On January 29, 1974, six individuals who had been detained in November 1973 in Iquique and transferred to the Pisagua Prison Camp were forcibly disappeared:

-Orlando Tomás CABELLO CABELLO, 44 years old, retail merchant, no political affiliation. Detained at his home by carabineros from Iquique, placed at the disposal of the Telecommunications Regiment, and subsequently transferred to Pisagua.

-Nicolás CHANEZ CHANEZ, 43 years old, transport business owner, no political affiliation. He was detained and sent to the Investigaciones barracks in Iquique, and from there transferred to Pisagua.

-Juan MAMANI GARCIA, 27 years old, transport worker, no political affiliation, was detained by carabineros, taken to the Iquique Telecommunications Regiment, and from there transferred to Pisagua.

-Luis Aníbal MANRIQUEZ WILDEN, 44 years old, retail merchant, no political affiliation.

-Hugo Tomás MARTINEZ GUILLEN, 36 years old, retail merchant, no political affiliation, detained by carabineros on November 2, 1973, taken to the Telecommunications Regiment, and subsequently transferred to Pisagua.

-Juan ROJAS OSEGA, 38 years old, no known political affiliation, detained by Carabineros personnel on November 1, 1973, transferred to the Telecommunications Regiment, and from there to Pisagua.

The common factor among them all was their alleged participation in drug trafficking and the smuggling of goods, charges that were profusely imputed to them through the press. None of these charges were judicially established once the aforementioned arrests were carried out.

The official information provided through a military communiqué from the VI Division of the Ejército was that these individuals had been released on January 29, 1974. Furthermore, some of the families were officially notified of the alleged release of their relatives through a letter from the Ejército de Chile.

Thus, the spouse of one of the disappeared received letter No. 3550 380, dated July 19, 1974, issued by the Command of the VI Division of the Ejército, in which it states that Nicolás Chanez was detained and transferred to Pisagua "for the purpose of investigating and determining responsibilities in an alleged violation of the Law on Arms Control." "Once it was investigated and his innocence was proven, as far as the Arms Law is concerned, he was released on the date indicated above.

If he has not arrived home by this date, you must look for the answer elsewhere or ask yourself, your conscience as a wife who knows the activities your husband carried out."

Their bodies were all found in 1990 in the Pisagua mass grave, placed in sacks, with their hands tied and their eyes blindfolded.

This Commission is fully convinced that Orlando Cabello, Nicolás Chanez, Juan Mamani, Luis Manríquez, Hugo Martínez, and Juan Rojas were not released, but rather executed without prior trial and their bodies made to disappear by State agents.

Hugo Tomás Martínez Guillén, married, a merchant, was detained on November 2, 1973, at his home at Amunátegui 228 in Iquique by Carabineros officers traveling in a police van. Among those responsible for the arrest were Lieutenant José Antonio Muñoz and Carabineros Blas Daniel Barraza Quinteros and René Egidio Valdivia Castro. The victim's spouse, Raquel Rodríguez, witnessed the detention.

The police officers told the couple that the victim had to be taken to the 1st Carabineros Precinct of Iquique because he had purchased a stolen radio. Raquel Rodríguez went to the 1st Precinct early the next morning, only to learn that her husband would remain in detention.

She brought him clothing and food for a week, after which the victim was transferred, held incommunicado, to the Iquique Telecommunications Regiment, accused of drug trafficking.

On December 18, 1973, Hugo Tomás Martínez was taken to the Pisagua Detention Camp. His wife and children managed to see him as he left Iquique, being transported in a military truck along with other prisoners.

While held in that prison, he constantly exchanged correspondence with Raquel Rodríguez. In one of his last letters, the victim stated that between January 16 and 18, 1974, he would be subjected to an "internal" War Council, and therefore he had high hopes of being released.

However, the family received no further news of him until January 31, 1974, the day the Iquique newspaper "La Estrella" reported that by order of the Chief of the State of Siege Zone, General Carlos Forestier, Hugo Tomás Martínez had been released.

After September 11, 1973, the town of Pisagua, located in the commune of Pozo Almonte, was declared a military zone, falling under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ramón Caupolicán Larraín Larraín.

