In two resolutions in which he prosecuted four high-ranking retired Army officers and one civilian, the minister in charge of human rights cases with exclusive dedication, Alejandro Solís, reported on the episodes of Chihuío and Liquiñe in the foothills of the Tenth Region, two of the most massive in terms of the number of victims of repression during the dictatorship.

In Chihuío, some 190 kilometers southeast of Valdivia, near the border with Argentina, 17 peasants were murdered on October 9, 1973, by personnel from the Cazadores and Maturana regiments of Valdivia, whose commanders were Colonels Santiago Sinclair (former deputy commander-in-chief of the Army and former appointed senator) and Jerónimo Pantoja Hernández (former second-in-command of the DINA), respectively.

For this case, Judge Solís submitted Pantoja, now retired, to prosecution for kidnapping; as well as General (R) Héctor Bravo Muñoz, who in September 1973 was head of the IV Army Division based in Valdivia and head of the zone under a state of siege; the then-captain Luis Osorio Garardazanic, and a civilian.

The bodies of the 17 peasants were unearthed by Army personnel at the end of 1978 and remain forcibly disappeared. On June 17, 1990, the three graves in which the peasants had been buried were discovered, and only small bone fragments were found, which allowed for the confirmation of the peasants' identities.

One day later, on October 10, 1973, an Army and Carabineros operation kidnapped and killed 15 peasants in the village of Liquiñe, a few kilometers from the town of Neltume, also in the foothills. For eleven of these victims, Solís prosecuted retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Guerra Jorquera as the perpetrator of kidnapping.

According to witnesses from the time, these peasants were executed on the Toltén River bridge and their bodies thrown into the river. For this case, Judge Juan Guzmán previously prosecuted the civilian Luis García, owner of the Termas de Liquiñe, who collaborated in the kidnappings.

Although General (R) Sinclair has not been prosecuted for Chihuío until now, sources linked to the investigation state that he may yet be.

Source: La Nación, March 19, 2003

Judge Solís handed down the highest sentence to date in human rights cases

The magistrate sentenced a retired Army lieutenant colonel to 18 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree for the aggravated kidnapping of 11 peasants in Liquiñe. Minister Alejandro Solís handed down this Thursday the highest sentence known for a case linked to human rights violations during the military regime led by General (R) Augusto Pinochet.

The magistrate sentenced retired Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Alberto Guerra Jorquera to 18 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as the perpetrator of repeated crimes of aggravated kidnapping in the so-called "Liquiñe episode." The ruling is based on the repression suffered starting on October 10, 1973, by a group of 11 peasants who sympathized with the Unidad Popular (UP), in the foothill sector of the Tenth Region of Los Lagos.

Among the victims are Salvador Álamos Rubilar, José Héctor Bórquez Levican, Daniel Antonio Castro López, Carlos Alberto Cayuman Cayuman, Mauricio Segundo Curiñanco Reyes, Carlos Figueroa Zapata, Isaías José Fuentealba Calderón, Luis Armando Lagos Torres, Ernesto Juan Reinante Raipan, Modesto Juan Reinante Raipan, and Luis Alfredo Rivera Catricheo.

The retired Army officer was also ordered to pay a total sum of $250 million as compensation, by virtue of a civil lawsuit filed against him by five relatives of the victims. The beneficiaries, with $50 million each, will be Miguel Ángel and Isaías Julián Fuentealba Lagos, as well as Héctor Hernán, Hugo Raúl, and Didier Antonio Figueroa Arraigada.

Additionally, the owner of the Termas de Liquiñe, a civilian identified as Luis Osvaldo García Guzmán, was convicted; as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of Luis Armando Lagos Torres, he received a sentence of five years and one day.

Source: El Mostrador, January 26, 2006

Former naval officer sentenced to 15 years for the kidnapping of four peasants

In an unprecedented ruling, the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals applied this high sentence, the highest handed down by an appellate court in cases supposedly covered by the Amnesty Law, after accepting the arguments of the plaintiffs to modify the charge of aggravated homicide that weighed against Héctor Rivera Bozzo to that of aggravated kidnapping.

Retired Navy officer Héctor Sergio Rivera Bozzo was sentenced to 15 years and one day in its maximum degree as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of four peasants from the Lago Ranco commune, in the Tenth Region, which occurred on October 16, 1973.

