In the investigation into the disappearance of a communist militant, Felipe Cossio Urrutia was accused of torture at the Arauco Regiment. Furthermore, this Army colonel was trained at the School of the Americas in Panama; his promotions were later evaluated by Manuel "El Mamo" Contreras and Odlanier Mena, both directors of Augusto Pinochet’s political police, and he served as a bodyguard for Verónica Pinochet, the dictator’s daughter.

“As a family, we have the principle of always helping friends, in good times and in difficult ones,” declared the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Gloria Hutt Hesse, after La Tercera revealed that she had donated 12,000 pesos to a prisoner at Punta Peuco, convicted of human rights violations.

The recipient of the money was a “lifelong companion of my husband,” according to the minister, who married military engineer Felipe Cossio Urrutia in 1976. The fact is that Cossio Urrutia himself—a retired Army colonel who died on August 5 of this year due to pancreatic cancer, and who received a tribute in Congress following his death on August 6 of this year—may have been more than a simple donor to his friends deprived of liberty for crimes against humanity.

INTERFERENCIA gained access to the investigative file of the case regarding the kidnapping and disappearance of the councilman for the commune of Río Negro, Mario Sandoval Vásquez (PC); in which Cossio is identified by three witnesses as a torturer.

Two political prisoners accuse him of being part of the torture, while a prison guard—tasked with transporting political prisoners handed over by the military within the Osorno prison—identifies him as one of the officers who operated at the torture center.

Sandoval was forcibly removed from his home in September 1973 by personnel from the Carabineros de Chile. His wife went to the Río Negro Police Station to learn more about his whereabouts, only to be informed that he had been transferred to the Osorno Regiment, also known as “Arauco,” the place where the then-Lieutenant Cossio was in service between 1971 and 1974, serving—among other roles—as secretary of the Wartime Military Prosecutor’s Office for the zone.

“The torture applied by an Army Lieutenant with the surname COSSIO consisted of the application of electricity to different parts of the body and denigrating treatment with punches and kicks while they kept us tied to a type of bed frame as if we were crucified.” These are the words of F.V.A.—whose identity will be kept confidential for security reasons—who spoke on October 23, 2003, during a police interrogation that is part of the investigation into the disappearance of Mario Sandoval.

According to his testimony, F.V.A. was detained on September 15, 1973, and taken to the Military Prosecutor’s Office on the 17th of the same month, where he was tortured.

Months later, on March 3, 2004, R.T.T.—whose identity will also be protected—gave his testimony as a political prisoner tortured during the dictatorship. “On September 20 or 21, 1973, I was transferred to the new Hospital, where I remained all day; they interrogated and tortured me.

The Military Prosecutor’s Office operated in the hospital and was in charge of [Antonio] Ramírez [Parga, Felipe Cossio’s superior and military prosecutor of the zone] and Cossio,” he indicated.

Within the file, various testimonies point out that the Military Prosecutor’s Office operated both at the Arauco Regiment and at the “new hospital.” The fact is that Cossio’s name was repeated, regardless of the location.

On June 30, 2005, it was F.C.F.’s turn to testify. Unlike the other two testimonies, this one was not from a former political prisoner. F.C.F. served as a prison guard during 1973, stationed at the Osorno penitentiary.

Among his duties, according to his police statement, was receiving political detainees brought in by Army officials; “who were subsequently removed by these same individuals and by intelligence officials.

On some occasions, the Army officials gave us a list with the names of political detainees, whom we had to transport to the Osorno base hospital, which at the time was under construction and was used as an operations center for the intelligence agencies,” he indicates.

According to the guard, that facility “was in charge of the Chief of the Plaza Mayor, RAMÍREZ, remembering among others a Lieutenant with the surname COSSIO who carried out patrols, detentions, and took statements from the detainees; both officers were from intelligence.

In that place, the detainees were interrogated and tortured with electric current, situations that I had to witness on several occasions.” F.C.F. also adds that everyone who participated in these practices came from the “Arauco Regiment.”

Cossio speaks

Following the various accusations and testimonies that place the late husband of Gloria Hutt as a torturer, it was Felipe Cossio’s turn to testify. On December 5, 2006, he was interrogated about his role in the Engineer Regiment No. 4, Arauco, in the city of Osorno.

