Date of Birth: 11-08-27, 46 years old at the time of his detention. Address: Diego de Deza No. 1087, Las Condes, Santiago. Marital Status: Married, two children. Occupation: Professor at the Universidad de Chile, Faculty of Musical Sciences and Arts. Repressive Status: Militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR). Date of Detention: April 4, 1974.

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Gonzalo Marcial Toro Garland, married, 2 children, university professor, and MIR militant, was wounded and detained by agents of the Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (DINA) on April 4, 1974, after 7:30 PM, on a public street in front of the Casa Central of the Universidad de Chile in Santiago.

He was shot in the back, according to medical records from the Hospital Militar, where he was taken by his captors while in custody. Gonzalo had three serious wounds in his back, and his state of health was extremely critical.

Gonzalo Toro was admitted to the Hospital Militar without being registered in the statistics department and was kept in strict incommunicado detention, with the fact hidden even from the then-Colonel Horacio Toro Iturra, the victim's first cousin.

In his statement before the court, retired Army General Horacio Toro Iturra stated: "Upon learning of my cousin's disappearance, I contacted the head of the organization that Gonzalo had confronted, the organization that had wounded him.

Its head at the time, Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, told me that while it was true that he had been detained and interrogated, he had subsequently been released... Colonel Contreras indicated to me that he would have him searched for. After waiting a reasonable amount of time, I requested reports on the disappeared person, which were negative."

Gonzalo Marcial remained in that facility for several months, where, despite strict surveillance, he was seen by and spoke with his children. He was also seen by numerous people, including friends and family, through a window facing Calle Providencia when his health allowed him to approach it; this was the last time he was seen alive.

On the day of his detention, Toro Garland had performed his work duties normally at the Copyright Department of the Universidad de Chile, where he also worked as a teacher and researcher in the Faculty of Musical Sciences and Arts. In the afternoon, after returning home, Gonzalo left his house, indicating that he would return in a moment, which did not happen.

Gonzalo Toro Fernández, son of Gonzalo Toro Garland, was performing his military service at the time of his father's detention and was relieved of duty after being informed that his father had been wounded in a confrontation.

Upon learning of this situation, Toro Garland's wife, Maite Nicole Daiber Vuillemin, visited police stations, hospitals, the Instituto Médico Legal, the Secretaría Nacional de Detenidos (SENDET), regular detention centers, the Estadio Chile, etc., in an attempt to locate her husband.

Subsequently, the lawyer Francisco Escobar Riffo, acting on behalf of Fernando Toro Garland (residing in Spain) to clarify the disappearance of his brother Gonzalo, was informed that the latter was in the facilities of the Hospital Militar under the conditions described above.

This institution denied until November that Gonzalo Toro was in that facility, later acknowledging his hospitalization from April 4 to August 1, 1974, the date on which he allegedly left the Hospital Militar "on his own."

Important evidence, which complements what was reported by his family, is the statement given by the former detainee and subsequent DINA collaborator, Luz Arce Sandoval, to the Rettig Report. In it, she recounts her detention and stay at the Hospital Militar.

Regarding the victim, she states: "I woke up in a room that was not 303, where they had taken me at first, but the next one. I think that was when Toro Garland arrived, a detainee who was wounded by a bullet...

He had about 5 bullet wounds; the only thing I asked him was if he wanted me to wet his lips, and he said yes; I asked him if I could do anything else for him, and he said, 'never forget my name.' He must have been in room 304."

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On April 18, 1974, Maite Nicole Daiber Vuillemin filed an Amparo appeal (Rol No. 373-74) before the Santiago Court of Appeals in favor of her husband, Gonzalo Marcial Toro Garland. It was rejected on July 18, 1974, because it did not "concern the cases contemplated by Article 16 of the Constitution and Article 306 of the Code of Penal Procedure." Furthermore, the Court did not send the official letters requested in the Amparo, and the complainant could not be located by the investigative police (Investigaciones) following the Court's summons to appear and clarify the repressive situation the victim was experiencing.

