The untold story of the 36 civilians who caused the deaths of hundreds of peasants.

An LND team traveled 2,500 kilometers across three regions in southern Chile to scrutinize the secrets of the most ferocious massacres of peasants that occurred during the dictatorship. Behind these crimes were landowners, merchants, and neighbors who waged a dirty war in alliance with military personnel and Carabineros.

Thirty-five years after these crimes, and despite the fact that justice has been served in some cases, the majority remain free and still roam the country's fields, towns, and hamlets as masters and lords.

It was a vengeance that terrorized entire villages, sheltered each time by the darkness of night. The authors of the crimes against peasants and workers of other trades were local civilian masters who, after the military coup and in alliance with the military and the uniformed police, decided the life and death of the victims they chose.

Some acted disguised in war attire, prepared and determined to exterminate those who had defended their rights against the exploitation that had always been established in the fields. Sometimes, even before the coup d'état, they performed paramilitary tasks alongside the far-right movement Patria y Libertad.

Others acted in connection with various fascist-style groups organized to oppose the workers' achievements during the years of the socialist dream through violence. But all responded with the hatred of witnessing how their eternal subjects and servants of their fortune-reproducing desires were gaining ground, countering humiliations and abuses against their dignity and that of their families.

Especially inside the fundos (estates) where the law was the boss. Dramatic stories where, on some occasions, the parents or relatives themselves blamed their own for getting involved in union struggles for labor improvements, justifying their bosses, these civilian activists, and the military for having hunted them down and forcibly disappeared them.

In every city, in every town or hamlet in the Andean foothills where death arrived dressed in civilian clothes or disguised in olive green, the terror instilled by the hand of these powerful men remains to this day.

The inhabitants are hostile to questions about those times. They invoke oblivion due to the passage of time, or simply confess while looking around that they still fear the return of the scourge that filled the streets and rural paths with blood.

Some of these civilian perpetrators of the massacres still walk the same paths frequented by the relatives of the fallen to buy their daily bread. Sometimes they spit on them as they pass, insulting them for having brought them to sit on the defendants' benches in a court.

The mothers or siblings who dared early on to overcome the fear of constant threats by pursuing these perpetrators judicially suffered the double punishment of losing their loved ones and receiving the contempt of their neighbors.

And even from the very comrades-in-arms of their relatives, who crossed to the other side of the street to avoid those sad and helpless eyes that, to this day, have never stopped searching for their disappeared.

La Nación Domingo compiled the list of the 51 civilians prosecuted or convicted for the kidnapping and disappearance, or for the homicides, of field workers and others who practiced multiple trades. Of the total, 15 are Germans from Colonia Dignidad, who are not addressed in this report because their movements are well known.

However, for the vast majority of the other 36, their identities and actions remain publicly unknown. The team of three LND journalists traveled 2,500 kilometers and crossed three regions between Osorno and Los Ángeles, including Andean foothill zones, to retrace the route of vengeance.

Everything happened in the midst of the biggest storm of the last 30 years, which left 17,000 victims, navigating their vehicle through flooded highways and interior roads. Miguel Ángel Fuentealba was five years old when, on October 10, 1973, the black of night was stained red in the hamlet of Liquiñe, 150 kilometers east of Valdivia, near the border with Argentina.

They took his father along with ten other peasants to the bridge over the Toltén River in Villarrica, shot him several times, and slit his belly open with a corvo (curved knife) so that his body would not float and would disappear into the current.

Miguel, now in his forties, did not know for many years what happened to his father, Isaías. In the afternoons, he would comb his hair well, put on his best clothes, "and all polished up, I would sit in an armchair outside the house to wait for my old man to return on the estate bus he always arrived on." He stutters a little, which has afflicted him since then, looks you in the eyes, and suddenly his voice becomes softer due to the emotion of the memory.

Outside, in the streets of Villarrica, where we found him in a café, the rain is imposing. Luis García Guzmán was the son of Julián, owner of the Termas de Liquiñe (Liquiñe Hot Springs), both rabid anti-communists.

The inn and cabins of the complex served as headquarters for the hunt. There, Luis García and his father, now deceased, made the list of those who had to be hunted for Captain Hugo Guerra Jonquera, who arrived with military forces from Valdivia.

