Special judge Jorge Zepeda has indicted two colonels (R) of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) for the crime of repeated application of torture against former Minister of Defense and socialist militant José Tohá.

The former officers are Sergio Contreras and Ramón Cáceres, former assistants to the late former FACH prosecutor Horacio Otaíza. Both were notified by the magistrate this Thursday and were subsequently transferred to a facility belonging to that branch of the Armed Forces, presumably the Colina air base.

The lawyer for the Tohá family, Deputy Juan Bustos (PS), expressed his full satisfaction with the new direction the case is taking and predicted that more indictments will follow in the coming months. According to the representative, Judge Zepeda's charges will target the material authors and accomplices of what he described as the "homicide" of the former head of Defense.

Along with highlighting the virtual reclassification of Tohá's cause of death, he explained that it would have been highly unlikely for him to have committed suicide, considering that his deteriorated physical condition (47 kilos in weight and a height of 1.90 meters) made it impossible.

According to the information provided by the so-called Rettig Report, the Secretary of State in Salvador Allende's government died on March 15, 1974, at the Military Hospital in Santiago. On September 11, 1973, Tohá was detained at the Palacio de la Moneda along with a group of authorities and collaborators of the deposed government.

Subsequently, he was transferred with them to the Escuela Militar, from where he was taken to Dawson Island, a place where he was subjected to repeated mistreatment and illegitimate coercion by the military personnel in charge of the facility.

In a state of critical malnutrition and a significantly deteriorated psychological condition, the former minister ended up committing suicide in his room at the military hospital, according to the authorities at the time as argued to his family.

The motives of Zepeda

In one of the considerations, in which Zepeda accounts for the evidence to indict the former officers, he establishes that the investigation does not confirm the fact that Tohá committed suicide. This is because the summary proceedings in charge of the Second Army and Carabineros Prosecutor's Office were not attached to this case, as it was impossible to find them.

However, the magistrate did establish that Tohá was deprived of his liberty for more than six months, without any trial being instructed or charges being formulated against him during that prolonged period.

Along with this, he determined that during his captivity he was the object—by agents of the FACH intelligence service—of "cruel and degrading" acts, with the purpose of harming his psychological and physical integrity.

Indirectly, the magistrate establishes in his document, the repeated torture was intended to instill fear in a sector of the population. On the other hand, Zepeda confirmed that the former minister was secretly transferred from the Military Hospital to the Academia de Guerra Aérea facility to be cruelly interrogated, as he was considered "a source of information." This illegitimate coercion was also applied to him in the same medical facility, "as proven by the manuscripts discovered in the present investigation, found in the room where Tohá died." Such documents had been prepared by President Allende's collaborator himself and by the agent who coerced him and formulated the questions in writing.

Source: El Mostrador, April 21, 2005

2 former FACH members indicted for torture at the AGA

The head of the 9th Criminal Court of Santiago, Raquel Lermanda, issued the first two indictments within the framework of the lawsuit for torture filed by nearly 40 former political prisoners who were held at the Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA) of the Air Force during the military regime.

This was reported by the lawyer sponsoring the judicial action, Alejandra Arriaza, specifying that the indictments affected officer (r) Edgar Cevallos Jones (alias "Commander Cabezas") and the sub-officer (r) of that military branch, Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, for the crime of repeated application of torture.

These former officers are reportedly only a portion of those accused in these events, which affected nearly 40 opponents of the de facto government who were held at the AGA between 1973 and 1975. This judicial action was filed in 2001 and is the first to have the objective of pursuing the crimes of torture, as recalled by Arriaza, who indicated that the facts are fully substantiated.

Meanwhile, other individuals requested by Codepu are Luis Enrique Campos Poblete, Sergio Contreras Mejía, César Palma Ramírez, Luis Fernando López López, Sergio Lizasoin Mitrano, Franklin Bello Calderón, and the civilian Leonardo Schneider Jordán, known as "Barba Schneider." The professional explained that although the former commander-in-chief of the FACH, Fernando Matthei, was director of the Academia de Guerra, his participation in the events denounced by nearly fifty former officers and sub-officers of the institution has not been substantiated.

Source: El Mostrador, April 29, 2005

Judge in the Víctor Jara case acquits six FACh military personnel

Visiting minister Juan Fuentes Belmar applied the statute of limitations and lack of participation to the members of the Chilean Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA), also releasing civilian official César Palma Rodríguez from charges.

