Among the accused, all retired, are eight colonels and 23 non-commissioned officers of the Army, 40 officers and non-commissioned officers of the Carabineros, two former FACH (Air Force) agents, one former Navy agent, and seven former agents of the Investigative Police.

The biggest blow to the repression of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship was dealt yesterday by Minister Víctor Montiglio, who indicted 98 former agents from different branches of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and the Investigative Police for 42 victims of Operation Colombo.

This is the largest resolution issued among the nearly 400 human rights violation cases currently being investigated in the country. It even surpassed the 67 former agents indicted by the same Judge Montiglio in 2007 for the crimes of the Lautaro Brigade and its Delfín Group at the Simón Bolívar barracks.

Among those indicted for Colombo are eight Army colonels (R), six of whom had not been previously indicted in any case. Also declared defendants were 23 Army non-commissioned officers (R), of whom at least 50 percent appear for the first time in these types of cases.

Among these non-commissioned officers is Juvenal Piña, alias "El Elefante," a former agent of the Lautaro Brigade, who was the one who suffocated the clandestine communist leader (1976) Víctor Díaz with a plastic bag over his head, before cyanide was injected into him.

In addition, the magistrate indicted 40 former officers and non-commissioned officers of the Carabineros, including Ricardo Lawrence, Heriberto Acevedo, Claudio Pacheco, and José Mora, all former members of the same Brigade.

Among those processed are also former agents who belonged to the Investigative Police. The only civilian (Army) is Juan Suárez. Of the total list, at least thirteen are already serving sentences for other cases (see list).

As of the closing of this edition, the accused were still being detained to be interned in different locations, such as the Peñalolén Military Police Battalion. Among the 42 victims for whom the minister issued his resolution are María Angélica Andreolli, Miguel Acuña Castillo, Juan Carlos Perelmann Ide, Juan Chacón Olivares, Jorge Müller Silva, Luis Guendelmann Wisniak, Mario Calderón Tapia, and Carmen Bueno Cifuentes.

Operation Colombo and the media The list of the 119 was published in the magazine Lea (Buenos Aires) and the newspaper O Dia (Brazil) in 1975; this information was also false. Both publications were created by DINA agents.

Operation Colombo was part of Operation Condor and consisted of a setup by the dictatorship to make the population believe that 119 forcibly disappeared detainees had clandestinely left for Argentina and died there in confrontations with police and Army forces during the phase prior to the 1976 military coup in Argentina.

Some of those names appeared as militants "murdered" in Buenos Aires and its surroundings, with signs on their bodies stating they had been executed by their own comrades due to internal disputes. However, this also turned out to be a setup.

The list of the 119 was published in the magazine Lea (Buenos Aires) and the newspaper O Dia (Brazil) in 1975; this information was also false. Both publications were created by DINA agents abroad and had only one edition.

In Chile, the pro-dictatorship press, such as the newspapers El Mercurio, La Tercera, Las Últimas Noticias, and La Segunda, reproduced the intelligence services' setup. The headline of the evening paper remains in memory, which reported: "Exterminated like rats: 59 Chilean MIR members fall in military operation in Argentina." They were part of the list of the 119 disappeared of Colombo.

The former fugitive Raúl Iturriaga, who was one of the heads of the DINA's foreign department, was the one who first shed light on this operation in Buenos Aires. According to former civilian agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, convicted in Buenos Aires for the crime of General Carlos Prats and his wife, it was Iturriaga who met with him at the beginning of 1975 to ask him to prepare what was necessary because "we have to make some dead people from Operation Colombo appear." It was about preparing the appearance of the supposed bodies of Jaime Robotham and Luis Guendelmann as part of the setup.

List of the indicted

Army (all retired)

Víctor Molina Astete (colonel); Sergio Castillo González (col); Eduardo Guerra Guajardo (col); Víctor San Martín Jiménez (col); José Fuentes Torres (col); Manuel Carevic Cubillos (col); Jaime Paris Ramos (col); César Manríquez Bravo (col); Raúl Toro Montes (non-commissioned officer); Eduardo Reyes Lagos (NCO); Orlando Torrejón Gatica (NCO); Osvaldo Tapia Alvarez (NCO.

Committed suicide); Juvenal Piña Garrido (NCO. “El Elefante”); Juan Suárez Delgado (civilian); Nelson Paz Bustamante (NCO); José Aravena Ruiz (NCO); Luis Torres Méndez (NCO); Raúl Soto Pérez (NCO); Jorge Andrade Gómez (NCO); Juan Escobar Valenzuela (NCO); Rolando Concha Rodríguez (NCO); Gustavo Apablaza Meneses (NCO); Hiro Alvarez Vega (NCO); Víctor Alvarez Droguett (NCO); Jorge Venegas Silva (NCO); Carlos Rinaldi Suazo (NCO); Carlos Letelier Verdugo (NCO); Reinaldo Concha Orellana (NCO); Máximo Aliaga Soto (NCO); Hugo Clavería Leiva (NCO); Samuel Fuenzalida Devia (NCO); Investigative Police Juan Urbina Cáceres; Hugo Hernández; Manuel Rivas Díaz; Herman Alfaro; Eugenio Fieldhouse; Osvaldo Castillo; Carabineros (officers and non-commissioned officers, all retired) Gerardo Godoy García; Ciro Torres Sáez, Alejandro Molina Cisternas; Camilo Torres Negrier; Héctor Lira Aravena; José Fritz Esparza; Claudio Pacheco Fernández; Jorge Sagardia Monge; Sergio Castro Andrade; Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez; Armando Cofré Gómez; Fernando Roa Montaña; Gerardo Meza Acuña; Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar; Luis Mora Cerda; José Muñoz Leal; Juan Duarte Gallegos; Carlos Miranda Meza; Rufino Jaime Astorga; Luis Urrutia Acuña; Luis Zúñiga Ovalle; Pedro Alfaro Hernández; Orlando Inostroza Lagos; Rosa Ramos Hernández; Gustavo Caruvan Soto; Héctor Valdebenito Araya; Manuel Avendaño González; José Mora Diocares; Guido Jara Brevis; Nelson Ortiz Vignolo; Ruderlindo Urrutia Jorquera; Héctor Flores Vergara; Jerónimo Neira Méndez; Manuel Montré Méndez; Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo; Claudio Orellana de la Pinta; Nelson Iturriaga Cortés; Luis Gutiérrez Uribe; José Ojeda Obando; Air Force Delia Gajardo Cortés; Hernán Avalos Muñoz Navy Teresa Navarro Osorio; Indicted individuals already serving sentences Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda; Pedro Espinoza Bravo; Raúl Iturriaga Neumann; Marcelo Moren Brito; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko; Ricardo Lawrence Mires; Basclay Zapata Reyes; Conrado Pacheco; Francisco Ferrer Lima; Gerardo Urrich; Orlando Manzo Durán; Rizier Altez España; Fernando Lauriani Maturana

