Indicted for the disappearance of three Uruguayans and one Chilean worker, both in 1973, the former commander of the Mountain Engineers Regiment, Mateo Durruty Blanco, 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 pass it off to the DINA, and that is called military treason." The former commander of the Mountain Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto defended himself: "All of this was a DINA invention; I never signed anything, nor did anyone report 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 burned in the office of Judge Colomba Guerrero. The Colonel did not accept Contreras's accusation, which alleged that he was 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 insistently denied that the regiment he commanded served as a center for political imprisonment and torture after the military coup, a fact not publicly disclosed until now. A handful of those who were his subordinates, but mainly the conscripts who were doing their military service in that barracks at the time, said the opposite in the proceedings and admitted to the existence of detainees. Aside from his altercation with "Mamo," Colonel Durruty's situation was already complicated in any case, since 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 had torture occurred in that regiment under his command, but also the disappearance of persons. To the river Before Juan Llanca was killed and his body thrown into the Maipo River to make him disappear, his executioners at the Mountain Engineers of Puente Alto fed him ground glass to cause him serious 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 among officers and non-commissioned officers of the Mountain Engineers—"direct actors in 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 officers of 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, in turn, the coup d'état in Uruguay. They were transferred by the police to the Mountain Engineers of Puente Alto, 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 But 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 for crimes against humanity. The entire repressive situation in the Puente Alto Engineers was led by its commander, Mateo Durruty, through his team of men from the regiment's military intelligence, among whom were the "intellectuals" who did the analysis work, and those who stained their hands with blood, as in every intelligence community. However, 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 query, that in the Mountain Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto, "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 indeed existed in the Mountain Engineers of Puente Alto. In train cars According to the investigations of the proceedings for 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 clandestine DINA barracks. The prisoners were kept in subhuman conditions, locked in train cars used as collective cells. From there, they were taken out at different hours of the day and night to face the torments applied by officers and non-commissioned officers of the regiment's Section II of Intelligence. A section that was non-existent, according to the Army's report to Judge Guerrero, but which 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 the "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 handed them over. The judges required them to begin interrogating them because, as has happened in other proceedings, 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 again, since the majority of the former conscripts interrogated provided relevant data and confirmed what happened in the Mountain Engineers 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

Retired military personnel 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 accused are General Francisco Martínez Benavides and Colonel Lander Uriarte Burotto, in addition to the also retired non-commissioned officer René Cruces Tapia. Previously, the former commander of the Mountain Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto, 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 out of that barracks by Army personnel to be transferred, supposedly, to the Estadio Nacional.

However, on the way, the guards took the three aforementioned Uruguayans out of the military vehicle and made them forcibly disappeared to this day. Both General Francisco Martínez and Colonel Lander Uriarte and non-commissioned officer René Cruces belong to the group of those accused of committing crimes against humanity who are less well-known and prosecuted for the first time.

In the case of Durruty Blanco, he already has a sentence of 10 years and one day issued 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 leave 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

Retired Lieutenant Colonel sentenced to 10 years in prison for 1973 crime

The Court of Appeals of San Miguel sentenced retired Lieutenant Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco to 10 years in prison for the qualified homicide of José Eusebio Rodríguez Hernández, which occurred on September 14, 1973, in the Puente Alto commune.

In a split decision, ministers Carlos Gajardo, María Teresa Letelier, and Adriana Sottovia also ratified that the convicted man must pay compensation of $30 million to Macarena Rodríguez Villagra, the victim's daughter.

The ruling was adopted with the dissenting vote of Minister Sottovia, who was in favor of applying the "half-prescription" figure to reduce the convicted man's sentence. In the first instance, on July 24, 2008, Minister Marta Hantke had sentenced Durruty to 10 years and one day in prison.

Officer who ordered execution sentenced to 4 years with supervised release At the end of 2011, the Supreme Court issued a sentence for the murder of José Eusebio Rodríguez Hernández, who was executed by firing squad on September 14, 1973.

Rodríguez Hernández was 24 years old, a worker, and a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). The person responsible for the murder, sentenced by the Supreme Court to 4 years of supervised release, is the retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco.