The leadership of the so-called Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA) was cleared of charges in the trial against them for the kidnapping of former Communist Party (PC) militant Carol Flores Castillo and the murder of Comando Conjunto member Guillermo Bratti Cornejo.

This occurred after visiting minister Juan Fuentes, the same judge investigating the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, dismissed the charges against the six military personnel involved in these crimes, as well as civilian official César Palma Rodríguez.

These are FACh generals (R) Edgar Cevallo Jones, Roberto Serón Cárdenas, Juan Luis López López, Freddy Ruiz Bunguer, Juan Saavedra Loyola, and Daniel Guimpert Corvalán. The first three were released because the magistrate deemed there was a lack of participation, while for the rest, he applied the statute of limitations to the criminal action.

He decreed the same regarding the civilian. This ruling left several human rights organizations concerned, especially because the criterion of the expiration of criminal action was applied by the judge who is currently investigating the crime of Víctor Jara, as well as other inquiries linked to crimes against humanity.

Sources close to the case indicated that this sentence will be appealed to the Court so that those responsible may be convicted. In the same vein, the magistrate dismissed the claims for compensation for the victims' families, similarly accepting the statute of limitations for civil action for the families of Flores and Bretti.

Carol Flores Castillo was a PC militant until 1974. That year, he was detained along with his brothers and transferred to the Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA). At this facility, occupied by the dictatorship's repressive agencies, he was allegedly brutally tortured and then released.

Witnesses, in the Rettig Report, declared that after this episode, Flores began to collaborate with the SIFA, denouncing PC comrades, which coincides with a series of arrests of communist militants during this period.

However, in June 1976, he disappeared. Former FACh member Andrés Valenzuela Morales declared in the proceedings that he knew that SIFA members took Flores to the Cajón del Maipo and disposed of his body.

This was because they had allegedly found out that he was giving information to the DINA about what the command was doing. This deeply annoyed those in charge of the AGA. The same conduct, according to this witness, was imputed to officer Guillermo Bratti, the victim in this judicial case.

Before the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, Andrés Valenzuela indicated that both Flores and Bratti were executed because there was the "version that they had given information we possessed to the DINA, which carried out operations harming our group (Comando Conjunto).

The DINA, according to the statements of the detained agents, had offered them more money, a vehicle, and a house."

Source: La Nación, August 1, 2009

Supreme Court sentences AGA torturers to supervised release

Three years and one day of supervised release. That is the sentence the Supreme Court applied to the two senior officers of the FACh's Academia de Guerra Aérea as responsible for the torture of 17 people after the 1973 military coup.

These are FACh commander (R) Edgar Cevallos Jones and squadron commander (R) Ramón Cáceres Jorquera. The Supreme Court, in any case, recognizes for the first time that torture is a "crime against humanity" and rejected applying the statute of limitations, by a vote of three to two. Cevallos Jones must also pay each of the victims 10 million pesos as compensation.

Source: La Nación, September 26, 2009

Supreme Court releases Academia de Guerra torturers

The Academia de Guerra Aérea (AGA) was one of the first torture centers established after the 1973 military coup and the cradle of the Comando Conjunto, an organization tasked with exterminating the Communist Party.

In the Las Condes facilities, war councils were held against airmen loyal to the Constitution and President Allende. The numerous sentences included life imprisonment and death. A significant portion of these were later commuted to exile.

The current Undersecretary of Aviation, Raúl Vergara, and General Alberto Bachelet passed through the AGA. At that time, the father of the President of the Republic was 51 years old and had three children.

His role as secretary of the National Directorate of Supply and Commercialization during the Unidad Popular was enough to justify his detention, marked by the brutal torture inflicted by his former students.

Due to his poor health, resulting from the torment, the general was transferred to the FACh Hospital. He died on March 12, 1974, in the Public Prison. Although more than 700 detainees passed through the AGA, most of them members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), the facility did not develop the sad notoriety of similar installations run by the DINA.

However, separate lawsuits filed in 2001 and 2002 by former MIR members and airmen detained at the AGA, to which a civil compensation claim was added, have just set a milestone in human rights. Almost a month ago, the Supreme Court recognized these acts of torture as crimes against humanity and ordered one of the convicted to pay 10 million pesos per victim.

