Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, single, a nursing student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, and a militant of the MIR, was detained for the first time on January 17, 1974, at 20 years of age, by soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School.

On that occasion, she remained detained for approximately 6 months at Cerro Chena, the Tejas Verdes facility, the Correctional House, and the Tres Alamos camp under the regulations of the State of Siege. At that time, she was accused of distributing pamphlets and belonging to the Revolutionary Student Front (FER).

Once she regained her freedom, she continued her nursing studies at the U. Católica in Santiago.

Subsequently, on October 17, 1977, according to her mother's statement, "my daughter and a friend arrived at the latter's house. Upon arriving there, they told Yolanda Bastías, the friend's mother, that they noticed they had been followed from Santiago, but she downplayed the fact to reassure them.

Later, my daughter returned to her home, 7 blocks from her friend's, and agreed to call her at 21:00 hours."

Yolanda Bastías states that the events took place on October 17, leaving her home at 17:30 hours. "I remember that day she told me her mother was worried because she had seen 3 well-dressed subjects with dark glasses watching their house days earlier."

In turn, Jacqueline Pezoa Barahona, a friend of hers who gave a judicial statement regarding Jenny, affirms that approximately on October 20, while she was at work, she received a phone call from the victim asking how she was and adding that she was attending the University and was doing well. This contradicts information regarding her absence from the University starting October 18.

On October 17, Jenny Barra went to the home of Hernán Santos Pérez Alvarez, who has been a forcibly disappeared person since October 19 and was a militant of the MIR. There, she had lunch with his wife, Norma Ortega Villena, who states that on that occasion she had come from classes and only had a few minutes to return to them, so they only spoke about trivial things.

She adds that, "days later, and under circumstances where I was filing a Writ of Amparo for the disappearance of my husband, on October 19 I found out that Jenny was also missing. In the inquiries aimed at locating my spouse, I learned that Jenny was in a gray Peugeot 404, license plate CH-800 from Renca, belonging to the former DINA as I was informed, at the moment my husband was detained and taken against his will in that vehicle."

For his part, Vicente Campillay Burgos declares that, when he was heading to work, he saw a light blue Peugeot 404 vehicle in front of his home in the Pudahuel commune, in which there were several people. "Passing by the side of this vehicle, I saw a young lady covering her face with her hands, as she was apparently crying.

I learned that on that same day, a man whose name I do not know had disappeared." As the mother adds, the neighbor approached the vehicle, intrigued by its long stay in the place, and the civilians signaled to him that they "were conducting a raid to apprehend drug addicts."

On the other hand, on October 15 of the same year, José Miguel Tobar Quezada, who lived in San Bernardo like the victim, was detained by plainclothes agents. He was taken blindfolded to an unknown location where he remained for 3 weeks.

There, he was tortured and interrogated about political activities. Furthermore, he was shown photos of women, among which he recognized that of Jenny Barra, whom he knew because she lived very close to his home.

Under pressure, he was forced to point out the photo that corresponded to the victim. In that place, they injected him with an element that caused drowsiness. There was a ping-pong table where the agents played, and the bathroom was very small. There was a room that was reached by climbing about 3 steps.

In his statement, he affirms that "I was taken to a room where there was a bunk bed and I remained there for a large part of the time. From that place, I heard the conversation or interrogation they were conducting with a woman, being able to identify the voice as belonging to Jenny Barra, realizing that she was also being held."

In an adjacent room, he heard 3 or 4 men who were in the same situation of detention. José Miguel Tobar was detained by civilians traveling in a Peugeot 404 vehicle, license plate CH 800, the same one that carried out the detention of José Pérez Alvarez, and in which a woman who would correspond to the victim had been seen.

In the kidnapping case followed in favor of Tobar Quezada before the 11th Criminal Court of Santiago, it was proven that said license plate was requested by the former DINA from the Municipality of Renca, giving the Diego Portales Building as the address and the Ministry of Defense as the owner.

It should be noted that the DINA had been dissolved in August 1977, with another security agency created in its place, the National Intelligence Center (CNI). Since that date, nothing more has been known about the forcibly disappeared person Jenny Barra Rosales and, despite multiple judicial actions, her whereabouts could not be located.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On November 4, 1977, her mother, Mrs. Laurisa del C. Rosales Nacarete, filed a Writ of Amparo before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under No. 591-77.

Reports were requested from the Ministry of the Interior and the Prefect of Investigations. Both the Metropolitan Area Chief Prefect, Juan Salinas S., and the Minister of the Interior, General Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that there were no records of the person being protected.

The Ministry of the Interior added that "the only records that the protected person has in the respective card files of this Secretariat of State are those related to her arrest by virtue of what was ordered in D.E. No. 2 of January 3, 1974, and her subsequent release ordered by Decree No. 202 of July 9 of that same year." This Official Letter was answered on November 14, 1977.

For better resolution, a chamber of the Court of Appeals ordered that Isabel Pezoa and Yolanda Bastías be summoned to testify through Investigations, in order to provide information on the reported case.

This proceeding was carried out on December 2, when both appeared to testify. That same day, the writ of amparo was rejected, and it was ordered that the records be sent to the corresponding Criminal Judge in order to investigate the facts related to her possible disappearance.

On December 9, the judge of San Bernardo ordered a summary investigation to be initiated, giving a broad order to investigate. This process was registered under No. 46576. In the same process, on January 2, 1978, the kidnapping complaint filed by the mother on December 30 of the same year was accumulated, which was registered under No. 46636.

On January 18, 1978, Investigations returned the investigation order, incorporating interviews with the victim's mother, Yolanda Bastías Henríquez, and proceedings at the Universidad Católica, first aid posts, hospitals, the Legal Medical Institute, and the National Detention Center.

Likewise, Vicente Campillay Burgos and Norma Ortega Villena testified in the process.

The complainant party requested new proceedings from the Department of Immigration, the Prefecture of Investigations, the Military Judge, the Military Prosecutor's Offices of Santiago, the Legal Medical Institute, and the Municipality of Renca for information on the vehicle, and others aimed at clarifying the fate of the victim.

Since the investigation had not been exhausted and there were pending proceedings, on May 23, 1978, the judge investigating the case declared the summary closed and definitively dismissed the process "bearing in mind that criminal liability has been extinguished by Amnesty." Once the resolution was elevated for consultation, the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeals recommended revoking the resolution on June 9, 1978, because "it is necessary that there be a specific charge against a specific person; furthermore, it is required that the investigation be exhausted to know what illicit action has been perpetrated." In this way, the Court ordered the case to be returned to the summary stage, continuing the investigation.

In the month of June 1979, having received negative responses from different services, the summary was declared closed and the temporary dismissal of the case was dictated, which was consulted with the Court of Appeals and approved by said Tribunal.

On May 20, 1980, a new criminal complaint for the crime of kidnapping was filed before the 1st Court of Letters of San Bernardo, receiving negative reports from the Ministry of the Interior and the CNI regarding the detentions.

In the month of December 1980, the summary was closed and the process was temporarily dismissed. This resolution was confirmed by the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Court in July 1981.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

She is the first female forcibly disappeared person to be recognized to date.

"I thought I would find my daughter alive after 20 years... now I know they killed her..." says her mother, Mrs. Laurisa, 80 years old, who has searched for her for 35 years, without yet knowing what happened to her daughter since that day in October 1977 when she did not return to the family home in San Bernardo.