The sentence is based on the crimes of kidnapping and murder. The sentence establishes that Mateo Durruty was involved in the kidnapping of the victim in September 1973, following his arrest while he was heading to the Nueva Habana settlement in Puente Alto, at which time he was allegedly carrying books by Karl Marx.

According to the investigation's records, "between the morning hours of September 13 and 14, 1973, while José Eusebio Rodríguez Hernández was heading toward the Nueva La Habana camp carrying a box of books whose author was allegedly Karl Marx, he was detained by Carabineros personnel, the box he was carrying was seized, and he was transferred to the Railway Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto, commanded by Mateo Durruty Blanco, in compliance with previous and precise instructions issued by the authority of that military unit, to the effect that political detainees in the jurisdiction were to be taken to the aforementioned Regiment. In that facility, without the minimum guarantees contemplated by our legislation for potential military crimes in wartime, he was interrogated and subjected to an apparent war council, of which there is no record whatsoever, only to be transported by Regiment personnel to Cerro La Ballena, in the sector known as Las Vizcachas, where, by order of Mateo Durruty Blanco, he was executed by firing squad." Magistrates Jaime Rodríguez, Rubén Ballesteros, Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, and the participating lawyer Luis Bates established in a split vote that the sentence can be served with the benefit of supervised release. Opposed to issuing the sentence was Ballesteros—who assumed the presidency of the Supreme Court on January 6—who was in favor of applying the statute of limitations to the case. In that context, the country's highest court deemed that the Treasury must pay total compensation to the victim's family of $50 million. On this matter, ministers Jaime Rodríguez and Rubén Ballesteros were in favor of denying the payment of the compensation. Previously, the Court of Appeals of San Miguel had sentenced Mateo Durruty Blanco to ten years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree, relevant legal accessories, and payment of court costs, for the responsibility that corresponded to him as the perpetrator of the crime of qualified kidnapping of José Eusebio Rodríguez Hernández, committed between September 13 or 14, 1973.

Source: La Nación, June 1, 2011

Former local Regiment Commander sentenced for human rights case

In a split decision, the ministers of the Second Chamber of the highest court sentenced retired Army officer Mateo Durruty Blanco to 4 years in prison with the benefit of supervised release. Regarding the civil aspect, the claim for damages filed by the victim's mother, Macarena Hernández Villagra, was accepted, ordering the Treasury to pay her the sum of 50 million pesos, as reported by the newspaper La Nación.

The investigation established that, "between the morning hours of September 13 and 14, 1973, while José Eusebio Rodríguez Hernández was heading toward the Nueva La Habana camp carrying a box of books whose author was allegedly Karl Marx, he was detained by Carabineros personnel and transferred to the Railway Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto, commanded by Mateo Durruty Blanco (...) In that facility, without the minimum guarantees contemplated by our legislation for potential military crimes in wartime, he was interrogated and subjected to an apparent war council, of which there is no record whatsoever, only to be transported by Regiment personnel to Cerro La Ballena, in the sector known as Las Vizcachas, where, by order of Mateo Durruty Blanco, he was executed by firing squad. Subsequently, the victim's body was buried in the Bajos de Mena Catholic cemetery, with his death registered in the respective registry." In the criminal aspect, the sentence was adopted with the dissenting vote of Minister Rubén Ballesteros, who was in favor of accepting the statute of limitations for the criminal action. In the civil aspect, the determination was adopted with the opposing opinion of ministers Rodríguez and Ballesteros, who were in favor of accepting the exception of absolute incompetence of the court. It should be noted that in June 2008, the visiting minister of the Court of Appeals of San Miguel, Marta Hantke Corvalán, issued a sentence in the investigation into the qualified kidnapping of José Rodríguez Hernández, which occurred in September 1973 at the Engineers Regiment No. 2 of Puente Alto. The magistrate sentenced retired Lieutenant Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco at that time to 10 years and one day in prison for the crime and ruled that the convicted man must pay the sum of 30,000,000 (thirty million pesos) to Macarena Rodríguez Villagra, the victim's daughter, as compensation for moral damages. In her ruling, the magistrate had rejected the claim filed against the Chilean Treasury due to the court's incompetence.

KIDNAPPING

Regarding the figure of Mateo Durruty Blanco, in 2011, along with six other military personnel, he was accused by Judge Joaquín Billard of the kidnapping of three Uruguayan citizens who were forcibly disappeared in September 1973 after the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet. That case is currently in the plenary stage.

