Between September 24 and October 3, 1973, at the Fundo El Escorial in Paine, various arrests were carried out, followed by the execution of those affected.

On September 24, 1973, at approximately 16:00 hours, personnel belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment arrived at the Viña El Escorial in Paine, mobilized in a truck and a jeep, and proceeded to arrest five agricultural workers, who were taken to a soccer field, where they were forced to lie on the ground.

From there, they were transferred to the Infantry Regiment, where they remained until nearly 22:00 hours, when they were blindfolded and loaded onto a truck bound for the Cerro Chena Detention Center. The arrested individuals were:

Héctor CASTRO SAEZ, 18 years old, single, no political affiliation;

Juan Guillermo CUADRA ESPINOZA, 26 years old, married, socialist militant;

Gustavo Hernán MARTINEZ VERA, married, no political affiliation;

Juan Bautista NUÑEZ VARGAS, 33 years old, married, socialist militant; and

Ignacio del Tránsito SANTANDER ALBORNOZ, 17 years old, single.

On the dawn of October 3, an operation was carried out in which thirteen other agricultural workers from the town of Paine were arrested. On this occasion, the personnel belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment traveled in a red truck, with their faces painted black.

They entered the homes from which they removed the detainees, to transport them to San Bernardo and from there to the Cerro Chena Detention Center. These thirteen people were arrested that night, along with others who were subsequently released:

José Angel CABEZAS BUENO, 21 years old, single;

Francisco Javier CALDERON NILO, 19 years old, single;

Domingo Antonio GALAZ SALAS, 23 years old, single;

José Emilio GONZALEZ ESPINOZA, 32 years old, married;

Juan Rosendo GONZALEZ PEREZ, 23 years old;

Aurelio Enrique HIDALGO MELLA, 22 years old, single;

Bernabé del Carmen LOPEZ LOPEZ, 23 years old, single;

Carlos Manuel ORTIZ ORTIZ, 18 years old, single;

Héctor Santiago PINTO CAROCA, 34 years old, married;

Hernán PINTO CAROCA, 42 years old, married;

Aliro del Carmen VALDIVIA VALDIVIA, 39 years old, married;

Hugo Alfredo VIDAL ARENAS, 27 years old, married; and

Víctor Manuel ZAMORANO GONZALEZ, single.

Several people who were detained at the Cerro Chena Detention Center report having been transferred there along with the already identified detainees. In that place, they were generally kept blindfolded and were subjected to torture and interrogation. Subsequently, some of them were released.

The relatives of the forcibly disappeared went on several occasions to that Detention Center, where the detention was not officially acknowledged. However, in the Amparo Appeal 283 79 filed on behalf of Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza, it was reported on April 16, 1974, by the Chief of the Interior Zone of the Departments of San Bernardo and Maipo that "the detainees Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza were discharged by the sentries of the Chena Prisoner Camp on October 4, 1973."

In the month of December, relatives were informed at the Legal Medical Service that there was a record of the entry of the remains of all these detainees and that they had been buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery.

Around the same date, locals discovered human remains in the Cuesta de Chada area. The relatives went there and were able to recognize, in most cases, remains of the clothing that the detainees were wearing when they were taken from their homes.

The remains, which were scattered at the site, were collected by Carabineros personnel and sent to the Legal Medical Service, where the corresponding forensic examinations were performed, but the identity of the individuals was not determined.

In the month of September 1990, the Minister of the Court of Appeals, Germán Hermosilla, appeared at that Medical Service with the objective of identifying the remains that had remained as unidentified since 1974.

The bodies finally recognized correspond to the following people: José Cabezas Bueno; Francisco Calderón Nilo; Domingo Galaz Salas; Emilio González Espinoza; Juan González Pérez; Aurelio Hidalgo; Bernabé López; Héctor and Pedro Pinto Caroca; Aliro Valdivia Valdivia; Hugo Vidal Arenas, Manuel Zamorano González, Hector Castro Saez, and Juan Nuñez Vargas.

In accordance with the aforementioned and gathered evidence, the direct responsibility of State agents and civilians from Paine in the detention and death of the detainees on September 24 and October 3, 1973, is proven.

Therefore, this Commission has formed the conviction that all of them are victims of a violation of their right to life, with the remains of sixteen of them having been identified: fourteen whose bones were recognized in 1990 and two whose execution was acknowledged by the authority of the time.

Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, 27 years old at the time of the events, married, father of two, an agricultural worker with no political affiliation, was detained on October 3, 1973, from his home in the presence of his family by military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School.

The soldiers had their faces blackened, wore olive-green field uniforms, and some, who appeared to be the leaders, wore black berets. During the operation, which was part of a vast sweep covering the Liguay Estate and the El Escorial Settlement, eleven peasants were detained whose names appeared on a list carried by their captors.