Source: La Nación.cl, May 27, 2008

Justice in drips for the 119 fallen in Operation Colombo

July 24 marks 33 years since the publication of the so-called List of the 119, the psychological warfare maneuver that the DINA baptized as "Operation Colombo," but only in six of the 119 cases of disappearances are the criminals serving a sentence already confirmed by the Supreme Court.

In these processes, the justice system has only issued final sentences in the cases of kidnapping and disappearance of social worker María Teresa Bustillos Cereceda; former GAP members Manuel Cortez Joo and Miguel Ángel Sandoval Rodríguez; the Chillán brothers Hernán and María Elena González Inostroza; philosophy student Jorge Espinosa Méndez (all of them militants of the MIR), and high school student Mario Carrasco Díaz, a socialist.

In the case of Espinosa, the only one sentenced is agent Osvaldo Romo, who died in prison; in the other cases cited, the rulings also involve the former director of the DINA, General (R) Manuel Contreras, and his general staff.

There are three other cases of Operation Colombo in which the sentences have already been confirmed by the Court of Appeals, and in five of the remaining kidnappings, a first-instance ruling has been issued.

The Supreme Court must soon rule on the case of engineering student Luis Guajardo Zamorano. More than 68 of the indictments issued since 2005 are for Manuel Contreras. The dictator himself, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, stripped of his immunity in 2006, was indicted for Operation Colombo by resolutions adopted by the presiding ministers Alejandro Solís and Víctor Montiglio, the same judge who recently indicted 98 agents.

But indictments do not always culminate in a sentence. Death arrived earlier for the former dictator, frustrating the expectations of justice of the Chileans who fight against impunity. According to retired military sources ("Crusade for National Reconciliation") cited in the newspaper El Mercurio on June 22 to call for an end to the trials, the total number of final sentences in human rights cases reaches twenty-two.

According to them, in the more than 300 cases affecting uniformed personnel, 1,165 indictments have been issued. 269 of these are in the investigation stage; and in the accusation and evidence phase, 6. 14 defendants have appealed the first-instance ruling, and 16 cases are reportedly in cassation (petition for annulment of sentence).

Amnesty and strategies The judicial strategy of the criminals—who use all available judicial resources in the old penal system—combined with the Supreme Court's lack of will to return exclusivity to the judges handling human rights cases, has functioned in several cases as a guarantee of impunity.

The old criminal system is in force for crimes committed before the enactment of the Penal Procedural Reform. During 2007, as denounced in its annual balance sheet by the Social Assistance Foundation of the Christian Churches (FASIC), the six criminal courts operating in Santiago refused to receive new cases, did not accept the reopening of summaries, nor did they grant the unarchiving of cases, because they had an expiration date as courts (due to the reform) and could not assume new tasks, the fact constituting a denial of justice.