The decision was adopted, in a split ruling, by the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, with the votes of Minister Mario Rojas and lawyer member Nelson Pozo, and with a minority opinion from Magistrate Jorge Zepeda.

In this way, the court revoked a ruling by Minister Joaquín Billard, who last February had sentenced Rivera Bozzo to five years and one day in prison for the aggravated homicides of Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teofilo González Calfulef, Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, and Arturo Vega González, all of whom had no known political affiliation.

This is the highest sentence handed down by an appellate court for human rights violations recorded during the military dictatorship that are supposedly covered by the Amnesty Law—that is, those perpetrated between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1978.

In fact, it is only surpassed by a first-instance ruling issued in January by Judge Alejandro Solís, who sentenced Army Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Guerra Jorquera to 18 years in prison for 11 aggravated kidnappings of peasants in the Tenth Region in October 1973.

The appellate court also considered that the investigation of the case is incomplete, and therefore resolved to reopen the summary so that Billard can investigate the responsibility that the civilians Javier Vera Jumemann, Rodolfo Mondión Romo, Christián Borquez Bernucci, and Julio Vera Arraigada—identified as members of the far-right group Patria y Libertad—might have had.

Thus, a consultative resolution from June 25, 2002, which had favored them with a partial dismissal of the case, was revoked. From homicide to kidnapping In their ruling, the magistrates accepted the arguments of the plaintiff lawyer Hugo Gutiérrez, who had proposed the need to modify the charge of aggravated homicide for which the former military officer had been convicted to that of aggravated kidnapping.

In that vein, the ruling expresses among its arguments that, in the case of a kidnapping of a permanent nature, "a state originates in which the typical conduct is prolonged in time until the cessation of the coercive conduct, and in such circumstances, the prolongation of the coercion or attack against the freedom of another determines the permanence of the illicit act over time." It adds that "the crime of kidnapping that affects the victims to the present day and which is framed within Article 141 of the Penal Code, also corresponds to the crime described in Article II of the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, signed in Belém do Pará, Brazil, on June 9, 1994," which "points out the extreme gravity of this crime and its continuous or permanent character, as long as the destination or whereabouts of the victim are not established." The Lago Ranco case The ruling bases its conviction on the fact that "on October 16, 1973, at dawn, in the town of Lago Ranco, Los Lagos Region, a group of individuals, led by the accused Héctor Sergio Rivera Bozzo, proceeded to detain 4 people: Cardenio Ancacura Manquián, Teofilo González Calfulef, Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, and Arturo Vega González." It adds that all of them "were embarked on board a vessel, which went into the waters of Lago Ranco, a place from which all trace of said persons was lost, with the current whereabouts of the aforementioned detainees remaining unknown." Background information provided during the course of the investigation indicates that the victims were denounced by neighbors after the military coup of September 11 as alleged sympathizers of the Salvador Allende government and were subsequently detained by Carabineros. The first prosecutions had been issued by former judge Juan Guzmán Tapia, who in April 2002 ordered a reconstruction of the scene on board a vessel on Lake Ranco, an occasion in which former uniformed personnel and witnesses participated.

Source: El Mostrador, November 15, 2006

Court confirms highest sentence for human rights violations during the dictatorship

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed this Friday the 18-year prison sentence against retired Colonel Hugo Alberto Guerra Jorquera for the kidnapping of 11 peasants who were executed in 1973 but whose bodies were never found, judicial sources reported.

The peasants were from the town of Liquiñe and worked at a timber complex in the area. The appellate court rejected an appeal filed by Guerra Jorquera to invalidate the sentence imposed by Judge Alejandro Solís in January 2006, which is currently the harshest sentence handed down for human rights violations.

The retired Army colonel was also ordered to pay 250 million pesos (about 480,000 dollars) as compensation, by virtue of a civil lawsuit filed against him by five relatives of the victims. According to the Rettig Report, which documented human rights violations during the regime of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), the agricultural workers were detained in a joint operation by the Carabineros police of the Liquiñe station, Army personnel, and civilians.

The peasants were taken to the Villarrica bridge, over the Toltén River, where they were executed and their bodies were never found. Among the executed are the brothers Modesto, Ernesto, and Alberto Reinante Raipán, all three workers and members of the Panguipulli timber complex union.

The plaintiff lawyer, Nelson Caucoto, celebrated the ruling because, as he said, it confirms the crimes and establishes exemplary punishments against the accused.