The place where she lived with her mother and father, a bread baker, her brothers Sergio, Enrique, Modesto, and Ricardo, and also with her sister "conchito": Susana.

All the siblings gathered, Jenny in the center.

A few days ago, the Legal Medical Service told them that finally, based on a few small bones, it has been possible to perform the miracle of identifying Jenny, the nursing student from the Pontificia Universidad Católica, the clandestine militant of the MIR... the student leader of the San Bernardo Girls' High School.

Now, finally, the time will come to perform the farewell rituals for this young woman who would have turned 59 on Saturday, October 26. Her wake will be held starting at 16:00 hours next Friday, November 9, at the family home at 1675 Industria Street, between Enrique Madrid Osorio and Eucaliptus in San Bernardo.

The following day, Saturday the 10th, the procession will leave from that site to arrive with Jenny's remains at the Memorial for the Forcibly Disappeared and Executed at the General Cemetery at 12:00 hours, accompanied by the AFDD, who has been with the Barra Rosales family at all times.

Most certainly, around the upcoming farewell to Jenny Barra's remains, the family and her friends will compile new pieces of history that occurred during those first years of the dictatorship, particularly in her activity as a clandestine resistance fighter in San Bernardo and in the then-commune of Barrancas.

MEMORY IN SAN BERNARDO

It is Saturday, October 26, and in Plaza Guarello, next to the Memorial for the victims of the dictatorship that bears the name of Jenny Barra, men and women begin to gather from very early on to pay tribute and remember this student from San Bernardo.

The event is convened by the "Jenny Barra Group" (AJB), the same one that emerged after the 2001 Dialogue Table and that was convened for the Truth of Cerro Chena. Outside of the AJB, the AFEP, the Memoria Viva Collective, and Radio Canelo 149 AM were involved in that purpose.

Today, in this plaza where there is a Memorial made with railway sleepers, there are teachers and students from Jenny's generation.

From the San Bernardo Girls' High School, where her teachers remembered her a few days ago, among them Emilia Leytón, who recalls her graduating from 4th E in 1972 and how she subsequently got into the Universidad Católica for Nursing.

Also, today, her friend Marta Romero, whom they called "la Gaby," makes memories, while Jenny, to her adolescent friends, was "la Pepona." Teachers of hers from the Católica have arrived, as have companions from the PUC Memory Collective, who have done diligent work to remember the teachers and students who fell during the dictatorship.

Mural painters stamp the memory of Jenny with strokes; songs and testimonies follow; everything seems to prepare for that farewell that many in San Bernardo will make on November 9 and 10 to that girl they saw grow up and commit herself to the dreams of social justice of her time.

A pamphlet titled "For the Truth of Cerro Chena" says:

"The testimonies collected point to several of the officers and civilians who participated in the detentions, torture, and executions... General Leonel Köning, who would commit suicide in 1975; another general named Pedro Montalva; a captain at the time, Luis Cortes Villa (director of the Augusto Pinochet Foundation), also known as 'The Black Angel'; and another officer named Germán Stagmaier.

Among the civilians, three businessmen stand out: Francisco Luxoro, Darío González, and Héctor Carrasco. They know what happened to the workers of the railway workshop and perhaps also about Jenny Barra. They know, but they still remain silent..."

GREETINGS FROM VILLA GRIMALDI

Margarita Romero, president of the Villa Grimaldi Park Corporation, attends the act in Plaza Guarello and will read a few words; she is accompanied by Marcelo Agost, also a member of the board. "It is an honor for me and our institution, the Villa Grimaldi Park for Peace Corporation, to share the memory of Jenny with all of you today.

I would like to greet especially and express all our affection to Jenny's family, to her parents Laurisa and Sergio, to her brothers and sister, Sergio, Enrique, Modesto, Ricardo, and Susana, and to her friends and companions represented by Patricia and Isabel."

Later, she adds

"Her social and political commitment led Jenny to remain in Chile after her first detention, to continue fighting to recover the freedom of Chileans, to continue militating in difficult and dangerous tasks in a context of clandestine struggle, such as participation in the production of El Rebelde, the dissemination organ of the MIR, of vital importance to communicate and transmit the tasks of the resistance." To conclude her intervention by saying: "In the Villa Grimaldi Park for Peace, for years Jenny has been part of the Rose Garden, created to honor the women disappeared or murdered during the dictatorship. Together with nearly 200 other women, each represented by a rosebush, Jenny has a place in memory."

MEMORY IN THE FAMILY

Her mother Laurisa affirms with a soft but firm voice... "I am not going to be satisfied with them having handed me a few little bones... it has never been known who they were..." She also remembers when Jenny gave her a piece of fabric to make a suit for the day she graduated, shortly before her second detention. "That morning she left; it was her turn to study, and the next day she didn't arrive..." Later they would know that a white car was following her...

Laurisa, on the left side, marching with the AFDD.

Her sister Susana was 11 years old when Jenny disappeared and says that Jenny forced her to do something more, to study guitar because she was very good at watching TV. " I was very spoiled by her; I learned to read at home because I got bored at school. I remember my first book was Papelucho and Jenny gave it to me..."

The pain for this family did not stop with the loss and search for Jenny. In 2010, as a consequence of the tsunami, while they were vacationing in front of Pelluhue, they lost little 8-year-old Alonso... his remains were recovered after five days.

In the family home, there are two altars of memory: one for Jenny and another for little Alonsito, surrounded by white calla lilies cultivated by his grandmother.

Susana, the little boy's mother, says

"When will the day come when the military and marines assume what they have done...?"

Bringing both pains together... In the family, there is already a niece named Jenny Barra who is 30 years old, while granddaughters and grandsons continue to grow.

We are saying goodbye; Laurisa shows us her photos of the struggle with her companions from the AFDD in the days of the dictatorship; there she is walking down the street and carrying a banner with her daughter's portrait pinned to her chest... because, once again, it has been the family members who have been the diligent ones.

Now a chapter closes and, as Jenny's mother says, another begins... that of truth and justice.

Tribute act to Jenny in Plaza Guarello of San Bernardo

Source: Texts by Ignacio Vidaurrázaga. Photographs: Luis Arellano and PUC Memory Collective. October 30, 2012

Date: 10-30-2012

Two weeks ago, we told you about the identification of the remains of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, a nursing student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, who was kidnapped by CNI agents on October 17, 1977, appearing as a Forcibly Disappeared Person since that date.

For 35 years, her family, her friends, and all the people and organizations linked to the Defense of Human Rights have mobilized to know what happened to her. Today, it has been possible to identify Jenny's skeletal remains as part of the remains recovered at Cuesta Barriga in 2001, which correspond to small fragments that remained in the Los Bronces mine.

This Friday, November 9, Jenny's remains will be handed over to her family members by the Legal Medical Service. The acts that will be carried out in her memory and her funeral are detailed below:

Friday, November 9

– 18:00 hours: Liturgy in Plaza Guarello of San Bernardo, officiated by Monsignor Alfonso Baeza, former Vicar of Social Pastoral and Labor Pastoral. – 19:00 hours: Pilgrimage from Plaza Guarello to the home of the Barra Rosales family.

Pilgrimage organized by the Jenny Barra Cultural Group. – 19:00 hours: A march begins from Prat and Eyzaguirre streets, San Bernardo, towards the home of the Barra Rosales family. – 20:00 hours: Wake at Jenny's family home, 1675 Industria, San Bernardo.