It is appropriate to highlight that 17 of the kidnappings of the so-called "Operation Colombo" do not currently have active proceedings, which ensures absolute impunity for those responsible (cases of student María Inés Alvarado, bricklayer Eduardo Alarcón, fruit seller Víctor Arévalo, mechanic Vladimir Arias, investigative official Sonia Bustos, biology student Luis Fuentes, accountant Néstor Gallardo, student Jorge Herrera, peasant activist Ramón Labrador, student Sergio Lagos H, secretary of the Society of Theatrical Authors Violeta López, merchant Juan Maturana, union leader Agustín Morales, health official Germán Moreno, Technical University student Ramón Núñez, La Bandera neighborhood merchant Gary Olmos, and student Carlos Salcedo). Another mechanism that delays the processing of cases has been the application by a minority of judges of amnesty, "res judicata," due obedience, and/or the statute of limitations. For example, in the cases linked to Operation Colombo, even the first indictments had to be confirmed by the Supreme Court. In Chile, not all court ministers respect and know international human rights law, and there have been contradictory resolutions from the highest court that prove this. Only after Pinochet's arrest in London did Chilean courts begin to investigate the cases of forcibly disappeared detainees. The debt of justice to Chilean society is still far from being settled, and impunity continues to be the rule in the vast majority of human rights violation cases, despite the constant mobilization of human rights organizations. The 119 Collective, which brings together relatives of the fallen, commemorates this year the anniversary of the publication of the list that lied about the final destination of 100 men and 19 Chilean women, with "Video Encounters" that will be held at the former torture house at Londres 38 street, between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM, on Wednesday, July 23 ("Evidence: media and journalists at the service of repression"), Thursday, July 24 ("Resisting with the truth and the courage of those who do not remain silent"), and Friday, July 25 ("Justice makes its way: ethical and social condemnation of accomplices and cover-ups"). On Sunday the 27th, the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees, Founding Line, will hold a pilgrimage in the coastal town of Quintero, where it is believed some of the disappeared were thrown into the sea from helicopters. A memorial will be erected there. Ethics and forgiveness The Journalists' Association of Chile apologized this year to the relatives of those who fell in two advertising setups of the dictatorship, Operation Colombo and Rinconada de Maipú. For Colombo, former media directors Fernando Díaz Palma, of Las Últimas Noticias (part of the El Mercurio chain); Alberto Guerrero Espinoza, of La Tercera; and journalist Beatriz Undurraga Gómez, of El Mercurio, had already been sanctioned with public censure and temporary suspension of their membership for the serious breaches of ethics and truth committed in 1975. The Ethics Tribunal that investigated these events in 2006 considered the directors of El Mercurio, René Silva Espejo, and the evening paper La Segunda—also owned by El Mercurio—Mario Carneyro, not imputable due to their death. All of them collaborated with the setups devised by the DINA to "inform" in large headlines that 100 Chilean men and 19 Chilean women had died abroad, thus covering up their disappearance and sowing a terror that still leaves traces in the collective unconscious of the Chileans who lived through that era of chilling headlines: "Exterminated like rats," was the headline of the newspaper La Segunda on July 24, 1975. According to the journalists, the setup was the work of Álvaro Puga, director of Civil Affairs of the dictatorship and head of Psychological Operations of the DINA. In La Segunda, he signed with the pseudonym "Alexis," but he was not a journalist, so he was not included in the sanctions. His name has not appeared so far in any indictment of the case. The two lists of the dead reproduced in the Chilean press were taken from the single-edition newspapers O Dia, of Curitiba, Brazil, and Lea, of Argentina, which attributed the deaths to clashes with Argentine security forces or internal quarrels. It was the "white march" of Operation Condor, the mutual aid pact between the police of Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil that had already begun. In September 1974, the former commander-in-chief of the Army, Carlos Prats, and his wife Sofía Cuthbert had been murdered in Buenos Aires by DINA agents in complicity with the Argentine police. Minister Alejandro Solís—the magistrate who issued the first sentence against former DINA director Manuel Contreras for the qualified kidnapping of one of the 119, Miguel Ángel Sandoval—recently pronounced the ruling that sentences Contreras to life imprisonment for the treacherous crime against the constitutionalist military officer. At the event where the Journalists' Association asked for forgiveness from the relatives, they valued the act, criticizing that the involved media had not offered public apologies. They also deplored that in democracy the practice of presenting uniform police setups through the press and television has been resumed to discredit the struggles of students, workers, and the Mapuche people, and to condemn through the media those who do not have a voice to present their demands and denounce current human rights violations. Subsequently, on the anniversary of the professional order, during a ceremony that took place last Friday, July 18, the guest speaker, government spokesperson Minister Francisco Vidal, was confronted by young protesters who stood up from their seats to demand the freedom of documentarian Elena Varela, who has been the subject of a setup of this type and remains imprisoned in the Rancagua High Security Prison, prosecuted under the anti-terrorist legislation of dictatorship times. Wearing shirts with allusive messages, after listening to speeches about ethics and freedom of expression, they shouted aloud: "How long will you keep creating setups to punish those who fight!" Sentences by Minister Solís for the 119 Two sentences imposed by Judge Alejandro Solís in Operation Colombo cases were confirmed this year by the Court of Appeals, but the step through the Supreme Court still remains. This is the case of the northern mining engineering student Julio Flores Pérez, where the ruling was 15 years for Manuel Contreras, and 10 years and one day for Pedro Espinoza (former head of Villa Grimaldi), Maximiliano Ferrer Lima (DINA's Caupolicán Brigade), Miguel Krassnoff (former head of the Halcón group), and Marcelo Moren Brito (former deputy head of Villa Grimaldi). The other confirmed sentence for the DINA criminals was for the kidnapping of social worker Jacqueline Binfa Contreras. According to the judiciary, this is the seventh conviction at the Court of Appeals level for human rights violation cases, out of a total of 58 sentences at that court level from June 2003 to date. Also this year, Minister Solís issued two new rulings. One is for engineering graduate Osvaldo Radrigán, sentencing Contreras to 15 years in prison. His henchmen, the brigadiers (R) Espinoza and Krassnoff, as well as the colonels (R) Moren Brito and Rolf Wenderoth (of the management staff of Villa Grimaldi and DINA), along with the sergeant major (R) Basclay Zapata (of the Halcón group), received a sentence of ten years and one day each. Wenderoth was already serving a sentence for Manuel Cortez Joo. The other former officers were also serving sentences for other cases in the Cordillera Prison, called "VIP" by the most informed Chileans, because it was built exclusively for officers and has comforts and perks absent from the rest of the penal facilities. The other ruling prepared by Solís refers to the case of the kidnapping of electronic technician and member of the MIR's information structure, Marcelo Salinas Eytel, sentencing Manuel Contreras to another 15 years and one day, and the rest of the DINA executives to ten years and one day. Similarly, Solís indicted this year for the kidnapping of sociology student Jaime Robotham the entire DINA general staff, Wenderoth, Colonel (R) Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, Krassnoff, and for the first time, detective