Source: El Mostrador, August 03, 2007

Supreme Court grants freedom to authors of the aggravated kidnapping of peasants

In the civil portion, the State was ordered to pay the sum of $70,000,000 (seventy million pesos) to Ramona Lagos Lagos and $40,000,000 (forty million pesos) to Marta Castro González, both relatives of the victims, for moral damages.

The Supreme Court granted the benefit of supervised release to the authors of the aggravated kidnapping of 12 peasants in the town of Liquiñe, Los Lagos Region, a crime perpetrated starting on October 10, 1973.

The Second Chamber of the highest court thus accepted the cassation appeal filed against the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals, sentencing Hugo Alberto Guerra Jorquera to 5 years in prison and Luis Osvaldo García Guzmán to 3 years and one day in prison.

The convicted individuals were granted the benefit of supervised release, remaining subject to the requirements of Law No. 18.126 for the duration of the assigned sentence. In the civil portion, the State was ordered to pay the sum of $70,000,000 (seventy million pesos) to Ramona Lagos Lagos and $40,000,000 (forty million pesos) to Marta Castro González, both relatives of the victims, for moral damages.

The members of the chamber were ministers Nibaldo Segura, Hugo Dolmestch, Carlos Künsemüller, and lawyer members Juan Carlos Cárcamo and Domingo Hernández. In the criminal portion, the ruling was agreed upon with the dissenting vote of Minister Segura, who was in favor of applying the principle of the statute of limitations for criminal action; while in the civil portion, the ruling was rejected by Minister Segura and lawyer Hernández, each for the reasons detailed in the sentence.

This is the ninth sentence in human rights cases from the Supreme Court this year and the 36th since 2005.

Source: El Mostrador, September 26, 2008

Retired colonel testified in trial for crimes of the "Anti-Guerrilla Brigade" in 1973

Labbé and the Murder of 15 Peasants in Liquiñe at the Hands of the "Boinas Negras"

Neither the current mayor nor any other member of that detachment could be prosecuted and convicted for these crimes against humanity, despite their participation in the operation being documented. Court and police sources agree that the "pact of silence" they swore to and their "zero cooperation with justice" were two reasons they managed to evade responsibility.

They acted in clothing without rank insignia, at night, and with their faces semi-covered, according to witnesses of the detentions, and for the inhabitants of these Andean foothills, "it was impossible to recognize anyone."

Night falls on a Santiago that still trembles under the bombs of the Hawker Hunters. The men of Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina Lois rest at the Telecommunications Regiment in Peñalolén. They are the "strategic reserve" of General Augusto Pinochet, stationed there during the first days of the Military Coup.

They are elite commandos from the Paratrooper and Special Forces School directed by Medina. They are the boinas negras (black berets).

After the first 48 hours of the assault on the government of Salvador Allende, everything is under control. Allende is dead. There is no armed popular resistance. The President's main collaborators are detained. The socialist revolution is now a memory. Smoldering. Sorrowful. Tragic.

But a thrust disturbs the security of the victorious insurgents. In the still-dark early hours of September 12, 1973, a group of peasants and young revolutionaries in the southern Andean foothills of Valdivia becomes a cause for alarm.

They surround the Neltume police station and demand that the carabineros hand over weapons and ammunition if they are not willing to fight the coup plotters. Among them is MIR militant José Liendo Vera, the legendary and feared "Commander Pepe."

The police refuse and open fire. A shootout begins. After a couple of hours, the group acting from the outside disperses. Silence returns. There are no dead or wounded on either side. From then on, the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex becomes one of the military's main targets.

It is presumed that dangerous guerrillas are operating in the area. Pinochet orders their elimination. "Operation Leopard" is born.

To this end, Pinochet creates the "Special Anti-Guerrilla Brigade" with the boinas negras from the Paratrooper School of Peldehue and other men trained for combat. Under the command of General Nilo Floody, between 250 and 300 soldiers are sent to repress the insurgency. One of them is the young officer Cristián Labbé Galilea.

Most are killing machines. Their specialties: military mountain instructor, with courses in parachuting, commandos, special warfare, assault, guiding, and explosives and ammunition.

Days after the Coup, the brigade begins the journey from Peñalolén aboard military trucks. They carry sufficient light and heavy weaponry and ammunition. They go prepared for war and to kill guerrillas. "The brigade was formed because a rural guerrilla could exist in the Panguipulli Lumber Complex.