Saturday, November 10

– 10:30 hours: Departure of the funeral procession from the Barra Rosales family home towards the General Cemetery. – 12:00 hours: Funeral at the Memorial for the Forcibly Disappeared, General Cemetery (entrance via Recoleta).

As the PUC Memory Collective, we will be present at the wake and the funeral to accompany the family in these moments. We invite you to join these activities in memory of Jenny and to help us spread this invitation.

Source: elclarin.cl, November 8, 2012

"We are working with the regional ministerial secretary (seremi) of National Assets to carry out a place of remembrance and reflection with all the groups that exist in the commune, because no one owns the hill," pointed out Claudio Quintanilla, president of the Railway Martyrs of the Workshop Group.

SAN BERNARDO.- On Saturday, the "Route for Memory" was held, organized by the Human Rights Groups "Jenny Barra" and "Railway Martyrs of the Workshop," with the objective of making visible the massacre of the 11 railway workers that occurred on October 6, 1973.

The regional ministerial secretary of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, Alejandra Jiménez, arrived at the Chena barracks of the Infantry School, who, in the company of the Provincial Presidential Delegate, Miguel Ángel Rojas, the deputy (PS) Leonardo Soto, and the president of the "Railway Martyrs of the Workshop" organization, Claudio Quintanilla, toured the sector known as "La Loma," where 101 civilians were tortured and executed, among them 11 workers from the San Bernardo railway workshop.

In this place, where the "Red Roof House" was, the groups want to erect a monument remembering the event. And for that reason, the visit of the seremi was of great importance. "Today, family members of the victims, new civil and military authorities visited those places together and analyzed how to enable memorials that contribute to ensuring that never again will Chileans murder other Chileans due to their political intolerance," said the parliamentarian.

For his part, Claudio Quintanilla maintained that "it is very important that the Presidential Delegate has made this arrangement for the seremi to come, because the company with which we were going to make the memorial unfortunately went bankrupt, so the seremi of National Assets is going to help us."

"We are working with the seremi of National Assets (Germán Pino Maturana) to carry out a memorial with all the groups in the commune, because no one owns the hill. We also hope that the cross that the workers of the San Eugenio Workshop made in memory of the murdered companions will soon be reinstalled.

In fact, we already have advanced conversations with the Army for that reinstallation," he added.

The memorial that is planned to be built is inserted in the lands where the South Metropolitan Park (Cerro Chena) is being built, and which considers the installation of a perimeter fence to mark the limit with the military compound.

The caravan of authorities also arrived at Plaza Guarello, whose remodeling (announced but not executed to date) includes the modification of the Memorial in honor of Jenny Barra. "We want it to be a space that integrates into the plaza, because with the current fence, people think it is a separate space.

And the idea is that people can tour it and use it for different artistic and cultural manifestations," said Susana, sister of Jenny, a young woman from San Bernardo, nursing student at the Universidad Católica de Chile, militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and a forcibly disappeared person during the military dictatorship. She was 23 years old at the time of her detention.

Source: delh.cl, July 25, 2022

On the day of Sola's funeral, I walked next to your image; I had chosen it from among all those that the companions at FASIC were preparing, and now I raised it to head height, behind the flag-draped coffin.

I could not help but remember how much I cried for your loss, and also, what I felt for not having told you everything I appreciated and loved you. Your photo on the poster returned to me the angelic figure of twenty-four years that I met in the resistance.

You arrived with honey-colored curls in the wind and your cinnamon eyes, and with that smile that illuminated meetings and gatherings. Seven days before your birthday, they excised you, on October 17, '77.

You fell into the hands of the CNI, who with terrible floggings made you name the meeting place, which we were supposed to have abandoned before three days. Unfortunately, Hernán Pérez Alvarez, a companion who disappeared with you, was still in that place, which only says that we continued to believe ourselves immortal, and that we had to resist and resist as if we really were.

I learned from the companions of the "Teniente Merino" shantytown that you cried out and rebuked Hernán for being there and falling without reason: the always cheerful Negro Hernán, another terrible loss.

But I know that you did what we had agreed and did not give anyone up of your own free will. You did not betray our contact points, because that would have been fatal for everyone, but I will not tell more, I will not reveal our secrets; the torturers are still walking the streets, that is something no one should doubt.

In the book "Where Are They," your photo with the number four hundred seventy-six smiled at me, and it hurt me for that reason to know that you left with the feeling of having betrayed my friendship: you fell in love with my partner at that time. He revealed it to me. However, on that cursed October 17, both of us together cried for the unavoidable absence.

At that time, I rebuked you "between us" with the stiff black-and-white image that served to initiate your search. Today, upon raising it with my hands, I ask for your forgiveness for having been so harsh and not having rendered you the tribute you deserved sooner.

I want you to know that in the sunset of that day we buried Sola, I joined you, very close, and we walked together through Pudahuel, brainstorming a new resistance propaganda action. Also, when the ceremony ended, I left to lie down on the stones of the Memorial, to thank you for what was built together with Hernán, whom they paraded wounded through the shantytown so that he would denounce us, but he didn't do that either; they didn't manage to break him.

Source: archivochile.com, no date

In the ruling (case file 6-2002), the visiting minister sentenced the former security agents and Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Juan Hernán Morales Salgado to 10 years in prison, in their capacity as authors of the crime. Meanwhile, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accessory.

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced four State agents for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified kidnapping of the nursing student Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales. An illicit act perpetrated starting October 17, 1977.

In the ruling (case file 6-2002), the visiting minister sentenced the former security agents and Army officers Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Juan Hernán Morales Salgado to 10 years in prison, in their capacity as authors of the crime. Meanwhile, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accessory.

Proven facts In the resolution, Minister Cifuentes established the following facts: "1st That on Saturday, October 15, 1977, in the morning hours, José Miguel Tobar Quezada, a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained by security agents who were traveling in a Peugeot model 404 automobile, who deprived him of his sense of sight by placing adhesive tape over his eyelids, thus preventing him from observing the location of the place to which he was taken, the clandestine detention center called 'Villa Grimaldi'. 2nd That, after arriving at said facility, the security agents subjected José Miguel Tobar Quezada to interrogations and illegitimate duress in order to obtain information about other militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), managing to obtain the identification of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, a nursing student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, a militant of the MIR, with the political name 'Hilda'. 3rd That, subsequently, the security agents traveled in a Peugeot automobile to the vicinity of the home of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, located at 1675 Industrias Street in the commune of San Bernardo, interviewing her neighbor Jaime Vera Maulén, whom they asked regarding her activities. 4th That on October 17, 1977, in the afternoon hours, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales was at the house of her friend Patricia Reveco Bastías, located at 1073 José Joaquín Pérez Street in the commune of San Bernardo and, upon leaving in the direction of her home in the same commune, she was detained, without right, by security agents, who, immediately thereafter, took her to the same facility where Tobar Quezada had remained deprived of liberty since October 15, 1977, that is, the clandestine detention center 'Villa Grimaldi'. 5th That, while deprived of liberty in 'Villa Grimaldi', Jenny Barra Rosales suffered the same suffering as the rest of the detainees; in fact, Tobar Quezada heard her voice and her crying in the moments when she was being interrogated, and it was she who, broken by torture, provided the information that allowed for the detention of Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, a photographer and militant of the MIR, carried out on October 19 of that year in the commune of Pudahuel, and the woman that witnesses saw in the vicinity of the scene of the events in a gray Peugeot model 404 automobile, license plate CH 800 from Renca –granted by said municipality to the DINA–, guarded by security agents. 6th That José Miguel Tobar Quezada, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, and Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, detained consecutively between October 15 and 19, 1977, were militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and collaborated closely with the production of the publication called 'El Rebelde'. 7th That, subsequently, José Miguel Tobar Quezada and Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales were transferred to the clandestine detention center called 'Simón Bolívar', a place where they remained illegally imprisoned. 8th That, ultimately, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales died, on an undetermined date, in a violent manner, as a consequence of traumatic events caused by third parties, after which her body was thrown into a sinkhole of the 'Los Bronces' mine in Cuesta Barriga, a place where in 2001 only some small skeletonized fragments were found, since in the month of January 1979, by decision of the authority of the time, agents of the National Intelligence Center carried out an operation at that site with the purpose of extracting the remains of the executed prisoners, which were removed and transferred to an undetermined location. 9th That, as has been said, the events had a beginning of execution in the month of October of the year 1977, a time when the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) had been dissolved and the National Intelligence Center (CNI) was operating, an intelligence agency that continued carrying out repressive actions against militants of political parties opposed to the government, especially the Communist Party and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and that, for such purposes, received the personnel and assets of the dissolved DINA, in particular the clandestine detention centers called 'Villa Grimaldi' and 'Simón Bolívar', the agents in charge of their operation, and their hierarchical superiors. 10th That, by reason of the above, in the period that concerns us, the clandestine detention center 'Villa Grimaldi' was in charge of Army Captain Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, who, in addition, exercised command of the operational teams in charge of pursuing and exterminating militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and, on the other hand, the clandestine detention center 'Simón Bolívar' was under the command of Army Major Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, who, additionally, held the leadership of the Lautaro Brigade. 11th That, likewise, Army General Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda –currently deceased–, Army Colonel Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo served as director, director of Operations, and deputy director of Internal Intelligence of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), respectively, and, after the dissolution of said agency, they continued developing their functions in the National Intelligence Center (CNI) in the period in which the events that concern us began to develop."

Source: pjud.cl, April 25, 2024

Date: 04-25-2024

Jenny Barra Rosales: Weaver of Struggle and Rebellion (tribute)

Weaving, knotting threads of vivid colors, with the slowness of the changing of the seasons, enjoying every moment; every leaf carried by the wind was equivalent to a hope that was planned in the air. The red of summer, the green of spring, the yellow of autumn, the white of winter.

I wove and time passed, blankets to protect dreams, to warm the steps on tiptoe and the feet frozen by sadness and hatred. I wove sitting on the banks of the river and nature sang with me songs of the soul, songs of earth and sweat, of lovers wrapped in their affections, of the singer who used the guitar like a rifle.

And I played those same strings with revolutionary chords, a piece of wood transformed into a musical weapon, notes like intertwined threads: each thread a sound, each thread a harmony, each thread the voice of the people that is going to rise, adding itself to the music.

A rag doll in the field sowing new seeds, tender rebel sprouts, harvest to be harvested. Weaving, working hands embroidered a dress and learned good and evil. Fabrics like the breath of the poor, silent marches of hunched shadows, and in the sky looking at them a full moon that looked like a ball of wool, stars cushioning disobedience and soft clouds filled with holy water that, falling, kisses the earth and kisses the bodies of the women who do not surrender.

My youth passed through the threads of a spider web that stole opportunities, which tied and stuck me to an unreal reality, hoping that the dictatorial spider would eat its victims already in the trap.

Weaving and pushing away bad thoughts, lighting our inner sun. I wove, sitting, a rag doll, knotting rainbows, embroidering songs, facing the rifle. My name is Jenny Del Carmen Barra Rosales, I am a combatant of the Revolutionary Left Movement.

I am convinced that without violence nothing will be achieved. I have full conviction in the armed struggle to undo the regime that represses us, tortures us, and makes us disappear. Our life is an endless struggle, whether in the underground or with our faces uncovered.

The fear and the rage, the desire to subvert the order constituted by infamous uniformed men with the support of traitorous civilians. I have always denounced the evil that stinks in our society. My life?

It has always resembled an uphill street, insidious, but so precious because, above all, we had, with my companions of struggle, a common goal, which was the liberation of our people, the reflourishing of dignity and democracy.

They detained me twice in my short age, the last time on October 17, 1977, in spring. Thus, the dirty military men tore the flowers of the revolt. Tortured to death, murdered, and made to disappear. Bodies of women writing a macabre poem, maps of torments, broken bones.

Bodies of women thrown into oblivion. I am Jenny Del Carmen Barra Rosales, a nursing student because I wanted to heal the world, cure the dispossessed, take care of the children of the outskirts. I took the rifle while I continued weaving my ideal of society with other dreamer and idealist weavers like me; we walked, we fought, we loved, disobedient kids, with our red and black flag in our hand and on our shoulders all the suffering of Chile.

We remained young in the memory of our People, fallen, disappeared, in love with freedom.

CHANTAL CASTIGLIONI. MILAN – ITALY

Source: corporacionute-usach.cl, September 27, 2021

Date: 09-27-2021

Declaration of the College of Nurses before a New September 11

WE REMEMBER OUR COLLEAGUES, VICTIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS DURING THE DICTATORSHIP

In the context of the anniversary of the Military Coup, the Colegio de Enfermeras de Chile A.G (Chilean Nurses Association) and its Human Rights Commission pay tribute to nurses who were victims of human rights violations during the Dictatorship.

Carmen Margarita Díaz Darricarrere

She was 24 years old and a nursing student at the Universidad de Chile, Temuco campus, and a militant of the MIR, when she was detained by the DINA on February 13, 1975, around 10:30 a.m., a block and a half from her home located at Calle Los Illanes Nº75 in Las Condes, Santiago, along with Eduardo Iván Montti Cordero (29 years old, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Universidad Técnica del Estado) and his youngest son, who was only 5 years old.

After being held in a house along with other victims of the dictatorship, they were all transferred to the secret DINA facility known as Villa Grimaldi, where they were interrogated, tortured, and held in a place called "La Torre," from where they were forcibly disappeared in the last week of February 1975.

The 5-year-old boy, who had also been taken to Villa Grimaldi, was transferred to a children's home, where he was fortuitously found by the remaining members of his family. She was forcibly disappeared along with Jaime Vásquez Sáenz, Alan Bruce Catalá, and Eugenio Iván Montti Cordero.

In December 2006, Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda was sentenced to fifteen years of major imprisonment in its medium degree and the respective accessory penalties as the perpetrator of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Eugenio Iván Montti Cordero and Carmen Margarita Díaz Darricarrere.

Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito and Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo were sentenced to ten years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree and the corresponding accessory penalties for their responsibility as co-perpetrators of the aforementioned aggravated kidnapping crimes.

Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes were also sentenced as accomplices in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Eugenio and Carmen to five years and one day of major imprisonment in its minimum degree and the corresponding accessory penalties, with all being ordered to pay the court costs.

Brigadier Fernando Lauriani and Carabineros officer Gerardo Godoy, both retired, were acquitted. The appellate court also dismissed the case against former civilian agent Osvaldo Romo due to his death.

Despite the efforts, inquiries, and judicial actions carried out by her family, the final fate she met at the hands of DINA agents remains unknown. On March 20, 1981, the Temuco campuses of the “Universidad de Chile” and “Universidad Técnica del Estado” merged into the Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO).

In 2011, Carmen Díaz received her posthumous nursing degree from the Universidad de la Frontera. In early 2018, she received her posthumous nursing degree from the Universidad de Chile.

Hilda Isolina Velasquez Calderón

During the early hours of September 14, 1973, at their home in the Población Independencia in the city of Talca, three members of a family were awakened, raided, interrogated, and executed by firearm: Héctor Valenzuela Salazar (27 years old, university Philosophy professor and PS militant), Hilda Isolina Velasquez Calderón (31 years old, university nurse and communist militant), and their eldest daughter, Claudia Andrea Valenzuela Velázquez (6 years old).

Carabineros arrived at the family's home as part of investigations they were conducting following the Paso Nevado incident, where they were erroneously linked to the escape attempt of Germán Castro (Intendant of the Province of Talca for the UP, socialist militant, executed by firing squad at the Chorrillos Regiment on September 27, 1973, whose case never went through a War Council as news reports of the time implied).

After killing them, the uniformed officers claimed it was a confrontation. When the professor's relatives arrived, the bodies were still in the house, and the Carabineros present explained that it had been a suicide.

According to the Rettig Report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission declared with conviction that Héctor, Hilda, and Claudia were victims of a grave violation of their human rights, as they were executed by State Agents without any justification.

The couple's younger children, Paula (4 years old) and Gonzalo (2 years old) at the time, hid and were spared the fate of their sister and parents; however, they were injured nonetheless. On December 5, 2003, the bodies of the 3 political execution victims were exhumed from the Municipal Cemetery of Talca.

In 2004, retired Carabinero Emilio Muga Galfano confessed to being the perpetrator of the acts. It was not until 2009 that Muga was prosecuted; he remained free on bail after paying 500,000 pesos. In 2010, the Talca Court of Appeals sentenced Muga to 5 years and one day of imprisonment for both homicides of Héctor and Hilda, ruling that he must serve the sentence effectively, given the length of the sentence and the unfavorable reports from the Gendarmerie's Santiago Oriente Social Reintegration Center.

Emilio Muga Galfano died before serving his derisory sentence. There has been no sentence whatsoever regarding the political execution of Hilda's eldest daughter, 6-year-old Claudia.

Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales

A nursing student at the Universidad Católica and a MIR militant, she was detained for the first time on January 17, 1974, at 20 years of age, by soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School. On that occasion, she remained detained for approximately 6 months at Cerro Chena, the Tejas Verdes facility, the Correctional House, and the Tres Alamos Camp under the rules of the State of Siege.

At that time, she was accused of distributing pamphlets and belonging to the Revolutionary Student Front (FER). Once she regained her freedom, she continued her studies in the Nursing program at the U.

Católica de Santiago. On October 17, 1977, she informed third parties that she had been followed from Santiago, but she did not attach importance to it. She was seen in a gray Peugeot 404 automobile, license plate CH-800 from Renca, requested from the Municipality by the former DINA (the DINA had been dissolved in August 1977, with the Central Nacional de Informaciones or “CNI” created as its replacement).

Said car belonged to the Ministry of Defense. Subsequently, she was taken to a torture center, according to witnesses, along with her friend, PS militant and photographer Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, where both disappeared.

On November 4, 1977, her mother, Laurisa Rosales, filed a Writ of Amparo (Habeas Corpus), for which information was requested from the Ministry of the Interior and Investigations, who stated that there were only records of the first detention, so this Writ was rejected and a summary proceeding was opened.

Laurisa denounced kidnapping, and the case was dismissed, considering an alleged statute of limitations, but since the investigation had not been completed, the summary proceeding was reopened, which was temporarily dismissed in 1980.

Her remains were found in 2001 in an abandoned mine at Cuesta Barriga, an alternative road connecting Santiago and Valparaíso (120 km west of the capital). In the old mine, 200 small bone fragments were found, traces of the bodies that dictatorship agents had exhumed in 1979 and forcibly disappeared again to eliminate traces of the victims' whereabouts, in an operation known as “Traslado de televisores” (Television Transfer), according to a government statement.

Jenny Barra is the first forcibly disappeared woman in Chile whose remains have been identified thanks to the multidisciplinary work of the SML (Legal Medical Service). In this case, there was also collaboration from an Austrian laboratory that contributed to the genetic analyses.

In Plaza Guarello in San Bernardo, there is a memorial for the victims of the dictatorship that bears Jenny Barra's name. In October 2012, her family was notified of the confirmed identity of Jenny's remains, which were buried in November of the same year.

In 2013, she received her posthumous nursing degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. At the end of 2018, a commemorative plaque in her honor was inaugurated, and the room of the Nursing Student Center at the Universidad Católica was named the Jenny Barra Room.

José Alejandro Campos Cifuentes

Born in Carehue, he was the fifth of 12 children, 30 years old, and had a son (with his Norwegian partner, Gunvor Kristine Sorli) at the time of his detention. A MIR militant. “Campito,” as he was called, began studying nursing at the Universidad de Chile, Temuco campus, in 1971, where he stayed until early 1973, the year he was called up for mandatory military service, reporting on April 2 and being discharged on August 31 by order of the IV Army Division of Valdivia.

He voluntarily reported to the Temuco Regiment on October 7 of the same year. The following day, he was declared a prisoner, taken to a War Council by the Cautín Military Prosecutor's Office, and sentenced for treason to 15 years in prison starting October 8 at the Temuco Penitentiary.

The sentence was commuted to expulsion, and he left on February 11, 1976, bound for Denmark, with a prohibition on re-entering the country. In 1981, he attempted to return clandestinely to Chile in the MIR's “Operación Retorno.” On February 19, he was detained along with his companion Luis Quinchavil Suárez (known as “Quincha,” a Mapuche language professor at the U. de Heiden in Holland and also an exiled MIR militant) at the Chilean-Argentine border by 18 Argentine gendarmes on horseback at the Paimún or Hua Hum pass, in the X Region, opposite Junín de los Andes.

They were placed at the disposal of CNI agents in Neltume, at whose hands both disappeared, in violation of their human rights. According to what was stated on July 7, 2004, in the ruling of the full Court of Appeals that approved the stripping of Augusto Pinochet's immunity for his link to the so-called “Operation Condor,” witnesses indicate that both were allegedly transferred by Captain Augusto Werner Hasse, Sergeant Héctor Barra Molina, and a corporal surnamed Sandoval to the Carabineros Intelligence Directorate in Valdivia, to then be taken allegedly by Captain Julio Benimelli at 2:45 a.m. in a dark green Veranello pickup truck, both blindfolded, to the La Reina shooting range in Santiago, where, according to testimonies, they were allegedly blown up with dynamite. José Campos and Luis Quinchavil remain in the status of forcibly disappeared to this day, as they have not been found. One month after Campito's disappearance, on March 20, 1981, the Temuco campuses of the “Universidad de Chile” and “Universidad Técnica del Estado” merged into the Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO). At the moment, the Universidad de Chile has not awarded him any posthumous degree; however, in 2011, Campito received his posthumous nursing degree from the Universidad de la Frontera.