The operation, which included arrests and raids, was carried out outside all legal frameworks.

Human remains corresponding to Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas and 13 other peasants detained at both agricultural properties during military operations carried out on September 24 and October 2 and 3, 1973, were found in March 1974 in a ravine at Cerro Redondo, located on the Cuesta de Chada, 4 km from the site of their arrests.

At the time, the Legal Medical Institute informed the Court of its inability to identify the victims or establish the causes of death. However, in January 1991, the same Institute informed Judge Germán Hermosilla, after conducting a new forensic examination, of the identity of each of the sets of remains. It was also established that their deaths were caused by multiple gunshot wounds.

Thus, out of a total of 20 detainees in this series of operations, three peasants regained their freedom after being held for a week at the Chena detention camp, three others were executed at the same camp under the pretext of an attempted escape, and 14 were exterminated, with their bodies concealed.

At approximately 04:00 on the morning of October 3, 1973, six uniformed soldiers armed with submachine guns arrived at the home of Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, which was located on the edge of a public road.

The soldiers pounded on the door and, upon it being opened, entered immediately, searching every room without finding anything of interest. They then proceeded to detain the homeowner and force him onto a truck, taking him to a destination unknown to his family.

That same morning, 10 other peasants were detained in similar operations, including two of Vidal Arenas's brothers-in-law, the Pinto Caroca brothers; the previous day, two settlers had already been detained from their workplace, and on September 24, 7 workers, mostly leaders of the Settlement, had been detained.

All were victims of arrests carried out by military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School. Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas was not seen in any detention center, nor was his arrest acknowledged.

Witnesses assured the Court that they saw the detainees from October 3 being loaded onto a red truck with a white canvas cover, which had an official stamp on one of its doors, heading toward the Cuesta de Chada around 06:00 A.M.

The detainees were forced to board the vehicle blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs, until they reached the top near a quillay tree, where they were placed in front of a firing squad that discharged their weapons at the detainees. In March 1974, their bodies, in an advanced state of decomposition, were found and identified by their relatives.

In January 1991, the remains corresponding to Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas were handed over to his next of kin and buried in the Huelquén Cemetery. Death certificate No. 96, dated February 5, 1991, recorded the date of death as October 3, 1973, at Cuesta de Chada, caused by craniofacial trauma, trauma to the left upper extremity, and gunshot trauma to the lower extremities.

His detention and execution are part of the repression in Paine in 1973.

Judicial and/or Administrative Proceedings

On January 23, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas and his brothers-in-law, Hernán and Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca.

To process the appeal, under case file 69-74, reports were requested from the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Interior. The National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET), under the Ministry of National Defense, responded negatively; their names were not registered with that Secretariat.

A similar response was sent by the Minister of the Interior, Division General Raúl Benavides E.; this arrived 7 months after the filing of the amparo and after 5 follow-up requests had been sent. On August 20, 1974, the amparo was denied, based on the negative reports from both Ministries.

The Court of Appeals did not resolve to send the file to the competent court to initiate a "presumed death" case, despite the fact that the whereabouts of the three individuals were unknown at the time of the resolution.

On March 8, 1974, case file 23643 was opened regarding the discovery of remains at Cuesta de Chada, in the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters, following report No. 48 issued by the Paine Sub-prefecture, which reported the discovery of "human remains corresponding to 12 corpses." At that time, the remains were found by verbal order of the judge and sent to the Legal Medical Institute with official letter No. 18 of March 7, 1974.

The Court ordered an investigation to establish the origin and identification of the remains, the cause of death, the probable time of death, and to apprehend those responsible. It also ordered the corresponding autopsies for identification purposes. Finally, it indicated that the deaths should be registered in due course.

In the same month of March, Margarita del Carmen Nilo Suazo, Genoveva del C. Bozo Pardo, Susana del C. Vidal Arenas, Iris Magdalena Hernández Martínez, Felicinda Pinto Sepúlveda, María Beatriz Salas Vásquez, María del C.

Soto Garrido, and Angel Custodio Cabezas Lizama—all wives, mothers, or sisters of the peasants from El Escorial whose bodies had been found at Cuesta de Chada—appeared to testify before the Court. They provided a detailed account of the apprehension by the military and the subsequent discovery.

On May 23, 1974, the Legal Medical Institute delivered autopsy reports Nos. 519 to 530 to the Court; the document initially noted that the remains, upon arrival at the Institute, were disorganized in 3 burlap sacks of the type habitually used to pack agricultural products.

