The 30th anniversary of the tragedy at the Pisagua prison camp was commemorated this weekend by survivors of the site, which was commanded by General Carlos Forestier as the primary military authority in the area.

Forestier faces charges regarding ten forcibly disappeared persons—seven from Pisagua and three from Iquique—for which he is being prosecuted as the perpetrator of the crime of kidnapping. The activities, which took place in Iquique and yesterday before the mass grave at Pisagua, where 19 bodies were discovered in June 1990, were organized by the Association of Former Prisoners of Pisagua.

They were attended by various political and social leaders, as well as members of associations of relatives of the forcibly disappeared and victims of political executions from the region and the national level.

The recent history of Pisagua is linked to the seven main episodes that occurred in the months following the coup d'état. In these, under the senior command of Forestier, the camp commander Ramón Larraín, and Army officers who remained active until recently, 25 prisoners lost their lives, having been murdered.

Some of these crimes were attempted to be covered by the legal mantle of a "war council," which was later proven to have been "a farce," as recently admitted by one of those same officers, now retired, in the proceedings being instructed by Judge Daniel Calvo.

The "escape" of six detainees on September 29, 1973, was proven in court to be no such thing, and that the prisoners were coldly murdered. Officers who served on the camp's rotating guard admitted this during the proceedings.

The "war council" of October 11, 1973, where five other prisoners were killed, was also not a real "council," and even the military auditor for some of those supposed "war tribunals," Captain (R) Enrique Sinn Bruno, acknowledged in court that the council was "another farce." On October 30, 1973, four Socialist leaders from the Iquique regional branch were killed, having allegedly been sentenced to death by another "war council." It is the same Sinn Bruno, who participated in that "council," who testified in court that they were forced to change the sentence already issued, which condemned them only to a minor prison term, and to issue another that sentenced them to death. The then-captain and later Army inspector, now General (R) Sergio Espinoza Davis, participated in that "council." In January 1974, Forestier issued a decree stating that six prisoners had been released from Pisagua. However, the judicial investigation established that the detainees were murdered on January 15 and 16 of that year. The other four prisoners were likewise extrajudicially riddled with bullets, with other "war councils" used as an excuse for three of them.

Source: La Nación, October 27, 2003.

Frei promotes a general who led a firing squad

A controversial Chilean military attaché in Spain retires

Chilean President Eduardo Frei has signed the appointment of Sergio Espinosa Davies as Inspector General of the Army (the fourth-highest rank in the institution) and his promotion to the rank of Major General.

Following the coup of September 11, 1973, Espinosa Davies participated in a war council that altered a previously decided sentence and led a firing squad that ended the lives of four leaders of the Partido Socialista in the city of Iquique, in the north of the country.

The Chilean Ministry of Defense released a statement yesterday which, in addition to announcing the appointment at the proposal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Ricardo Izurieta, reported the cessation of Espinosa Davies as head of the UN observer mission on the border between India and Pakistan, a position he had held since March of this year.

EL PAÍS reported last September on the complaint filed before the Chamber of Deputies against Espinosa Davies by Socialist parliamentarian Isabel Allende (daughter of the ousted president). "It is unheard of that, at the proposal of the Government of Chile, this officer is part of a United Nations mission.

That is to say, our Government is not informed of his past," the deputy declared to this newspaper. According to Jinny Arancibia, widow of Freddy Taberna (one of the four executed), the Chilean executive branch was perfectly aware of Espinosa Davies' actions after the coup d'état.

Specifically, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, José Miguel Insulza, and Defense, Florencio Guzmán. Jinny Arancibia informed the latter in person that the then-Captain Espinosa "not only led the firing squad but also finished off two of the victims." The widow has assured this newspaper that she obtained this information from a source of absolute reliability, who in turn brought it to the attention of the two ministers.

Logically, the Army high command was aware of what had happened. In mid-October, Espinosa Davies was summoned to Santiago, where he held meetings with high-ranking officials of the Armed Forces and the Government to respond to the accusations made against him.

The Army denied the statements of Freddy Taberna's widow, asserted that all war councils were constituted in accordance with the law, and dismissed the allegations as an attempt to denigrate the military institution.

The Minister of Defense sent a report prepared by the Army to the UN General Secretariat, and Espinosa Davies recently returned to his post in India-Pakistan. Jinny Arancibia sent letters to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense and two missives dated September 2 and 21 to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, in which she recounted the service record of General Espinosa Davies.

It was not a cry in the wilderness. As she prepared to write to the Security Council, the Chilean Government announced "the early termination" of his position as head of the observer mission. However, his promotion to Major General indicates the Army's support for this career officer, who has a "brilliant career with only one stain that no one wants to talk about," military sources indicate, and who has solid ties to Commander-in-Chief Izurieta.

Núñez retires At the same time, Brigadier General Hernán Núñez Manríquez, linked to alleged human rights violations in Chile and a military attaché at his country's embassy in Spain, has retired from the Army, according to a statement from the military institution.

Replacing Núñez as head of the military mission in Europe, based in Spain, will be the newly promoted Brigadier General Carlos Larenas Peñafiel. The Army spokesperson, Colonel Alfredo Ewing, stated that "there is no record in the institution" regarding the versions linking Núñez to abuses committed during the military regime.

As revealed by EL PAÍS, Núñez was an officer of the 15th Motorized Infantry Regiment of Calama when political executions of prisoners took place in October 1973, one month after the military coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power.

Source: El País, November 10, 1998.