Specifically, he was asked about the disappearance of the communist councilman, to which he replied, “regarding the case I am being asked about, that is, Mario Sandoval Vásquez, I do not remember anything at all.” After being shown a document related to the apprehension of Sandoval that contained his signature as secretary of the Military Prosecutor’s Office, Cossio indicated that “to the tribunal’s question, I reiterate, I do not remember the name Mario Sandoval Vásquez.

There is no doubt that he passed through the Prosecutor’s Office because the signature as secretary is mine, but the truth is that I do not remember it at all.”

Furthermore, Cossio Urrutia asserted that the interrogations were not carried out by him, but by the military prosecutor, Major Antonio Ramírez Parga. “I never knew about illegitimate coercion or torture of detainees in the city of Osorno.

I, as I said, was a sub-lieutenant, I was little more than 20 years old, and my work in the Prosecutor’s Office was to act only as Secretary. I reiterate that I knew nothing about torture, neither at that time nor later,” he declared.

As a minor detail, it is worth noting that prior to the military coup and while already installed in the Arauco Regiment, Cossio ceased to be a sub-lieutenant and became a lieutenant. According to his service record—to which this media outlet had access—the Minister of Transport’s husband was promoted on August 1, 1973.

Finally, Cossio was acquitted of any charges, since what was being investigated in the case of Mario Sandoval was his forced disappearance, a crime that was unrelated to the allegations of torture that arose during the investigation against Gloria Hutt’s husband.

Even so, the military officer’s service record includes information that links him directly to human rights violators, being rated by important figures linked to the dictatorship’s repression, having even worked for the daughter of Augusto Pinochet.

High military spheres

On January 1, 1971, when Cossio was still an Army sub-lieutenant, he was designated on a service commission for the “Orientation and Training course at the School of the Americas, Panama Canal Zone,” remaining in the Central American country from January 5 to February 14, 1971.

The School of the Americas is recognized as a training center for military personnel and torturers by the United States in the context of the Cold War. Several declassified torture manuals created and taught at said establishment belong to this School.

The manual called Kubrak, dated July 1963, taught “coercive counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources,” including techniques related to the use of electric shocks; the same technique that Cossio is accused of having employed at the Arauco Regiment.

After his time in Panama, Cossio returned to Santiago and was evaluated on October 13 of the same year by Lieutenant Colonel Juan Germán Hutt Gunther, the father of the current Minister Hutt and his future father-in-law.

After the coup, the elder Hutt was appointed as Chilean ambassador to Switzerland, from 1976—the same year his daughter married Cossio—until 1982, when he was replaced by Carlos Forestier.

The following year, shortly before the Coup, Cossio was rated by the then-Lieutenant Colonel and regiment commander, Manuel “Mamo” Contreras Sepúlveda, who, upon the start of the dictatorship, went on to lead the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), one of Pinochet’s political police forces responsible for sustained human rights violations and forced disappearances.

Contreras himself died with sentences totaling more than 500 years in prison for his participation in crimes against humanity.

Later—after the Military Coup had occurred—it was the turn of two other military human rights violators to rate the performance of the then-Lieutenant Cossio. This happened on August 3, 1974, by Colonel Odlanier Mena Salinas and Division General Carlos Forestier Haensgen—who would later replace him as ambassador to Switzerland.

Mena was director of the National Information Center (CNI), a political police force that operated between 1977 and 1990, carrying out persecution, kidnapping, torture, and disappearances of opponents of the dictatorship.

Mena himself was sentenced to serve six years in prison at the Cordillera prison, a special facility for dictatorship criminals, which was closed in 2013. Two days after the closure of said facility was announced, Mena committed suicide with a gunshot to the head while at his home after having received a furlough.

Carlos Forestier, meanwhile, was a general during the dictatorship and also Minister of Defense between 1980 and 1982. He was prosecuted for the homicide of at least seven prisoners of war, whom Forestier ordered to be executed by firing squad.