We had to sweep those pockets, and if confrontations occurred, the order was to open fire." It is Labbé who testifies before the courts in December 2003 regarding the crimes against 15 peasants in Liquiñe, 150 kilometers east of Valdivia, near the Argentine border. For the first time, Labbé uncovers his well-kept secret: he acknowledges that he was indeed part of that operation.

From Brazil, where before September 11, 1973, he studied various techniques to become the elite of the elite, Labbé returns to the Paratrooper School at the Directorate of Instruction. In other words, he is not just a common boina negra; he is the one who trains them.

During the operation in Liquiñe and other places in the Valdivian foothills, the current mayor of Providencia reports directly to the supreme chief of the boinas, Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina, who on this long journey was the Chief of Staff for General Nilo Floody. "My work depended on the Chief of Staff," Labbé maintains in his judicial statement.

As is known, with that comprehensive training, he was later one of the trainers for DINA agents and, in fact, a prominent member of that illicit criminal organization.

"We first arrived in Valdivia, but we didn't know very well what we were going for. We were only told that the objective was to fight a guerrilla," recalls a boina negra non-commissioned officer who spoke with El Mostrador but preferred to keep his identity confidential.

A day later, the non-commissioned officer maintains that they set off toward the foothills, to the area of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, and arrived in Liquiñe.

"The boinas negras set up tents in the courtyard of the nuns' school," states Julián García, an industrialist and owner of the Liquiñe Hot Springs and the inn, in the judicial investigation. It refers to the Liquiñe Missionary School.

Another military contingent under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Guerra Jorquera, which arrived earlier from Valdivia, set up its camp on the large site of the hot springs themselves, according to Julián García. García is a recognized anti-communist, according to the judicial statements of surviving peasants.

THE COMPLEX IS BORN

The Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex extended between the Chihuío Baths to the south and Liquiñe to the north, about 150 kilometers east of Valdivia. It eventually encompassed 360,000 hectares. It was made up of 22 large estates.

Starting in the late 1960s, the properties were occupied by members of the Revolutionary Peasant Movement (MCR), an organization controlled by the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). By 1973, more than 3,000 peasants worked there.

Not a few followed "Commander Pepe," leader of the MCR. Along with Liendo Vera, a handful of MIR students arrived in the area in the late sixties to begin a "land recovery" alongside the peasants.

When Allende triumphed in 1970, his government expropriated the 22 estates. Thus, the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex was officially born as a subsidiary company of the Production Development Corporation (CORFO).

The dream of building their own destiny was fulfilled. The complex and Commander Pepe became the terror of the landed right-wing. Therefore, the post-military coup revenge was ferocious.

After the episode at the Liquiñe police station in the early hours of September 12, 1973, Commander Pepe, along with his wife, Yolanda Ávila, and MIR militants Luis Pezo and Pedro Barría—who used a crutch to walk—hid for a few days and went up into the mountains.

But on September 19, they were found and taken to the Valdivia prison. On the night of October 3, 1973, Liendo Vera was executed at the Llancahue military camp. The following day, eleven other MIR members accused of participating in the attack on the Neltume station were murdered.

The crimes were handled by the "Caravan of Death" led by General Sergio Arellano, who was present in Valdivia in those days. To do this, Arellano signed a sentence from a sham War Council. Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who would later become the second-in-command of the DINA, attended that night to witness the death of Liendo Vera.

THE "BOINAS NEGRAS" ARE ACCUSED

The night of October 10, 1973, can never be forgotten by the inhabitants of Liquiñe. Julián García's inn operated as "headquarters." From there, the list of the 15 peasants who were to be arrested and killed immediately was issued.

As established in the proceedings, Julián García and his son Luis, who wore military uniforms that night, provided the names of those who were to die. The boinas negras began the raid along with carabineros from the Liquiñe station, led by non-commissioned officer Luis Anguita Castro. They knew the chosen ones well.

According to the police report signed by the sub-prefect of the Valdivia Investigative Police, Benjamín Leal Riquelme, and sub-commissioner Manuel Castro Contreras, the detentions of the Complex peasants—José Miguel and Alejandro Antonio Tracanao Pincheira and their father Eliseo Maximiliano Tracanao Valenzuela—involved "a carabinero corporal named Quintana from the Liquiñe station and several boina negra soldiers."

The owner of the Liquiñe hot springs, Julián García, declared judicially that "the boinas negras carried out the detentions."

The judge of the Villarrica court in 1973, René García Villegas, maintains in his book Soy Testigo (I Am a Witness) that one of the bodies of those riddled with bullets on the Toltén bridge remained in the river hours later "tangled among some rocks, headless."

Elcira Figueroa Arias, wife of Salvador Alamos Rubilar, one of the 15 victims of Liquiñe, declared in the proceedings that, while searching for her husband, "at the Temuco Military Prosecutor's Office, Captain Ubilla told me that on the date of my husband's disappearance (October 10, 1973), an operation by the Boinas Negras Command from Colina (Santiago) was in the area, so the local military authorities 'washed their hands of it,' and that if my husband fell into their hands, 'you had better mourn and consider him dead.'"

ON THE TOLTÉN BRIDGE

Bound hand and foot, the 15 peasants were driven that night in two pickup trucks toward Villarrica. One of the vehicles was provided by Julián García and driven by his son Luis. The other was provided by the merchant Juan Carmach and driven by the Liquiñe ambulance driver, Sixto Díaz.

On the bridge over the Toltén River, the peasants were taken out, and the boinas ordered both drivers to move away. In a few minutes, the detainees formed a macabre human carpet laid out on the bridge.

Red, like the blood flowing in torrents from their bodies riddled by repeating rifles with war ammunition. Below, the rushing waters of the river could not drown out the sound of the machine-gun fire. Díaz and García heard it, as they later declared judicially.

One by one, the bodies were thrown into the river. The Liquiñe list was fulfilled. The executioners thought that the multiple perforations in the bodies would allow them to sink and be lost forever downstream to the sea.

THE BOATMEN AND THE AUTHORITY

But days later, local boatmen who were fishing discovered some bodies clinging to branches on the riverbank or stuck between rocks. They notified the Villarrica Carabineros. The secretary of the Villarrica Criminal Court, Osvaldo Wiegand Carrasco, went to the scene with the sub-commissioner of the Villarrica sub-station, Captain Ramón Torrealba Guzmán.

In the proceedings, Secretary Wiegand says he managed to save a couple of bodies. But the boatmen contradict him. They state that the order they received from both the secretary and the sub-commissioner was to free the bodies from whatever was holding them and cast them back into the current to disappear.

The boatmen Eliseo Rosas Maldonado and José Carrasco Rodríguez were confronted with Wiegand and Torrealba. They maintained their statements that they were forced by both authorities to release the bodies and return them to the torrent. The same was confirmed by boatmen Guido Mora, Leopoldo Ghisolfo, and Juan Yáñez Cares.

After Liquiñe, still in search of guerrillas, the boina negra contingent in which Labbé participated headed to other localities that made up the Lumber Complex. But the non-commissioned officer with whom we spoke maintains with an ironic smile: "We didn't find anyone; there was nothing, no guerrillas or anything." The Anti-Guerrilla Brigade remained in the area until the beginning of December 1973.

However, in the area where the boinas moved under the command of General Floody and Medina Lois, in addition to the 15 from Liquiñe, another 30 peasants from the Lumber Complex were murdered. A couple of days before the night massacre in Liquiñe, in Chihuío, 25 kilometers south of Liquiñe, 17 members of the Complex were also riddled with bullets—all peasants who lived in the area with their families.

Members of the Cazadores Regiment of Valdivia also participated in this operation. The raid was supported by Air Force Puma helicopters, which came from the Maquehua Air Base in Temuco.

THE SECRET

Some other officers who participated in "Operation Leopard" are: Carlos Parera Silva, Emilio Timmermann Undurraga, Arturo Bosch González, Manuel Pérez Santillán (DINA agent), and Sergio Candia Muñoz.

Why could Labbé or any other member of the boinas negras not be prosecuted and convicted for these crimes against humanity? Court and police sources agree that the "pact of silence" they swore to and their "zero cooperation with justice" were two reasons they managed to evade responsibility.

According to the sources, this is compounded by the fact that, because they were an unknown contingent from Santiago that acted in clothing without rank insignia, at night, and with their faces semi-covered, according to witnesses of the detentions, for the inhabitants of these Andean foothills, "it was impossible to recognize anyone." Former DINA agent and retired Colonel Cristián Labbé avoids prison once again, while he waits to be re-elected as mayor on October 28.