Rosa Elvira Soliz Poveda

She was the eldest of nine siblings, born on July 27, 1951, in Nehuentue, a small fishing cove in the province of Cautín, into a family of workers. Her father worked in the Lota coal mine, so she did her early schooling at a school in this mining center.

In 1963, the family moved to the Población Santa Mónica in Conchalí, Santiago, and Rosa continued her studies at the Ramón Freire and Ignacio Carrera Pinto high schools, from which she graduated at the end of 1970.

From the following year, when she was studying nursing at the Universidad de Chile, her concern for social problems led her to join the ranks of the Socialist Youth and to participate actively in the FECH Social Action Office in the Faculty of Medicine, as well as in volunteer work days in the neighborhoods of northern Santiago.

After a series of summary proceedings carried out by the new military authorities who intervened in the Universidad de Chile, Rosa had her enrollment canceled arbitrarily due to her “leftist ideas.” This did not stop her, and she began working as a private nursing assistant.

Subsequently, together with her colleague Sara Donoso, she began working at the National Health Service Clinic on Avenida Independencia No 1345 (currently “CESFAM Dr. Agustín Cruz Melo”). Both found it necessary to live in safe houses in Santiago Centro, Independencia, and later in Peñalolén, adopting the names “Cecilia” and “Carmen” for their safety.

Around July 7, 1975, Rosa was detained by two DINA agents from the safe house in Peñalolén and, according to witnesses, was taken from the Ogalle barracks (José Domingo Cañas) to the Terranova barracks (Villa Grimaldi).

Sara's father, Juan Donoso Oliva, learned of her capture through a phone call received on Wednesday, July 16, 1975. Despite reports of her disappearance in 1990 after the end of the military dictatorship, her final whereabouts could not be found, and the case was temporarily dismissed.

In 2018, former agents Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo and Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos were sentenced to 18 years in prison as co-perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of Rosa and 10 other socialist militants; Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González was sentenced to 16 years of effective imprisonment as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Rosa and 8 other socialist militants, and the acquittal of agent Jorge Madariaga Acevedo was decreed.

In early 2018, she received her posthumous nursing degree from the Universidad de Chile.

Sara de Lourdes Donoso Palacios

She was born on February 11, 1950, in Antofagasta; she lived part of her childhood with her family at the “Pedro de Valdivia” nitrate office. In 1970, she entered the Universidad Técnica and studied Design for only 1 semester, then worked at the Banco Español for a time, and began studying Nursing at the Universidad de Chile until 1973, the year she was suspended.

She was very supportive and a great reader. A militant of the Socialist Party of Chile since 1974, where she became involved, along with her colleague Rosa Solis, with the clandestine leadership of that party.

In 1974, her enrollment had been suspended due to her political affiliation and had been reinstated in 1975. Together with her colleague Rosa Solis, she began working in the context of her Professional Internship (final practice prior to graduation) at the National Health Service Clinic on Avenida Independencia No 1345 (currently “CESFAM Dr.

Agustín Cruz Melo”). Both found it necessary to live in safe houses in Santiago Centro, Independencia, and later in Peñalolén, adopting the names “Cecilia” and “Carmen” for their safety. On July 15, 1975, at 8:30 a.m., at the entrance to the Clinic where she was doing her Professional Internship, she was detained by two DINA agents.

She was 25 years old at the time of her detention. Some staff members and a colleague saw two men who detained her and put her into a pickup truck, but no one dared to testify at that time. To date, and due to the investigations carried out, it has only been possible to have certainty of her detention, which is related to the detention of high-ranking leaders of the Socialist Party who were also forcibly disappeared, and to that of her colleague Rosa Solis.

In 2018, former agents Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo and Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos were sentenced to 18 years in prison as co-perpetrators of the aggravated kidnapping of Sara and 10 other socialist militants; Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González was sentenced to 16 years of effective imprisonment as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Sara and 8 other socialist militants, and the acquittal of agent Jorge Madariaga Acevedo was decreed.

In early 2018, she received her posthumous nursing degree from the Universidad de Chile.

Waldo César Alfaro Retamal

He began as a trainee and paramedic assistant in 1961 at the Linares Hospital, from where he was sent to the Universidad de Chile in Santiago to graduate in 1966 as the first man in Chile to be professionally trained as a nurse, a career that at that time was only practiced by women.

He was awarded as the best student of his class. He worked at the Linares Hospital and was a militant in the PS; he was married to Isolina Martínez Benavides. According to witness statements, he was detained on July 6, 1974, by a military patrol at his home.

He was accused of abandoning his duties and maintaining a clandestine medical arsenal. He was transferred to the Artillery School to be interrogated. Three days later, he was released. On July 10, 1974, he was detained again by the military and transferred to the regiment.

On this occasion, according to eyewitnesses who heard his screams of pain, he was severely beaten and subjected to interrogations under torture. He died on July 11, 1974, at 35 years of age, at the Artillery School military facility, due to “acute anemia secondary to a cutting wound in the left thigh, complicated, suicide,” as recorded in the Death Certificate.

He was found dead inside the cell where he was being held incommunicado. In his mouth, according to the Autopsy Protocol, there was a handkerchief that completely filled his oral cavity and was tightly held by his teeth; and over the wound, according to the ocular inspection report of the Prosecutor's Office that investigated his death, “in his wound, he had a rag with which he surely tried to plug it.” Both the femoral artery and vein of Waldo's left thigh had been completely severed, which would have caused massive hemorrhage, hypovolemic shock, and death.

The causal element of the wound was not found, and the Prosecutor's Office dismissed the investigation, considering that no crime was sufficiently proven. Subsequently, it was considered that, regardless of whether it was suicide or not, the influence of the torture and cruel treatment received by State Agents while he was detained was decisive in Waldo's death, for which he was declared a victim of human rights violations.

Humberto Cordano López

He worked as a paramedic in the town of Puerto Cisnes, a member of the PC, exiled in Comodoro Rivadavia after September 11, 1973. He was detained on May 23, 1977. Reliable and consistent testimonies indicate that the victim was detained on the day already indicated in the vicinity of the Hotel Céntrico in Comodoro Rivadavia.

A member of the Argentine Committee of Solidarity with Chile in this province, Humberto Cordano had carried out efforts in favor of Chilean detainees, as a result of which he was notoriously followed by DINA agents in that Argentine city.

It emerges from the testimonies and other background information that Humberto Cordano was betrayed by a Chilean, a DINA collaborator, in charge of detecting Chilean refugees in this province bordering Chile.

According to the Rettig Report, the Commission reached the conviction that in the human rights violation to which the victim was subjected, consisting of his detention and subsequent disappearance, agents of the State of Chile bear responsibility, in violation of his human rights.

In 2001, the press gained access to information that Humberto's case is mentioned in the “documentary evidence” of information from the Argentine Ministry of the Interior regarding the disappearance of Chilean citizens in the context of the investigations of “Operation Condor.”

Mario Luis Quezada Solis

Born on August 2, 1943, he was 32 years old at the time of his detention, single, nursing assistant, communist militant. Mario had been a political prisoner of the military regime in Antofagasta after the Coup, from where he was released, moving to Santa Rosa No339, house 4, Santiago.

He was detained by DINA agents on December 12, 1975, after 3:00 p.m., at the home of José Luis Núñez Zamora (detained 2 days earlier by the DINA), at Elisa Reyes No554, La Granja, Santiago. After having lunch with his family, he left the house around 3:00 p.m., never returning.