Receiving good ratings throughout his military career, Felipe Cossio Urrutia was entrusted with a sensitive job: escorting Verónica Pinochet Hiriart, daughter of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. This work was also well evaluated, receiving congratulations in his service record on February 15, 1975, “for his excellent performance as Liaison and Escort officer for Mrs. Verónica Pinochet Hiriart.”

Source: interferencia.cl, October 9, 2020

Hutt explained that "As a family, we have the principle of always helping friends, in good times and in difficult ones."

It was February 2016 when one of the friends of the husband of the current Minister of Transport, Gloria Hutt, received a donation from the Secretary of State. It was 12,000 pesos to buy medication. The recipient was one of the inmates at Punta Peuco, the prison where those convicted of human rights violations are held.

The donation of 12,000 pesos is recorded in an orderly register in the bulletins of "Mis Camaradas," an organization dedicated to providing financial support and visiting those convicted at Punta Peuco.

What was Hutt’s name doing in that register? The minister’s husband, Felipe Cossio Urrutia, has a military career behind him, and some of his friends are inmates there. This was confirmed by La Tercera PM in various publications from the organization in 2016, where the name of Cossio Urrutia—who in that year totaled donations of 230,000 pesos—is repeated regularly, and Hutt is mentioned only once.

"Effectively, in 2016, I provided resources so that one of my husband’s lifelong companions, who is ill, could finance the purchase of medication. As a family, we have the principle of always helping friends, in good times and in difficult ones," asserted Hutt when consulted by La Tercera PM.

The latest writings available on the web are from that year, since, as a member of the entity asserts, the person in charge of uploading the information to the internet could no longer perform their duties, and the rest of the former uniformed officers lack technological skills.

Hutt and Cossio married in December 1976, and months later, according to what Hutt told Revista Paula, he developed testicular cancer, for which the Army paid for his treatment at the Military Hospital in the United States. They spent a year out of the country, and then Cossio returned to the War Academy.

120 steak sandwiches and 120 pork sandwiches

"Dear friends of 'Mis Camaradas,' this is already our second free informative bulletin in which we inform you of our activities for the benefit of a better stay in prison for our peers who suffer from the injustice of the fatherland."

That is how one of the bulletins, dated February 20, 2016, from the association called "Mis Camaradas," created by former uniformed officers to "provide moral, spiritual, and material support" to the Punta Peuco prisoners detained in that facility for crimes against humanity, begins.

In those documents, where the association’s activities and the type of aid they provide to the prisoners are reported, the list of donors who contribute monthly to the entity is also made transparent.

During 2016, the "Mis Camaradas" association published 17 bulletins. In them, apart from the list of the association’s donors, the activities they carry out with the Punta Peuco prisoners are also reported.

It is detailed there that on the first Thursday of each month, "social gatherings" are held with the inmates, where 20 people enter the penitentiary facility to share time with the prisoners. For those activities, the bulletins detail the amount of food and drinks purchased.

For example, in the May bulletin, it is detailed that they bought "120 Italian steak sandwiches, 120 Italian pork sandwiches, 120 portions of ice cream, and 120 portions of strudel."

In the bulletins, writings by the prisoners are also published. "Punishment for octogenarian soldiers to divert attention," "Another hidden truth of the Military Government," and "Strength of Pinochetism and weakness of the Judases" are some of the titles of the articles written by members of the association and prisoners who did not want to sign with their names.

In fact, the former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, and the former columnist Hermógenes Pérez de Arce are some of those who have written articles for those bulletins.

Most of the documents are accompanied by photos of the members of "Mis Camaradas," images of the activities, and also of Augusto Pinochet. In fact, the bulletin where Minister Hutt’s donation is found closes with a photo of Pinochet with the phrase "in memory of a great one."

Source: latercera.cl, December 27, 2018

During the Floor session, news was received regarding the death of Felipe Cossio, who had been suffering from cancer for several years.

A minute of silence is held following the death of the husband of the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, August 6, 2020.

The Senate Floor expressed its heartfelt condolences regarding the death of Felipe Cossio Urrutia, a retired military engineer and husband of the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Gloria Hutt.

The president of the Upper House, Senator Adriana Muñoz, mentioned the aforementioned death reported yesterday during the ordinary session held in a mixed format (in-person and remotely). The legislator requested a minute of silence, which was observed by all her colleagues.

