“It was then that Morales confided in him that the one to blame for everything had been Colonel Toro, head of the regiment, that Lieutenant Depix had kept the ring, the ID card, and the Longines watch belonging to the lawyer Poseck, and that those directly responsible for his death had been the Carabineros of the Second Precinct of Chillán.” What happens when a colonel searches for his disappeared brother-in-law?

A woman dances with Army officers, and years later her brother disappears. A leader of the National Party hands over lists of “revolutionaries.” A captain confesses his crime to a woman. The truth for two hundred dollars.

Many military personnel mourn their tortured, forcibly disappeared, and exiled relatives. Former Colonel José Ramos is one of them. The Supreme Court is currently “in agreement” regarding a ruling related to case 782-95 of the Third Military Court of Concepción, which investigated the disappearance of the socialist lawyer Reinaldo Salvador Poseck Pedreros, former regional head of the Institute for Agricultural Development (INDAP) in Chillán.

On October 23, 1998, the military tribunal ordered the total and definitive dismissal of the case, a ruling that was confirmed by the Court Martial on October 3, 2001. Raquel Mejías, a lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, then filed a cassation appeal before the highest court, noting that “the investigation is incomplete, and even more so from the moment this case fell under the jurisdiction of the military justice system; it became a merely formal investigation, intended to comply with all the procedures of a trial, but not to uncover the truth of what happened to the lawyer Reinaldo Poseck Pedreros.” On November 29 of that year, the Supreme Court prosecutor, Mónica Maldonado, recommended that the court accept the appeal. Among the arguments was that Article 413 of the Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that “a definitive dismissal cannot be decreed unless the investigation intended to prove the corpus delicti and determine the identity of the perpetrator has been exhausted.” To date, the highest court has yet to issue a ruling. “I don’t know anything about that person” Former Colonel Ramos narrates the search for his brother-in-law in his book “El Piloto Wenche” (Editorial Tierra Mía, 2001). The other part of this story is in file No. 46060, labeled as “alleged misfortune” in the Second Civil Court of Chillán, to which Primera Línea had access. The officer recalls how on October 1, 1973, as soon as the curfew ended, he went to the Army General Staff to meet with General Augusto Lutz, head of Military Intelligence, and raise the issue of the disappearance of his brother-in-law, the socialist lawyer Reinaldo Poseck. Until the day of the military coup, Ramos had been Chief of Staff of the Military Institutes Command. His refusal to participate ended his 30-year career. He had to leave the “military family,” although he was not detained. His brother-in-law Poseck, regional head of the Institute for Agricultural Development (INDAP), married and a father of three, had been detained the previous day at his home in Chillán by order of Commander Guillermo Toro Dávila. A neighbor had denounced him. Colonel Ramos had been a classmate of Lutz at the War Academy, which is why he hoped his help would be useful. While visiting him in his office, Lutz telephoned General Washington Carrasco, head of the III Army Division in Concepción, to seek an answer, without success. Lutz then recommended that he communicate directly with Commander Toro, who would arrive in Santiago the following day. After the meeting, Ramos tried to contact General Lutz again, with no results. On October 3, he found out that Commander Toro had flown to Santiago in a civilian plane from the Chillán Aero Club to attend another commemoration of the 'Disaster of Rancagua.' Ramos knew Toro’s mother and knew that the officer would visit her at her home on Pedro de Valdivia at some point. He waited for him there, and when he arrived at six in the evening that day, the meeting was very brief: the officer denied having ordered Poseck’s detention and said he 'knew nothing about that person.' At the end of that week, Toro handed over his position to Lieutenant Colonel Christian Guedelhoeffer (now deceased). “I would not waver until I found the truth” On October 11, Ramos took the train to Concepción to speak with General Carrasco, the city’s intendant, who knew Poseck and his family. The next day, Ramos went to the intendancy and was attended by Commander Luis Ortiz Sallorenzo. The latter called Chillán to check the list of detainees, and the detention of his brother-in-law was denied. The following day, Ramos called Sallorenzo again. The officer informed him that Poseck had indeed been detained in Chillán on September 30, but had been released two days later for 'lack of evidence.' Ramos then took the train to Chillán. However, Poseck was not at his home. At the train station, he met Commander Guedelhoeffer, who had been his student at the War Academy in 1968. 'Upon hearing me ask about the lawyer Poseck, he turned pale and could not answer. (...) I noticed him nervous and hesitant when I said goodbye to him, and I warned him that I would not rest until I obtained the truth,' writes Ramos. The officer returned to Santiago empty-handed. His wife 'cried, secluded herself at home, and knitted tons of wool and more wool, prayed and asked God every day to return her brother to her. She does not wish upon anyone the evil that her infantry friends did to her, those she had known in her youth, with some of whom she had danced at friendly receptions.' In October, the local press reported that a guerrilla school had been dismantled, supposedly led by Poseck. It was claimed that the lawyer was a fugitive along with his lieutenant, Cecil Patricio Alarcón Valenzuela. The latter, a socialist militant and also an INDAP official, 23 years old, has been forcibly disappeared since September 16 of the same year. On November 3, 1973, the newspaper “Crónica” of Concepción revealed that “the leadership of the Plan Zeta of Chillán” had fallen. It mentioned “former deputy Rogelio de la Fuente and Reinaldo Poseck.” “Enough with the lies...” During the summer of 1974, a major sent by General Carrasco informed the lawyer’s parents that they should be calm, 'as their son had not yet been detained, but was being sought in the region, and he was worried, as he was a fugitive from military justice. Finally, he advised them to trust that he was alive in some place appropriate for his actions as a leader in Ñuble of the side opposed by the military junta.' Months later, Ramos’s wife received a letter from her sister-in-law in Valdivia. She recounted an encounter with a retired colonel, a friend of her husband, who pointed out that 'it was time to stop the lies, as the lawyer Poseck had been executed the very night of his detention,' and advised her 'not to keep looking, as the execution would be denied by the Army, since everyone was sworn not to give information about matters of prisoners or the disappeared.' Meanwhile, Ninette Martignoni, wife of the disappeared lawyer, was contacted by a young woman after a meeting of the International Red Cross, where relatives of prisoners and the disappeared attended. The girl was the daughter of a nurse at the Herminda Martín Hospital in Chillán, who treated several people who arrived with signs of torture from local military units in the first days of the military coup. 'She informed her that her mother had spoken at the home of Mr. Reinaldo, who had arrived wounded one night in September, with a broken leg, and she had treated him with Dr. Parr.' The lawyer 'had been left well, with his leg in a cast and recovered,' but 'at dawn, he was requested by a military patrol, whose members said they were following orders from General Carrasco, and they took him from the hospital.' Parr denied in the proceedings having treated Poseck. Retired Major Oscar Poseck, brother of the disappeared, had been a comrade-in-arms of General Carrasco in the Tucapel regiment of Temuco, where both had served as lieutenants in 1942. He asked for an interview to ask him about the case, but the general never agreed to receive him. Soledad Poseck, the lawyer’s eldest daughter, decided to file a writ of amparo in favor of her father, which was rejected. She and her mother then traveled to Santiago and sought asylum in the Venezuelan embassy. 'Mr. Poseck’s parents-in-law and his parents,' meanwhile, 'died destroyed by the disintegration of the family,' writes Ramos. The wife of the disappeared and her son Ariel left the country in 1975 and took refuge in Cuba. They would not return to the country until 1986. The proceedings for the death of Poseck began in the Second Criminal Court of Chillán on September 29, 1977. The investigations did not yield major results. Judge Hugo Neira Carrillo ordered a temporary dismissal in December of that year. “He went too far with the torture” 17 years passed. On June 24, 1994, the lawyer for the National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation, Alejandro González, requested that the Chillán court review the summary, as well as carry out several investigative steps. Judge Guillermo Arcos Salinas then issued a series of orders. In the Chillán court, Ramos met former Major Eduardo Torrealba Pacheco, who had served in the city’s regiment during 1973. Torrealba told him that at the end of September of that year, he had seen Poseck in Colonel Toro’s office, which surprised him deeply because there were no charges against him. He also indicated that he was sure the lawyer had been executed in the same barracks. Ramos also learned that a leader of the National Party in the area, Pedro Guzmán Alvarez, had acted as an informant for Colonel Toro and his head of security, Captain Andrés Jesús Morales Pereira. Guzmán’s opinions had been decisive in carrying out the arrests of certain officials of the Unidad Popular. José Pedro Guzmán Álvarez declared in 1994 from his home in Viña del Mar that at the end of September 1973, he entered as a reserve officer into the No. 9 Infantry Regiment of Chillán, but indicated that he had performed administrative duties in the Chillán intendancy. Regarding Poseck, he said he had never known him. He adds that from November '73, he performed duties guarding the curfew, but “I never participated in nor belonged to any security agency, whether those of the Army itself, nor others.” Furthermore, he noted that “in my performance as an officer of the guard of the regiment, I never saw a detainee enter through the security services.” Likewise, Ramos was informed that Captain Morales had confessed to a woman that he was the author of the death of the lawyer Poseck, 'for the sole fact of not having been able to extract information from him about other people considered enemies of the military regime. During the night of September 30, 1973, when he was interrogating him, 'he went too far' with the torture.' Morales, who would be expelled from the Army, had repeated this same version to an assistant of the Chillán regiment, Captain Lutgardo Fuentes Contreras, nicknamed 'El Paddy,' who worked as a veterinarian. In the proceedings, Julia Fernández Cisternas, a former official of the Agricultural and Livestock Service, who was also imprisoned after the military coup, declared that at the end of September, Officer Morales came to her house one dawn, “he hugged me and started to cry, while telling me that he was in trouble, ‘that he had gone too far with Reinaldo Poseck and his boss, Major Arellano, was going to be angry because he had left without saying anything.’ He added that with the electric current, he caused a cardiac arrest.” She also said in the proceedings that Morales later threatened her with death for her confession. Until September 11, the official had served as secretary to Intendant Juan de Dios Fuentes Rojas in Chillán. Preschool educator Raquel Valdés, meanwhile, confirms having seen Poseck detained in the regiment. In the proceedings, she declared that she went to the facility to visit a friend, Claudio Reyes, as both were militants of the Communist Youth. “Poseck was wearing a black wool jacket and was being searched by a lieutenant, apparently surnamed Depix, who was taking his belongings, including his engagement ring.” Reyes, meanwhile, pointed out in the trial that during his detention in the regiment, he also saw Poseck in the company of Captain Morales. Poseck “sits next to me and we talk for about five minutes alone, where he tells me: ‘comrade, they are going to kill me, but one must not be disillusioned, as the life of revolutionaries is like this.’ Immediately after, Captain Morales enters and takes him away… I never heard from Reinaldo Poseck again.” Ana María Andrades, who was detained on October 2, by virtue of her socialist militancy and work as an official of the Technical Cooperation Service (Sercotec) of Chillán, also says she saw Poseck in the regiment. It was in a hole where detainees were thrown. Andrades said she saw Poseck blindfolded. They want money In August 1988, near noon, former officer Morales appeared unexpectedly at Colonel Ramos’s house. He indicated that he was at the barracks the day his brother-in-law was detained, that he had him searched, and ordered his captor, Lieutenant Rodolfo Depix Díaz, to take his details. Then, when night fell, 'I complied with the order of Colonel Toro, who told me to hand him over to the Carabineros, because that way we would not have to answer for him.' According to Morales, the lawyer had been put in a jeep and taken to the Second Precinct of the Carabineros of Chillán, where he had been placed at the disposal of Lieutenant Patricio Jéldrez Rodríguez. The uniformed police officer, who would go on to become a general in his institution, declared in 1994 and denied all accusations. He confirmed that at the time he served with the rank of lieutenant in the Second Precinct of Chillán and that he knew Poseck for being a public figure. However, he denied having participated in his detention and also in the torture. 'I had to do with many cases in Chillán,' Morales said in 1988, 'and since the time limit for judicial actions is already being met, I am carrying in my briefcase a list of people, in addition to you, to give them concrete information about what really happened to their disappeared. I only ask for an amount that I need, to be able to pay for the services of a lawyer myself to defend me from the possible charges that the involved parties could make against me. What do you say?'. Morales asked for fifty thousand pesos (about 200 dollars at the time) and Ramos said he would think about it. He asked him to return two days later. He did so. However, this time Ramos preferred not to receive him at his home. It was then that Morales confided in him that the one to blame for everything had been Colonel Toro, head of the regiment, that Lieutenant Depix had kept the ring, the ID card, and the Longines watch belonging to the lawyer Poseck, and that those directly responsible for his death had been the Carabineros of the Second Precinct of Chillán. He also pointed out that only he knew where they could find Poseck’s body, but that to know it they would have to pay and 'damn, why didn't you speak with me before, instead of doing it with my superiors?'