The Garcías also provided the vehicles to transport the detainees to their final destination. Eleven peasants from the Paimún, Trafún, and Carranco estates suffered the sentence imposed on them by these masters and lords of the small town.

The Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, to which the three properties belonged—the largest timber area in hectares and peasant power in the history of Chile, strengthened during the Allende Government with José Liendo Vera, "Commander Pepe," as its main leader—was feared at the time by the landowners of the Andean foothills of the X Region.

Now it was time for the reversal, when it was time to collect in lives. But that night, Luis García's wife, María Hernández Calderón, saw everything. Twenty years later, García abandoned her and their two children for another woman, and it was she who now took revenge and denounced what she witnessed that October night: the eleven peasants tied up and blindfolded on top of the Garcías' vehicles, and her husband driving, one of them dressed as a soldier.

She saw the death convoy leave the inn bound for the Toltén River. Refugees from the rain under the eaves of the building where she lives in Villarrica, María spoke with LND to tell of her misfortune. But after her confession to the justice system in 2005, García visited her and, with threats, forced her to sign a letter retracting her statements where she recounted what happened. "I signed the letter so he would leave me alone, because he was arrogant; nobody likes him anymore because of that." But months later, the woman struck back and again ratified her statements in the process being investigated for this episode. Her integrity and courage, and her clear ideas, are surprising. We fled the cold and rain, and she joined us for hot chocolate to warm up the bitter memories. As a trick of fate, Luis García, who was also a "constable" for the Carabineros, baptized his current native wood business with the name of one of the estates of the tragedy: "Maderas Nativas Paimún S.A.," on the highway between Villarrica and Lican Ray. We looked for him there without luck. His wife says he is in Santiago. Miguel Ángel, one of the five children his father, Isaías, left behind, does not hide the fact that for a long time he thought about killing the Garcías when he learned the truth years later. As a teenager, he had to work at the hot springs because they were the only ones in the village who provided work. His mother, Honorinda, also served the masters. And the Garcías, with their military cronies, continued to come to celebrate and sing with the guitar at his grandmother's tavern in Liquiñe. "There is still a hope that he will return, although I know it is irrational. My daughter sometimes tells me: 'What if Grandpa is alive in another country?' It's just that the mind is so strange," Miguel Ángel muses, looking through the café window at the wet street. In October 1994, the Garcías sold the tourist complex to the Navy, which acquired it for 196 million pesos, under the scrutiny of Panguipulli notary Leonardo Calderara. When asked, the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Rodolfo Codina, stated he was unaware of the tragic past of what is now a recreation site for officers and seafarers. "I am unaware if these hot springs had any link to human rights violations," the admiral replied to LND. In Liquiñe, Miguel Ángel's aunts, Gloria and Marta, are surprised by our arrival to ask about that past that they and the whole town would like to bury forever. Expressions of affection for "Grandpa Julián" and "Don Lucho," the Garcías who helped kill their brother-in-law Isaías, sound violent. Marta is direct: "He asked for it, why did he get involved in nonsense?" she sentences in defense of the masters of the hamlet. And she completes the sentiment by warning that it was Isaías who was the true culprit of his own death and not the Garcías. The woman's words seem like her own sentence in the store where we found her. Her daughter also speaks familiarly of "Grandpa Julián" as if he were her own. A couple of years ago, the small town of Liquiñe took to the streets with flags and banners to support Luis García after he was sentenced in the first instance to five years and one day as the perpetrator of the kidnappings and disappearance of the peasants. "Don Lucho" arrived asking for signatures of support in his favor, and almost all of the 1,200 inhabitants of the place backed and hugged him. It is the real and contradictory life of these villages where sometimes it seems that not even Christ himself has arrived yet. As contradictory as the stormy sky that suddenly opens in a break from the deluge, and in the midst of the darkness, the solitude, and the fullest silence, reveals its mantle of stars and constellations that are overwhelming and that we contemplate, numb, with respect for the immensity and mystery of that southern universe. Heading north, in the VIII Region, is Santa Bárbara. From there, more than 30 kilometers toward the mountain range, an endless winding road, full of mud and plagued by forestry plantations, ends at the imposing El Huachi estate. It is preceded only by the hamlet of the same name, humble in its surroundings, which seems like a haphazard extension of the field owned by the Barrueto Barting family. It is no coincidence that everyone knows them, as many of the locals work their lands and settled there looking for a way to survive. To reach the estate where the brothers Manuel and Ricardo Barrueto live, it is enough to pronounce their surname, and arms are always raised