Cossio—who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer for several years—married Hutt when she was 22 years old. He also leaves behind three children.

The aforementioned State ministry reported that the minister will take a few days for mourning, while the funeral will be held in complete privacy in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: senado.cl, August 6, 2020

Gloria Hutt stated that in 2016 she helped "one of my husband’s lifelong companions, who is ill" to buy medication.

The delivery of these resources was made through the group "Mis Camaradas," which helps the inmates of Punta Peuco.

"Mis Camaradas." That is the name of an organization dedicated to providing financial support to the prisoners of Punta Peuco, through which the current Minister of Transport, Gloria Hutt, and her husband, Felipe Cossio Urrutia, helped inmates of Punta Peuco financially.

The Secretary of State, in February 2016, donated 12,000 pesos for the purchase of medication required by one of the inmates of the prison where those convicted of human rights violations are held, La Tercera PM published this Thursday.

Hutt’s donation is recorded in a register in the organization’s bulletins, which, in addition to financially supporting the prisoners, also visits them at Punta Peuco.

The newspaper details that the minister’s husband, Felipe Cossio Urrutia, has a military career, having several friends incarcerated in the prison. Thus, his name appears in the records of "Mis Camaradas" regularly during 2016.

In those documents, various donations from Cossio appear, totaling 230,000 pesos, and only one donation from Hutt, the one for 12,000 pesos. The information is published on the "Mis Camaradas" website, which stopped being updated that year.

The minister herself stated to La Tercera PM that "effectively, in 2016, I provided resources so that one of my husband’s lifelong companions, who is ill, could finance the purchase of medication. As a family, we have the principle of always helping friends, in good times and in difficult ones."

"The injustice of the fatherland"

In the February bulletin, where Minister Hutt is mentioned, the document explains that the bulletin’s objective is to inform about "our activities for the benefit of a better stay in prison for our peers who suffer from the 'Injustice of the Fatherland'."

In their definition, "Mis Camaradas" proclaim themselves as "a group of friends, some former uniformed officers and others civilians, who work all month to collect financial and material aid that goes directly to help those most in need within the prison and to finance a fraternal and recreational activity every first week of each month."

They also justify the privileges enjoyed at Punta Peuco by asserting that the prisoners are "people born and raised in hygiene, cleanliness, order, and good treatment" who "cannot live as common prisoners live in other Penitentiary Centers of the country."

"They receive the same treatment that is given to every convict, with one big difference... they are soldiers respectful of the regime to which the warden and his subordinates subject them. There is no different treatment for anyone: It stems from their nature to improve what they receive," adds the bulletin, which asserts that the prisoners themselves have improved the facilities with their own resources.

The same bulletin details that they hold social gatherings for the prisoners where 20 people participate, entering the prison to bring them fried seafood empanadas, fried loco (abalone) empanadas, ice cream with fruit, cakes, and kuchen.

Also in the bulletins, which can be read on the group’s website, writings by prisoners and those who support them are published, including some titled "Punishment for octogenarian soldiers to divert attention," "Another hidden truth of the Military Government," and "Strength of Pinochetism and weakness of the Judases."

Source: cooperativa.cl, December 27, 2018

“I come from a country of the disappeared who today have fervently poured into the streets in their struggle to regain their dignity, and poetry is part of that struggle.” Raúl Zurita. Speech upon receiving the Reina Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize 2020.

It was agents of the State of Chile who participated directly in what is known as OPERATION COLOMBO.

The DINA prepared a grand staging to cover up its crimes, where the victim was a generation of committed social fighters who had bet on advancing the wheels of history.

Chile in those years was very different from the current one; the factories were full of workers who built washing machines and televisions so that Chileans could have access to recreation and culture, to be informed of what was happening in the rest of the world.

From the shadows, the United States and its allies in Chile were working tirelessly to break the country’s institutional framework, which, while not the best in the Latin American context, allowed social, union, student, and professional organizations to be protagonists in the construction of a new development project.

The abundant, undeniable information on how the dictatorship’s security apparatuses operated, where the DINA is the main party responsible and in whose command Manuel Contreras was simply the executor, because the maximum authority was Pinochet.