Despite the historic nature of the high court's decision, the ruling did not completely satisfy the plaintiffs. Financial compensation was achieved, but the criminal sentence was low and favored only 17 victims out of a total of 46 original complainants. Furthermore, only two officials who operated at the AGA were found responsible: colonels (R) Edgar Cevallos Jones and Ramón Cáceres Jorquera.

Difficult process

It was a complex process. The case reached the hands of minister Eduardo Fuentes Belmar in June 2005. On September 9 of that same year, he declared himself incompetent, arguing that, since the crimes were committed by personnel and within a military facility, it was up to military justice to investigate.

The plaintiff side appealed the civil court's decision, believing that this instance did not provide guarantees of independence and impartiality. In any case, the minister transferred the case on September 22 to the military justice system.

However, on the 28th of that month, this instance also declared itself incompetent, generating a conflict that was resolved by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the case should remain in the hands of Fuentes.

The testimonies of the detainees, collected in the investigation, account for the brutality with which the AGA officials operated, a department that shortly thereafter would be organized as the Air Force Intelligence Directorate and would later derive into the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA), the main member of the Comando Conjunto.

According to the statements of those detained at the AGA between 1973 and 1975, both Cevallos and Cáceres were a fundamental part of a beastly group of torturers. The then Aviation Colonel, Augusto Galaz Guzmán, declared that on September 14, 1973, he was detained from his office at the Ministry of Defense along with the current Undersecretary of Aviation, Raúl Vergara, General Bachelet, and Colonel Rolando Miranda.

After taking them to the Aviation Prosecutor's Office and the Colina Air Base, where they were interrogated, they were transferred together to the AGA. In the proceedings, Galaz pointed out that they were kept hooded "during the interrogation, lifting us with cords placed between our legs, applying needles to the base of our fingernails, and punching us in the face." Galaz added that Cevallos and Cáceres were in charge of the mistreatment.

It was not difficult to recognize them: both had been his students at the Aviation School. According to the first-instance conviction, issued in 2006 by minister Fuentes, both members of the Armed Forces and individuals belonging to left-wing groups, opposed to the military regime, were detained at the AGA.

They were kept blindfolded in a basement and interrogated by FACh members. "And on occasions they were subjected to various psychological or physical coercion, the latter consisting of keeping them constantly blindfolded, with legs or arms flexed; passing a stick between their limbs and leaving them suspended in the air (pau de arara); applying electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, such as the tongue, genitals, temples; forcing them to remain standing for many hours or days without water or food; subjecting them to mock executions," the first-instance conviction states.

Fuentes ruled, for both Cevallos and Cáceres, a sentence of 541 days with suspended prison time. He did not consider the crimes committed to be crimes against humanity, but framed them within Article 150 of the Penal Code, which describes illegitimate coercion.

The minister applied the mitigating factors argued by the guilty parties to the maximum. The minister's argument for applying this punishment was the irreproachable prior conduct of the accused, with no criminal records.

Regarding Cevallos Jones, the conviction states that "said mitigating factor will be considered as highly qualified, since in his past behavior there are special connotations, such as his qualified professional preparation, work ethic, and exemplary social behavior.

Indeed, from the background of the process, it appears that the accused is a qualified aeronautical engineer and satisfactorily completed his entire career in the Air Force." Regarding Cáceres Jorquera, minister Fuentes considered his thirty-year tenure in Aviation and his master's degree in political science and postgraduate degree in War Economics, all added to his "harmonious family relationships," as a highly qualified mitigating factor.

The coordinator of the FACh Prisoners of War Group and torture survivor at the AGA, Mario González (see interview), considers that Fuentes' argument falls to zero "from the moment they give the first blow to a defenseless detainee, without even considering if they were men or women, then applying electricity.

There was premeditation and a repeated procedure. That is why the irreproachable prior conduct in the institution or their subsequent studies do not apply here," he criticizes. In this same line, the Court of Appeals, in a ruling on November 6, 2008, in addition to increasing the sentences of both to three years, still with suspended prison time, dismissed this argument for not being duly substantiated.

Regarding the payment of compensation to the victims, minister Fuentes exempted the State Defense Council and Ramón Cáceres from this responsibility, among other aspects, because the deadline to initiate legal action for this concept expires at four years, which was confirmed by the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

Cevallos will have to pay the victims exclusively because his defense did not contest the civil lawsuit in time. If it were not for that legal error, no one would receive a peso for the consequences of their traumatic time at the macabre AGA of Las Condes.