Source: Puentealtoaldia.cl, January 4, 2012

Three retired military personnel prosecuted for kidnapping and disappearance of three Uruguayans

Both former General Francisco Martínez Benavides and former Colonel Lander Uriarte Burotto are accused of the disappearance of Ariel Arcos, Juan Povaschuk, and Enrique Pargadoy. SANTIAGO.—A retired general, a colonel, and a non-commissioned officer were prosecuted as alleged perpetrators of the kidnapping and disappearance in September 1973 of three Uruguayan citizens, judicial sources reported today.

Those accused by Judge Joaquín Billard of the disappearance of Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuk Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres are: General Francisco Martínez Benavides and Colonel Lander Uriarte Burotto, in addition to non-commissioned officer René Cruces Tapia, also retired.

Previously, retired Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco, former commander of the Mountain Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto, had already been prosecuted for this same crime. Days after the military junta took power, six Uruguayans were found by Carabineros inside an abandoned mine at the foot of the Andes Mountains.

Apparently, they had hidden there to plan an escape to Argentina, as they had taken refuge in Chile after the coup d'état that occurred in Uruguay on June 27, 1973. The police took them to the San José de Maipo sub-precinct, 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, the six Uruguayans were taken out of that barracks by Army personnel to be transferred, supposedly, to the Estadio Nacional, but on the way, the guards took three of them out of the military vehicle, and they remain forcibly disappeared to this day.

Both General Francisco Martínez and Colonel Lander Uriarte and non-commissioned officer René Cruces belong to the group of those accused of committing crimes against humanity in Chile who are less well-known and prosecuted for the first time.

Source: Emol.com, January 14, 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 the dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) to power.

According to judicial sources, visiting minister Joaquín Billard Acuña was the one who issued the accusation 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, 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 later to the Railway Engineers Regiment of Puente Alto.

It adds that hours later, two other Uruguayan citizens were detained and also taken to 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 military officer 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 ruling.

Source: The Clinic, October 27, 2011

In 2012, only Colonel Mateo Durruty had been sentenced to 6 years in prison. Now, retired General Francisco Martínez, former Brigadier Ander Uriarte, and former non-commissioned officers Gabriel Montero, Moisés Retamal, and Guillermo Vargas have been added to the convictions.

The young men were captured in the Cajón del Maipo after the 1973 military coup while attempting to cross the mountain range into Argentina.

The Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced 6 retired Chilean military officers this Monday to 6-year prison terms for the aggravated kidnapping of 3 young Uruguayans following the 1973 military coup, according to judicial sources.

In a unanimous ruling, the II Chamber of the appellate court modified the first-instance sentence, issued by special judge Joaquín Billard Acuña, which had sentenced only Colonel Mateo Durruty to 6 years in prison for this crime.

Now, retired General Francisco Martínez, former Brigadier Ander Uriarte, and former non-commissioned officers Gabriel Montero, Moisés Retamal, and Guillermo Vargas have been added to the conviction.

All those convicted are currently at liberty, a statement from the Judiciary indicated.

As this is a second-instance ruling, the defense for the military personnel may appeal to the Supreme Court.

CAPTURED IN THE CAJÓN DEL MAIPO

The victims were Uruguayans Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuk Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres, who were detained by Carabineros on September 29, 1973, in an abandoned mine in the Cajón del Maipo along with 4 other compatriots, including 2 women, who managed to survive.

The 3 had arrived in Chile as refugees during the government of Salvador Allende, fearing arrest in their home country due to suspicions of belonging to the leftist revolutionary group Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros.

Following Pinochet's coup, the young men attempted to flee Chile by crossing the Andes Mountains on foot toward Argentina, a circumstance in which they were detained and handed over by the Carabineros to military personnel from the Ferrocarrileros regiment in Puente Alto.

TORTURE AND DISAPPEARANCE

At the regiment, according to testimonies from some military personnel from the same unit and survivors, they were severely beaten and, among other tortures, were forced to eat ground glass.

Ariel Arcos Latorre, 23, was a university student, as was Enrique Pagardoy, 21; Juan Antonio Povaschuk, 24, was a photographer.