. Upon saying goodbye, Morales advised him 'not to let his tongue slip' so as not to put 'his personal safety' at risk. In 1994, Investigaciones tried to locate Morales at his home in La Florida. However, he could not be found. While his search was being carried out, the lawyer for the Army Audit Office, René Alegría, aware of the procedure, indicated that the officer would appear to provide statements before the judge. In the proceedings, Morales denied all charges. He also denied having asked for money from former Colonel Ramos. “Time to speak” In 1990, Ramos received a call from the veterinarian Fuentes. By phone, he informed him that he had been given a terminal prognosis by doctors and considered that the time had come to speak, even though he was sworn, like the rest of the officers, to maintain silence. According to Fuentes, on the morning of October 1, he heard Captain Morales report on the death of Poseck while he was being interrogated, and that he had immediately gone to verify it at the place of preventive detention, some pits dug at the back of the barracks. There he had found Poseck lying with several bullet wounds in his chest and his right leg in a cast. 'He was buried in the Quilmo military field, from where months later his remains were exhumed, by order of Commander Guedelhoeffer, to be taken in an unknown direction by officials of the Carabineros station of Huambalí,' said Fuentes. Officer Fuentes reiterated this version in 1994 before the tribunal. He pointed out that at the end of September 1973, the then-Captain Morales told him that “Reinaldo Poseck had been taken from them by the Carabineros at the Second Precinct of Chillán, during an interrogation led by a Carabinero surnamed Jeldres, of the rank of sub-lieutenant, who applied electric current.” He also points out that the transfer of Poseck would have been done by order of the regiment commander, Guillermo Toro Dávila. Fuentes remembers that in March 1974, some conscripts who were bathing in the Ñuble River, on the “Quilmo” property, found two bodies. Upon arriving, the officer was able to observe “the remains of two people tied back-to-back with wire. Their clothes were in tatters, the bodies looked deformed and swollen by the action of the water and dragging, they also showed rodent bites.” The officer recognized one of them as the lawyer Poseck. “He had his right leg in a cast, plus I knew him perfectly by his blonde-to-white mustache and physical build. It was also noticeable that he was wearing a yellowish-brown jacket, large plaid Scottish type. In the other person, I recognized Patricio Alarcón, who was the other head of the ‘Plan Z’. He was wearing a red sweater. Both had four or five bullet impacts in their chests.” Former officer Fuentes remembers having notified the commander of the No. 9 Mountain Infantry Regiment of Chillán, Commander Cristian Guidelefer (Guedelhoeffer), “and totally ignoring what procedure followed that finding.” Also, Colonel Ramos’s father, a former Army non-commissioned officer, confessed to him before dying that he had spoken with a friend of his, who in the first days of October 1973 had seen Poseck’s corpse with several shots in the chest at the shooting range of the Chillán regiment. On May 30, 1995, meanwhile, Ramos coincidentally met former General Guillermo Toro at the Military Hospital. Again, he asked him about the Poseck case, warning him that there was a judicial investigation in progress. However, Toro replied that, in case of being called to testify, he would do so by official letter, and that in his time he had given instructions to the Carabineros so that the detained lawyer would be interrogated 'with the considerations that the case warranted.' Toro acknowledged that former Lieutenant Morales and the veterinarian Fuentes had been under his command, but pointed out that the former was a 'bad element,' who had been discharged after a summary. He then declined to provide any other information. Indeed, on March 9, 1995, the Army Major General, Juan Guillermo Toro Dávila, refused to testify before the tribunal by virtue of his position and only agreed to answer a written questionnaire. On March 15, 1995, the Third Military Court of Concepción, headed by Brigadier General Raúl Carvajal Davidson, requested the transfer of the case to the military justice system. However, Judge Arcos refused the request. On April 21, the military prosecutor Eduardo Benavides Meneses requested the Supreme Court to disqualify the civil court from the case, as there were former uniformed personnel involved. On May 18, prosecutor René García Pica recommended that the case remain in the hands of the civil justice system. However, despite this, the proceedings were transferred to the military justice system, where it was dismissed.

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Primeralinea.cl Wednesday, November 20, 2002

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