According to the Dicom registry, Cevallos has two properties in his name, fiscally valued at 200 million pesos. A few weeks ago, however, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court not only confirmed the second-instance sentence that increased the sentences of Cevallos and Cáceres to three years with suspended prison time.

It also added that "according to the evidence gathered during the inquiry, it is appropriate to conclude that we are in the presence of what legal conscience has come to call crimes against humanity." Thus, this ruling is the first in which the high court recognizes torture as crimes of this nature.

Federico Aguirre, executive secretary of the Corporation for the Defense of the People's Rights (Codepu), a plaintiff organization, highlights that this case sets a precedent for others like it, but "we consider that the penalties imposed are not consistent with the damage caused.

They are not proportional to the serious attack on physical and psychological integrity that the crime of torture entails." Although Fuentes Belmar only indicted Cevallos and Cáceres in the AGA torture case, in the case of the disappearance of José Luis Baeza Cruces and the crime of Alfonso Carreño Díaz, both occurring at the facility, the Court of Appeals decided in 2006 to indict nine members of that department for the crime of genocidal illicit association.

This, after minister Fuentes, who also leads this case, refused to do so following the request of the Human Rights Program. Currently, the case is in the stage prior to the first-instance sentence.

"The position of the justice system is incredible" Mario González, coordinator of the FACh Prisoners of War group -Who was with General Bachelet in his final moments? -Practically all the FACh personnel indicted in the Metropolitan Region from that time were in the Public Prison together with General Bachelet, who died on March 12, 1974, after a long day of interrogation at the AGA. -Did you or your companions have to take care of him? -The morning he felt ill, we all realized his condition when he retired to his cell to rest.

We were attentive to everything that was happening. Before noon, it was already known through Álvaro Yáñez, our doctor, also a prisoner, that the general was dying of a heart attack. -What do you feel as a body of former airmen regarding the sentence increased to 3 years, but with a suspended sentence, the same as the first instance? -We consider that the penalties imposed and their confirmation by the high court is insufficient.

First, because of the gravity of the crime, which is classified as illegitimate coercion and not as torture. And the three years, which are with a suspended sentence. But we are happy, since it was proven that there was torture to extract false confessions in the processes and war councils implemented as a way to frighten the rest of the Air Force personnel. -What do you think about the fact that torture was only substantiated in the case of some of you? -Here we consider that there was a serious error and that it is totally discriminatory.

The minister looked for sequelae of torture and not the torture as such. After so many years, it is difficult to find physical sequelae. In many of us, he did not find them or ignored them, in circumstances where there are medical certificates from the date that record the effects of the procedures that the torturers used. -Why do you think only two of the perpetrators of the crimes of torture were convicted? -The position of the justice system is totally incredible.

This personnel was part of a repressive system created by the FACh to dismantle, according to them, an entire group that would be dedicated to plotting against the institutional command and that would have civilian agents close to the government and political parties, doing infiltration work in the FACh with the goal of carrying out a self-coup, Plan Z, and others with that objective. -You, as airmen, have a judicial action before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, where does it stand? -As the FACh Prisoners of War Group, we have had a submission to the IACHR since 2003, accusing the State of Chile of denial of justice, due to the Supreme Court's rejection of our request for review of the war council against Bachelet and others. This submission was admitted, and I was in Washington as coordinator at a hearing granted by said commission. The parties were called to reach an amicable solution in October 2007, but it has not been possible to reach a successful conclusion due to the government's lack of interest in resolving our request for reparation for the damage caused.

Source: La Nación, October 25, 2009

Colonels Edgar Ceballos Jones and Ramón Cáceres tortured General Bachelet by order of Leigh and the generals of the time

Source: Le Monde Diplomatique, 2004

The FACH and the torture of General Bachelet

It is undoubtedly a step forward to identify and punish the torturers who operated under the protection of the military dictatorship. Hopefully, this will also be the beginning of a process of identification and bringing to justice all those who seized military institutions—in this case, the Air Force—to commit one of the most reprehensible acts: treason, murder, and torture against innocent people in the name of freedom and military duty.

May this not be another frustrated attempt; there are high expectations for justice, that these issues related to torturers and human rights violations will no longer be negotiable for political ends or to maintain impunity.