Valentín Cancino Varas as authors of the crime. There are also first-instance rulings for Jorge D’Orival and Julio Flores Pérez. For the kidnapping of student Claudio Silva, this judge, who is the one who has issued the most sentences against human rights violators, indicted Pedro Espinoza, Basclay Zapata, and agent Palmira Almuna Guzmán. Unlike some of his peers, this minister supports his resolutions not only on national legislation but on the doctrine of human rights and current international treaties. He has never applied the statute of limitations or amnesty. Minister Fuentes has issued first-instance sentences in the cases of Félix de la Jara, Ofelia Lazo, and Sergio Montecinos, in which he has asserted the "half-prescription" (partial statute of limitations). Completing the picture Also this year, visiting minister Víctor Montiglio, who inherited cases initially investigated by former Judge Juan Guzmán, indicted Manuel Contreras together with the DINA general staff and prosecuted a total of 98 repressors, most of them retired non-commissioned officers, who participated in operational groups or in clandestine detention and torture centers. Among the Army officers (R) indicted are Raúl Iturriaga Neumann (general, head of the DINA's Foreign Department, who in 2007 fled for 55 days upon the confirmation of his sentence for the kidnapping of Dagoberto San Martín. Minister Solís recently sentenced him to 15 years for the homicide of General Prats and his wife). Also indicted were Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko (head of the Halcón Brigade), Fernando Lauriani Maturana, Marcelo Moren Brito (colonel, head of Villa Grimaldi), Pedro Espinoza Bravo (colonel, former DINA head), César Manríquez Bravo (general, head of the DINA's Metropolitan Brigade and Contreras's second-in-command), Manuel Carevic Cubillos (brigadier, deputy head of the Purén Brigade, implicated in another process for the death of Corporal Rodolfo González); Maximiliano Ferrer Lima (colonel, Caupolicán Brigade), Gerardo Urrich González (major, head of the Purén Brigade, serving a sentence for the kidnapping of Dagoberto San Martín), and officer Sergio Castillo González. The indictment of Jorge Andrade Gómez (colonel, Grimaldi's Aguila Group and CNI's Blue Brigade, already sentenced to five years and one day for the homicide of Paulina Aguirre) was revoked because his assignment to the DINA would have been after 1976. The group of accused includes Eduardo Guerra Guajardo and Raúl Toro Montes (conscripts and DINA civilian employees), and non-commissioned officers Carlos Bermúdez Méndez, José Fuentes Torres, Jaime Paris Ramos, and Víctor San Martín Jiménez. Also indicted are seven non-commissioned officers who were members of the Lautaro Brigade: Hiro Alvarez Vega, Víctor Manuel Alvarez Droguett; Alfonso “Elefante” Piña Garrido, Eduardo Reyes Lagos, Carlos Rinaldi Suazo, Orlando Torrejón Gatica, and Jorge Venegas Silva. Also indicted were Gustavo Apablaza Meneses (DINA/CNI Foreign Intelligence), Máximo Aliaga Soto, Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo, Reinaldo Concha Orellana, Rodolfo Concha Rodríguez; Hugo Clavería Leiva, Juan Escobar Valenzuela, and Carlos Letelier Verdugo (the latter three, conscripts and DINA/CNI civilian employees); Carlos Miranda Meza, Víctor Manuel Molina Astete, Luis Mora Cerda, Nelson Paz Bustamante, Alfonso Quiroz Quintana (conscript, DINA civilian employee), Raúl Soto Pérez, Juan Suárez Delgado (all non-commissioned officers), Rosa Ramos Hernández (DINA Villa Grimaldi agent); Luis Torres Méndez, and Basclay Zapata. The indictment of former conscript Samuel Fuenzalida Devia constituted a worrying signal for sectors of the human rights movement, as he is a former guard who deserted early, left the country to save his life, and in Germany provided important information about the functioning of the DINA in the process against Colonia Dignidad to organizations such as Amnesty International and in the respective trial that took place there. He later returned to Chile and has testified in many cases for the disappeared. The amparo (habeas corpus) appeal filed in his favor by Lutheran pastor Helmut Frenz was denied. The indicted members of the Investigative Police, all from the DINA, are Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez (Sub-prefect, Deputy Head of the Villa Grimaldi clandestine detention center), Daniel Cancino Varas (Sub-prefect), Risiere del Prado Altez España and Hugo Hernández (inspectors, the latter operated in the Venda Sexy clandestine detention and torture center), Herman Alfaro Mundaca (Commissioner), Juan Urbina Cáceres (prefect), Manuel Rivas Díaz (sub-commissioner), and Osvaldo Castillo Arellano. The indicted Carabineros The following are the Carabineros officers and non-commissioned officers (R) indicted: Gerardo Godoy García (colonel, head of the Tucán Group), Ciro Torré Sáez (colonel, head of the Domingo Cañas 1367 torture house), Ricardo Lawrence Mires (colonel, “Cachete,” of the Halcón Brigade; Londres 38, already indicted for Conferencia street), Luis Zúñiga Ovalle (colonel); non-commissioned officer Alejandro Molina Cisternas ("El Choco," already sentenced in the first instance for the kidnapping of Mario Carrasco, one of the 119, later he was a member of the CNI's Green Brigade and is involved in the murders of Lisandro Sandoval Torres (1981) and of Patricio Sobarzo, Enzo Muñoz Arévalo, Juan Manuel Varas Silva, and Ana Alicia Delgado Tapia (in 1984)); José Aravena Ruiz (sergeant, Caupolicán Brigade); Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Sergio Castro Andrade, José Fritz Esparza, Héctor Lira Aravena, Manuel Montré Méndez, Claudio Orellana de la Pinta, José Ojeda Obando, Claudio Pacheco Fernández, Jorge Sagardia Monge, Camilo Torres Negrier, Luis Urrutia Acuña, Héctor Valdebenito Araya (all of them from the Lautaro Brigade); Pedro Alfaro Fernández, Manuel Avendaño González, Armando Cofré Correa, Gustavo Caruman Soto, Juan Duarte Gallegos, Héctor Flores Vergara, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubilar, Luis Gutiérrez Uribe, Julio Hoyos Zegarra (non-commissioned officers), Guillermo Inostroza Lagos, Nelson Iturriaga Cortés, Eduardo Jaime Astorga, Arnoldo Jara Brevis, Gerardo Meza Acuña, José Mora Diocares, José Muñoz Leal, and Jerónimo Neira Méndez (sergeants), Nelson Ortiz Vignolo, Sylvia Oyarce Pinto (non-commissioned officer), Claudio Pacheco Fernández (non-commissioned officer), Fernando Roa Montaña (second sergeant), José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Rudeslindo Urrutia Jorquera, Luis Villarroel Gutiérrez. And the civilian Luis Eduardo Ortiz Farías. The members of the Air Force indicted are Delia Gajardo Cortés and Germán Avalos Muñoz (DINA civilian employees). From the Navy, DINA agent Teresa Navarro Osorio (non-commissioned officer) was indicted. From the Gendarmerie, Major (R) Orlando Manzo Durán (former head of the Cuatro Alamos concentration camp) is indicted. However, all those indicted—the majority—who were not in prison for previous cases are already on conditional release (since June), which generated frustration among relatives and human rights defenders. The number of indictments by Minister Montiglio broke the communication blockade that normally exists on human rights issues. The 119 Collective, which brings together relatives of those who fell in this dictatorship setup, valued this progress at the time, but the organization maintained: "It is appropriate to pursue the responsibility of those civilians who planned the communication setup of the 119 lists or who contributed to its implementation. The hitman cannot be punished and not his associate in the crime. We vindicate the commitment and the project embodied by these 119 comrades, our relatives, and by all those who were repressed by the Dictatorship. To refound this country under the principles and the neoliberal model, the Military Dictatorship implemented these brutal repressive methods against our relatives and created structures that today violate the human rights of our people. To restore popular sovereignty and rebuild the hope of another Chile, we will continue to seek more justice in the courts and in the streets." For his part, former judge Juan Guzmán had on September 2, 2004, charged Contreras, the members of the DINA, and agents Basclay Zapata and Osvaldo Romo (who died in prison) with...