Source: El Mostrador, October 23, 2012

*

Not Even Age Saves Soldiers Who Murdered Twelve Peasants: Pinochet's Former Second-in-Command and Former Senator Prosecuted for Massacre in Valdivia

Retired Army General Santiago Sinclair was detained for 48 hours in the "Caravan of Death" case along with other retired uniformed officers for their participation in the homicide of 12 people in Valdivia.

Sinclair was Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and the justice system hopes that geriatric or biological impunity will not be a reason for criminals who wore the uniform to remain without jail time.

Retired General Santiago Sinclair was detained and accused of participating in the murder of 12 people in Valdivia within the framework of the "Caravan of Death" between October 3 and 4, 1973. Along with him, three other former uniformed officers were arrested for the same crime: Juan Carlos Michelsen, José Feliú Madinagoitía, and Mario Manterola Garrido, all of them colonels and majors; however, the detention of Hugo Guerra Jorquera, also a retired soldier, remained pending.

All five of the aforementioned former soldiers are near or over eighty years old. And the judges decided that biological or geriatric impunity has no legal basis if those involved committed crimes against humanity. Just like the Nazis who participated in "cleansings" and massacres of dozens of people in the Second World War. Even a 94-year-old Nazi was detained and imprisoned just last week.

The Massacre of Twelve Peasants

Minister Patricia González Quiroz submitted to prosecution and ordered the preventive detention of the former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, former member of the Military Junta, and former designated senator, retired General Santiago Arturo Ariel de Jesús Sinclair Oyaneder, as the author of 12 qualified homicides.

Sinclair remained imprisoned at the Military Police Battalion in the commune of Peñalolén, waiting for the Santiago Court of Appeals to decide whether he should continue in preventive detention or be granted freedom. This Saturday, he was released on 200,000 pesos bail, but the trial will continue, and he will have to testify again regarding the crimes.

At the time the events took place, Santiago Sinclair, who was a colonel and commander of the No. 2 Cavalry Regiment "Cazadores" of Valdivia and the second-highest military authority in the area, was part of a supposed War Council in which 12 peasants and militants of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) were sentenced to death, who were falsely accused of "assaulting" the Neltume Carabineros station in the Andean foothills east of Valdivia on the night of September 12, 1973.

Previously, Sinclair was investigated by Judge Juan Guzmán in 1998, at which time the retired general declared: "I remember the War Council that was held regarding Liendo and another, a very well-known subject named Krauss, along with other people I do not identify (...) Once the arguments were finished, we voted.

The vote was deposited in a box, and the president of the Council performed the count."

The fateful "Caravan of Death" squadron arrived in the city of Valdivia on October 3, 1973, and was received by the Commander-in-Chief of the IV Army Division based in Valdivia, General Hugo Bravo Muñoz, and Colonel Sinclair, who ordered their subordinates to search for and arrest these 12 people.

The Judicial Resolution Ratifies the Twelve Executions Ordered by Sinclair

"On October 3, 1973, a 'Puma' helicopter landed in Valdivia with a group of soldiers under the command of the then Army General, Sergio Víctor Arellano Stark, delegated by the person who was Commander-in-Chief of the Army at the time, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, with the object of carrying out coordination tasks for institutional criteria of internal government and judicial procedures, or to review and accelerate the processes; That, following the arrival of the aforementioned soldiers, on October 4, 1973, it was ordered to remove from the Valdivia Public Prison Rudemir Saavedra Bahamondez, Víctor Eugenio Rudolph Reyes, Víctor Segundo Valeriano Saavedra Muñoz, Santiago Segundo García Morales, Luis Mario Valenzuela Ferrada, Sergio Jaime Bravo Aguilera, Luis Hernán Pezo Jara, Víctor Fernando Krauss Iturra, Pedro Purísimo Barría Ordoñez, Enrique Del Carmen Guzmán Soto, and José René Barrientos Warner, who were taken to the Llancahue military property, specifically to the shooting range of the Valdivia Military Garrison, where they were executed by firing squad as a consequence of a sentence pronounced in a supposed War Council, the materiality of which does not exist," the ruling states.

For the case of Gregorio Liendo Vera, it was determined:

"Following the arrival of the aforementioned soldiers, it was ordered to remove from the Valdivia Public Prison Gregorio José Liendo Vera, an agronomy student, militant of the MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left), and leader of the Revolutionary Peasant Movement, who was taken to the Llancahue military property, specifically to the shooting range of the Valdivia Military Garrison, where he was executed by firing squad as a consequence of a sentence dictated in a supposed War Council, the materiality of which does not exist."

Almost all the victims were workers of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, who on the night of September 12, 1973, demonstrated in front of the Neltume station, asking the carabineros not to join the military coup and to hand over their weapons.

It was reported there that the station was "assaulted" by the MIR members, resulting in injuries to the four carabineros who remained inside, which turned out to be false, as the investigation demonstrated. In the same way, the inquiries accredited the falsity of the damage produced to the structure of the barracks, as reported by the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior.

The 12 peasants were executed inside the Llancahue military property. Liendo Vera was murdered on the night of October 3, 1973, and the other 11 were murdered at dusk the following day.

Magistrate Patricia González established that the crimes were planned by Sinclair, retired General Sergio Arellano Stark (declared unaccountable due to senile dementia), and Hugo Bravo (already deceased).

The Minister of Justice, José Antonio Gómez, when asked regarding the detention of Sinclair, expressed: "Justice is slow but it arrives, and if there is an investigation of that nature in human rights matters and today that detention exists, it will be the courts that will determine what the responsibility is."

To this, the Secretary of State added that "the progress being made in the courts is important so that the truth is known. The particular case will be resolved by the corresponding institutions and the plaintiff lawyers," and that these are "events from many years ago in which we all want there to be truth and justice."

In these types of situations, it is already common that due to the advanced age of the accused, the justice system allows them to receive some type of benefit in which they can serve their sentences at home or in a special prison for former agents of the dictatorship, or they even appeal to "half-prescription," whatever allows them to reduce the length of their sentence.

In an interview with Cambio21, the president of the Association of Families of Political Executions (AFEP), Alicia Lira, when asked about this detention, expressed that "for us, the detention of Santiago Sinclair is a very important advance, which has to do with the Caravan of Death and the 12 murdered in Valdivia. Furthermore, Sinclair is involved in other cases."

"It is a joy that one of the important figures who remained in impunity, who was a member of the Military Junta and held various positions in the repression of state terrorism in our country, has been detained," mentioned Lira.

Regarding what they expect from the justice system, the president of the AFEP expressed: "The only thing we ask is that Sinclair does not receive a suspended sentence and go to jail, but rather that the sentence be consistent with the gravity of the crimes, because there were 12 people whose lives he took.

That a mechanism be sought so that the judges do not give suspended sentences or apply half-prescription."

Regarding what has changed in the justice system to manage to catch those who were in impunity for so long, the lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, Rodrigo Lledó, declared that "today we understand that we are in another scenario, that there have been several governments of the Concertación, there was a center-right government, and we are discussing a new Constitution, and these human rights cases have to advance because that is what international law, in which our country is inserted, provides."

In relation to where the former officers should serve their sentences and what happens with some of the guarantees they have when they are sentenced, Lledó said: "Evidently, we are not satisfied with that, because we do everything possible so that justice is done, and when the moment comes to serve the sentence, it is done in conditions of privilege, and that is not appropriate because we are in a country that has to respect equality before the law."

This was also addressed by the lawyer for the case, Tomás Pascual, who explained that "today we have a response from the justice system saying that these Valdivia officers had, and there are well-founded presumptions that, through having a series of means at their disposal, they allowed 12 people to be summarily executed on October 3 and 4, 1973."

Regarding the possibility that Santiago Sinclair has of serving a sentence, the lawyer said: "One of the elements inherent to crimes against humanity is that these people could not be prosecuted for a long period of time; therefore, taking advantage of that—of age—so that he cannot be exposed to any penalty would be doubly unjust."

Finally, regarding the progress in the Caravan of Death case, Pascual mentioned: "In the short term, we will ask for the closure of the investigation so that the accused are charged and convicted according to the merits of the case as a vindication of the 12 executed in Valdivia and their families after 41 years, because that way we can begin to reach the truth."

Source: Cambio21, February 9, 2015

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Caravan of Death: Former General Sinclair and Three Other Former Army Officers Sentenced for Crimes in Valdivia in 1973

The Supreme Court sentenced four former Army officers for their responsibility in the consummated crimes of qualified homicide of Gregorio José Liendo Vera, Rudemir Saavedra Bahamondez, Víctor Eugenio Rudolph Reyes, Víctor Segundo Valeriano Saavedra Muñoz, Santiago Segundo García Morales, Luis Mario Valenzuela Ferrada, Sergio Jaime Bravo Aguilera, Luis Hernán Pezo Jara, Víctor Fernando Krauss Iturra, Pedro Purísimo Barría Ordóñez, Enrique del Carmen Guzmán Soto, and José René Barrientos Warner.