Detainees were generally brought to that prison in Army trucks. Hugo Tomás Martínez was locked in incommunicado cell No. 2 along with other people also accused of drug trafficking. The treatment he received was extremely harsh.

On one occasion—as a witness recounted to the Visiting Judge—the victim and other detainees were forced to perform push-ups and "frog jumps" in the prison courtyard, while Army Lieutenant Conrado García fired shots over their heads, boasting of his good aim. The scene ended when a bullet ricocheted off a wall, wounding the Lieutenant himself in the leg.

According to testimonies from former Pisagua prisoners, the detainees accused of drug trafficking remained in the prison until approximately mid-January 1974. On that date, Commander Ramón Larraín reported that they would be released.

A detainee who was performing cleaning duties with the victim at Playa Esperanza witnessed military personnel arriving to tell Hugo Tomás Martínez to return to the Camp to pack his things because he was being released. When the witness returned to the prison, he did not see him again. Only three weeks later did he hear rumors that the "traffickers" had been killed.

On the same date, witnesses saw the victim and other detainees pass by, blindfolded and with a red circle on their chests, in the back of a truck accompanied by a military jeep. The convoy stopped two or three kilometers from the prison in the direction of the cemetery. The vehicles returned about an hour later without the prisoners.

Years later, in June 1990, the body of Hugo Tomás Martínez Guillén was found and identified in a clandestine grave in Pisagua and turned over to his family, who, 16 years later, were able to give him a final burial.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On November 6, 1973—while the victim was still being held at the 1st Carabineros Precinct of Iquique—a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed on his behalf at the Court of Appeals of that city, registered under No. 109.897.

The filing stated that Hugo Tomás Martínez had not been placed at the disposal of a competent court and that his detention had been carried out without any warrant and without him having been caught in the act of committing a crime.

As occurred in other situations, the writ was rejected on November 7, 1973, after a report was received from Carabineros Major Enzo Meniconi Lorca, which stated that the victim had been placed at the disposal of the "IV Military Court with report No. 15 dated the 3rd of the current month, for the manufacture of narcotics and complicity in arms trafficking, and, along with other detainees, was sent to the Telecommunications Regiment."

Almost three months later, upon learning through the Iquique newspaper "La Estrella" that the victim had been released, Raquel Rodríguez went to the VI Army Division to inquire about her husband's whereabouts.

There, Major Enrique Cid showed her a document signed in red pencil by Hugo Tomás Martínez Guillén, which attested to his release. But he never returned home, and all efforts to determine his whereabouts were fruitless.

The victim's spouse filed a complaint for the victim's alleged disappearance at the Second Criminal Court of Iquique on March 5 of that same year, registered under No. 32.969.

During the processing of this case, lawyer Hugo Onetto Urzúa testified before the Court. He stated that around January 21, 1974, when he went to the VI Army Division, Major Enrique Cid showed him several release decrees signed by Brigadier General Carlos Forestier Haensgen.

Among those decrees were those of the victim and those of Luis Aníbal Manríquez Wilden, Juan Mamani García, Tomás Orlando Cabello, and Juan Rojas Osega (all found in the Pisagua grave). Each of the victims had signed their release at the bottom of the document.

Hugo Onetto told the Court that he expressed his surprise to Major Cid, since, for professional reasons and having gone to Pisagua for the War Councils held there, he knew very well that when a prisoner was released, they were transported in a Camp vehicle to Iquique.

There, and only after a series of rigorous checks, was the detainee set free. Under those circumstances, he found it difficult to believe that the victim, at his own request, had been left at the intersection of the Pisagua road and the Pan-American highway.

In an official letter sent to the Second Court, Major Enrique Cid Coubles confirmed what lawyer Hugo Onetto had stated, noting that Hugo Tomás Martínez was "released by Decree signed by the Chief of the State of Siege Zone, Brigadier General Carlos Forestier, dated January 16, 1974."

Immediately after receiving the letter from Major Cid Coubles, the Judge of the Second Court of Iquique closed the summary proceedings "as the investigation was exhausted," and dismissed the case for "lack of evidence of a crime" (April 2, 1974).