After a couple of days of confinement in the regiment, the transfer of the detainees to the Estadio Nacional was ordered, but Arcos, Pagardoy, and Povaschuk were separated from the group by order of one of the officers, and nothing more was heard of them since.

Source: La Nacion, May 26, 2014

Minister Hantke sentences retired Lt. Col. Mateo Durruty to 10 years in prison

The visiting minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marta Hantke Corvalán, issued a sentence in the investigation into the aggravated kidnapping of José Rodríguez Hernández, which occurred in September 1973 at the Engineers Regiment No. 2 in Puente Alto.

The magistrate sentenced retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco to 10 years and one day in prison for the aforementioned crime.

Furthermore, she determined that the convicted individual must pay a sum of $30,000,000 (thirty million pesos) to Macarena Rodríguez Villagra, the victim's daughter, as compensation for moral damages. Likewise, the lawsuit filed against the Chilean Treasury was rejected due to the court's lack of jurisdiction.

This is the second sentence issued by Minister Hantke regarding events linked to human rights cases in the Puente Alto commune.

Source: emol.cl, July 25, 2003

Santiago Court issues sentence for the kidnappings of three Uruguayan citizens in September 1973

The Santiago Court of Appeals issued a second-instance sentence in the investigation into the aggravated kidnappings of Uruguayan citizens Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuck Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres, who have been forcibly disappeared since September 1973 in the Cajón del Maipo sector.

In a split ruling (case file 47-2013), the ministers of the Second Chamber of the appellate court, Juan Cristóbal Mera, Jessica González, and the participating attorney Ángel Cruchaga, sentenced the retired Army officials to 6 years in prison: Mateo Durruty Blanco, Lander Uriarte Burotto, Gabriel Montero Uranga, Francisco Martínez Benavides, Moisés Retamal Bustos, and Guillermo Vargas Avendaño.

Thus, the appellate court modified the sentence of visiting minister Joaquín Billard who, on September 10, 2012, had sentenced only Durruty Blanco for the kidnappings of the foreign citizens.

The resolution was reached with the dissenting vote of Minister Juan Cristóbal Mera, who was in favor of confirming the first-instance ruling.

As established in the proceedings: "It has been established that at the end of September 1973, personnel from the San José de Maipo Carabineros Sub-station detained four Uruguayan citizens—two women and two men—inside an abandoned mine in the mountain sector of said commune.

They were taken to the police unit and later transferred to the Ferrocarrileros Regiment of Puente Alto. Hours later, two other Uruguayan citizens belonging to the same group were detained; they had gone out to perform reconnaissance of the terrain to flee toward Argentina through a mountain pass.

They were also taken to the Military Unit, where they were subjected to interrogations and torture. After remaining for an undetermined time in the Ferrocarrileros Regiment of Puente Alto, they were loaded onto a bus that was supposedly going to take them to the Estadio Nacional; however, an Army official ordered that three of the seven Uruguayan citizens be taken off the vehicle, and their current whereabouts remain unknown to this date."

Source: pdjud.cl, May 26, 2014

Human Rights: Judges prosecute nine retired military officers for two kidnappings

Nine former military personnel were prosecuted in recent hours as authors of two aggravated kidnappings that occurred between 1974 and 1975.

The first indictment was issued by Judge Colomba Guerrero of the First Criminal Court of Puente Alto, who investigated the disappearance of Juan Manuel Llanca Robas, who was last seen at the Puente Alto Regiment No. 2 in 1975.

In this case, the former commander of the regiment, Mateo Durruty, and former military personnel David Miranda, Pedro Teyssedre, René Cruces, and Carlos Canales were indicted as authors of the kidnapping.

Likewise, the judge of the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago, María Inés Collins, subjected the leadership of the DINA to prosecution for the disappearance of former MIR member Carlos Cubillos Gálvez, whose trail was lost at the detention center known as Londres 38.

In this case, retired General Manuel Contreras, retired Brigadier Miguel Krassnoff, retired Brigadier Marcelo Moren Brito, and the civilian Osvaldo Romo were indicted. The latter face a series of prosecutions in human rights cases, which are overseen by different judges.

Attorney Sergio Concha, who handles the cases, especially highlighted the work of Judge Guerrero, noting that since she arrived at the First Criminal Court of Puente Alto in the middle of last year, there has been a change in the development of the Juan Llanca case.