in the same direction, deep into the forests. Once inside the property, one of the house employees with an impressive view of the Huequecura River tells us that "the boss" left in the morning, because he has another residence in Los Ángeles and alternates his stay between both places. "He is somewhat ill, he left to get some tests done, it is most likely that he will arrive tomorrow or the day after," she says kindly. After the discouraging response, the return to Santa Bárbara became inevitable. After advancing through steep hills, the road indicating the exit of the estate appeared. But the gate is blocked by an all-terrain motorcycle that is lying across it, as if it were just another pine tree among the thousands that the Barruetos have on their property ready for logging. To the side of the vehicle, a tall man waits in a threatening attitude. He has gray hair, dry eyes, and a face wrapped in a pair of pale cheeks. He wears a red jockey cap and, with his gaze lowered, approaches inquisitively. In one hand he carries a digital camera; the other rests on a bulge located at his waist. After scrutinizing the car and its occupants, his small mouth states briefly that he is Ricardo Barrueto Barting. He does not admit it, but he is one of the two brothers who are currently being prosecuted for the kidnapping of six peasants, which occurred just after the coup, all of them employees on his estate. Without further ado, he expels us from the property; there are no more questions. "You don't enter here without my permission," he sentences. He takes a photograph of our car and the license plate, while we immortalize him back with our camera. Twenty-four hours later, we would learn that a supposed detective from the Investigative Police called the Seellmann Rent a Car company, where the vehicle was rented, to ask for the renters' data, arguing that it had been used "by Mapuche activists to cause disturbances." Mrs. Norma Panes knows Ricardo Barrueto's tricks well. In 2006, after the minister of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana, took on several human rights cases in the Biobío area, she had a confrontation with him. It took place in the middle of the reconstruction of the scene for the 20 kidnappings of workers and peasants that the town of Santa Bárbara suffered between September and October 1973 and that, to this day, have left many families without knowing the whereabouts of their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers. There, in front of his face, Ricardo pointed out that on the night her husband, Miguel Cuevas Pincheira, "was taken from the house in his underwear by uniformed men," he was not there. But she asserts that the Barruetos were part of the group of civilians who, disguised as military personnel, took her husband in the middle of the night on September 20. Norma Panes says she saw them clearly, and so did her daughter. Upon showing her the updated photo (see image) that we obtained of Ricardo Barrueto, Norma does not hesitate: "It's him." His face, like Manuel's, remained engraved in her memory with as much force as those years when her husband was just another worker on the El Huachi estate, a job he alternated with his trade as a shoemaker. The testimonies of the families of six more peasants who worked at El Huachi, kidnapped on the same day and at similar hours, allowed the Barruetos and the civilians Sergio Fuentes Valenzuela, Jorge Domínguez Larenas, and the brothers Jorge and José Valdivia Dames, who formed a true mini-Caravan of Death, to be prosecuted in 2002. Norma illustrates it in the following way: "That day, what the group of civilians, all of them members of Patria y Libertad, did together with the Carabineros was, literally, to clean the field for the Barruetos." Then, a memory of the years following her husband's disappearance comes to her mind: "They were all friends with each other. On one occasion, in the middle of the dictatorship, I ran into a couple of them on a corner. Since they knew I was still looking for my husband, they spat in my face," she says. The attitude of the Barruetos, apparently, is not very different. After moving the motorcycle to clear the way, minutes later, one of the peasants hitched a ride with us to get to the road that connects Ralco with Los Ángeles. On the way, he said that Barrueto had asked him if he knew whose white vehicle had entered the estate without permission. And he warned us about Ricardo: "When he saw you enter, he said that you weren't leaving here." The young man, a simple forestry worker, lucidly added that "he is a bad man, arrogant, a jerk as a boss, who pays just enough to survive. He takes advantage of the worker's suffering and need." Currently, the civilians responsible for the massacre remain prosecuted. After executing them, most were thrown into the Biobío River from the Santa Bárbara bridge. A few kilometers south of Santa Bárbara, in Mulchén, another wave of kidnappings was carried out thanks to the coordinated work of civilians and Carabineros. Organized in the same way, but this time dressed in their own clothes, they arrived at night to seek their vengeance. One of them fell upon the worker and leader of a peasant union, José Orellana Gatica. His captors: Rolf During Pohler and Samuel Arriagada Domínguez, plus the police contingent at their service. The motive was clear: the worker worked inside the Verdún estate (a name that alludes to the bloody First World War battle fought by Germans and French), whose owners were During's parents. José Orellana's wife, Sara Mendoza, remembers that on the night of September 