Indicted for the disappearance of three Uruguayans and a Chilean worker, both in 1973, the former commander of the Mateo Durruty Blanco Mountain Engineer Regiment blames his subordinates as a "troop of disloyal men." "Mamo" calls him a "traitor." "Mamo" raised his voice and launched the accusation: "Colonel Mateo Durruty is lying and evading his military responsibility by trying to shift it onto the DINA, and that is called military treason." The former commander of the Puente Alto Mountain Engineer Regiment defended himself: "All of this was a DINA invention; I never signed anything, and no one reported the detained persons to me (...) I have nothing to do with it, no one told me anything, it was a troop of disloyal men." The confrontation between the former DINA operations chief, General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras, and Colonel (Ret.) Mateo Durruty, was heating up in Judge Colomba Guerrero's office. The colonel did not accept Contreras's accusation, which charged him with being the one who, with a signed document, sent two detainees from the regiment to Villa Grimaldi in September 1973. Contreras rejected the claim that the DINA took the detainees from the barracks. The two prisoners survived. But what mattered was that the colonel persistently denied that the regiment he commanded served as a center for political imprisonment and torture after the military coup, a fact not previously disclosed to the public. A handful of those who were his subordinates, but mainly the conscripts who were doing their military service at that barracks at the time, said the opposite during the proceedings and admitted to the existence of detainees. Aside from his altercation with "Mamo," Colonel Durruty's situation was already complicated; despite pleading innocence and ignorance of everything that happened in the regiment under his command, by 2006 he was already being prosecuted as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and disappearance of the worker Juan Llanca Rodas, an event that occurred on September 17, 1973, and as the perpetrator of the kidnapping and disappearance at the end of that same month and year of the Uruguayan citizens Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuk Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres. In other words, not only torture but also the forced disappearance of people had occurred in that regiment and under his command.

To the river Before Juan Llanca was killed and his body thrown into the Maipo River to make him disappear, his executioners at the Puente Alto Mountain Engineers forced him to eat ground glass to cause him severe internal injuries.

A witness to this torment was his fellow captive Alfonso Brizuela Durán, as he recounted in the judicial investigation not only before the judge but also face-to-face with Mateo Durruty himself, who of course refuted the fact and denied everything once again: "I never knew anything; there were never any detainees in my regiment," he insisted.

It was Manuel Contreras who confessed to Judge Guerrero on September 22, 2005, that according to information gathered from officers and non-commissioned officers of the Mountain Engineers—the "direct actors of the event"—Juan Llanca was tortured in that barracks, killed, and then his body was thrown into the Maipo River.

All because the victim, along with the other two people whom Colonel Durruty sent to Villa Grimaldi, had had a fight in a bar on September 16, 1973, with the regiment's non-commissioned officer Temístocles Navarrete Becerra, for which they took revenge in that barracks.

In the case of the Uruguayans, the story was different. Six of these citizens were detained at the end of 1973 by officials from the San José de Maipo sub-precinct inside an abandoned mine in the mountain sector of the Puente Alto commune, while they were trying to cross clandestinely into Argentina, fleeing the military coup.

They had arrived in Chile fleeing the coup d'état in Uruguay. They were taken by the police to the Puente Alto Mountain Engineers, where they were tortured. At the end of September 1973, they were taken out of the barracks, as they were told, to be taken to the Estadio Nacional, but on the way, Arcos, Povaschuk, and Pargadoy were separated from the rest, remaining forcibly disappeared to this day.

The weight of the evidence

However, well into the democracy and up to the time when General (Ret.) Juan Emilio Cheyre was commander-in-chief, the Army continued to provide partial information to the courts, confirming what plaintiff lawyers continued to denounce in the various cases of crimes against humanity.

The entire repressive situation in the Puente Alto Engineers was led by its commander, Mateo Durruty, through his team of military intelligence men from the regiment, including the "intellectuals" who did the analysis work and those who stained their hands with blood, as in any intelligence community.