"The case had been in that court for approximately 10 years; there had been at least four magistrates who had not been particularly interested in this case (...) all of this was solved when Magistrate Guerrero arrived, who dedicated herself to investigating what until then had not been investigated," he stated.

Source: emol.cl, October 29, 2004

Retired Army general convicted of human rights crimes dies in Punta Peuco Prison

Gendarmerie sources reported that former Army officer Francisco Fernando Martínez Benavides passed away early this Thursday morning. He was serving a sentence at the Punta Peuco Prison in Santiago for the crime against three Uruguayan citizens, a crime committed at the end of September 1973 in Puente Alto.

Uruguayans Ariel Arcos Latorre, Juan Povaschuck Galeazzo, and Enrique Pargadoy Saquieres, who had remained as asylum seekers in Chile since a few months before the military coup, were detained by Carabineros and handed over to the military of the Mountain Regiment No. 7 in Puente Alto, who took them to their unit and subsequently made them disappear.

In that unit, Martínez Benavides was the 2nd Commander and Chief of the Intelligence Section.

Both the now-deceased, as well as former officers Mateo Durruty Blanco—at the time Commander of Regiment 7—and members of the Intelligence Section Gabriel Bernardo Montero Uranga, Moisés Retamal Bustos, Lander Mickel Uriarte Burotto, and Guillermo Antonio Vargas Avendaño, were sentenced to 6 years in prison as authors of the crimes in May 2014 and had remained in prison since April 2015, after the Supreme Court ratified the sentences.

As the cold data shows, the criminals remained in complete impunity for more than 40 years. Only in 2015, after almost 42 years since the crimes were committed, were they incarcerated. At the time, the judicial ruling established that the Uruguayan detainees were repeatedly and brutally tortured by their captors.

In the interim, they did not remain as innocent doves; rather, several of them continued their criminal and repressive trades in the service of the dictatorship. Martínez Benavides was a member of the DINA-CNI, where he served in the General Staff of the Metropolitan Division until 1981.

Human rights and crimes against humanity are not subject to statutes of limitations or amnesty, so the authors must serve their sentences in prison; this is required by international justice treaties that Chile has signed and which must be applied, despite reactionary offensives to try to impose more benefits and more impunity in favor of the criminals.

Despite the time elapsed since the commission of the crimes, the damage caused and the aberration it provokes continue to be felt due to the slow process of establishing the truth and the even slower role of justice, caused, among other reasons, by the concealment of information and the zero willingness to cooperate with these cases that these criminals have always shown.

Source: resumen.cl, October 26, 2017

Courts investigate torture and genocidal crimes in Cordillera Province

The San Miguel Court of Appeals appointed Minister Marínela Cifuentes Alarcón to investigate, among others, the following crimes related to the Cordillera province:

Regarding the young students, FRANCISCO EUGENIO VIERA OVALLE, 19 years old, from the Industrial High School of Puente Alto, a militant of the Socialist Youth, was detained on September 19, 1973; and HECTOR ENRIQUE HERNANDEZ GARCES, 17 years old, who studied at the Industrial High School of Puente Alto, belonging to the Socialist Youth, was detained on September 27, 1973.

Both were murdered by members of the Army, officers of the Infantry School of San Bernardo, at the concentration, torture, and execution camp "Cerro Chena." Their remains rest in the Bajos de Mena cemetery.

Their torturers were Army officers: Andrés Magaña, Alfonso Faúndez, Víctor Pino, Sergio Rodríguez, and Carabineros Lieutenant Sergio Ávila Quiroga. Francisco Viera and Héctor Hernández were murdered on October 6, 1973; they received multiple gunshot wounds in the back and were given no military trial. That same day, 18 other detainees were massacred at Cerro Chena.

Regarding the responsibilities of Colonel Mateo Durruty Blanco, Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Wenderott Pozo, and officers Pedro Teyssedre Cartagena, Francisco Martínez Benavides, Lander Uriarte Burotto, and non-commissioned officers Luis Canales Pino and René Cruces Tapia, all members of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) of the Ferrocarrilero Regiment of Puente Alto.