for the aggravated kidnapping of 16 individuals who fell during Operation Colombo. He prosecuted Conrado Pacheco, Manuel Carevic, Francisco Ferrer Lima, and Lieutenants Ricardo Lawrence and Gerardo Godoy, as well as Gerardo Urrich, Brigadier (ret.) Fernando Lauriani, and General (ret.) Raúl Iturriaga.

The "penguins" of yesterday

Many of the 119 were students or teachers, or had left their daily work to dedicate themselves to organizing the resistance. But before their detention, they had been (or were) teachers, such as Arturo Barría, who taught at the Liceo Darío Salas, where Sepúlveda now studies Music—the student who wiped the face of the Chilean Minister of Education with pure water, demanding that the youth be heard.

María Elena González had been the director of a rural school. Six of those who fell in 1974 were former students of the Liceo Experimental Manuel de Salas—María Inés Alvarado, Martín Elgueta, Luis Fuentes, Jaime Robotham, Jaime Buzio, and Edwin van Yurick—and there was one student from the Instituto Nacional (Mauricio Jorquera) and one former student from the Liceo 7 (Bárbara Uribe).

Four of the 119 were detained while they were still secondary students, two of them at the Instituto Comercial Nº 2 (Alejandro Espejo and Mario Carrasco) and Jorge Antonio Herrera at the Liceo 6 in San Miguel, which during the time of President Salvador Allende was called the Liceo Che Guevara.

There were two tailors, Miguel Angel Sandoval and Pedro Merino, and two concert musicians: Patricia Peña (piano) and Luis Jaime Palominos (French horn). Others were mechanics, veterinarians, engineers, topographers, and bricklayers.

Eugenia Martínez was a textile worker and lived in La Legua. Several were journalists, mechanics, secretaries, sales clerks, public employees, architects, agricultural technicians, or gardeners. The list included a former detective, Teobaldo Tello; a Civil Registry employee, Mónica Llanca; and one from the Investigative Police, Sonia Bustos, who worked in the resistance network providing information and materials to create identity cards in clandestine workshops.

In the group, 102 detainees were between 18 and 30 years old, and 13 of them were between 30 and 40. The majority were members of the MIR, but there were also socialists, communists, MAPU members, and independents. Together, they had 84 children at the time of their detention, and another 13 children were on the way. Many had been student, union, or community leaders before 1973.

Forty-three of them were students/teachers or graduates of the Universidad de Chile, among them Francisco Aedo, a prominent socialist/MIR-affiliated architect and academic at that institution, who was already retired.

Ten were graduates of what is now the Universidad de Santiago, formerly known as the Universidad Técnica del Estado, and nine were from Concepción. Only three were from the Universidad Católica, among them the actress Carmen Bueno ("A la Sombra del Sol" and "La Tierra Prometida"), who studied at the School of Art and Communication and was the partner of Jorge Müller, a cameraman for The Battle of Chile, who was forcibly disappeared like her.

Mario Calderón, a journalist, was from Valparaíso. Violeta López performed in the Railway Theater group and, after the coup, worked as a laborer at Cecinas Loewer. Jacqueline Drouilly was pregnant, and it was never known what happened to her child.

Several were from Santiago, from neighborhoods located in Ñuñoa/Peñalolén, in Villa Francia, and in the José María Caro district. But others had arrived in the capital to evade repression from Temuco, Valdivia, or Concepción. Some were from the north, like the Andrónicos Antequera brothers, in whose home the first experiments in building a clandestine radio station took place.

Two of the forcibly disappeared—Miguel Angel Pizarro Meniconi and Rodrigo Ugas—had posthumous twin children. The children of Manuel Cortez Joo, Luis Guajardo, and Washington Cid were born in prison. Their mothers survived.