28, '73, the picket arrived outside the house they had inside the employer's property. Without asking, they opened fire, and after a few moments, they kicked down the door. They took her husband and dragged him away by force. It was not difficult for her to recognize During and Arriagada, since she always saw them together inside the estate. Desperate, she went out with a candelabra, but they blew it out of her hand with a gunshot. José's father, who also lived there and worked for the Durings, did not get up. His wife begged him to intercede on behalf of their son, but the man, faithful to his boss, told her to shut up and keep sleeping. A few days later, the man threw Sara off the estate and continued working for the Durings for his entire life. At that moment, she was 21 years old and six months pregnant. For the LND team, it was impossible to find Rolf During, as he moves between several properties he maintains between the VIII, IX, and X Regions. However, we found his hitherto inseparable friend, Samuel Arriagada, with whom he traveled in the same vehicle to testify for this case at the Concepción Court of Appeals. Also the son of large landowners, but today fallen on hard times, Arriagada does not appear in any public registry. Only the house in his sister's name alerts us to his possible presence. It is an old wooden mansion located on the corner of Soto and Villagrán streets. In a small store located to the side, they confirm to us that Samuel Arriagada lives in that house and that, although he is an unfriendly character, they do not know that he is involved in crimes committed during the dictatorship. In the presence of a camera, of all the people who passed by the place, the only one who gave a suspicious look and was annoyed when they photographed the front of the house was a guy about 65 years old, wearing a jacket and blue jeans. A few seconds later, he enters the house, and there is no doubt: it is Samuel Arriagada. When asked about his procedural situation, at first he denied being involved in any trial. Upon reminding him that he was detained for several weeks in 2003, he says he has nothing to do with it and that he does not trust the press. He did not accept more questions; he just kept his gaze fixed until we disappeared from his corner. His silent hermeticism contrasts with the image Sara took with her when she confronted him. "He only lacked hitting me," she remembers. But she never shrank. "Every time I found them at the bank or somewhere, I would arrive with my son in my arms and tell him, especially Rolf: 'Kill me too.' He always limited himself to lowering his face. His mother even offered me money so that I would stop accusing them. I wasn't interested in that. I didn't accept a single peso from them," says the woman with black eyes and a tender smile. Sara's combative attitude is isolated. José's brothers, for example, refused to undergo DNA tests at the Legal Medical Service to determine if some of the bone remains found in various parts of Chile could match. "They are afraid that the coup will return and they will wipe everything out again," warns Sara. In any case, for her, the longing to find her husband again was always stronger. Although she lived for 20 years with another man and had a son with him, she does not hesitate to show her cards. "I choose José a hundred times. My best moments are when I dream of him. I am by his side and he tells me to stop looking for him. There I listen to him and I am happy. When I wake up, everything changes," she says. Although neither of them confessed to the kidnapping, Samuel Arriagada is currently sentenced in the first instance to five years and one day in prison for the qualified kidnapping of José Orellana. Rolf During, meanwhile, was sentenced to 10 years. The reason is that the descendant of Germans keeps another dead man under the table. In this last case, he does acknowledge that he was one of those who pulled the trigger. In his judicial statement before the minister with exclusive dedication Carlos Aldana, Rolf During acknowledged that on September 28, while he was on guard duty supporting the Carabineros, he received Jorge Narváez Salamanca, who arrived detained in the company of "a group of people." He does not remember who they were. Subsequently, During relates, he got into a car and sat next to Narváez until they arrived at the Quilaco police station, a small town located a few kilometers from Mulchén. There, Carabineros Lieutenant Jorge Maturana (also convicted) was waiting for them. After an hour of waiting, they took him to the Quilaco bridge, located over the Biobío River, sat him on one of the railings, and then proceeded to execute him. The other civilian who was present at the crime scene, José Horacio Pacheco Padilla, also declared that During was one of the three who fired. Regarding his participation, he indicated that he participated in the detention and that, as he was not armed, he was only an eyewitness. However, Pacheco Padilla was a schoolmate of Jorge Narváez at the Liceo de Hombres in the city (he was one grade ahead), belonged to the Patria y Libertad group, and also to the civilian support group for the Carabineros. On the other hand, Narváez was 15 years old at the time and was a member of the MIR. Hence, the judicial evidence points to the fact that it was he who gave the name of his classmate. When one asks about José Pacheco, in Mulchén his name sounds familiar. "He drives one of those yellow-sign collective taxis," a neighbor comments. The description adds that he works for "line number 2," which has its booth at the