Subsequently, on May 15, 1974, lawyer Francisco Escobar Riffo filed a new Amparo appeal (Rol 479-74) in favor of Gonzalo Marcial Toro Garland, which was also rejected on November 14, 1974, six months after its filing.

During the processing of the appeal, and faced with its obvious delay, on June 14, 1974, lawyer Escobar Riffo requested a hearing with the President of the Court to express his surprise at the processing of this Amparo appeal, "which under normal conditions should have been ruled upon in 24 hours, is delayed by more than thirty days due to the lack of a report from the Ministry of the Interior explaining why my client has been wounded and held incommunicado for three months at the Hospital Militar.

This defense considers that this negligence on the part of the Ministry of the Interior in responding in a timely manner to an official letter from the Court constitutes the crime of contempt..." The Ministry of the Interior responded only on June 21, 1974, indicating that "Gonzalo Toro Garland is not detained by order of any administrative authority and this Ministry is unaware of his current whereabouts." In turn, the Ministry of National Defense took more time to respond to the Court of Appeals' official letter.

Thus, only on October 24, 1974, did it report "that since these were not persons reported to the Military Justice system, the corresponding reports were sent to the Ministry of the Interior." However, the Court itself, in an even more unusual act, only on October 25, 1974, sent an official letter to the Hospital Militar to report on the person under the Amparo.

On November 8, 1974, the Directorate of the Hospital Militar reported, indicating "that Mr. Gonzalo Toro Garland is not hospitalized in this healthcare facility." It is evident that by that date the victim was no longer "hospitalized," nor was he when the Court sent the official letter to said healthcare center, but he was indeed in that place at the time the appeal was filed.

Upon rejecting the Amparo (on November 14), the Santiago Court of Appeals ordered the records to be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court so that the possible commission of a crime in the events that motivated the appeal could be investigated.

Thus, on November 25, 1974, the case (Rol No. 82.745-3) was initiated in the Second Criminal Court of Santiago. As a first measure, the Court ordered the complainant, Francisco Escobar Riffo, to be summoned to report where he had obtained the data provided in the Amparo filing.

Before the Court, he declared: "Colonel Horacio Toro Iturra, who works on the sixth floor of the Diego Portales Building, is aware of and can inform the Court why his first cousin, who arrived wounded at the Hospital Militar, was kept under strict surveillance in that establishment and why this fact was hidden from the Court of Appeals when it requested a report.

Furthermore, this same Colonel can inform what happened to Gonzalo Toro Garland after August 1, 1974."

On November 18, 1974—at a time when the case records were already in the Second Criminal Court of Santiago—the Hospital Militar, in response to the Court of Appeals, reported that "indeed, Mr. Gonzalo Toro Garland was hospitalized in this establishment between April 4, 1974, and August 1, 1974; he was discharged on that date and left in freedom on his own." This official letter was signed by Major Rafael Rojas Betancourt, Acting Director.

This response contradicted what had been reported by the same hospital only ten days earlier (on November 8), when information was hidden from the Court. Equally contradictory was the report—from the same hospital—of the injuries recorded in Gonzalo Marcial Toro's clinical file compared to the official version regarding the circumstances of his detention, which stated that he had been detained in a confrontation with security forces.

The wounds clearly indicate that he was shot in the back, considering that one was in the right gluteus, another in the left hip, and a third in the left elbow.

On the other hand, a copy of Mr. Gonzalo Toro Garland's clinical file informed the Court that he underwent four operations during his stay at the Hospital Militar: on April 5, 1974; April 14 of the same year; May 10; and July 10, 1974.