JAIME JIMENEZ JIMENEZ, 29 years old, leader of the Central Única de Trabajadores de Chile, was detained in the Nuevo Amanecer neighborhood of Puente Alto by local regiment troops. His body appeared dead on Avenida Camilo Henríquez, east of Puente Alto, on October 17, 1973.

His remains were taken to the General Cemetery of Santiago, "Patio 29"; subsequently exhumed and handed over to his family by the Legal Medical Institute.

JORGE ERNESTO CARRION CASTRO, 22 years old, worked at the Empresa Metropolitana de Obras Sanitarias (EMOS), married with 2 children, a MIR militant, president of the "Luis Emilio Recabarren" camp, lived on Los Pinos street, current Vista Hermosa neighborhood of Puente Alto.

In a violent raid on the camp, 60 residents were detained; some had fled to the "El Coipo" hill. The young Jorge Carrión was taken to the Puente Alto regiment; while trying to escape, he was murdered on October 5, 1973. His family reported the murder to the Criminal Court of Puente Alto.

The three Uruguayan Tupamaro citizens were detained at the end of September 1973 by police officers from the San José de Maipo Carabineros Sub-station. They were accused of trying to leave the country through a mountain pass.

In those months, the persecution of South American citizens was extremely violent throughout the country. The Carabineros of San José de Maipo handed them over to the Colonel and Commander of the Puente Alto Regiment, Mateo Durruty Blanco; which is why he is being prosecuted for the detention and disappearance of the three young men: ENRIQUE JULIO PAGARDOY SAQUIERES, 20 years old, from Montevideo, who worked in Canelones in Chile; ARIEL ARCOS LATORRE, 20 years old, arrived in Chile three months before the coup d'état, from whom he of course refuted the fact and denied everything: "I never knew anything, there were never any detainees in my regiment," insisted and lied the commander and Plaza Chief of Puente Alto.

In different raids, thirteen peasants from different settlements in Paine were detained by soldiers from the Infantry School of San Bernardo. They were subsequently tortured at Cerro Chena, taken out in trucks, and sent to the San Vicente de Pirque sector to be executed, under the responsibility of officers Andrés Magaña Bau, Guillermo Castro Muñoz, and non-commissioned officer José Vásquez.

The peasants were shot in the back and buried in mass graves. Subsequently, the bodies were exhumed by military personnel from Puente Alto and Carabineros, who threw them onto the southern slope of the Maipo River.

They were then sent to the Legal Medical Institute, and subsequently referred to the General Cemetery of Santiago "Patio 29." LUIS OSVALDO GONZALEZ MONDACA, 32 years old, married with 5 children, president of the "Huiticalán" settlement, was detained in the Paine commune.

Captured by Army troops from the Infantry School of San Bernardo on October 23, 1973, at 10:00 hours. Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. LUIS SILVA CARREÑO, 43 years old, married, 7 children, peasant detained in the "Arco Iris" settlement of Paine on October 16, 1973, executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque.

MANUEL SILVA CARREÑO, 44 years old, married, peasant from the "Arco Iris" settlement of Paine. Detained on October 29, 1973. Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. PEDRO JUAN MENESES BRITO, 30 years old, single, socialist militant, president of the "El Vínculo" settlement of Paine, detained on October 21, 1973, and murdered on October 23, 1973, at Cerro Grande de Pirque.

ROLANDO ANASTACIO DONAIRE RODRIGUEZ, 49 years old, married with 6 children, detained on October 23, 1973, in the "Huiticalán" settlement of Paine. Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. BENJAMIN ADOLFO CAMUS SILVA, 31 years old, married with 2 children, detained on October 20, 1973, in the "Huiticalán" settlement of Paine.

Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. SANTOS PASCUAL CALDERON SALDAÑO, 28 years old, married, socialist militant, detained on October 20, 1973, in the "Huiticalán" settlement of Paine. Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque.

BAUTISTA SEGUNDO OYARZO TORRES, detained in the "Huiticalán" settlement on October 23, 1973, in Paine. Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. JUAN MANUEL ORTIZ ACEVEDO, 38 years old, married with 4 children, president of the "El Rangue" settlement, was detained on October 13, 1973, in Paine and executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque.