Around 11:00 p.m., a couple of young individuals appeared at his home in a red Chevrolet pickup truck, saying they were friends of Mario. They carried a handwritten note from the victim indicating that he was fine.

Along with this, they took a typewriter and some papers. On December 22, they returned and requested clothing for Mario Luis. On the 24th, another group of civilians appeared, but this time they thoroughly raided the home.

All participants were armed and held María Ercilia Quezada Solís (the victim's sister) at gunpoint while she was washing clothes. On the 28th, armed civilians appeared, who spent several hours in the house in a waiting attitude.

Subsequently, in the month of January 1976, one of the individuals who had brought the note “visited” the home, informing that he was fine. Mario Luis Quezada Solis was transferred by his captors to an unknown facility, where he was tortured and remained for some days, apparently in an underground area.

From there, he was transferred to the DINA detention and torture facility at “Villa Grimaldi” (Lo Arrieta, No8.200). There he was held and tortured in the “La Torre” sector. He shared his captivity with Oscar Patricio Orellana Figueroa, Hugo Pinto Yáñez (survivors who testified in this regard), Alejandro Avalos Davidson, Santiago Ferruz López, and Ramón Ascencio Subiabre.

The latter three, like Mario Quezada, remain disappeared after their detention. Due to the conclusive nature of the evidence of Quezada Solis's detention by State agents, the Ministry of the Interior acknowledged the detention first to the Santiago Court of Appeals and then to the Fourth Criminal Court of Santiago.

However, it indicated the “Cuatro Alamos” Detention Camp as the place of confinement, instead of “Villa Grimaldi,” adding that the detainee had been released on December 30, 1975, in circumstances where the last time he was seen alive was in mid-January 1976 at the DINA facility.

According to testimonies, at noon on January 12, 1976, Mario Quezada Solis was taken from the facility to an unknown destination, along with fellow forcibly disappeared person Jorge Fuentes Alarcón. To date, nothing is known about Mario's whereabouts or fate.

María Noelia Salazar Quezada

She was 32 years old at the time of her death, single, allegedly a MIR militant, died on September 11, 1973, in Santiago. María Noelia Salazar Quezada died that day at 10:35 a.m. at the Posta Central, due to a gunshot wound to the cranium, as recorded in the Medical Death Certificate of the Legal Medical Institute.

Despite not having been able to establish the precise circumstances in which her death occurred, given the time and cause, María Noelia Salazar Quezada was declared a victim of the prevailing political violence, being considered a political execution victim. Author: Human Rights Commission, Colegio de Enfermeras de Chile A.G.

Source: colegiodeenfermeras.cl, September 10, 2021

Date: 09-10-2021

First Chilean Woman Disappeared Identified by SML

This afternoon, the minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Soledad Espina, together with the national director of the SML, Dr. Patricio Bustos Streeter, announced to the relatives the identification of Jenny Barra Rosales, a nursing student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), who disappeared in 1977.

Her identity was determined through the multidisciplinary work of the Legal Medical Service and genetic analyses carried out by the laboratory of the Institute of Legal Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University (GMI), in Austria, on bone fragments found at Cuesta Barriga.

According to official information recorded in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, on October 17, 1977, she was kidnapped by agents of repressive agencies in the vicinity of her home in the commune of San Bernardo and transferred to a clandestine detention and torture center from where she disappeared.

The bone remains, identified with 99.999% probability, correspond to fragments found at Cuesta Barriga that survived the “Operación Retiro de Televisores” (Operation Television Removal), which consisted of the removal of the bodies of forcibly disappeared persons who had been clandestinely buried, with the aim of hiding them permanently.

In Chile, according to official figures, a total of 4,979 women were in prison during the dictatorship. In addition, 75 were detained and were political execution victims. Of these, 11 were pregnant.

Source: SML, October 22, 2012

Date: 10-22-2012

SML manages to identify remains of a forcibly disappeared person for the first time thanks to DNA technique

The Legal Medical Service (SML) identified the remains of Jenny Barra, a nursing student and militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) who disappeared in 1977 after being detained, according to an official statement released this Monday.

The judge in charge of the process, the minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals María Soledad Espina Otero, and the director of the SML, Patricio Bustos Streeter, communicated to the family the result of the genetic analyses of the bone remains carried out by the laboratory of the Institute of Legal Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University (GMI), in Austria, which confirm the identity of the nursing student from the Pontificia Universidad Católica.

The remains were found in 2001 in an abandoned mine at Cuesta Barriga. Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales was kidnapped on October 17, 1977, near her home in San Bernardo and transferred to a clandestine torture center, where she disappeared.

According to the Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA analyses, there is 99.9% certainty that the remains correspond to Jenny, the first Chilean woman identified with this type of technique. The identification work was carried out by the Legal Medical Service and the international panel of experts composed of forensic physician Francisco Extberria Gabilondo; Lourdes Prieto Solla, forensic geneticist; Macarena Hevia Alvarez, physical anthropologist; and Angela Melillán Sanzana, anthropologist.

Source: biobiochile.cl, October 22, 2012

Date: 10-22-2012

Court of Appeals to reduce deadlines

Although the evaluation is positive, the courts indicate that entering the final phase of the investigations is a factor that suggests there is no need for "so much time" to continue with their work. It is indicated that only four of the five exclusive judges would remain in this rank, and a new magistrate would be added to the select group.

In the final stretch of their investigation, the five judges with exclusive dedication are waiting for the Santiago and San Miguel Courts of Appeal to rule next Monday, July 22, on the extension of the deadlines to continue with their human rights proceedings, although on this occasion it is expected that the work periods will be shortened.

This is the first time that the appellate courts will analyze the status of the special judges, after the Supreme Court delegated this responsibility to the direct superiors of the sitting magistrates.

In light of the progress of the proceedings, judicial sources estimate that four of the five magistrates will be retained. Those remaining in the role would be the head of the Ninth Criminal Court of Santiago, Raquel Lermanda; of the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago, María Ines Collin; the head of the Fourth Criminal Court of San Miguel, María Teresa Díaz; and the head of the First Civil Court of San Bernardo, Cecilia Flores.

Forecasts suggest that the magistrate of the Tenth Criminal Court, Juan Antonio Poblete, will be excluded from the select group; he is the only one on the team who has not prosecuted anyone in his cases and who—according to the same sources—will have difficulty advancing his cases.

Instead, it is assumed that the head of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Mario Carroza, will rejoin the group, as he has already requested his change from preferred to exclusive status from the Supreme Court.

The Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior did the same a few days ago, with its director, Luciano Fouillioux, meeting with the president of the Santiago Court of Appeal, Carlos Cerda, to request the incorporation of Carroza.

Despite the optimism surrounding the evaluation of the magistrates, there is also the certainty that there is little to nothing left to do in some proceedings, a fact that would influence the extension being more limited and no longer for three months.

The response remains in the hands of the appellate court, which will set these deadlines based on the report that the magistrates submit monthly and which is deepened at the end of their term with a more extensive document.

It is estimated that if there are pending proceedings that are practicable and that contribute to the investigation, there would be no obstacles to the extension. In that line, the report of the visiting minister of each court plays a decisive role.

The cases

Regardless of the final resolution of the Court, the magistrates continue to advance in their cases. Thus, the most important shift is that adopted by the Ninth Criminal Court in the so-called Air Force War Academy (AGA) case.