Nevertheless, the Army, through its chief of staff, General Javier Urbina, informed Judge Colomba Guerrero on August 10, 2004, via official letter 1595/1178, in response to her direct inquiry, that in the Puente Alto Mountain Engineer Regiment, "having reviewed the institutional records, it was established that it did not include a Department or Section II of Intelligence." Curiously, Judge Guerrero and later Minister Marta Hantke, in charge of the investigation into Llanca Rodas, as well as Minister Joaquín Billard, who is investigating the case of the three Uruguayans, already had at that date dozens of testimonies from officers and non-commissioned officers, and even those of Generals (Ret.) Fernando Martínez Benavides and Manuel Contreras, who affirmed without any doubt that a Section II of Intelligence did indeed exist at the Puente Alto Mountain Engineers.

In train cars According to the investigations into the cases of these four victims, hundreds of detainees passed through the regiment that Colonel Durruty commanded until December 1975, suffering torments similar to those applied in the DINA's clandestine barracks.

The prisoners were kept in subhuman conditions, locked in train cars used as collective cells. From there, they were taken out at different times of the day and night to face the torments applied by officers and non-commissioned officers of the regiment's Section II of Intelligence.

This section was non-existent, according to the Army's report to Judge Guerrero, but the investigation was able to identify each of its members. During that period of high repression, Colonel Mateo Durruty had as second-in-command of the regiment Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, who later joined the DINA general staff along with "stars" Marcelo Morén Brito, Miguel Krassnoff, and Pedro Espinoza, among others.

Although the Army initially denied the magistrates in charge of these inquiries the lists of conscripts who had completed their military service in this regiment in the first months after the coup d'état, claiming they were "secret," the institution later provided them.

The judges required them to begin interrogating them because, as has happened in other cases, they could break the silence of officers and non-commissioned officers who had conspired to deny or distort the information requested of them.

The strategy yielded good results in these cases, as the majority of the former conscripts interrogated provided relevant data and confirmed what happened in the Mountain Engineer Regiment in the first months after the 1973 military uprising.

Along with Durruty Blanco, officers (Ret.) David Miranda Monardes and Pedro Teyssedre Cartagena—both former heads of the regiment's Section II of Intelligence—and the non-commissioned officers (Ret.) who were part of the same section, Luis Canales Pino and René Cruces Tapia, are being prosecuted for these crimes.

Source: La Nación, January 14, 2007

Military (Ret.) prosecuted for kidnapping of Uruguayans

A retired general and a brigadier were prosecuted by Judge Joaquín Billard as perpetrators of the kidnapping and disappearance in September 1973 of the Uruguayan citizens Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuk Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres.

The indicted are General Francisco Martínez Benavides and Colonel Lander Uriarte Burotto, as well as the also-retired non-commissioned officer René Cruces Tapia. Previously, the former commander of the Puente Alto Mountain Engineer Regiment, Colonel (Ret.) Mateo Durruty Blanco, had also been declared a defendant for this same crime.

Days after the military coup, six Uruguayans were arrested by Carabineros from the San José de Maipo sub-precinct inside an abandoned mine in the mountain area. Apparently, they were hiding to plan an escape to Argentina, as they had taken refuge in Chile after the Uruguayan military uprising on June 27, 1973.

The police took them to the aforementioned regiment, where, according to the case records, they were repeatedly tortured, just like the hundreds of prisoners who passed through that barracks commanded by Durruty.

Some were even forced to swallow ground glass, as testified in court by former detainee Alfonso Brizuela Durán. One night, they were taken from that barracks by Army personnel to be transferred, supposedly, to the Estadio Nacional.

However, on the way, the guards took the three aforementioned Uruguayans off the military vehicle and made them forcibly disappear to this day. Both General Francisco Martínez and Colonel Lander Uriarte and non-commissioned officer René Cruces belong to the group of accused persons who committed lesser-known crimes against humanity and are being prosecuted for the first time.

In the case of Durruty Blanco, he already has a 10-year and one-day sentence handed down in the first instance by the Minister of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, Marta Hantke, for the kidnapping and disappearance from the Puente Alto regiment in September 1973 of Juan Manuel Llanca Rodas.