end of Victoria Street, almost at the urban limit of the small city. It is a green wooden shack, surrounded by the classic black vehicles that arrive and leave. The rest of the collective taxi drivers say that Pacheco drives a Chevrolet Corsa, the only one on the line. Furthermore, everyone says he is an affable and friendly guy. None of them admit to knowing that he has any kind of problems with the justice system. They consider him a quiet man who lives with his family. After a few minutes of waiting, the vehicle appears. From its interior descends a guy about 52 years old, robust, pot-bellied, gray-haired, and with a mustache. He hurries to inquire about the reason for our presence. "A quick ride to Los Ángeles," we answer as an excuse to know how he handles himself despite his past. He decides to pose next to his vehicle, with absolute relaxation. In more than 32 years, no one, except for one or two relatives of the victims, reminded him of his crime: having been part of a group of volunteers who illegally detained Jorge Narváez Salamanca and participating in his execution. Like Rolf During, for years Pacheco denied his participation in Narváez's death. Only in recent years has his memory been refreshed. He is currently sentenced to five years and one day. If his first-instance sentence is confirmed, he will have to go to prison. During as well. The machine-gun fire and the buzzing of bullets broke the silence of the southern night. Today, at midnight, in the corners of the X Region, one can still hear the beating of the trees resisting the wind, the drops of water falling from the branches, and the murmur of the nocturnal fauna. The night of September 16, 1973, was one of those where it was not the thunder that tore through nature, but the bursts of weapons from uniformed men and civilians that were discharged against peasants, who were a generational part of that nature. On that same date, at the same time, the Valderas family was preparing to sleep. Although they had known about the coup in Santiago, they did not think that the caravans of death that were unleashed in the country could reach them. Moreover, the 16 siblings who made up the family were beginning to arrive to gather for the days of the National Holidays. All this until the footsteps of several men were heard coming toward the humble dwelling, located 200 meters from the road that bordered Lake Puyehue. Flavio, the eldest son, accidentally ran into the group halfway when he was heading to the latrine. "Halt there, we are looking for Flavio Heriberto Valderas, don't move, you son of a bitch; we're going to kill you, asshole," said a Carabinero. A blow with the butt of a rifle broke the young man's right supraorbital arch and detached part of his skin. "My mother said that his eye had come out from the blow," relates his sister Luz Marina. In her simple house, located on Diego de Almagro Street, she related to LND that "my brother was a quiet, hardworking kid who, a couple of weeks earlier, had fought with a Carabinero, and he had threatened him. That night, Barrientos accompanied the Carabinero patrol, guided them, and provided them with vehicles. He also indicated where 'Cantarito' lived and entered with the detachment to point him out, because he also thought that my brother had locked his house door to bother him." It is on record in the case file that Flavio Heriberto never had any political activity and that his death corresponded more to a personal vendetta. But Luz Marina Valderas has not forgotten any of the numerous occasions she has had to encounter Jorge Barrientos Camadro in Osorno. Justice says he was one of those responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of her brother Flavio Heriberto, whom they nicknamed "Cantarito." Currently, Barrientos is a guy who always wears a jacket, blue jeans, and boots. He uses a huaso hat and gets around in an all-terrain vehicle. He has two estates: one in Puerto Octay and another in Puyehue. His life, in the last 35 years, has been quiet, except for his constant violent outbursts and his well-known bad temper. The former owner of Radio Sago, Pedro Burgos, related to those close to him about a meeting at the local hunting and fishing club, which the subject attended. The elderly man related how Barrientos took a pistol from his waist to shoot into the air because he did not agree with a decision. That is how he has spent his life, between the estates, the Tattersall livestock fair, and, recently, parading through courts and spending some time in jail. Luz Marina has worked for Senator Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle for many years. She takes care of the apartment that the legislator maintains in a downtown building. But she has also worked for years as a waitress at events. "Once I had to work the inauguration cocktail for a Soprole drying plant. I was serving on a tray and had to pass by his side. He recognized me and knocked the tray out of my hand with a slap," the woman recalled. She also says she does not forget the hatred with which he looked at her the morning when, again by chance, she was passing by to leave her truck keys at a flower stand, before leaving for Concepción, where several days of preventive detention awaited her—the only time he has been deprived of liberty for the forced disappearance of the peasant. After the tour, we confirmed that 35 years after the massacres, these "gentlemen" continue to be the masters of their small kingdoms, whose subjects continue to fear them, as if that same fateful night that many would have preferred not to live were today.