The judge's resolution was confirmed on April 16, 1974, by the Iquique Court of Appeals, with the dissenting vote of Justice Bravo, who favored returning the case to the summary stage. To justify his dissenting vote, the Justice cited the need to summon Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles to testify regarding the details of the victim's release; to determine who transported the detainee from Pisagua to the Pan-American highway; to summon the latter to the Court; and to carry out all subsequent investigative steps.

To this day, none of what Justice Bravo proposed in 1974 has been possible to investigate. Hopes arose 16 years later, in June 1990, when Visiting Judge Hernán Sánchez Marré took over the case for Illegal Inhumation of bodies. However, those same hopes seemed to vanish when the case was transferred to the Military Justice system by a resolution of the Supreme Court.

On May 31, 1990, a complaint for Illegal Inhumation was filed before the Criminal Court of Pozo Almonte. It stated that in the town of Pisagua, in a place near the cemetery but outside of it, an inhumation of approximately 11 bodies had been carried out, outside the current legal framework.

Those bodies, it added, were buried in a trench specially dug for that purpose, about 15 meters long by 2 meters wide, located on the west side of the cemetery, in an area of the cemetery wall facing the sea.

Judge Nelson Muñoz Morales accepted the complaint, registering it under No. 3805, and began excavations on June 1, 1990. These resulted in the discovery of 20 bodies buried in a mass grave, including that of Hugo Tomás Martínez Guillén, whose remains were identified by his family at the Iquique morgue.

On June 6, 1990, the Supreme Court appointed Hernán Sánchez Marré as Visiting Judge to continue overseeing the proceedings. In the course of his investigation, he was able to establish what had happened in Pisagua.

Through countless statements, the functioning of the War Councils headed by Prosecutor Mario Sergio Acuña Riquelme—whose files could not be accessed—was configured; it became known that between 30 and 35 executions by firing squad were carried out in Pisagua, with or without prior trial, and that prisoners were harassed, threatened, interrogated, and tortured collectively or individually by Army and Carabineros personnel, and on some occasions, also by Navy officials.

On June 15, 1990, Raquel Rodríguez filed a criminal complaint before Visiting Judge Hernán Sánchez for the Illegal Inhumation of Hugo Tomás Martínez against all those who might be responsible.

When he testified before Visiting Judge Hernán Sánchez Marré in July 1990, Blas Daniel Barraza said that he had indeed participated in detentions in 1973, doing so in civilian clothes, along with Corporal René Valdivia and Corporal Froilán Moncada, all under the orders of Lieutenant José Antonio Muñoz.

He also stated that he had cooperated in interrogations carried out at the Pisagua prison. René Egidio Valdivia Castro testified in similar terms before the same Court.

For two weeks, statements were taken from witnesses regarding the victim's time in Pisagua and his disappearance from that prison. However, it was not possible to go further in uncovering what happened.

On June 31, 1990, exactly one month after the case was opened, Major General Luis Patricio Serre Ochsenius, judge of the VI Military Court of Arica, requested that the Visiting Judge decline his jurisdiction, as there was military personnel apparently involved in the investigated facts.

On August 8 of the same year, Hernán Sánchez Marré denied the request, elevating the records to the Supreme Court to resolve the jurisdictional dispute. On November 15, 1990, this court ruled in favor of the Military Justice system, leaving the case in the hands of the Iquique Prosecutor's Office, which registered it under No. 321-90.

The plaintiffs' lawyers then requested a series of investigative steps that were still pending, none of which were granted. However, when the former Pisagua prosecutor, Mario Sergio Acuña Riquelme, appeared before the Military Court as a witness, he requested the application of the provisions of Decree Law 2.191 of April 1978, which granted amnesty for almost all crimes committed between September 11, 1973, and April 1978.

On that very same day, Military Prosecutor Juan Romo Aravena ordered the closure of the summary proceedings, and on February 26, 1990, he dismissed the case totally and definitively by applying D.L. 2.191 (Amnesty). The Court Martial confirmed the aforementioned ruling.

At present (December 1992), the records are at the Supreme Court awaiting a response to the appeals filed by the lawyers for the families of those bodies executed outside of any legal procedure and buried clandestinely in a Pisagua grave.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity