Gabriela Edelweiss Arredondo Andrade, single, mother of one, university student, and member of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained on November 19, 1974, in a house neighboring her own in Santiago by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who took her to the secret detention and torture center of Villa Grimaldi.

Gabriela Arredondo was a French language student at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile and had established a stable relationship with Abel Norman Tapia Gamboa, with whom she had a daughter.

Gamboa was also a member of the MIR; he was imprisoned and later left the country under a sentence of forced exile. The victim knew she was being sought by security services and had taken refuge in a house across from her home.

She was detained at that location on November 19, 1974. Gabriela Arredondo was sought by security services, and her relatives' home had been raided by a military patrol led by an Army officer. From the day Gabriela Arredondo disappeared, her relatives searched for her and made inquiries at various levels, but they never found her again.

Iris Magaly Guzmán Uribe, a survivor of the DINA torture center known as Villa Grimaldi, stated in a sworn declaration on November 15, 1990, that she remained in that torture center in November 1974 along with her two children and her partner.

She spent eight days in a room with two other prisoners. She declares that one of those prisoners "was Gabriela Arredondo, a member of the MIR, about whom I have not had any news since." In a declaration dated September 24, 1975, the same witness had stated that she had been with the victim at Villa Grimaldi and had been able to speak with her.

November 28 was the last day she saw her, as on that day, Mrs. Iris Guzmán was transferred after having been tortured for eight days, as were her minor children. According to this testimony, Gabriela Arredondo was in good health until that moment and informed her that she had been detained by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

Mrs. Guzmán's daughter, Marcela Virginia García Guzmán, who was 15 years old in 1974, was detained along with her mother on that occasion. After being tortured, Marcela García was taken to the same room as her mother, where she was able to recognize Gabriela Arredondo among the detainees, as she maintained in a notarized statement in August 1978.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Gabriela Arredondo's father made numerous extrajudicial efforts, trusting he would obtain some result given his connections with the Judiciary and members of the Armed Forces; his death, which occurred on June 24, 1976, interrupted those efforts.

For her part, her mother resided in the United States, and Gabriela Arredondo's partner was also detained and later expelled from the country. Gabriela Arredondo's father was a Criminal Judge in the city of Castro and, upon learning of his daughter's detention, made numerous trips to Santiago, where he made efforts to locate her, without success in this search, taking charge of his granddaughter, the victim's daughter.

Gabriela Arredondo Andrade remains in the status of forcibly disappeared. On January 30, 1992, a complaint was filed before the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago for the kidnapping of Gabriela Edelweiss Arredondo Andrade. As of December 31, 1992, the aforementioned case was in the summary phase with pending proceedings.

Source: Corporation

Supreme Court confirms conviction of former DINA agents for the kidnapping of a university student.

The highest Court confirmed the contested sentence that sentenced Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Fernando Lauriani Maturana, Rolf Wenderroth Pozo, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 5 years and one day of effective imprisonment as perpetrators of the crime, after ruling out the application of the partial statute of limitations.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted four agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in the crime of qualified kidnapping of university student Gabriela Edelweiss Arredondo Andrade, an illicit act committed starting December 24, 1974, in Santiago.

Thus, the highest Court confirmed the contested sentence that sentenced Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderroth Pozo, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 5 years and one day of effective imprisonment as perpetrators of the crime, after ruling out the application of the partial statute of limitations.

Before analyzing the appeal, it is convenient to recall that in the fourth motive of the first-instance ruling—endorsed by the contested sentence—the following facts were established:

‘1.- The Military Regime in the years 1973 to 1977 created by Decree No. 571 of 1974 a secret police, under the name of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), as a necessity of the supreme government of the time to have the immediate and permanent collaboration of a specialized agency that would provide it with systematically and duly processed information required to adjust its resolutions in the field of National Security and Development.