No one asked us Chileans if we agreed with the 1978 Amnesty Law that protects hundreds of military personnel and civilians who were authors or accomplices of what happened in Chile; it was imposed upon us.

It is time for these issues to leave the barracks and the halls of Congress, making them a great national debate to which we have a right. In Chile, the curtailed democracy we live in does not allow us to participate in decisions, which is why it is time for the citizen's opinion to be heard on the broad spectrum of human rights.

We have always maintained that it must be the high military commands, the senior and junior officers, the permanent staff involved, and the political and business leaders who colluded to conspire against a legitimate and democratic government who must answer for their acts before the justice system.

Today, a pending truth has been corroborated: that former Colonels Edgard Ceballos and Ramón Cáceres tortured General Bachelet and are guilty of his death, and that they did the same to a hundred of their former brothers-in-arms who opposed the coup d'état and the transformation of the FACH into an institution at the service of ambitious politicians and businessmen, both domestic and foreign.

The justice system knows that there were other torturers at the Academia de Guerra: the now-General Gabrielli, the then-Squadron Commander Pilot Jaime Lavín Fariña, the Flight Captain Pilots Álvaro Gutiérrez, Víctor Mettig, León Duffey, Florencio Dublé, Juan Carlos Sandoval, and Lieutenant Dumont.

The non-commissioned officers, Aviation Sergeant Hugo Lizana and Aviation Corporal Gabriel Cortes, among others. It also knows that in December 1973, the director of the Academia de Guerra Aérea was General Fernando Mathei, of the most well-known detention and torture center of the era.

And that this general was at the head of the military facility during the period in which General Alberto Bachelet and we, former members of the FACH, were tortured in that place.

I do not know if there is a greater cowardice than hiding behind a military uniform, power, or "due obedience" and amnesty laws to justify or commit violations and cruel torture inflicted on handcuffed people, or clandestine murders.

To do this, the perpetrators have justified themselves by claiming they were waging a war against communism and Marxism, which has been proven false; the confrontations were nothing more than a few pockets of brave and heroic resistance against the firepower of the Armed Forces against a defenseless people.

As a reward for the "battles" that all these brave soldiers fought in the torture chambers, with handcuffed, mistreated, and disarmed enemies, they pinned hundreds of medals to their chests and decorated each other, some blessed by the church, feeding the false ego of duty fulfilled.

It is good to remind these gentlemen that the fulfillment of military duty and honor, military values, and patriotism are concepts that are materialized and proven in real life, in the practice of military work.

That military personnel are worth as much as their values and the way they live them, an example of which is found in the figure of General Alberto Bachelet, and the non-commissioned officers Enrique Reyes and Ivan Figueroa, among others.

That is why we proudly reclaim what we did. It was these torturers who accused us of treason to the country and of failing in our military duties because we propagated the freedom to think as part of military professionalism, the freedom of conscience to exercise command and obey on the basis of conscious discipline, identifying ourselves with respect for those who, dreaming of their freedom, responsibly and peacefully chose Salvador Allende as President.

We believe it is time for the Armed Forces to look at their history, the good and the bad of their actions, because they need to redeem themselves based on their combative potential, which is their relationship with the Chilean people. Rescuing that necessary identity involves recognizing the period in which the Armed Forces were instruments of state terrorism exercised by a military dictatorship.

A noble action that would allow, once and for all, for many families to know the whereabouts of their disappeared loved ones, which would facilitate the rebuilding of identity between Chileans and their army.

As we have stated before, the history of Chile cannot be cut in two, between the current reality and that of that era, because both periods correspond to a process and are the basis of a coherent explanation of why we are still a divided country.

That is why we recognize the importance of what the justice system has done by identifying and judging former Colonels Ceballos and Cáceres, because the path of oblivion is not being followed, which, as has been shown, helps no one; on the contrary, it is a historical mistake that does great harm to the country.

Especially to young Chileans, who, without having lived through this difficult and very hard stage, are direct or indirect victims of it, for which they remain condemned to live in a divided country.

It is also very important because by having justice, it allows us Chileans to enter the future while reading our own past. And that will indeed allow society as a whole to pass judgment on the facts and decide the course to follow on this delicate issue.