LUIS CELESTINO ORTIZ ACEVEDO, 36 years old, married, 7 children, president of the JAP. Detained in the "El Rangue" settlement of Paine on October 13, 1973, executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. FRANCISCO JAVIER LIZAMA IRARRAZABAL, 34 years old, married, socialist militant, president of the "El Rangue" settlement of Paine.

Detained on October 13, 1973, executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque. JOSE MANUEL DIAZ INOSTROSA, 29 years old, president of the "Marcel Alto" settlement of Paine. JOSE MANUEL PAVEZ HENRIQUEZ, 25 years old, vice president of the "El Patagual" settlement of Paine, detained on October 13, 1973. Executed at Cerro Grande de Pirque.

JULIO SEGUNDO VALENCIA CASTILLO, 32 years old, married with 2 children, taxi driver, president of the Coordinator of Squatters of Puente Alto. On September 27, 1984, residents of the Puente Alto commune carried out a "land seizure," being violently evicted by Carabineros.

At night, Carabineros began looking for Julio Valencia; when they found him, they hit him with a stone and kicked him on the ground. Not satisfied with that, a Carabinero cut his throat with a yatagan.

His lifeless body was thrown onto Oscar Bonilla street in Puente Alto. His remains rest in the Bajos de Mena cemetery. Currently, the Puente Alto Communal of the Communist Party bears his name in his honor.

PATRICIO LEONEL GONZALEZ GONZALEZ, 23 years old, worker, studied primary school at School No. 2 on Eyzaguirre street, and secondary school at the Las Nieves Industrial High School. He resided in the old Pedro Aguirre Cerda neighborhood.

A militant of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR), the Communal of the Communist Youth (JJ-CC) of Puente Alto bears his name in honor of his trajectory. He was murdered on December 10, 1985, at 1:30 hours on Avenida Concha y Toro, in front of No. 0160 in Puente Alto.

He was shot by Carabineros of the commune and Army troops from the Puente Alto regiment, in broad daylight, in an unequal confrontation. The uniformed officers numbered more than 20 and had war weaponry, and "Pato" only had a low-caliber pistol.

The book "Una historia de amor y coraje en Puente Alto" was published, with poems in honor of this committed social combatant. His remains rest in the Bajos de Mena cemetery. Those responsible for the crime are Juan Orlando Muñoz Orellana, Nelson Mario Pérez, and Ramón Antonio Venegas Arenas, all Carabineros officials at the time of the events, who were prosecuted as authors by Minister Cifuentes, who also ordered their preventive detention.

Former political prisoners from Puente Alto in the Supreme Court

Regarding torture and torment, the Investigative Police (PDI) (Human Rights Brigade), under instructions from the visiting minister Mario Carroza Espinoza of the Santiago Court of Appeals, are investigating the complaints filed and accepted by former political prisoners residing in Puente Alto: Luis Lobos and Raúl Vargas, both former union leaders, and Sergio Solís and Ricardo Klapp, former political leaders of our provincial capital.

In addition, the PDI Human Rights Brigade is investigating in Pirque the 13 peasants from Paine murdered in San Vicente in October 1973 at the former Salvador Allende Agrarian Reform Center.

Human Rights organizations must promote the necessary protagonism of the people with social, citizen, and popular participation; to transition from an exclamatory democracy to a participatory democracy that respects Human Rights.

Source: elclarin.cl, November 26, 2015

A former Chilean soldier remembers with guilt the atrocities of Pinochet's dictatorship

He was 18 years old and a soldier in the Chilean Army. He was patrolling with his unit in a southern city when the owner of a supermarket turned in his own son, accusing him of providing ammunition and food to a guerrilla group.

The soldiers threw the young man into a well and began shooting at him. Afterward, they pulled his bloodied, bullet-ridden body out, loaded it onto a military truck, and left. Guillermo witnessed everything from a nearby Jeep.

"I never knew where they took him, not even his name," he said. "The whole experience made me mature very quickly. I became a soldier at 18, and after everything I saw, by 21 I was something else."

Guillermo was part of a military commando that spent months combing through remote towns and villages in southern Chile in search of those suspected of being opponents of General Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship.

He admitted to having participated in several executions as part of a firing squad.

"I didn't feel anything," he said. But now, he added: "There are moments when I can't get the images of these people out of my head."