In its articles, it is clearly established that the DINA was a military agency of a technical-professional nature, directly dependent on the Government Junta, presided over by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, and directed by a General or Senior Officer on active duty in the Armed Forces of National Defense, appointed by Supreme Decree, who, with the title of Director of National Intelligence, would have the superior, technical, and administrative direction of the Service, with Army General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda being appointed for this purpose;

2.- That the DINA created several operational organs to carry out its functions, among which was the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade (BIM), which had several detention centers, including the ‘Terranova Barracks,' also known as Villa Grimaldi, between the years 1973 to 1978, approximately;

3.- That the former military facility ‘Terranova Barracks,' located on the land previously known as Villa Grimaldi, began its preparation as a concentration camp at the end of 1973. The following year, the barracks in question received its first detainees and reached full operational capacity at the end of that year.

The main objective of this facility was to serve as a detention and organized torture barracks, which would allow for the systematic repression of opponents of the military regime. At first, the persecution was directed against militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement, the Socialist Party, and starting in 1975, the Communist Party;

4.- That in this context, Gabriela Edelweiss Arredondo Andrade, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), known as ‘Antonia' or ‘La Turca,' a university student, was detained on November 19, 1974, on Calle Bellavista in the city of Santiago, in a house neighboring her home, by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and was taken to the secret detention and torture facility known as ‘Villa Grimaldi,' where she was seen by witnesses at least until December 24, 1974, the date from which she has been disappeared."

The events thus described were qualified by the sentence as constituting the crime of qualified kidnapping—to which the character of a crime against humanity was also given—provided for and sanctioned in Article 141, first and third paragraphs of the Penal Code.

The resolution adds that, notwithstanding what was indicated by the ruling, the constant jurisprudence of this Criminal Chamber has used two arguments to dismiss this ground for appeal, insofar as it is based on Article 103 of the Penal Code.

Subsequently, the ruling points out that, on one hand, the classification of the illicit act committed as a crime against humanity compels the consideration of International Human Rights Law regulations, which exclude the application of both total statute of limitations and the so-called partial statute of limitations, understanding such institutions to be closely linked in their foundations and, consequently, contrary to the regulations of ius cogens originating from that sphere of International Criminal Law, which reject impunity and the imposition of penalties not proportional to the intrinsic gravity of the crimes, based on the passage of time.

The sentence adds that, along with this, it is emphasized that whatever interpretation may be made of the foundation of the legal provision in question, it is certain that the norms to which Article 103 refers grant a mere faculty to the judge and do not impose the obligation to reduce the amount of the penalty even if several mitigating factors concur (Supreme Court Rulings Roll No. 35.788-17, of March 20, 2018, and Roll No. 39.732-17, of May 14, 2018).

Therefore, it concludes that the appeal for cassation on the merits filed in the main part of the document on page 1463 by the defense of the sentenced Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo against the sentence issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals on October 9, 2018, which is read on page 1455, is rejected, and consequently, it is not void.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, March 24, 2020

Date: 03-24-2020

The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, issued this Tuesday separate indictments against agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their responsibility in two crimes of qualified kidnapping, illicit acts perpetrated in 1974 and 1976, respectively, in the Metropolitan Region.

In the first case (case roll 50-2013), Minister Mario Carroza prosecuted the DINA leaders and former army officers: former Brigadier Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, former Brigadier Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, former Colonel Rolf Arnold Wenderoth Pozo, and former Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Eduardo Lauriani Maturana, all as perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of Gabriela Edelweiss Arredondo Navarrete, an illicit act perpetrated starting November 19, 1974.

According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, Gabriela Arredondo Navarrete, a 33-year-old university student, single, mother of one daughter, and a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained at her home on Calle Bellavista, in Santiago Centro, by DINA agents and taken to the clandestine detention center Villa Grimaldi, where she was seen by surviving witnesses, and from where her trail was lost, with her whereabouts remaining unknown to this day.

In the second resolution (case roll 335-2012), Minister Carroza submitted to prosecution the former army officers: former Colonel Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and army non-commissioned officer agent Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, all as perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of María Galindo Ramírez, an illicit act perpetrated starting July 18, 1976, in the Estación Central sector, in Santiago.

According to the investigation of the case, María Galindo Ramírez, 26, a former leader of the Catholic Worker Youth, administrative secretary, and militant of the MIR, was detained on a public street, presumably in the Estación Central sector, by DINA agents and taken to the clandestine detention facility Villa Grimaldi, from where her trail was lost and she also became a forcibly disappeared person.

