, 1975, which reported that Bueno Cifuentes had died in Argentina, along with 59 other people belonging to the MIR, due to internal quarrels that arose between those members.

The publications that declared the victim Bueno Cifuentes dead had their origin in disinformation maneuvers carried out by DINA agents abroad.

In the civil aspect, the sentence that ordered the treasury to pay compensation of $50 million for moral damages to the plaintiff sister of the victim Bueno Cifuentes was confirmed.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, February 23, 2024

Carmen Bueno, on both sides of the camera

Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes was born in Santiago in 1950. She studied theater and film at the School of Communication of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She belongs to the first generation of women who entered Chilean cinema with authority, along with Valeria Sarmiento, Angelina Vázquez, and Marilú Mallet, among others; but Bueno is a different case, as she is the only one who performed both technical and acting tasks.

After participating in some school short films, Carmen Bueno began working in various areas of audiovisual production: she was a production assistant on the documentary "El primer año" (Patricio Guzmán, 1972) and an actress, costume designer, cook, and producer on the feature film "La tierra prometida" (Miguel Littin, 1973).

After the 1973 military coup, she began working on advertising shorts at Chile Films and on the feature film "A la sombra del sol" (Silvio Caiozzi and Pablo Perelman, 1974), as a continuity supervisor and actress.

On November 25, 1974, Bueno, along with cameraman Jorge Müller and filmmakers Jorge di Lauro and Nieves Yankovic, filmed a religious ceremony at the Templo Votivo de Maipú for the documentary "Año santo chileno." Five days later, on November 29, after attending the premiere of "A la sombra del sol," Bueno was kidnapped by the dictatorship's political police along with Jorge Müller.

According to testimonies from survivors, she was taken to the Villa Grimaldi detention center and subsequently transferred to that of Cuatro Álamos, where her trail is lost.

In tribute to Carmen Bueno and Jorge Müller, the audiovisual community began to commemorate November 29 as the Day of Chilean Cinema, first informally and subsequently institutionalized with the support of ministries, museums, and other entities.

This special includes three titles that feature the participation of Carmen Bueno: the school short films "Flores S.A." (Collective direction, in which Carmen Bueno participates, 1971) and "Cosita" (Cristián Sánchez, 1971, with cinematography by Carmen Bueno) and the feature film "La tierra prometida" (Miguel Littin, 1973, with Carmen Bueno in acting, costumes, catering, and production).

In addition, it includes a special screening of "29 de noviembre" (Carla Toro, Mauricio Villarroel, 2016), a documentary that reconstructs, through the stories of friends and family, the life and work of Carmen Bueno and Jorge Müller.

Source: cclm.cl, no date

UC to award posthumous degrees to victims of the dictatorship

On Thursday, September 5, the vice grand chancellor of the university will celebrate a memorial mass for at least 28 students who could not finish their degrees because they were disappeared or executed.

The Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) will award professional degrees, posthumously, to those who were its students and suffered human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The ceremony on Thursday, September 5, will take place within the framework of the 40th anniversary of the 1973 coup d'état that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende, at the university's San Joaquín campus.

The commemoration will begin at 6:30 pm with a memorial mass celebrated by the university's vice grand chancellor, Cristián Roncagliolo, and then at 7:30 pm, they will proceed to the delivery of the diplomas to the relatives of the students who were forcibly disappeared or executed after September 11, 1973.

The act is organized by the UC Memory collective and has the support of the university's Student Federation (FEUC).

This is the second higher education institution to announce a ceremony of this type to remember the coup d'état. The Universidad de Santiago has already done so, which will remember 40 of its students who were victims of post-coup repression.

Source: resumen.cl, 8/27/2013