After providing a detailed report of the study, it concluded that: a) it was a set of human remains, mostly reduced to skeletons, fragmented and disarticulated, incomplete, and in a state of decomposition; b) they exhibited characteristics typical of the male sex; c) they corresponded to approximately 14 incomplete corpses; d) they were adults, whose ages fluctuated between approximately 20 and 50 years; e) the date of death went back 5 or 6 months from the date of the examination (March 12); f) it was not possible to determine the cause; g) among the remains, very destroyed fragments of male clothing and a projectile remnant were found, and it concluded by handing the projectile over to the Court. On August 21 of the same year, the forensic ballistics section of the Investigations Directorate informed the Court, after having studied the projectile, that it was a 7 mm caliber fired by a Mauser model 19/2 Steyr rifle or carbine.

On April 30, 1975, without having carried out new proceedings, the Court closed the summary investigation, stating that "the investigation is exhausted," and dismissed the case, stating that "it is not fully justified in the records that the death of the individuals whose remains were placed at the disposal of the Court in folio 1 are or have been the consequence of the perpetration of a crime." The Court prosecutor was in favor of approving the dismissal, but the full Court revoked the resolution because the investigation was not exhausted and in order to properly establish the reported facts, their causes, and to determine to whom they corresponded; without prejudice to the above, the Court also resolved that the judge should study the possibility of declaring his incompetence and sending the records to the Military Prosecutor's Office (June 30, 1975).

On July 4, 1975, the court declared itself incompetent and sent the file to the Military Prosecutor's Office, given that from the records it could be presumed that military officials had participated in the deaths of those persons.

On July 21, 1975, the 1st Military Prosecutor's Office, under case file 561-75, assumed the investigation. But by October 27 of the same year, the military prosecutor temporarily dismissed the case, stating that "notwithstanding that the investigation has been exhausted and it results from the summary that the crime was committed, there is insufficient evidence to accuse specific persons as author, accomplice, or accessory." Two days earlier, a response had arrived from the Director of the San Bernardo Infantry School, Colonel Pedro Montalba Raleo, in which he stated that there were no records regarding the matter. On November 4, 1975, the II Military Court confirmed the temporary dismissal.

On May 15, 1979, this file was requested by Judge Rivas in case 24005-1, related to 23 complaints of presumed deaths of Paine residents, which included Hugo Vidal Arenas, who was detained at the El Escorial Settlement, in order to review it.

On June 18, 1979, the II Military Court resolved that the request was denied, given that "it has been processed in accordance with wartime military criminal procedure."

On April 27, 1979, the Legal Medical Institute requested the corresponding judicial order from the II Military Court to proceed with their burial. Such an order was never received by the Institute, and the remains remained unburied in the facilities of the Legal Medical Institute for a period of 17 years.

On March 24, 1974, a mass amparo appeal was filed for 131 people with the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was assigned number 289-74. Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas was included in it.

The authorities were consulted without being able to establish the particular situation of each of the appellants. On November 28, 1974, the amparo was rejected. The resolution was appealed. The full Supreme Court confirmed the ruling on January 31, 1975, agreeing to appoint an Extraordinary Visiting Judge to focus on the corresponding investigation.

The appointment fell to Judge Enrique Zurita Camps, who on February 24 of that year instructed the process under No. 106657 in the First Criminal Court of Santiago. The relatives of the forcibly disappeared were summoned to testify by Judge Zurita, leaving a new record of the circumstances of their detention.

On September 25, 1975, without having delved into any of the reported cases, the summary was closed because "it was not possible to advance further in the investigation." On September 29 of the same year, the Judge issued a ruling; in the case of Vidal Arenas, as well as in 27 other cases of detainees from Paine, he temporarily dismissed the case because the existence of any criminal act was not fully justified.

On May 10, 1976, the Santiago Court of Appeals approved the resolution of Judge Zurita Camps.

On January 14, 1980, a criminal complaint was filed for the crime of kidnapping and homicide of Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca and his companions Víctor Manuel Zamorano González, Francisco Javier Calderón Nilo, Aliro Valdivia Valdivia, and Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, against members of the San Bernardo Infantry School, guilty of the events.

The judicial investigation under case file 26037-3 was initiated by Judge Fernando Montenegro Araya of the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters. The responses to official letters sent to the Ministry of the Interior, International Police, Civil Registry Directorate, General Cemetery of Santiago, and the Legal Medical Institute indicated that these persons did not appear in their records.

That is, they did not appear as detained or deceased. For its part, the San Bernardo Infantry School responded that it was not feasible to verify those names because the corresponding documentation had been incinerated, in accordance with regulatory provisions that established their elimination after 5 years in the archive.

In 1980, former detainees José Luis Marchant Raba, Francisco Javier Garrido Morales, and Carlos Farías Arévalo testified before the Court. They confirmed having been arrested on September 24, 1973, from the El Escorial Settlement by a contingent from the San Bernardo Infantry School and having remained detained first at the Infantry School and then at the detention camp located at Cerro Chena.

