Occupation: Plumbing installer, "Martín Michel y Cía. Ltda." company Political Affiliation: Militant of the Communist Party, National Leader of the Construction Federation, former student leader at the Universidad Técnica del Estado, and former leader of the Excavators' Union in 1971 and 1972. Date of Detention: September 9, 1976

Francisco Juan González Ortiz, married, father of two, union leader, and militant of the Communist Party, was forcibly disappeared on September 9, 1976, in the city of Santiago, after 8:30 PM, upon leaving a meeting of the Construction Federation that had been duly authorized by the authorities of the time and was held at the organization's headquarters, located at Vergara N°74.

In fact, on the indicated date, the victim left his home early in the morning and headed to his work, which was located at the 33rd stop of the Gran Avenida José Miguel Carrera, carrying out his usual workday.

At approximately 5:30 PM, he went to the premises of the Construction Federation, of which he was a national leader, in order to participate in a previously scheduled meeting, which lasted until 8:30 PM.

As soon as the aforementioned meeting ended, Francisco González left the place in the company of other people, arriving at the intersection of Alameda and Ejército, where he crossed the street in order to wait for the transportation that would take him back home.

Around 9:00 PM, a brother of the victim, Víctor Alfonso González Ortiz, who had also participated in the Federation meeting, was able to spot him while he was walking diagonally, crossing the Alameda, in a northerly direction and in the company of an unknown subject.

These would be the last reports regarding Francisco Juan González, who has remained forcibly disappeared since then.

About two months before his disappearance, the victim himself had realized that he was being watched and followed, and he had expressed this to his family.

Likewise, unknown subjects had asked for him at the Construction Federation headquarters, even inquiring about his second surname; and during the meeting held on September 9, two individuals entered the premises and asked for Francisco González and, once they were able to see him in the room, they left, claiming it was a mistake.

Approximately at the end of September 1976, subjects dressed in civilian clothes, who identified themselves as officials of the Investigations police, appeared at the former home of the victim's mother located in the Población Malaquías Concha, Calle Coronel N°7939, La Granja.

After verifying that Mrs. Ortiz did not live there and that the new residents did not know his whereabouts, they left the place.

A week later, other subjects appeared at the same address and, without identifying themselves, proceeded to raid the property without showing any warrant for it.

The curious thing about this situation is that the address on Calle Coronel was never registered by Mrs. Lastenia Ortiz, Francisco González's mother, but it did appear on the victim's identity card, which he was carrying on the day of his disappearance.

In the report prepared by the Rettig Report (created by the President of the Republic Patricio Aylwin Azócar, with the purpose of investigating and making known to the country the most serious human rights violations committed between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1990), it was stated that "on September 9, 1976, three construction leaders and members of the Communist Party were detained in Santiago: Aníbal Raimundo Riquelme Pino, Alfonso del Carmen Araya Castillo, and Francisco Juan González Ortiz.

The first two were arrested that afternoon in the vicinity of Plaza Pedro de Valdivia, and Francisco González, on the night of the same day, after participating in a meeting at the Industrial Federation of Building, Wood, and Construction Materials.

On the 22nd of the same month, a female employee of the company where Aníbal Riquelme and Francisco González worked was detained and taken to an unidentified detention center where she was confronted with Riquelme, to be subsequently released. Since that date, the whereabouts of the victims remain unknown."

On the other hand, according to official statements by the Government of the time, in 1976, a concerted action was carried out by security agencies against militants and leaders of the Communist Party of Chile.

In statements by the National Directorate of Social Communication (DINACOS) on July 15 and 17, 1976, reproduced in the newspaper "El Mercurio" of the capital, it was made known that "...intelligence services decided to act against 32 'mailbox' houses in Santiago that this aforementioned outlawed party maintains for liaison between the political commission and the regional leaders of the former Communist Party." And, in point 2 of the statement published on July 17, it is stated verbatim that "the Government deemed it appropriate to provide only a part of the abundant background information, having to reserve, for obvious reasons, all those that affect the ongoing investigation, referring to the clandestine subversive action of the Communist Party."

Likewise, the magazine "Qué Pasa," in its issues 235 (October 23, 1975) and 277 (August 12, 1976), informed its readers that "in these months, the communist militants and leaders who have disappeared from their usual activities and homes have reached significant figures," adding that "these are not isolated, loose, or unconnected events, but rather a sustained campaign."