But this sentence must still be reviewed by that court and then by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which could set Durruty free if it considerably reduces his sentence, as is the criticized legal criterion that that court established more than two years ago. Those prosecuted by Billard were granted provisional release while the investigation continues.

Source: La Nación, January 15, 2009

Chilean military personnel accused of disappearance of three Uruguayans in 1973

A judge today accused several former Army officers of the kidnapping and disappearance of three Uruguayan citizens in September 1973, a few days after the military coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) to power.

According to judicial sources, the visiting minister Joaquín Billard Acuña was the one who issued the indictment following the investigation he carried out into the disappearance of the Uruguayans, which occurred in an abandoned mine in the Cajón del Maipo sector, near Santiago.

Billard Acuña indicated that the Uruguayans Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuk Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres were detained in September 1973 in Cajón del Maipo and taken to the Puente Alto Regiment, from where their trail was lost.

The Chilean judge accused Mateo Durruty Blanco, René Cruces Tapia, Francisco Martínez Benavides, Lander Uriarte Burotto, Gabriel Montero Uranga, and Moisés Retamal Bustos—all high-ranking former Army officers—and Guillermo Vargas Avendaño as perpetrators of "qualified kidnappings." According to the indictment, personnel from the Carabineros sub-precinct of San José de Maipo detained four Uruguayan citizens—two women and two men—inside an abandoned mine in the lower part of the Andes Mountains, who were taken to that police station and then to the Puente Alto Railway Engineer Regiment.

It adds that hours later, two other Uruguayan citizens were detained and also entered into the military unit, where all were tortured. Subsequently, they were put on a minibus that would take them to the Estadio Nacional, which served as a detention camp, but a soldier ordered three of the Uruguayan citizens to get off, and their current whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Judge Billard Acuña elevated the case to the plenary stage, the stage prior to the first-instance sentencing.

Source: The Clinic, October 27, 2011

Minister Marianela Cifuentes issues indictment against military (ret.) for qualified kidnapping of a community leader

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, issued an indictment against retired Army personnel for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified kidnapping of Jorge Enrique Carrión Castro. The illicit act was perpetrated starting on October 5, 1973, in the Puente Alto commune.

In the resolution (case file 17-2013), Minister Cifuentes Alarcón accused Francisco Ricardo Alfonso Varela Gantes, an Army second lieutenant at the time of the events, and Moisés Retamal Bustos, a former member of the Intelligence Section of the Puente Alto Railway Engineer Regiment, as perpetrators of the crime.

During the investigation stage of the case, the visiting minister managed to collect sufficient evidence to establish the following facts:

" 1st That on October 5, 1973, at 7:30 a.m., within the framework of a massive raid in search of weapons and explosives at the 'Luis Emilio Recabarren' camp in the Casas Viejas sector, Puente Alto commune, soldiers from the Puente Alto Railway Engineer Regiment, led by Captain Guillermo Vargas Avendaño—currently deceased—and Second Lieutenant Francisco Varela Gantes, among others, illegally detained Jorge Ernesto Carrión Castro, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and community leader, at site 50, current Los Pinos street in the Vista Hermosa neighborhood, and subsequently took him to the Puente Alto Railway Engineer Regiment, a military unit commanded by Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco, currently deceased, where he was interrogated and subjected to illegitimate coercion. 2nd That on that day, in the afternoon, Jorge Ernesto Carrión Castro was taken by his captors to the aforementioned camp and forced to enter a canal in search of firearms. 3rd That, upon returning to the military unit, Carrión Castro tried to escape, was captured, brutally punished, and later locked in a train car inside the military unit. 4th That the following day, at dawn, Jorge Carrión Castro was taken out of the train car where he was being held, and his whereabouts have been unknown since then. 5th That, at the time of the events, the interrogation of detainees at the Puente Alto Railway Engineer Regiment was in charge of personnel from the Section II of Intelligence of the aforementioned military unit, that is, René Eloy Cruces Tapia, Luis Orlando Canales Pino—deceased—, José Miguel Latorre Pinochet—deceased—, Moisés Retamal Bustos, and Lander Mickel Uriarte Burotto, among others."

Source: pdju.cl, April 1, 2024