María Galindo Ramírez, single, a native of the Villa Mora neighborhood in Coronel, was 26 years old when she was detained. After the coup d'état, María moved to Santiago and joined the resistance tasks against the dictatorship.

She was detained near Estación Central after separating from her brother-in-law, with whom she had traveled to Coronel. She was returning to her home in the Renca commune, where she never arrived. A snitch—one of those who are never lacking when ignominy reigns—betrayed her presence and her clandestine resistance activity, handing her over to the criminal hordes of the DINA.

She was seen among the detainees who remained as hostages of the regime in the secret prisoner facility Villa Grimaldi; from there, she was made to disappear. It is presumed that her fate and destiny were the same as those of the teacher Marta Ugarte, the communist militant who appeared dead on the coast of the 4th Region, returned to the shore by the sea, with whom she had shared captivity and whose disappearance from the torture camp occurred in the same days.

Source: resumen.cl 6/3/2016

Date: 06-03-2016

Symbolic recognition will be directed at former students murdered during the military regime.

Through exempt decree number 0030766 of the University of Chile, authorized by the Comptroller General of the Republic on September 4 of this year, said institution was enabled, for the first time in its history, to deliver the distinction of posthumous and symbolic degrees to students who were political executions victims and those who became forcibly disappeared during the military regime.

The official ceremony, which will be led by Rector Ennio Vivaldi, will take place next Monday the 11th, in the Domeyko courtyard of the main building, starting at 12:30 PM.

For Vivaldi, "this initiative has two very profound meanings. On one hand, it is a gesture of reparation for the victims themselves and for their relatives, who also affectively associate their loved ones with this great institution that is the U. of Chile.

On the other hand, the U. of Chile feels that it is fulfilling its moral duty by not granting the dictatorship the terrible objective of, in addition to having cut their lives short, erasing their achievements as students and future professionals for Chile."

The list includes 104 former students of the university who were murdered by State agents between 1973 and 1989.

Among the most remembered cases is that of history student Jécar Nehgme, who also appears as the last victim of the Augusto Pinochet regime. This former leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) appeared dead on September 4, 1989, on Calle General Bulnes, a few days before the elections that would mark the return to democracy.

After a long judicial process, which was resolved in 2008, it was established that the perpetrators of the murder were the metropolitan chief of the CNI, Brigadier (ret.) Enrique Levy Araneda; Colonel (ret.) Pedro Guzmán Olivares; and Captain (ret.) Luis Sanhueza Ross.

Social organizations valued the gesture. The president of the Association of Families of Political Executions Victims (AFEP), Alicia Lira, pointed out that "it is a great gesture, which we recognize enormously.

With this, Rector Vivaldi fulfills a pending task that the University of Chile had, since similar gestures had already been fulfilled by other universities such as the U. of Santiago and the Austral University of Valdivia. But it is a huge signal for democracy and so that a true 'never again' is fulfilled in Chile."

List of University of Chile students who were victims of the civic-military dictatorship:

6. Arredondo Andrade, Gabriela Edelweiss. Pedagogy student. Forcibly disappeared.

Source: latercera.com, SEP 08, 2017

I am nervous, I try to calm my muscles. Nervous, yet my head is clear. My decision is final. My wait has been long. Long years waiting for a miracle to happen. Now, I cannot keep waiting for what will never happen.

I have prayed entire nights, trying to know if there is no other way. My mind wandered for eternal hours looking for some clue, a sign that could quench my thirst for Justice. I participated in a thousand marches, clamoring, crying, begging, "Justice, Justice!

Punishment for the murderers!" For all of them, those who shot, raped, humiliated, and those who never got their hands dirty and with brief phrases ordered who lived, who died, or who disappeared. They insult us, comfortably embedded in their leather armchairs: "Forget it.

That already happened. Let's think about the country, about the future. People are tired of those stories. Everything humanly possible was done." I have tried to live with my pain. I have tried to crush it, to compress it, to annihilate it.

I have tried love. I met my partner, my husband, my lover, and with him, I am happy. Half-happy. Half-happy. Fruit of that love, two twin lights were born that illuminate my life. I have given years of my life to building this, my family.