These days, the Santiago Court of Appeals acquitted 60 DINA agents who were proven to have participated in the detention and kidnapping of 16 Chileans under the so-called OPERATION COLOMBO.

“This ruling is unacceptable and represents a serious and profound regression in human rights matters, violating the principles of proportionality of the sentence and the guarantee of non-repetition to which our country is subject within the framework of international human rights law.” Nelson Caucoto.

Many years have passed since these violent and criminal events. Everyone knows they were State agents, the same form of execution and projection of the military dictatorship.

For the apparatuses in charge of repression to act without absolutely any restraint, there had to be a military institutional framework that provided them with security, that gave them support and impunity for their criminal actions.

Among the high uniformed command, all the uniformed personnel who made up the DINA and others in charge of detaining, torturing, and killing had a special recognition; they were the best among their peers. There have been no few tributes that have been made in regiments and training schools; their photos are hung in military halls, as is the case with Manuel Contreras.

The military family, as they like to be called, has also been present in politics since 1990, when Pinochet handed over power to one of the main instigators of the military coup to take charge of the administration of the current model that is rotting away.

Cheyre, former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, is being prosecuted for his participation in the cursed Caravan of Death. Carlos Bombal (UDI), who was a member of parliament, is responsible for having handed over to the military the names of students from the Catholic University so they could be detained, many of whom are today names in the Truth and Reconciliation Report.

Iván Moreira (UDI), appointed mayor; Patricio Melero (UDI), appointed mayor.

One must remember the day of Piñera’s proclamation, when the entire military family ran to his support, shouting praises to Pinochet. Piñera pleaded for the freedom of his mentor when he was detained in London. Pinochetism and the long line of civilians who contributed to the criminality have not disappeared.

The husband of the current Minister of Transport, Hutt, a few weeks after the military coup, and while a sub-lieutenant, was responsible for the torture team that existed in the investigations barracks, which was next to the penitentiary.

He exercised his perverse trade of asking for information about that farce called Plan Zeta. His name was Felipe Cossio Urrutia, and in his criminal military career, all the reports were signed by Manuel Contreras.

The shadow of the Kasts

Also, a few months ago, sentences were handed down for those responsible for the murders of peasants in the Paine sector. The same result: very low sentences for the Carabineros who acted with extreme cruelty and malice toward the land workers, many of whom were illiterate.

It must be noted that the Kast family participated in these actions, the father of the current leader of the extreme right and uncle of the Evopoli Senator Kast. Justice looked the other way and protected the guilty civilians.

But there are actions that are in the memory and that were extremely just and fundamental.

Carlos Tapia Barraza was a sergeant in charge of a team of torturers at the Borgoño barracks. Hundreds of detainees, many of them MIR militants, were mistreated for weeks and months while the justice system rejected the writs of amparo (habeas corpus).

Raúl Castro Montanares watched patiently as the torturer Tapia Barraza closed the gate of his house to head to the torture center where he worked from 08:00 to 17:00, in the worst of actions, such as mistreating a detainee who was tied up and blindfolded, without the slightest possibility of defending himself.

There he lay face up, from which a trickle of blood ran, possibly looking at the clouds that embraced each other happily heading south. A debt had been collected that was necessary, and it was paid in full and in cash. Raúl got on a bus, and through the window, he watched the houses of Vicuña Mackenna sleeping like tired doves.

Possibly, we will see absurd and painful rulings from the justice system, like what happened in OPERATION COLOMBO. There is no doubt that we are witnesses to the denialism that embraces the right wing, which, from the richest 1%, defends its criminal past.

Chile will possibly continue to be a country until the sun cools, and in that journey is the tireless work of vindicating and remembering those who are no longer here and to whom justice denies fair reparation.

“I come from a country of the disappeared who today have fervently poured into the streets in their struggle to regain their dignity, and poetry is part of that struggle. They did not return the bodies to the wife of the body of her husband, they did not return to the small child the body of his father, they did not return to the old man the corpse of his son…”

Raúl Zurita. Speech upon receiving the Reina Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize 2020.

By Pablo Varas

Source: elclarin.cl, December 1, 2020