In this same weekly (N°235 of October 23, 1975), the opinions expressed by the then-Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro were transcribed, which were entirely consistent with what was previously stated. The Admiral pointed out at the time that "the PC is here, underground.

It is being searched for everywhere and we are trying to eliminate it, sending them abroad, because it is not the spirit to kill anyone."

There is no doubt, then, that the detentions and disappearances of communist militants and leaders that occurred in 1976 must be linked to one another, as they undoubtedly respond to a prior methodical planning carried out by an organization endowed with material means and with the guarantees of anonymity and impunity to act in a criminal manner and in open violation of fundamental human rights.

Judicial and/or Administrative Actions

On September 13, 1976, Matilde del Canto Aliaga, the victim's spouse, filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) in his favor before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under N°880-76.

The Court granted the petitioner's request to send an official letter to the Ministry of the Interior, denying the request to send an official letter to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), a request regarding which it decreed that it would be up to the Chamber that ultimately heard the appeal to rule on it.

At the request of the petitioner, on September 21, 1976, the Court reiterated the request for a report to the Minister of the Interior, pointing out the urgency of obtaining his response.

On September 28, it was certified in the case file that the Minister of the Interior, through Official Letter N°4565, had reported that Francisco Juan González Ortiz was not being held by order of that Ministry.

The Sixth Chamber of the Court of Appeals resolved on September 29 that "given the merits of the case, and especially with the previous certification, from which it appears that the victim is not being held by order of the Ministry of the Interior, the filed writ of amparo is declared inadmissible." In the same resolution, it was cautioned that the associate justice Mr.

Novoa was in favor of sending the background information to the corresponding Criminal Court in order to investigate the possible crime that could exist in relation to the disappearance of the protected person.

Parallel to the processing of the amparo, Matilde del Canto Aliaga appeared on September 12, 1976, before the San José de La Estrella Carabineros station and filed a complaint for the alleged disappearance of her spouse.

Said complaint was sent the day after its filing to the 11th Criminal Court of Santiago, where it was registered under N°7.756-9, ordering the instruction of the corresponding summary and dispatching an order to investigate to the Investigations police.

On October 6, 1976, Francisco González Ortiz's wife filed a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the victim before the same Court, which kept the same case number as the previous one, continuing with joint processing.

In the respective pleading, it was requested that official letters be sent to the General Directorate of Carabineros and the Ministry of the Interior, to which the Court responded with a mere "take note."

On October 29, 1976, Víctor Alfonso González Ortiz—the victim's brother—appeared before the court and declared that he had participated with Francisco González in the meeting held at the Construction Federation headquarters on the night of September 9 of that year, and that he had spotted the victim around 9:00 PM while he was crossing the Alameda diagonally in a northerly direction, accompanied by another person, all this after the aforementioned meeting had ended.

At the request of the complainant and with the consent of the Court, the Deputy Director of the Legal Medical Service of Santiago reported in negative terms, through an official letter, regarding the entry of the victim's body into said establishment on November 19, 1976.

On December 27, 1976, and January 24, 1977, the Court granted the measures requested by the complainant, which were: the judicial summons of construction union leaders Héctor Cuevas Salvador and Ismael Lazo Ferrata, who had shared the September 9 meeting with the victim; the sending of official letters to the Department of Union Organizations of the Labor Directorate, so that it could send the Court the background information it had regarding the victim; to International Police; to the Director of the Civil Registry; and to the President of the International Red Cross in Chile.

The latter was in virtue of an interview held between the then-President of the Republic and the Delegate of said international organization, Mr. Alexander Hay, regarding the situation of disappeared persons, and with the purpose that the background information available regarding the victim be sent to the Court.

There is no record in the case file of a response to this last official letter, despite the multiple reiterations that were requested regarding it.

The Deputy Director of Labor, lawyer Carlos Poblete Jiménez, reported on February 11, 1977, "that Francisco Juan González Ortiz does not appear registered as a leader of the Provincial Professional Union of excavators, sewer workers, and sanitary works of Santiago." "And regarding whether he is a Youth Director of the National Industrial Construction Federation, as it is an organization without legal personality, this Directorate does not maintain updated records."

On February 28, 1977, the response letter from the Civil Registry and Identification Service, Independencia Office, was added to the case file, which reported that after checking the respective indices, the victim does not appear among the persons whose death has been registered, adding that for further information, the autopsy number, if any, should be sent.

For its part, the Department of Foreigners and International Police of the Investigations police also reported in negative terms, with the respective response being added to the process on April 12.