Source: La Nación, September 7, 2008

The Concepción Court of Appeals issued a second-instance sentence in the investigation into the qualified kidnappings of seven people, which occurred between September 22 and November 3, 1973, in the town of Mulchén, Bío Bío Region. In a unanimous ruling, the ministers Irma Bavestrello, Claudio Gutiérrez, and the associate lawyer Nelson Villena determined the following sanctions:

• Jorge Pacheco Padilla and Eduardo Arriagada Domínguez: 3 years in prison with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence for the kidnappings of Jorge Narváez Salamanca and José Orellana Gatica.
• Rolf During Pohler: 4 years in prison with the benefit of supervised release for the qualified kidnappings of Jorge Narváez Salamanca and José Orellana Gatica.
• Jorge Maturana Concha: 5 years in prison with the benefit of supervised release for the kidnappings of Jorge Narváez Salamanca, Valentín Lara Espinoza, and Nibaldo Seguel Muñoz. In addition, he was acquitted of the kidnapping of Segundo Reyes González.

Source: Judicial Bulletin, April 3, 2009

Case reopened for forcibly disappeared persons of Mulchén

The special minister for Human Rights cases, Carlos Aldana Fuentes, reopened the summary this week for the disappearance of 18 peasants from the Mulchén commune that occurred in 1973. Six months after having decreed the closure of the summary, the minister decided to reopen it ex officio to investigate the participation of uniformed personnel, particularly from the Los Ángeles Regiment, in "Operation Television Removal" carried out at the beginning of 1979.

This operation consisted of performing illegal exhumations of victims who had been executed and buried clandestinely (forcibly disappeared) during the reprisal and punishment actions carried out by uniformed personnel and fascist civilians in dire repressive raids; in the fields of the area, these raids were massive and bloody.

Years later, after the discovery of the bodies of the disappeared from Buin and Paine in the Llonquén Kilns, near Santiago, the tyrant ordered the territory to be cleaned of clandestine graves and for the remains of the already disappeared victims to be made to disappear.

This perverse operation was led, organized, and coordinated by the recently suicided former head of the CNI, Odlanier Mena Salinas. At the time of the closure of the summary in April of this year, Minister Aldana had only prosecuted five retired Carabineros for the crimes of kidnapping and qualified homicide, but without prosecuting anyone for the '79 operation.

Upon decreeing the reopening, he points out that he has noted the need to issue new proceedings to close the case. Lawyer Patricia Parra, from the Human Rights Program, celebrated the reopening, as she hopes that five other civilians and former uniformed personnel will be prosecuted for the commission of the crime of qualified homicide of the victims.

On the other hand, she points out that there is clear and sufficient evidence regarding those who participated in the illegal exhumations and incineration of the remains in ovens inside the Los Ángeles regiment.

In the investigation, the names of nine former military personnel from the Los Ángeles regiment and intelligence service agents of that unit have emerged. The crimes The murders were committed in punitive operations carried out in October 1973.