However, despite this evidence, in July 1975, detective Luis Cerda Madrid, by order of the Court, consulted the Hospital's Statistics Section, "where (he was informed) there are no records regarding Gonzalo Marcial Toro Garland." Subsequently, following the Court's insistence to the Investigative Police to conduct a more thorough investigation, the Deputy Chief of the Second Judicial Precinct went personally to the Hospital Militar, where the Major acting as Assistant to the Directorate of the establishment stated that he had reported at the time that there were no records of Toro Garland, and that he had done so in compliance with superior orders. When questioned about this, Rafael Ernesto Rojas Betancourt, former Acting Director of the Hospital Militar, replied to the Court that the data regarding the admission and discharge of Gonzalo Toro Garland were obtained through the Intelligence Office of said healthcare center. This, apparently, was considered sufficient by the Court, and it did not clarify, as it should have, the circumstances of which personnel and for what reasons they hid the clinical file or denied Gonzalo Toro's stay at the hospital. Nor did the Court investigate the causes and circumstances of the bullet wounds suffered by the victim. Similarly, the Court did nothing regarding the information provided by Horacio Toro Iturra regarding the admission of his cousin's detention made to him by the then-Colonel and Chief of the DINA, Manuel Contreras.

On April 29, 1978, the summary was declared closed, and the case was definitively dismissed by virtue of the Amnesty Law. On June 28 of the same year, the Court of Appeals revoked that resolution because the investigation was incomplete, stating: "it is necessary that there be a specific charge against a specific person, which requires that the investigation reach its end to establish what illicit action was perpetrated."

Finally, on October 16, 1978, the summary was declared closed, and the case was temporarily dismissed, a resolution that was approved by the Court of Appeals on December 29, 1978.

Once the work of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation was finished, this body sent the records gathered in this case to the 2nd Criminal Court of Santiago so that it could be investigated in light of the new evidence. The case was registered under No. 82.745 and, as of December 1992, is in the summary stage.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence convicting a former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) and a doctor as accomplices in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Gonzalo Marcial Toro Garland, who was detained on April 4, 1974, and admitted to the Hospital Militar, from where his trail was lost.

In a split decision (case file 1.445-2018), the Ninth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Adelita Ravanales, María Rosa Kittsteiner, and lawyer Jaime Guerrero—confirmed the sentence that condemned Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos and Patricio Silva Abarca to 541 days in prison, with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence, remaining subject to the surveillance of the respective authority for a term of three years.

"As recognized in the sentence in the tenth motivation, both the National Director of Intelligence, Manuel Contreras, and the Chief of Military Intelligence of the Hospital Militar died prior to its issuance and the determination of guilt, having previously provided statements.

The former recognized that Gonzalo Toro was detained on April 4, 1974, taken to the Hospital Militar, and subsequently disappeared; the latter remembers him in the Hospital and that he was removed from there by DINA personnel.

Finally, Patricio Silva Garín (also deceased, but in May 2019) remembers Gonzalo Toro Garland in the Hospital, that he was there for bullet wounds, does not know who transported him, and that he arrived in very serious condition," the ruling maintains.

The resolution adds: "Regarding Manuel Carevic, although he denies any participation in the act he is charged with, it must be taken into account that he commanded the Purén Brigade and that there were guards at the Hospital Militar who belonged to it, which is corroborated by Investigative Police personnel, and that he also belonged to the Puma Unit, which he directed, and which sent personnel to that Hospital to guard political prisoners—all evidence that configures his participation, but as an accomplice and not as an author, since he did not intervene directly in the kidnapping nor his subsequent disappearance, but he was in charge of the DINA units guarding prisoners in the Hospital."

"Regarding Silva Abarca, the second Chief of the Security Department of the Hospital Militar or Second Chief of the Department II of Intelligence of the establishment, he cooperated to keep Gonzalo Toro locked up without rights, to keep him in custody, and to allow the access of DINA agents who were able to remove him from the establishment, as corroborated by its members and Silva Garín himself," it adds.

"Such actions," the ruling concludes, "fall within the participation of an accomplice, a conclusion that this Court shares, also dissenting from the opinion of the Judicial Prosecutor, since his intervention was not of a direct nature, but rather the facilitation of the detention in the hospital establishment, where he arrived to be treated for his wounds, and was subsequently removed by DINA personnel, without having any further news of him," the resolution states.

Therefore, it concludes

"

IT IS DECLARED

A.- REGARDING THE CRIMINAL ACTION.

1.- THE SENTENCE under appeal is CONFIRMED in the criminal part, regarding the conviction of the sentenced individuals Manuel Carevic Cubillos and Patricio Silva Abarca. 2.- THE DISMISSAL of the deceased Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda and Roberto Hernán Merino Merino and of Patricio Silva Garín, who died after May 9, 2019, is APPROVED.

B.- REGARDING THE CIVIL ACTION

3.- THE SENTENCE under appeal, dated January 24, 2018, written on page 2333 and following of Volume VI, is CONFIRMED, with the declaration that the compensation to be paid for moral damages is set at the equivalent of 1,219 Unidades de Fomento at its value on the date of payment, without readjustments as it is determined in a readjustable unit, and with interest starting from the notification of the sentence. 4.- IT IS REVOKED regarding the sentencing of the State to pay legal costs, as it is estimated that there were plausible reasons to litigate.

Decision agreed upon with the dissenting vote of the member lawyer Guerrero Pavez, who was in favor of maintaining the sentencing of the State to pay legal costs.

Source: adprensa.cl March 9, 2020 Date: 09-03-2020

MINISTER MARIO CARROZA PROSECUTES ARMY DOCTOR AND NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER FOR THE QUALIFIED KIDNAPPING OF MUSIC PROFESSOR

The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, initiated proceedings against retired Army non-commissioned officer Patricio Silva Abarca and doctor Patricio Silva Marín as authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping of music professor GONZALO TORO GARLAND.

The illicit act was perpetrated starting August 1, 1974, in the Metropolitan Region.

In the investigation stage (case file 107-2012), Minister Carroza managed to establish that: "On April 4, 1974, around 7:30 PM, Gonzalo Marcial Toro Garland, 45 years old, professor of Musical Arts at the Universidad de Chile, militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), was detained in front of the Casa Central of the Universidad de Chile by agents of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), without any order issued by a legitimate and competent authority to justify it, resulting in him being wounded by various bullet impacts and transported to the Hospital Militar, where he was seen by witnesses who provided their testimony, with his whereabouts unknown since then, as well as the fate he may have suffered both physically and psychologically, with no news of him, his death not being verified, and the official version of the hospital facility being that the victim had remained detained in that place until August 1, 1974, the date on which he had been discharged, having left the hospital facility on his own."

Source: mediabanco.com 27/10/2016 Date: 27-10-2016

CNCA pays tribute to artists who were victims of the dictatorship

Within the framework of the "Month of Memory," the National Council for Culture and the Arts held a tribute to artists who were victims of the military dictatorship, an act where the writer Jorge Montealegre presented his book "Eclipsed Memories. Grief and community resilience in political imprisonment."

An emotional tribute to artists, cultural workers, and artisans who were victims of the dictatorship took place this Friday, September 9, in Valparaíso, at the Extension Center of the Council for Culture and the Arts (Centex).

The head of the Memory and Human Rights Unit of the National Council for Culture and the Arts, Francia Jamett Pizarro, highlighted the institution's role in observing symbolic reparation policies. "The celebration of commemorations and tributes to victims of human rights violations are part of the values and principles of the Council expressed in the 2011-2016 Cultural Policies.

This recognition of the artists who were victims of the dictatorship responds to an institutional commitment that seeks to highlight their lives and their works, and to build new narratives around symbolic reparation," the official expressed.

The writer Jorge Montealegre presented his book "Eclipsed Memories. Grief and community resilience in political imprisonment," where he recounts the way in which artistic and cultural creation, under the conditions of living in prisoner camps, allowed those who were imprisoned for political reasons to endure the permanent human rights violations they suffered in a more dignified manner.

The "Month of Memory" cycle, organized by the CNCA, began last Friday, September 2, with a symbolic internal tribute to remember the legacy of Galia Díaz Riffo and Romina Irarrázabal Faggiani, officials who died five years ago in the Juan Fernández plane crash.

Source: cultura.gob.cl 9/09/2016 Date: 09-09-2016

Universidad de Chile remembers its 50 students and professors who were forcibly disappeared

With an emotional ceremony presided over by Rector Víctor Pérez, the Universidad de Chile commemorated its members who are, to this day, forcibly disappeared. On the occasion, a commemorative plaque was unveiled.