The prosecutions by Judge Montiglio refer to the kidnappings of Francisco Aedo Carrasco, the brothers Jorge and Juan Carlos Andrónicos Antequera, Jaime Buzio Lorca, Cecilia Castro Salvadores, Alejandro Espejo Gómez, Agustín Fioraso Chau, Gregorio Gaete Farías, Mauricio Jorquera Encina, Mario Calderón Tapia, Isidro Pizarro Meniconi, Marcos Quiñones Lembach, Sergio Reyes Navarrete, Gilberto Urbina Chamorro, Miguel Ángel Acuña Castillo, María Angélica Andreoli Bravo, Rubén Arroyo Padilla, Arturo Barría Araneda, Francisco Bravo Núñez, Carmen Bueno Cifuentes, Juan Chacón Olivares, Darío Chávez Lobos, Washington Cid Urrutia, Bernardo de Castro López, Luis Durán Rivas, Héctor Garay Hermosilla, María Cristina López Stewart, Zacarías Machuca Muñoz, Jorge Olivares Graindorge, Vicente Palominos Benítez, Juan Carlos Perelman Ide, Carlos Pérez Vargas, Asrael Retamales Briceño, Ariel Salinas Argomedo, Teobaldo Tello Garrido, Enrique Toro Romero, Rodrigo Ugas Morales, Eduardo Ziede Gómez, and Héctor Cayetano Zúñiga Tapia.

The voice of a daughter

In April 2008, at a tribute ceremony held at the Faculty of Philosophy of the U de Chile, Natalia, daughter of Alfonso Chanfreau, expressed (in edited paragraphs of her speech): "to this day we must face a society that functions as if this had not happened.

The places identified as sites of memory can be counted on the fingers of one hand. How many torture houses have been officially handed over, perhaps simply with a little plaque that says: torture happened here? where not only the horror is made visible but also its victims, in all their dimensions....

One manages to move through the world with a certain normality until the real weight of the disappearance falls again upon our bodies and tears us to pieces, and we ask ourselves again how to handle so much pain, how to handle so much daily impunity.

But finally, we manage to surface again... I can tell you that my dad was lovely... with a particular voice, tall, a studious militant, a beloved son, a comrade... All of Chile has been and will continue to be marked by what the dictatorship was and these years of impunity, in the lives of my children and in those of all who will grow up in this country.

The trial we are waiting for in France is a tremendous wake-up call regarding what is happening here in Chile. It cannot be that the sentences are so low, that the trials drag on for years and years without significant progress for the majority; it cannot be that this country plays deaf and blind to this.

This is a wake-up call to each one of us not to lower our guard, not to forget. Truth and Justice now, not halfway, not in parts, but all of it, nothing more and nothing less!"

Source: piensachile.com, July 23, 2008

Colonia Dignidad: kidnapping conviction ratified for Manuel Contreras and other former agents

The capital's appellate court validated the 10-year prison sentences for the aggravated kidnapping of three people for both the former head of the DINA and agent Carlos López Tapia, the perpetrators of the crimes.

Meanwhile, Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez will only have to serve 5 years and one day as an accomplice. The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed this Tuesday the convictions against the former head of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Manuel Contreras, and against former agents of the same entity for the aggravated kidnappings of Juan Maino Canales, Elizabeth Rekas Urra, and Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea, which occurred starting on May 26, 1976.

The Seventh Chamber of the appellate court, composed of judges Dobra Lusic, Adelita Ravanales, and Jenny Book, ratified the first-instance sentence, issued by investigating judge Jorge Zepeda on January 23, 2012, which sentenced Contreras and Carlos López Tapia to 10 years and one day in prison for their responsibility as perpetrators of the crimes.

In addition, Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez was confirmed to a sentence of 5 years and one day in prison as an accomplice. Meanwhile, the judges acquitted, due to lack of conviction, the former members of Colonia Dignidad Gerard Mucke Koschitzke and Karl Johann Van Den Berg Schurrmann, who had been sentenced in the first instance to 5 years and one day in prison as accomplices.

In the civil aspect, by majority decision and with the dissenting vote of Judge Book, the court accepted the plea of incompetence filed by the State Defense Council and revoked the order for the State to pay compensation to the victims.

However, it was determined that the convicted individuals Contreras Sepúlveda, López Tapia, and Fieldhouse Chávez must pay compensation of 90 million pesos to Filma Canales Soré—mother of Juan Maino Canales—and 70 million pesos to María Dolores Elizondo Ormachea—sister of Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea—for the moral damage caused.

Source: La Nación, December 31, 2013

Four former DINA agents convicted for kidnappings

The events affected Juan Maino Canales, Elizabeth Rekas Urra, and Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea.

Judge Jorge Zepeda Arancibia convicted four former DINA agents and a former resident of Villa Baviera for the kidnapping and disappearance of three people. The magistrate sentenced the former head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), retired General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, to 10 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as a perpetrator of the aggravated kidnappings of Juan Maino Canales, Elizabeth Rekas Urra, and Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea.

He also sentenced retired Colonel and former agent Carlos López Tapia to 10 years and one day for the same three victims. At the same time, he sentenced former agents Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez, Gerard Mucke, and former resident Johan Van den Berg to five years and one day in prison as accomplices for these same events.

In the 136-page sentence, it was established that on May 26, 1976, the DINA detained and transferred the victims, who belonged to the "MAPU" political movement, to "Villa Grimaldi," and also stole their vehicles.

The DINA agents had the collaboration of "Colonia Dignidad," led by Paul Schafer. The sentence dismissed the case against the latter due to his death, as he passed away while in preventive detention; against DINA agent Rolf Wenderoth, for not being at "Villa Grimaldi" when the victims were abducted; and temporarily dismissed the case against Hartmutt Hopp, as he is a fugitive in Germany.

In the civil aspect, the State and the convicted individuals were ordered to pay, jointly and severally, 90 million pesos to the relatives of each of the victims as compensation for damages.

Source: El Mercurio, January 23, 2012

Justice confirms conviction of Manuel Contreras and former DINA agents for kidnappings at the former Colonia Dignidad

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the convictions against the former head of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Manuel Contreras, and against former agents of the secret police for the aggravated kidnappings of Juan Maino Canales, Elizabeth Rekas Urra, and Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea, which occurred starting on May 26, 1976.

The Seventh Chamber of the appellate court, composed of judges Dobra Lusic, Adelita Ravanales, and Jenny Book, ratified the first-instance sentence, issued by investigating judge Jorge Zepeda on January 23, 2012, which sentenced Contreras and Carlos López Tapia to 10 years and one day in prison for their responsibility as perpetrators of the crimes.

In addition, the conviction of Eugenio Fieldhouse Chávez to a sentence of 5 years and one day in prison as an accomplice was confirmed. Likewise, the judges acquitted, due to lack of conviction, the former members of Colonia Dignidad Gerard Mucke Koschitzke and Karl Johann Van Den Berg Schurrmann, who had been sentenced in the first instance to 5 years and one day in prison as accomplices.

In the civil aspect, by majority decision and with the dissenting vote of Judge Book, the court accepted the plea of incompetence filed by the State Defense Council and revoked the order for the State to pay compensation to the victims.

However, it was determined that the convicted individuals Contreras Sepúlveda, López Tapia, and Fieldhouse Chávez must pay compensation of ninety million pesos to Filma Canales Soré—mother of Juan Maino Canales—and sixty million pesos to María Dolores Elizondo Ormachea—sister of Antonio Elizondo Ormaechea—for the moral damage caused.

Source: El Mercurio, December 31, 2013

Conviction issued against 28 repressive agents of the dictatorship for the crime of Marta Ugarte

The extraordinary investigating judge for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez Plaza, issued a first-instance sentence in the investigation into the kidnapping and aggravated homicide of teacher Marta Lidia Ugarte Román, whose body appeared on La Ballena beach, in the Los Molles sector, on September 12, 1976.

In the resolution (case file 2182-1998), Judge Vázquez issued a conviction against the following 28 State agents for their responsibility in the crimes perpetrated between August and September 1976. Most of the convicted were agents and leaders of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and the others were members of the Army aviation command, the organization responsible for the execution of the so-called "death flights." Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia, former Army colonel, head of the Villa Grimaldi torture center at the time of the events, sentenced to 12 years in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as a perpetrator of the crime of aggravated homicide. Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, former Carabineros lieutenant colonel, head of the Águila Group of the DINA's Caupolicán Brigade (currently a fugitive from justice), sentenced to 12 years in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as a perpetrator of the crime of aggravated homicide. He must also serve 4 years in prison as a perpetrator of the crime of simple kidnapping. Carlos Oscar Gregorio Evaristo Mardones Díaz, former Army colonel, head of the aviation command that carried out the "death flights": 8 years in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as an accomplice to the crime of aggravated homicide. Antonio Palomo Contreras, former Army brigadier, and Luis Felipe Polanco Gallardo, former Army major, members of the aviation command, both sentenced to 5 years in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as accessories after the fact to the crime of aggravated homicide. Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, former Army brigadier, imprisoned in Punta Peuco for countless other convictions for crimes against humanity, sentenced to 4 years in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from political rights and absolute disqualification from public office for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as a perpetrator of the crime of simple kidnapping. Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo and Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, former Carabineros non-commissioned officers, both sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as co-perpetrators of the crime of aggravated homicide. In addition, they must serve 2 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime of simple kidnapping. Emilio Hernán Troncoso Vivallos, former Carabineros non-commissioned officer, sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional titles for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as a co-perpetrator of the crime of aggravated homicide. In addition, one year in prison as a perpetrator of the crime of simple kidnapping. For their part, agents Eugenio Jesús Fieldhouse Chávez, Pedro Mora Villanueva, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, José Mario Friz Esparza, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Eduardo Patricio Cabezas Mardones, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, and Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza were sentenced to one year in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of suspension from public office for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as co-perpetrators of the crime of simple kidnapping. In addition, agents José Javier Soto Torres, Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel, Leónidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, and José Domingo Seco Alarcón were sentenced to 61 days in prison, in addition to the legal accessory penalties of suspension from public office for the duration of the sentence; and to pay the costs of the case, as accomplices to the crime of simple kidnapping. Meanwhile, agents Jorge Segundo Madariaga Acevedo, José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías, Hugo Hernán Clavería Leiva, Raúl Alberto Soto Pérez, and Juan Carlos Escobar Valenzuela were acquitted due to lack of participation in the events. During the investigation stage, Judge Vázquez managed to prove the following facts: 1.- That Marta Lidia Ugarte Román was a militant of the Communist Party of Chile and a member of the Central Committee of that group, working in the Party's organization during 1976. 2.- That, as a consequence of the military coup of September 11, 1973, she went into hiding because she was sought by intelligence services, living with Elvira Solari Ahumada at the address Callejón Lo Ovalle No. 908 in the commune of La Cisterna, where she had been residing since the aforementioned month of September 1973 for security reasons, given her political militancy. 3.- That, on August 9, 1976, Marta Ugarte Román left the Callejón Lo Ovalle address around 3:00 PM, heading to the office of Dr. Iván Insunza, located on Vicuña Mackenna, to be treated for an infection in her leg resulting from a dog bite. On the way, she met Héctor Acela (now deceased), with whom she walked along Avenida Vicuña Mackenna toward Avenida Matta. He warned her that something strange was visible in the area and that it seemed to be under surveillance, but she insisted on continuing her path, not knowing that Dr. Iván Insunza had already been detained by intelligence services. 4.- That agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), belonging to the Purén Brigade, whose immediate objective was the tracking, location, and detention of Communist Party militants, proceeded to detain her without any warrant at Dr. Insunza's office, which had been under surveillance by security agencies; he had been detained previously due to his communist affiliation. She was then transferred to the clandestine detention center of that organization, known as Villa Grimaldi or Terranova, where she was kept deprived of liberty, interrogated, and subjected to physical abuse, being recognized and identified by other detainees who were in the same place at that time. 5.- That the political authorities of the time, belonging to the Ministry of the Interior and the DINA itself, officially denied the detention of Marta Ugarte Román and any knowledge of her whereabouts. 6.- That, while deprived of liberty, she was taken out to the street by agents in order to identify other militants and supporters of the Communist Party, being seen in one of those operations at a residence on Calle Constitución, in the Santiago commune, where party meetings were held. 7.- That, approximately on September 9, 1976, Marta Ugarte Román was transferred along with other detainees from the Villa Grimaldi facility to the town of Peldehue, where she was killed. Her body was covered with a sack and tied with wire around her neck, then loaded onto an Army Aviation Command Puma helicopter, whose crew consisted of a pilot, co-pilot, a flight mechanic, and a DINA operative agent. The aircraft took off toward the coast, heading out to sea, to then throw her body into the high seas from a height. 8.- That, on September 12, 1976, on La Ballena beach in the town of Los Molles, the body of Marta Lidia Ugarte Román was found lifeless by Marcel Dupré David, presenting only a piece of cloth and a piece of wire tied around her neck, which was severed, with clear signs of having received physical abuse; she also presented signs of needle marks on her arms. The body was transferred to the La Ligua hospital and then to the Legal Medical Service in Santiago for the corresponding autopsies. The first report, dated September 14, 1976, concluded a violent death of a homicidal nature, where the direct cause of death was polytrauma and luxofracture of the spine on September 9, 1976; the second expert report, dated October 22, 1976, concluded that the cause of death was thoraco-abdomino-pelvic trauma, and its expansion on February 22, 2010, determined that the final event that led to her death was asphyxiation by strangulation with wire. 9.- That the Army Aviation Command had its center of operations at the Tobalaba airfield, among others, for the flight of Puma helicopters, which had greater flight and transport capacity, for which the authorization of the highest Army authorities was required, as it was necessary to assign the pilots, co-pilots, and mechanics who were to form the flight crew in advance. These aircraft were used institutionally and regularly, in conjunction with the DINA, for several years to dispose of the bodies of people detained in the various detention centers of that organization, who were taken directly to the Tobalaba airfield or taken to the Peldehue Regiment, to then take flight to the high seas, where they were thrown into the ocean.

Source: resumen.cl, July 1, 2016

Supreme Court convicts 31 DINA agents for the crime of a MIR militant, victim of Operation Colombo

The Supreme Court convicted 31 agents of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of aggravated kidnapping of chemical engineer, economist, and MIR militant Juan Carlos Perelman Ide, who was detained on February 20, 1975, in the commune of Providencia, within the framework of the so-called "Operation Colombo." Juan Carlos Perelman, 31, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained in the morning hours of February 20, 1975, in an apartment located at Avenida Francisco Bilbao No. 2911, Providencia commune, by DINA agents who transferred him to the clandestine detention facility called 'Cuartel Terranova' or 'Villa Grimaldi,' located at Lo Arrieta No. 8200, in the commune of La Reina. Along with Perelman Ide, his partner, the journalist and MIR leader Gladys Díaz Armijo, was also detained. Both remained kidnapped in the aforementioned secret barracks, being subjected to constant interrogations and torture by the agents operating in that clandestine facility. The woman is a survivor of that prison camp, but all traces of her partner were lost shortly after he was taken into detention. Months later, in the so-called "Operation Colombo," the name of Juan Carlos Perelman Ide appeared included in the fateful list of 119 forcibly disappeared persons with which the DINA intended to spread disinformation about the fate of the political prisoners who remained in its power. In a unanimous ruling (case file 32.907-2018), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of judges Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Raúl Mera, and the ad hoc lawyer María Cristina Gajardo—confirmed in the criminal aspect the sentence that convicted former Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 13 years in prison as perpetrators of the crime. Meanwhile, former Army officers Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo and Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, and former Carabineros officers Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, and Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison; the same sentence must be served by agents Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Teresa del Carmen Osorio Navarro, Pedro René Alfaro Fernández, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Luis René Torres Méndez, Rodolfo Valentino Concha Rodríguez, Hugo del Tránsito Hernández Valle, Manuel de la Cruz Rivas Díaz, Jerónimo del Carmen Neira Méndez, Silvio Antonio Concha González, Héctor Washington Briones Burgos, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, José Nelson Fuentealba Saldías, Luis Rigoberto Videla Inzunza, Raúl Juan Rodríguez Ponte, Osvaldo Pulgar Gallardo, Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel, Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, and Leónidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, all as perpetrators of the crime. Finally, Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia will serve a sentence of 541 days in prison. Other agents who had been convicted in the first-instance ruling, issued by Judge Hernán Crisosto Greisse in November 2015, died during the course of the judicial proceedings. This is the case of agents Eugenio Jesús Fieldhouse Chávez, Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, and José Mario Friz Esparza. On the other hand, 18 other agents who had been convicted as accomplices were acquitted in this case. In the civil aspect, the Second Chamber of the highest court accepted the appeal for cassation filed by the plaintiffs and ordered the State to pay compensation for moral damages to the victim's relatives.

Source: resumen.cl, October 27, 2021