The crimes were perpetrated in October 1973 in the city of Valdivia, in the case known as: Caravan of Death, Valdivia Episode.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 122.163-2020), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Haroldo Brito, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, minister María Teresa Letelier, and acting lawyer Ricardo Abuauad—revoked the challenged sentence and, in a replacement sentence, sentenced former General Santiago Arturo Ariel de Jesús Sinclair Oyaneder to the effective term of 18 years in prison as the author of the crimes.

Meanwhile, Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton must also serve 18 years of incarceration, convicted as a co-author. Both had been sentenced to 5 years in prison in the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, the convicted former officer Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo must serve 10 years in prison as an author, and Emilio Robert de la Mahotiere González, 5 years and one day in prison as an accomplice. The aforementioned resolution of the capital's Court had sentenced the latter to 3 years in prison; in the case of Espinoza Bravo, the sentence is maintained.

Three of the convicted were members of the ominous caravan led by Sergio Arellano Stark, and the fourth, Santiago Sinclair, was commander of the Cazadores Regiment in Valdivia. Four other former Army officers directly implicated in these crimes died during the course of the process; these deceased are Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia, Hugo Alberto Guerra Jorquera (both sentenced in the first instance to 12 years in prison), Antonio Alberto Palomo Contreras, and Guillermo Juan Carlos Michelsen Délano.

Former General Sinclair has also been prosecuted since June 2021 in another case of crimes against humanity investigating the Chihuío massacre, committed in October 1973 in the mountains of the Valdivia province, where 17 peasants were murdered.

It is worth mentioning that, subsequent to these criminal episodes, Santiago Arturo Ariel de Jesús Sinclair Oyaneder was promoted by Pinochet to important functions in his dictatorial regime. He was appointed Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, then Chief of the Presidential Staff of the dictator, a member of the Military Junta during the dictatorship, and in the post-dictatorship, a designated senator (between 1990 and 1998).

The Facts

On October 3, 1973, the same day the Puma helicopter with Arellano Stark's entourage arrived in Valdivia, it was ordered to remove from the public prison of that city Gregorio José Liendo Vera, an agronomy student, militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), and leader of the Revolutionary Peasant Movement, who was being held in prison, accused of having instigated and led an attack on the Neltume Carabineros station on September 12 of that year.

Liendo Vera was taken to the Llancahue military property, specifically to the shooting range of the Valdivia military garrison, where he was executed by firing squad.

Likewise, the following day, October 4, 1973, it was ordered to remove from the same aforementioned prison Rudemir Saavedra Bahamondes, Víctor Eugenio Rudolph Reyes, Víctor Segundo Valeriano Saavedra Muñoz, Santiago Segundo García Morales, Luis Mario Valenzuela Ferrada, Sergio Jaime Bravo Aguilera, Luis Hernán Pezo Jara, Víctor Fernando Krauss Iturra, Pedro Purísimo Barría Ordóñez, Enrique del Carmen Guzmán Soto, and José Rene Barrientos Warner, who were also taken to the shooting range of the Valdivia military garrison in Llancahue, where they were executed.

Supreme Resolution

The highest court established an error of law in the sentence pronounced by the Santiago Court of Appeals, dictated in August 2020, by applying in its ruling the so-called "half-prescription," a habitual loophole used by certain judges and ministers to benefit or favor criminals against humanity.

In this regard, the ruling of the Second Chamber points out: "(...) consequently, the application of the figure of half-prescription or gradual prescription of the penalty, contemplated by Article 103 of the Penal Code, is not admissible in the case of crimes against humanity, since the aforementioned qualification obliges the consideration of International Human Rights Law regulations, which exclude the use of both total prescription and so-called half-prescription, understanding such institutes as closely linked in their foundations and, consequently, contrary to the jus cogens regulations coming 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."

"That, this being the case, by having accepted the mitigating factor of half-prescription or gradual prescription of the penalty regarding the accused by the instance judges, an error of law has been incurred that has substantially influenced the dispositive part of the ruling, in that its application allowed them to make a reduction of the penalty to be imposed in a case not permitted by law, which is why the appeals for cassation on the merits under study will be accepted in relation to the present cause," it concludes.

Source: resumen.cl, June 17, 2023