The 50 students and professors of the Universidad de Chile, victims of forced disappearance by the dictatorship, were honored along with their families by this university, an occasion in which the damage caused by the military regime against public education was reviewed.

The Casa Central of the Universidad de Chile, in Santiago, was full, and each person carried a rose that symbolized the memory of those students and professors of the University who were detained and made to disappear after the 1973 coup d'état.

"40 years of memory: with Chile and the University in our hearts" was the title of the ceremony with which the 50 victims were remembered. The activity featured the intervention of the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences, Humberto Giannini, who referred "to the impact it caused him that on September 11, 1973, at 9 in the morning (that is, before the bombing of La Moneda), the soldiers of the Chilean Air Force (FACH) took control of the Pedagogical Institute.

That is to say, 'before taking political power, they took the power of ideas,'" said Giannini, who particularly lamented the prohibition suffered by the Philosophy degree program.

For his part, the rector of the Universidad de Chile, Víctor Pérez, who unveiled a commemorative plaque for the disappeared, focused his speech on the importance of memory to have a reference regarding the republican role of public education.

"The republicanism that characterized it was changed by the slogans of order and the cleansing of ideas and by an efficientist and economicist discourse that weighs on us to this day. Therefore, we must process the loss of the sense of the public in our university and with it the loss, the damage, and the concrete wounds in people, because it is those fractures that paved the path of what we are today as a society and academia.

It hurts to say it, but it is so," he stated.

Other people who also intervened in the tribute were the vice president of the University Senate, Pedro Cattán; university senator Scarlet Mac-Ginty; as well as the president of the Student Federation of the Universidad de Chile, Andrés Fielbaum, who referred to the loss that is observed to this day in public education because of the coup.

"I think that the idea that public, state universities fulfill a national role necessary for development, for research, was fundamentally lost. The cutting back of the Universidad de Chile and the disappearance of the State Technical University demonstrate how the State abandoned its role as guarantor, its role as a trainer of professionals, of technicians, and handed it over to unscrupulous businessmen," he expressed.

Each of the speeches was interspersed with music by the Symphony Orchestra of the Universidad de Chile, which performed songs by Víctor Jara in a symphonic version, among other compositions that elevated the event.

The most emotional point was recorded at the end of the tribute, when Rector Víctor Pérez asked the public to shout the names of the people from the Universidad de Chile who were disappeared by the dictatorship.

Source: radio.uchile.cl 11/09/2013 Date: 11-09-2013

A NECESSARY HISTORY

Gonzalo Toro Garland, university professor

"My father's name was Gonzalo Toro; he was a university professor, and starting September 11, 1973, he had to go into hiding. I could only see him on Wednesdays at 4 in the afternoon, when he got off the same bus, at the same bus stop. But one day he didn't arrive..." Based on the account of Marcela Toro Garland, daughter of Gonzalo Toro.

Source: t13c.cl no date

Justice sentences two former DINA agents for the case of a professor disappeared in 1974

The Musical Arts teacher at the Universidad de Chile, Gonzalo Toro, was discharged after receiving a bullet wound, and from that moment on, his whereabouts were unknown.

Two former members of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) were convicted by Mario Carroza, the visiting minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, for human rights violations. This was in the context of the Gonzalo Toro Garland case, a former militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) who was an academic specializing in music at the Universidad de Chile.

Manuel Carevic and Patricio Silva must serve a sentence of 541 days in prison for being authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping, in addition to remaining under the surveillance of the Gendarmería for 3 years. However, they will have the benefit of conditional remission.

The Case of Professor Toro

Gonzalo Toro was detained by Carevic and Silva on the corner of Calle Nueva de Matte and Huasco, Santiago, on April 4, 1974. In that procedure, a bullet struck the professor, who had to be transported to the Hospital Militar due to serious injuries.

He was hospitalized in the medical center until August 1 of the same year, at which time he was discharged. After leaving the facility, guarded by agents of Augusto Pinochet's secret police, all traces of Toro were lost.

In addition to the conviction, the State must pay compensation of 60 million pesos to the son of the professor who disappeared during the dictatorial regime.

Source: 24horas.cl 26-01-2018