My husband, lover, partner is an angel. He has given me everything. He has made me happy in bed, in the park, among friends, with his family, and has shared with me a broad vision of the world. We have pampered Esperanza and Felicidad, my two twins.

We have given them values and have instilled in them the imperative need to act, to rebel against injustice. To not fear that such action might have violent edges when one seeks to manifest what even God clamors for: Justice.

We have had a good material life, with the professional practice in which we both work. However, the memory, the martyrdom of my mother and so many just men and women, the indifference with which my country turns its back on us have been unbearable.

Nothing healthy can come from where pain is despised and rejected like filthy plagues. Nothing can be built in a country where the State killed with impunity and does not even force the murderers to ask for forgiveness and pay for their crimes.

I have repeated to myself a thousand times, "what society does not give you, it is your duty to take," until I convinced myself. Today I leave words behind. After the verb, action. Here I am, and I will not take a step back.

In a few more minutes, this wait will come to an end, and there I will see if my plan was as meticulous as I proposed. My hands are sweating with anxiety, my mouth is dry, and I try to relax my breathing.

I wipe the sweat produced by the wig with the sleeve of my artisanal dress. I open my eyes as soon as the condominium door opens. There is the "hoarse one" in his car, looking with desperation toward each side of the street.

Like every day, he will go to run for a few minutes in O'Higgins Park, after making sure no one is following him. I will park in that place where, generally, there is no one. He will cast his gaze in all directions and then follow the same itinerary that has given him such good results until now.

I start the engine and go directly to the place where I will find him. I have timed my route and have arrived just in time. I get out running while I struggle to stabilize my breathing and begin to walk toward his encounter.

I have taken a book, which I pretend to read. I look up. Now I glimpse his broad, heavy silhouette, coming down that curve, about twenty meters away, before taking this straight path with protections on both sides.

I guess in his eyes the surprise of seeing me on the same route. I imagine his brain calculating the risk. He slows his pace and turns his head. He stops and begins to do gymnastics to, surely, make sure that this female presence is not accompanied.

I keep walking with my head down, as if absorbed in the book. He resumes his march and discards the danger. "It's just a hippie girl," he must think, "insignificant shit." He jogs in place and then propels himself forward; we are a few meters away.

I raise my hand and smile at him. He slows down. "Excuse me, sir... can I ask you a question?" "Yes, of course," he says, half-perplexed and pleased. "How can I help you, beautiful?" "Here in this book... well... do you know Gabriela Arredondo Andrade?" The man looked toward the sky at the precise moment I pulled out the revolver.

When he lowered his eyes, his brain realized that death was claiming him. He knelt and begged. He cried and pissed himself, implored, shit himself. I had two alternatives: to be generous as they never were and consider that humiliation was sufficient punishment, or to be the Justice of so many children, mothers, and wives, victims dried up from so much crying.

The roar was brief, clean. The sky opened, and the sun lavished its heat on me. I looked in all directions. I didn't see anyone, and no one saw me. I hurried my pace and reached the car stolen the night before.

I parked it on the street I had planned. Without a doubt, they would find it; we would see if they linked it to the execution or if they would be as lost as is their custom. In any case, it didn't worry me.

I cleaned each of the things I had touched with a handkerchief soaked in acetone. I walked a block and took a bus; I got off three stops later. I entered a public restroom in the center and changed my clothes, simply by taking off the artisanal dress I was wearing over them.

I took off the mahogany wig and wrapped it inside the dress. I waited about five minutes, listening carefully to every movement. I left at a moment when there was no one. I walked quickly to a building that had an internal incinerator accessible from any floor.

I reached the seventh, knowing that few offices operated there and that there was little traffic. I emptied the entire bottle of acetone, set fire to the dress and the wig, and threw them down the incinerator chute. "Hello, love, how did it go at the Courthouse?" "Good, something tells me that Justice will start to function," I replied to my partner, lover, husband.

This story sprouted after reading the information sent by Pablo Leiva about Gabriela Edelweiss Arredondo Andrade. I know it doesn't correspond much to "correct" thinking; but literary attempts give us these licenses. I hope that Gabriela's daughter takes it as a clear and simple tribute to her mother.

Source: archivochile.com, no date