When asked about the 5 detainees who were the subject of the complaint, they declared that they knew them and were aware of their detention, but had not seen or heard them in detention at either facility.

The judge also began attempts to identify the personnel who were working at the Chena detention camp at the time of the events investigated, seeking through this route to obtain information about the fate of the detainees.

Initially, he sent an official letter to the Infantry School on July 29, 1980, from which he was told that such an inquiry should be made to the Minister of National Defense "in compliance with the provisions of the official letter of the Undersecretariat of War (R) Dept.

II /1 No. 2460/6 of December 19, 1979." The Minister of Defense, Raúl Benavides, for his part, responded on October 28 of the same year, denying the existence of the Chena Detention Camp, adding that there had only been detainees in a transitory and sporadic manner in the facilities of the San Bernardo Infantry School.

Faced with such information, the plaintiff's side delivered to the Court the official letter dated April 16, 1974, which Colonel Pedro Montalba Calvo, in his capacity as Director of the San Bernardo Infantry School, had sent to the Santiago Court of Appeals, reporting that Juan Guillermo Cuadra Espinoza and Ignacio del Tránsito Santander Albornoz (peasants from El Escorial) had been discharged by sentries on October 5, 1973, at "the Chena Prisoner Camp." With this, the Court obtained unquestionable documented proof of the existence of said detention camp.

Without having resolved the problem of the kidnapping and fate of the peasants who were the subject of the investigation, the Court resolved on April 30, 1981, to temporarily dismiss the case, arguing that it was until new and better data were presented to continue the investigation.

The resolution was appealed, and the Rancagua Court of Appeals was in favor of reopening the summary on May 12, 1981. It also ordered that the Minister of National Defense be officially requested again in order to achieve the appearance of Colonel Pedro Montalba Calvo and Lt.

Andrés Magaña Bau. Regarding the latter, there was a complaint for the kidnapping of the merchant René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo, which occurred on October 16, 1973, in Paine; he appeared before the Court in November 1981, denying any participation in the operations carried out in the El Escorial Settlement and Liguay Estate.

Subsequent to this statement, and not having concluded the investigation, the Judge again closed the summary and resolved to temporarily dismiss it on December 1, 1981; along with it, case 24862, which had been accumulated on 8-21-81, also for the kidnapping of a peasant from the El Escorial Settlement, Domingo Galaz Salas, was dismissed.

It should be noted that the Investigating Judge had been informed by the complainants themselves of the existence of a process initiated by the same Court regarding the discovery of human remains corresponding to their forcibly disappeared relatives (case 23643).

Despite this, the file was not brought for review. The same attitude was taken regarding other cases under investigation by that Court for reports of illegal arrests that occurred in Paine in 1973. Among them, it is worth mentioning case file 24005-1, which investigated the crime of kidnapping of 23 peasants from Paine, which was in charge of Visiting Judge Humberto Espejo.

In August 1990, following a report of irregular burials that occurred in Paine and which would affect the forcibly disappeared of the area, the President Aguirre Cerda Court of Appeals appointed Germán Hermosilla as Visiting Judge.

The Visiting Judge summoned the relatives of the 70 victims of arrests followed by execution and disappearance to testify and then decreed proceedings related to exhumations in four different places in Paine.

Regarding the arrest sites in the El Escorial settlement, which were subsequently located in Cuesta de Chada, he ordered the following proceedings: a) locate the destination of the remains; b) perform a new forensic examination of the remains; c) search the area of the discovery and, in case of finding evidence, submit it to forensic examination.

It was thus possible to establish that the remains were still in the facilities of the Legal Medical Institute. Initiating a new forensic examination that was studied for 3 months, each of the victims was clearly identified. When searching the sector of the Cerro Redondo ravine, 2 spent shell casings, 25 deformed projectiles, and 18 in good condition were found.

For its part, the Criminalistics Laboratory of the Investigations Police, in its Forensic Ballistics section, established that "the majority of the projectiles were designed to be fired by automatic machine gun-type firearms, whose caliber corresponds to 7.62 mm NATO, this being war ammunition.

Regarding other 2 projectiles, one corresponds to the .32 long caliber, designed to be fired by revolver-type firearms, and the other corresponds to the 7.9 mm caliber, designed to be fired by rifles or carbines of that caliber." And regarding the service that used this type of weapon during the last 4 months of 1973, the report concluded: "Armed Forces, order and security (police) forces, as well as any person who has access to this type of weaponry, such as paramilitary groups."

In January 1991, the Court ordered the delivery of the remains of Francisco Javier Calderón Nilo to his relatives and ordered the registration of his death.

At the end of 1992, case 2-90-E was in the processing stage of the summary investigation.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity