Deaths under State of Siege

According to the version provided by family members who were also eyewitnesses, seven hours after the ambush of the President of the Republic's motorcade, at approximately 02:00 in the early morning of September 8, 1986, a group of men wearing balaclavas surrounded the house of Felipe RIVERA GAJARDO, an electrician and member of the PC, in Pudahuel, took him out, and forced him into a taxi that departed for an unknown destination.

Around 04:00, half a dozen heavily armed men burst into the house of Gastón VIDAURRAZAGA MANRIQUEZ, a teacher and member of the MIR, in San Bernardo; they crossed paths with Carabineros and shoved him out, taking him to an unknown destination.

At 05:00 in the early morning, three armed civilians arrived at the home of journalist José Humberto CARRASCO TAPIA, a journalist, union leader, and member of the MIR, in the Barrio Bellavista, and took him away by force.

Hours later, the bodies of the three kidnapped men were found, riddled with bullets.

The following day, September 9, at 03:00 in the early morning, twelve armed individuals arrived at the plot of land belonging to Abraham MUSKATBLIT EIDELSTEIN, an advertiser and member of the PC, in the Casas Viejas sector, and kidnapped him. His body appeared riddled with bullets hours later in an irrigation canal adjacent to the road leading to Lonquén.

That same night, armed civilians attempted to kidnap the lawyer Luis Toro of the Vicaría de la Solidaridad.

These acts were claimed by a commando group calling itself the 11 de Septiembre. The Minister Secretary General of Government informed the public that the possibility that these crimes were the result of a purge among communists could not be ruled out.

This Commission, considering the militancy and work of the victims, the fact that the kidnappers identified themselves as police, the fact that the events took place in the early morning hours, defying the rigid military and police control measures of the time, and the great availability of resources of the perpetrators, has reached the conviction that these were political executions for which the State bears moral responsibility, whether because its agents acted directly in these events or because there was connivance or tolerance on their part, with these deaths constituting human rights violations.