But there is still more to do, and we must advance in this effort. Judicial rulings like this in no way alter the functioning of the Armed Forces; on the contrary, they open a necessary path to establish institutional recognition of past events and responsibilities in each of the investigated cases.

The younger generations of military personnel have the right to know the history of their country, that Army officers not only tortured their brothers-in-arms but also murdered the General and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Rene Schneider, to prevent Allende from assuming the government in 1970.

They must know that officers and non-commissioned officers of the Armed Forces murdered General Carlos Prats and Ministers of the Unidad Popular government, José Toha and Orlando Letelier. That the Commander of the Chilean Air Force, Gustavo Leigh, ordered the bombing of La Moneda and the presidential house with the objective of murdering Salvador Allende, and that they are responsible for the fact that more than four thousand Chileans were murdered and that many of them remain disappeared.

For quite some time, we have stated that we were witnesses to the outcome of a history that we tried to denounce and a military offensive that we tried to oppose. Therefore, we can attest that the Chilean Air Force, led by Leigh and company, was part of a war plan and assumed the responsibility of bombing La Moneda, so that later on the ground, the army with the Infantry forces would finish the task of liquidating every vestige of "enemy" resistance.

We have denounced that the Hawker Hunter planes carried out a tactical bombing mission when they attacked the Government Palace, the most important symbol of democracy in Chile, assuming that "enemy troops" and the command post of the Allende government were entrenched there, with the mission of annihilating them.

We have also stated that to execute this mission, they had to have a prior and studied plan, in addition to practicing it, which demonstrates not only the conspiracy but that the action was planned with the explicit mission of murdering Salvador Allende and everyone who was resisting in the presidential palace.

If anyone has doubts about this, let them review the journalistic reports of the time: the planes unloaded rockets onto the presidential Palace, one entered through a window into the presidential salon and the other impacted the ceiling of a hallway on the second floor; in total, they made eight low-altitude passes, unloading 18 rockets in 20 minutes.

Today, the justice system knows that the practice runs for the bombing of La Moneda were carried out at Cerro Moreno and that the then-Lieutenant Ernesto Amador González Yarra, Lieutenant Fernando Rojas Vender, Captain Eitel Von Mühlenbrock, and Lieutenant Gustavo Leigh Yates—son of the FACH commander-in-chief and member of the military junta—participated.

However, those of this group of officers who are still alive have testified to the justice system and have refused to acknowledge their participation, alleging a "secret of honor."

These statements are an offense and an insult to our intelligence. These gentlemen forget that we are living witnesses to their outrages and that we know they acted in a premeditated and conscious manner, making use of all their firepower against enemies created by them to justify their actions.

The officers and non-commissioned officers who participated in all the operations before, during, and after the military coup were part of the insane declaration of war that the Armed Forces made against the supporters of the Unidad Popular government—enemies who, as we have said, were not captured in combat, but were ordinary Chilean citizens taken from their homes and brought to different military barracks, handcuffed with hoods on their heads, only to be cruelly tortured and mistreated.

These officers, who were subordinates at the time, feel proud of what they did—a sentiment shared by General Mathei, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force, who feels honored, as he declared some time ago, "to have participated in the military government, as a minister and as a member of the Government Junta."

It is time, then, for the justice system to help Chile unmask so much lying and hypocrisy; there are many witnesses and background information that allow us to advance in this aspect, which is so important and decisive for national coexistence.

Today's Armed Forces must assume the moral obligation before the nation and recognize, without half-measures, the acts against human dignity committed by members of our institutions during the military dictatorship.

During that period, the Air Force was part of and involved in state terrorism and set up torture centers in its military units and under its jurisdiction. The most important was the Academia de Guerra Aérea, a situation shared and accepted by the high institutional commands and, through them, passed down to the entire chain of command of the institution.

This is a subject that should awaken the interest of academics and jurists in the heat of these types of post-dictatorship trials, linked to the extermination programs carried out by people like the two recently prosecuted.

The profuse amount of documentation and testimonies that were made public in the reports of the Rettig and Valech commissions, in addition to everything compiled by the UN itself and Amnesty International, show the world a complex state bureaucracy placed almost exclusively at the service of crime and torture—that is, state terrorism.