The peasants were taken prisoner and executed in three different places in the Andean foothill zone of Mulchén. The executions were recorded at the El Morro estate, located 50 kilometers inside Mulchén; at the El Carmen-Maitenes estate, located 80 kilometers away; and at the Pemehue estate, situated in the high mountain range, more than 100 kilometers from the city.

On June 6 and 7, 2009, Minister Aldana carried out intense reconstructions of the scene with the aim of establishing responsibilities in the detentions, executions, illegal burials, and illegal exhumations of the peasants.

In the proceeding, the sequence of events and the participation of the perpetrators in the crimes were accredited, as well as the subsequent operation of erasing traces that they carried out in 1979. The 18 peasants murdered between October 5 and 7, 1973, were the brothers Alejandro Albornoz González (48 years old), Alberto Albornoz González (41), Felidor Exequiel Albornoz González (33), Guillermo José Albornoz González (32), Daniel Alfonso Albornoz González (28), and a son of Alejandro named Miguel del Carmen Albornoz Acuña (20); Luis Alberto Godoy Sandoval (23); José Fernando Gutiérrez Asencio (25); Juan de Dios Laubra Brevis (26); Juan de Dios Roa Riquelme (35); the brothers José Lorenzo Rubilar Gutiérrez (33), José Liborio Rubilar Gutiérrez (28), Florencio Rubilar Gutiérrez (24); Gerónimo Humberto Sandoval Medina (22); Domingo Sepúlveda Castillo (29); Edmundo José Vidal Aedo (20); Celsio Nicasio Vivanco Carrasco (26), and José Florencio Yáñez Durán (34). The criminals The repressive units were composed of army personnel from the Los Ángeles Regiment, Carabineros, who operated with an express order from Mulchén Captain Sergio Neira Tapia, and a horde of fascist civilians commanded by the landowner Romualdo Guzmán Saavedra. The Carabineros were commanded by the then-Lieutenant Jorge Maturana Concha, and the Carabineros Osvaldo Díaz Díaz and Héctor Armando Guzmán Saldaña; among the civilians, in addition to Guzmán Saavedra, the standouts were Aquiles Guzmán Fritz, Francisco Urrizola Elías, Ramón Elías Abella, Rofh Düring Pohler, Raúl Tirapeguy, Carlos Lehman, and Samuel Arriagada Domínguez. The criminal party began acting at the El Morro estate on October 5. There, they detained, tortured, and murdered Juan Laubra Brevis, Domingo Sepúlveda, Edmundo Vidal, Celsio Vivanco, and José Yáñez. On the 6th, they continued through the El Carmen-Maitenes estate, where they acted in the same way against Alejandro, Guillermo, Daniel, and Miguel Albornoz, José Liborio, José Lorenzo, and Florencio Rubilar, and Luis Godoy. On the 7th, they arrived at the Pemehue estate, where they executed Alberto and Felidor Albornoz, Juan Gutiérrez, Juan Roa, and Gerónimo Sandoval. The murdered peasants were buried or semi-buried in clandestine graves in the same places where they were executed. Erasing traces Six years after the crimes, the same perpetrators, accompanied by other army personnel and civilian agents, proceeded to exhume the clandestine graves in which the victims had been buried. Then, the exhumed remains were taken to the Los Ángeles regiment, where they proceeded to burn them in ovens and drums conditioned for incineration. The crematories were under the control of Section II (as the intelligence department in army units is called) and installed next to where this section had its offices. In that same area, Minister Aldana centered the proceedings when carrying out the aforementioned reconstruction of the scene in 2009. On the same occasion, he proceeded to interrogate a series of former military personnel and former Carabineros linked to the executions, exhumations, and illegal incinerations. Some 14 former military personnel, including officers and enlisted men, were interrogated by Minister Aldana on that occasion. However, he did not prosecute any of them; apparently, new evidence has now emerged that led him to decree the reopening of the summary. "Operation Television Removal" is one of the most bestial actions committed by the military dictatorship, by express order of the tyrant, organized with promptness by the "impeccable" Mena, and executed with criminal solicitude by the hordes of agents who reveled in the terror they provoked and caused among their victims, the victims' relatives, and the population in general. Facts like these cannot continue to go unpunished.

Source: resumen.cl, November 2, 2013