Since the return to democracy in 1990, Chile has investigated human rights abuses committed during the military regime. But progress has been slow. More than 1,370 military, civilian, and police agents have been prosecuted, accused, or sentenced for human rights crimes.

Of these, only 117 people have gone to jail, according to a report published in December by the Ministry of the Interior's Human Rights Program.

So far, no conscript has been jailed. Judges have treated these soldiers with benevolence: they have preferred to incentivize them to come forward and help establish the truth.

"They are a very valuable source of information," maintained Mario Carroza, a judge in charge of more than 200 human rights cases. "They were under strict hierarchical command, forced to carry out orders they could not refuse. Our legislation allows us to grant them certain benefits if they cooperate, so that the conscript feels freed from the burden of keeping the secret."

Like thousands of other conscripts, Guillermo still carries the emotional scars of having been forced to witness or commit atrocities. Many were ordered, under threat of death, to beat, kill, torture, or rape innocent people.

They still feel the fear and shame that was instilled in them while they transitioned from youth to adulthood almost overnight. They fear reprisals, rejection from family and friends, or ending up in jail.

But while others are reluctant to reveal the secrets of their pasts, Guillermo speaks openly about his experiences.

"My companions tell me not to talk about the executions, to remember that I have a house and family. My wife doesn't like it either, but I'm not afraid anymore," he said.

Guillermo Padilla, 62, was recruited by the army five months before the military overthrow of President Salvador Allende in September 1973. He never imagined what awaited him.

According to an official report on political imprisonment and torture during the 17 years of Pinochet's dictatorship, after the coup d'état, Padilla's regiment in Puente Alto would put prisoners in train cars, blindfolded, tied up, and without water or food. Many detainees were victims of torture and rape.

For years, Guillermo has taken medication to sleep at night and longs for forgiveness from the victims' families. But he hesitates to approach them; he says he doesn't know how, aware that much of society considers soldiers like him to be criminals.

Father of three adult children, Guillermo and his wife of 40 years live in a modest and well-kept house in Cajón del Maipo, a mountainous area on the outskirts of Santiago. He is a heavy machinery operator at the Alto Maipo dam project.

He describes himself as a rough and rebellious teenager who liked to box and lived in a working-class district in Santiago. His father passed away when he was still a child, and he was raised by his grandmother in the capital.

When he was recruited in April 1973, he was working in a gypsum mine in El Volcán in Cajón del Maipo; he spent weekends with his grandmother and went out with a young woman from the company cafeteria.

Months later, he witnessed her arrest in a raid at the workplace. She did not recognize him as they forced her out along with other employees, threatening them with a gun, their arms raised. She was detained for a short time. In 1975, when Guillermo was exempted from his military duties, they resumed their relationship and got married.

He wanted to join the army. He liked the uniform and military life, and he was not interested in politics. He is friendly and talkative, but his eyes fill with tears when he remembers the past.

He says that days after the coup, a lieutenant in his regiment, Aníbal Barrera, chose a group of conscripts to be part of a firing squad. "We didn't want to go, but he shouted and insulted us and threatened us that if we didn't go, they would kill us too," Padilla said.

A prisoner was thrown face down into a truck, and the officer and the soldiers took him to Cerro La Ballena in Puente Alto, a few kilometers away. They did not cover his eyes, but they did place him with his back to the squad. Then the order was given to the soldiers to fire.

Guillermo's version matches records of the execution of José Rodríguez Hernández, who was carrying Marxist books when he was arrested by the police. They handed him over to the regiment, and he was murdered at La Ballena on September 14, 1973.

Decades later, Lieutenant Barrera and the regiment commander, Colonel Mateo Durruty, confessed to the murder. In 2011, Durruty was sentenced to four years of probation. Barrera was not charged.

Guillermo was not identified as a member of that platoon and has never been called to testify about any crime. He has spent decades trying to convince himself that he is not a murderer.

"I fired at people, but I can't say I killed because I don't know if my shots were the fatal ones... Or rather, I don't want to believe it. It has been eating away at me all these years," he said.

Despite the distance created by time, the emotional burden continues.

"I lived for two years in fear," he said. "We were just boys, and they destroyed our lives."

Source: nytimes.com, March 7, 2016