On May 17, union leaders Héctor Cuevas Salvador and Ismael Lazo Ferratto appeared before the court, confirming the victim's status as national head of the Youth Department of the Construction Federation, as well as the fact of having participated with him in the meeting of said entity held on September 9, 1976.

On May 31, 1977, at the request of the complainant, the Court ordered that an official letter be sent to the Ministry of the Interior so that the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and Investigations could report whether the victim was detained or held, or if his name appeared on the list of dangerous persons; that letters rogatory be sent to the Military Courts of Antofagasta, Iquique, Santiago, Concepción, Valdivia, and Magallanes, and the Naval Courts of Valparaíso, Talcahuano, and Magallanes; and finally, that requisitions be dispatched to various criminal courts in the country.

Through official letters dated June 8 and 10, 1977, the then-Minister of the Interior, Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that "in this Secretariat of State there is no information of any kind related to Francisco Juan González Ortiz and that the Intelligence Services have not communicated any arrest against him either." He also added that "it is useful to point out to Your Honor that if the victim had been arrested by any of the Security Services, this fact would have been communicated to the undersigned immediately, within the deadlines established in accordance with the Government instructions issued at the time, in accordance with the terms of D.L. 1009."

The Naval Courts of Valparaíso, Talcahuano, and Magallanes, as well as the Military Courts of Punta Arenas, Antofagasta, Valdivia, Iquique, II of Santiago, and III of Concepción, reported in negative terms to the Court, in the sense that no proceedings had been initiated against the victim in them, nor for his death.

Likewise, the requisitions dispatched to various criminal courts in the country did not yield favorable results.

On September 1, 1977, the complainant requested the Court to send an official letter to the 6th Carabineros Precinct, so that the official record could be sent stating that the Construction Federation meeting, held on September 9 of the previous year, was carried out in the manner provided by the regulations in force regarding the exercise of the right to assembly, with the country being under a State of Siege and the Metropolitan Region as an Emergency Zone, and that any information in their possession regarding the detention of the victim be sent.

And, accompanying a sworn statement from Mrs. Alvarita González Ortiz—the victim's sister—in which it is reported that Investigations officials arrived at her home, questioning her about a recent presentation that relatives of the disappeared made to the then-President of the Republic, it was requested that an official letter be sent to the General Directorate of Investigations, so that it could report whether said Institution carried out any investigation related to the matter.

On September 20, 1977, the Deputy Commissioner of the 6th Carabineros Precinct of Santiago, Captain Juan Mansilla Díaz, reported that "in this Unit there is no copy of the authorization to hold the aforementioned meeting, because all the background information, including the report on the result of the same, was sent to the Intendancy with Official Letter N°2125 dated September 28, 1976.

Likewise, having checked the respective books for September 9, 1976, and the following days, no information is recorded that relates to the detention of Francisco Juan González Ortiz."

For his part, the General Director of Investigations of Chile, Division General Ernesto Baeza Michaelsen, reported that "indeed, the Information Department of this Institution carried out inquiries related to a letter that was addressed to H.E. the President of the Republic by a group of 340 people, who stated they were relatives of alleged disappeared persons, among whom the victim appeared, without obtaining any favorable result in them." This authority added in the same official letter that in the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), the victim is not registered as being detained by security personnel.

At the request of the complainant, the Court agreed to send official letters to the Intendancy of Santiago, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Directorate of the Civil Registry, the Central Identification Cabinet, and the International Police, the latter to complete the information already added to the process.

The Deputy Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Aviation Colonel Jaime Lavín Fariña, reported on November 3, 1977, that "in the archives of this Secretariat of State, the departure from the country via asylum by Francisco Juan González Ortiz is not recorded."

The Department of Foreigners and International Police of the Investigations police reported that the victim does not have records of trips abroad, pointing out to the Court that from April 1 to October 31, 1977, only the Pudahuel and Los Libertadores outposts were reviewed, not the other borders, because the information was being processed by IBM data systems.

The Legal Secretary of the Intendancy of the Metropolitan Region sent the Court the information available in that entity regarding the Construction Federation meeting held on September 9, 1976, which fundamentally relates to the date, time, and place where it was held, the number of people who attended, and the points that were discussed in it.

At the request of the complainant, the Court ordered an official letter to be sent to the National Intelligence Center (C.N.I.) on November 11, 1977.

On December 6, 1977, the Minister of the Interior sent a new report of the same tenor as those already added to the process.

The Head of the Certificate Sub-Department of the Civil Registry Service did not inform the Court whether or not the victim's death was registered in that office, noting only that "it was not possible to send death certificates for the person consulted until the date and place of death were indicated."

On April 27, 1978, the Judge of the 11th Criminal Court of Santiago, Tomas Dahm Guíñez, declared the summary closed, since by virtue of the provisions of Article 1 of D.L. N°2.191, it is useless to continue the investigation.

It is noted that at the time of issuing said resolution, several proceedings were pending, to which the Court agreed on January 11, 1978, among them, the sending of official letters to the Minister Secretary General of Government, so that he could report on the situation of the victim, this in virtue of statements made by said authority regarding the clarification of the situation of several supposedly disappeared persons; to the General Directorate of Carabineros; to the cemeteries of the capital; and the reiteration of the official letters already sent to the Security Agencies of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and Investigations.

On May 3, 1978, the Judge temporarily dismissed the case, by virtue of the provisions of D.L. N°2.191, which granted amnesty to all persons who, as authors, accomplices, or accessories, had committed criminal acts in the period between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978, who were not under prosecution or convicted, which—as he expressed in the resolution—is the case in the present matter.

The previous resolution was appealed and was revoked by the Santiago Court of Appeals on June 28, 1978, ordering the judge of first instance to carry out the proceedings decreed in the course of the summary that were still pending.

On August 3, the Court ordered the reiteration of the pending proceedings, at the request of the complainant.

On August 23, the Director of Order and Security of Carabineros, General Félix González Acevedo, reported that after carrying out the pertinent inquiries in the units dependent on the General Prefecture of Santiago, Francisco Juan González Ortiz does not have records of any kind.

For their part, the various cemeteries of the capital also reported in negative terms.

On September 13, 1978, the victim's spouse, Mrs. Matilde del Canto Aliaga, filed a complaint before the same Court for the crimes of qualified kidnapping, prolonged incommunicado detention, unnecessary rigor, and arbitrary detention in places not contemplated by law, directed against the security agents who carried out the detention of the victim, whose identities are unknown.

This case was accumulated with the complaint for alleged disappearance already filed, keeping the same case number and continuing with joint processing.

The Court accepted the preceding complaint, ordering the instruction of the corresponding summary and granting the proceedings requested in it. Namely, it sent an official letter to the National Directorate of Social Communication, so that it could send the official text of the two statements issued by that organization in July 1976, indicating the names of the members of the Communist Party who, according to the first of them, were detained; the dispatch of new official letters to the Ministry of the Interior and the National Intelligence Center (C.N.I.); official letters to the Ministry of Justice and the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET); and finally, that an account be requested of the pending proceedings in the case file for the alleged disappearance of the victim, substantiated before the same Court and to which this complaint was accumulated.

On November 15, 1978, at the request of the complainant, it was ordered to reiterate the preceding proceedings, as no response had been obtained to date to the official letters dispatched.

An order to investigate was dispatched to the Investigations Police, specifically to proceed to visit and interview neighbors of the Construction Federation premises, located at Vergara N°74, and in order to obtain any information regarding the detention of the victim, but it did not yield positive results.

Having appointed the Magistrate of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mr. Servando Jordán López, as Minister in Extraordinary Visit to hear and resolve the cases brought about by the disappearance of persons, he became aware of the proceedings that gave rise to the disappearance of Francisco Juan González Ortiz on May 24, 1979.

On August 1, Minister Jordán ordered that an official letter be sent to the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago, and rendered ineffective the resolution that ordered an official letter to be sent to the General Secretariat of Government, since it reported on page 72 of the Visit file that it lacks any record in relation to disappeared persons.

At the request of the complainant, Minister Mr. Jordán ordered on August 3, 1979, that an official letter be sent to the Technical Advisory Department of the General Directorate of Investigations.

The Deputy Director of the Investigations Police, Carlos Aranda Salazar, sent the Court on August 16, 1979, only general and already known background information regarding the disappearance of the victim, without indicating whether or not he had political records.

The previous response motivated the following resolution pronounced by the Minister in Visit on August 29: "Send an official letter to Investigations, pointing out that this Visit, when requesting a report on political records, requires data that may exist in this regard in the Service's archive, and not a report of background information on the disappearance of a specific person, with data already well known in the respective process."

Sergio Fernández Fernández, Minister of the Interior, reported to the Court on October 3 that "having requested a pronouncement from the National Intelligence Center on the matter consulted, the Superiority of this organization stated, through an official letter, that its records do not show any arrest that has affected Francisco Juan González Ortiz."

Only with the merit of the background information provided, Minister Jordán declared the summary closed on October 22, 1979.

And on the 31st of the same month and year, keeping in mind that the perpetration of a criminal act has not been completely justified, due to the complaint in the case file, he temporarily dismissed the case until new and better investigation data are presented.

Said resolution was appealed before the Santiago Court of Appeals, a Court that confirmed it.

On August 26, 1980, Matilde del Canto Aliaga requested Minister in Visit Mr. Jordán to reopen the summary, asserting new background information. Namely, the fact that the identity of the members of a clandestine structure belonging to or very closely linked to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) had been discovered, which operated intensely, especially since mid-1976, and whose specific mission was to detain members of the Communist Party.

These identities, as well as the tasks carried out by the mentioned group, came to light as a result of the investigations carried out for the theft of the vehicle and temporary kidnapping of the French traveling salesman, Marcel Duhalde Garat, which occurred on March 21, 1977, and was reported to the Second Criminal Court of Santiago.

This complaint was finally processed in an ad hoc Military Prosecutor's Office under roll N° 242-77, and despite the fact that as a result of it, the Citroën of the forcibly disappeared Daniel Palma Robledo was found in the possession of two DINA agents, this fact was not investigated, nor was the relationship of the agents with the disappearance of persons.

One of the DINA agents who were authors of the robbery and kidnapping of Marcel Duhalde died in 1977 under strange circumstances in a DINA clinic; in 1992, information was received that he had been poisoned with Sarin gas, manufactured in Michael Townley's house.

Although there is no information regarding the processing that preceded the aforementioned presentation, the truth is that the case was again temporarily dismissed, and the background information was ultimately archived.

Source: Corporation Report

The decision was described as a relevant event by the lawyer representing the victims' families, Nelson Caucoto, who indicated that this demonstrates that there is no crime that can go unpunished.

The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court issued a final judgment and sentenced five former agents of the Joint Command (Comando Conjunto) for the crimes of illicit association and qualified kidnapping of Aníbal Raimundo Riquelme Pino, Francisco Juan González Ortiz, and Alfonso del Carmen Araya Castillo, the three union leaders of the Communist Party, acts perpetrated starting in 1975 and on September 9, 1976.

The ruling was pronounced by ministers Haroldo Osvaldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, María Teresa De Jesús Letelier, and Arturo Prado, who confirmed the first-instance sentence issued by magistrate Leopoldo Llanos on August 31, 2016, and sentenced Juan Francisco Saavedra Loyola, Daniel Luis Guimpert Corvalán, and Juan Atilio Aravena Hurtuvia, all former members of the Navy; and Raúl Horacio González Fernández, a former member of the FACH (Air Force), as authors of the crimes of illicit association and repeated qualified kidnapping of the three victims, to the single penalty of twenty years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree.

In addition, agent Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval, alias “La Pochi” and a former member of the FACH, was sentenced as an author of the crime of illicit association and as an accomplice to the aforementioned repeated qualified kidnapping crimes, to the single penalty of ten years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree.

In this way, the resolution of the Second Chamber of the Highest Court rejects the statute of limitations and the cassation appeals presented by the defense of those convicted. The only dissenting vote was that of minister Arturo Prado, who was in favor of applying the statute of limitations.

For Nelson Caucoto, the plaintiff lawyer for Aníbal Riquelme Pino's family, "the Supreme Court does justice to three young communists and sends a powerful signal against impunity regarding the crimes of the Joint Command. This shows that there are no crimes that cannot be resolved by justice."

According to the investigation substantiated by minister Llanos, it was established that on September 9, 1976, Aníbal Raimundo Riquelme Pino, Alfonso del Carmen Araya Castillo, and Francisco Juan González Ortiz were detained by State agents.

These are agents belonging to the repressive organization known as the 'Intelligence Community' or 'Joint Command' that operated in the 'La Firma' barracks located on Calle 18 de Septiembre in Santiago Centro, the building of the former newspaper El Clarín.

The first two were detained in the afternoon in the Plaza Pedro de Valdivia sector, and the last one, at night in the Alameda Bernardo O’Higgins sector, in the vicinity of the Construction Federation premises, located at Calle Vergara N°74.

From the moment of their detentions, they have not contacted their relatives, they have no recorded departures from the country, and their death is not recorded."

Source: radio.uchile.cl 19/4/2022 Date: 04-19-2022