Having been part of the structure of the Armed Forces, we affirm that this evidence also demonstrates the degree of responsibility of its executors. If we start from those who carried out the murders with their own hands, in the Academia de Guerra Aérea for example, and ascend through the chain of command of the organizational structure of the army and the dictatorship, until reaching Pinochet himself, as we move away from the executors, not only does the responsibility for the acts increase, but also the control over the decision of what came to be called the war against Marxism.

On the contrary, as one descends the chain of command, the control over the concrete configuration of the murders increases, until reaching those who were in charge of guarding the victims or taking them to the military centers of torture and death.

Finally, the complex issues linked to this subject manifest themselves above all regarding state criminality, given that the very structure of the State, with its enormous economic and human resources and its chains of officials forming a gigantic bureaucracy, turns out to be the organization that adapted and took the lead in all of this.

It is also necessary to note that in the case of a criminal organization of this magnitude, the commission of the crime in no way depends solely on the individual executors. They occupy a subordinate position in the apparatus of power, they are interchangeable, and they cannot prevent the man in the back, the "author from the shadows," from achieving the result, since it is he who at all times retains the decision regarding the consummation of the planned crimes.

That is why in our country there are a few unspoken truths and a few sympathizers and officials of the dictatorship who try to wash their image, either by claiming they voted "NO" in 1989 or by distancing themselves from what they themselves promoted.

It is pending to prosecute those who held power in Chile since 1973 and headed a scheme of state terrorism against those they considered enemies of the regime, to condemn them as indirect authors in relation to the homicides, kidnappings, torture, and robberies that were proven in each case.

In the case of Chile, the members of the Military Junta first, and the military government as a whole, always maintained control over the executors and must answer as indirect authors of the crimes committed.

It is also true that they built an apparatus of power parallel to the formal one, based on the military structure, and that they ordered, through the chain of command of both the military forces and state security, to act in illegality by making use of that clandestine apparatus; not only that, they guaranteed the cadres that they would not interfere in their actions, and most importantly, they ensured their impunity by all means within their reach.

From the Center for Studies of Exonerated Personnel of the Air Force 1973, we will continue to contribute to the truth meeting justice. We have the moral stature to do so; we were loyal to our oath and to our people.

Dr. Enrique Villanueva M. Vice President, Center for Studies of Exonerated Personnel of the Air Force 1973

Source: radio.uchile.cl, July 19, 2012

Alberto Bachelet Case: Judge Carroza issues 3-year sentence for former FACH colonels

Judge Mario Carroza issued a sentence against retired FACH colonels Edgar Ceballos Jones and Ramón Cáceres Jorquera for the crime of torture against General Alberto Bachelet, father of the President of the Republic.

According to a report by the Legal Medical Service (SML), General Bachelet died due to the illegal duress he suffered after being detained and accused of treason to the country following the coup d'état led by dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973.

After being detained, Alberto Bachelet was transferred to the public prison and was periodically taken to the Academia de Guerra, where he was tortured daily as they demanded information related to the government of Salvador Allende.

General Bachelet finally passed away at the age of 50 due to cardiorespiratory arrest on March 12, 1974. The convicted Jones and Cáceres must remain behind bars for a period of three years.

Source: La Nación, November 21, 2014

Perpetrators of torture against deputies Teillier and Aguiló receive prison sentences

The justice system issued sentences against retired military personnel accused of the torture of deputies Guillermo Teillier and Sergio Aguiló, which occurred when they were detained during the de facto regime of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

Visiting Minister Miguel Vásquez sentenced retired Chilean Air Force officers Edgardo Ceballos Jones and Franklin Bello as authors of illegal duress against Guillermo Teillier, president of the Communist Party.

The torture of the communist deputy occurred at the end of 1974, when he was being held at the Academia de Guerra Aérea of the Chilean Air Force (FACH).

For this, the magistrate sentenced Colonel Ceballos Jones to 27 years in prison and officer Bello to five years in prison.

The Second Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, in a split decision, ratified the sentence for the torture applied to the Izquierda Ciudadana deputy, Sergio Aguiló Melo, whose events occurred in December 1981 at a barracks of the defunct Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI).

The 3-year prison sentences affect the former director of the CNI, retired general Roberto Schmied Zanzi, and former agents Alejandro Morel Concha, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and Manuel Gallardo Sepúlveda.

The 61-day prison sentences for former CNI agents Carlos Contreras Ferrada and Sergio Díaz Lara were confirmed. In all convictions, the benefit of conditional remission was made possible.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, September 2, 2014