Judge Lermanda is trying to unravel whether the version of a former Fach (Air Force) conscript is accurate, who told the Archbishopric that three agents moved an inert body, covered with bags, from the basement of the AGA to a helicopter that took it to an unidentified location.

The information provided at the Dialogue Table indicates that the final destination of the corpse was likely the sea, and Judge Lermanda's leads indicate that—preliminarily—it could be José Luis Baeza, the only forcibly disappeared person mentioned in the extensive case file that already totals three thousand pages.

The thesis is handled with absolute caution for fear that there may be errors or that it may be another person.

In this case, retired Lieutenant Franklin Bello Calderon, retired Colonel Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, retired General and former director of the Air Force Intelligence Service (Sifa) Edgar Cevallos Jones, and former Gendarmerie official José Aladino Cerda Córdoba are being prosecuted for the homicide of Alfonso Carreño and the disappearance of José Luis Baeza, both detained in July 1974.

The investigations carried out by the magistrate have also contributed to the parallel process regarding AGA survivors, which is sponsored by Codepu in the same court, and to the review appeal of retired General Alberto Bachelet, which remains pending in the Supreme Court.

In parallel, the magistrate is advancing in the final stage of the case of Víctor Olea Alegría, a forcibly disappeared person at Venda Sexy. In this case, the top leadership of the DINA was charged, including retired Brigadier Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Gerardo Urrich, and Alejandro Molina Cisternas, a retired Carabineros officer.

In another court, the Fourth of San Miguel, magistrate María Teresa Díaz also has the investigation into the disappearance of Cecilia Bojanic Abad, on October 2, 1974, when she was three months pregnant, finalized. In the case, Orlando Manzo Gutiérrez, former head of the 4 Alamos prison camp, was prosecuted.

For the disappearance of Alonso Gahona, the magistrate charged Eduardo Cartagena Maldonado, a Fach civilian; Manuel Agustín Muñoz Gamboa, retired Carabineros Captain; Luis Palma Ramírez, Fach civilian; Otto Trujillo Miranda, Fach; and Fernando Patricio Zúñiga Canales, also a Fach civilian.

In the Eighth Court, Judge Collin has been quite a surprise for the human rights community. From the beginning, the magistrate was perceived as having a profile reluctant to these proceedings; however, with the passage of time, there was a drastic turn to the point of establishing that she has 80% of the cases she is processing resolved.

In fact, the only point against her is the case of Oscar Rojas Cuellar, a process that she has not been able to clarify due to a lack of background information, and it is presumed that the dismissal will be issued soon.

In another court, the San Bernardo Civil Court, magistrate Cecilia Flores stands out for her role in the Cerro Chena case, but she has also recorded progress in the Jenny Barra case and transferred one of her cases regarding the Comando Conjunto—the death of communist militant David Edison Urrutia—to the hands of magistrate Carroza.

The assessment of the plaintiff lawyers in these proceedings is favorable, to the point of thinking that the closing of the summary and the beginning of the plenary period is imminent.

Source: Primera Linea, July 10, 2002

Date: 07-10-2002

Search for disappeared person at Infantry School

A small bone fragment that could be human was found yesterday on the premises of the Infantry School at Cerro Chena, as part of the investigation to locate the remains of Jenny Barra Rosales, a nursing student who has been disappeared since 1977.

Jenny Barra was studying nursing at the Universidad Católica and was a militant in the MIR. She was detained for the first time on January 17, 1974, by soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School. She remained for six months in the Cerro Chena barracks and other detention centers.

She was released and continued her studies, but on October 17, 1977, her trail was lost after persistent stalking by unknown persons reported by her mother. Testimonies from other detainees indicate that she was kidnapped by the CNI, which in those months had succeeded the DINA directed by Manuel Contreras.

The judge of the First Civil Court of San Bernardo, Cecilia Flores Sanhueza, arrived yesterday at the premises of the San Bernardo Infantry School. The inquiries focused on barracks 2 of the military training center.

Relatives of victims of the military regime gathered at the entrance of the Army barracks. Sonia Burgos, leader of the organization of relatives of the disappeared in the Maipo area, specified that the inquiries could be extended to other cases, according to a report by Radio Cooperativa.

Among them could be the case of Army reservist Manuel Rojas Fuentes, who disappeared in 1973. Meanwhile, last night, relatives of the forcibly disappeared reported that the burning of unknown items had been observed inside the military compound, which made them fear an attempt to hide evidence, as they argued.

Source: El Mostrador, December 6, 2001

Date: 12-06-2001

Judge searches for remains of forcibly disappeared persons on Army land

The head of the First Civil Court of San Bernardo, Cecilia Flores, will enter Army land at Cerro Chena today to search for the remains of forcibly disappeared persons at the site, a proceeding that will be witnessed by lawyers from the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior.

The magistrate, who has exclusive dedication to investigate four cases filed in that court, requested authorization to enter the military compound where the city's Infantry School facilities are located and which has been pointed out as a possible site of illegal burials by human rights organizations.

The Army granted authorization to the magistrate and her entourage, composed of experts from the Legal Medical Service and the Investigative Police, to enter the compound and carry out excavations in the area in search of graves where peasants from the Paine area and other forcibly disappeared persons from places near San Bernardo could be found.

Judge Flores is investigating the disappearance of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR) militant Jenny Barra Rosales, detained in 1977; that of Army reservist Manuel Rojas Fuentes, disappeared since September 1973; that of Luis Fuentes González since 1974; and a fourth case filed for several NN (unidentified persons) who are disappeared in the area.

Source: Tercera, December 5, 2001

Date: 12-05-2001

Judge accuses Army of not complying with agreements

The head of the First Criminal Court of San Bernardo, Cecilia Flores Sanhueza, sent an official letter to the Supreme Court—with a copy to the Ministry of Defense and the President, Ricardo Lagos—in which she complains that the Army has not complied with the agreements of the Dialogue Table.

The magistrate, one of the special judges with exclusive dedication to investigate human rights cases, claims that she has not been able to access the information that the Army should provide for these cases through a coordination department that the military institution has established for that purpose.

Judge Flores' document was reviewed today by the Plenary of the Supreme Court, which decided to request the file to know what background information the judge was referring to and how the issue had been resolved.

When the document entered the highest court, the phrase "Military Intelligence Service" was noted in the book where incoming cases are recorded.

From this, it can be deduced that the information the magistrate would be requesting would be secret in nature for the Army, protected by Article 144 of the Code of Military Justice, which protects information sensitive to national security.

The magistrate is in charge of four cases with exclusive dedication, including that of Jenny Barra Rosales, a student and MIR militant who disappeared in 1977.

Source: El Mostrador, October 20, 2001

Date: 10-20-2001

Universidad Católica recognizes its victims of the dictatorship for the first time

The Colectivo Memoria PUC reported that 40 years after the coup d'état, the authorities of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile will hold their first official act of recognition for their students who were forcibly disappeared or political executions during the civil-military dictatorship.

The solemn act will take place on Thursday, September 5, at 6:30 PM, at the San Joaquín Campus of the University.

It is located at Avenida Vicuña Mackenna 4860, San Joaquín Metro station. It will begin with a mass in the Campus Chapel, concelebrated by the Vice Grand Chancellor of the University and priests linked to the defense of human rights.

The recognition of the victims will continue at 7:30 PM in the Aula Magna of the same San Joaquín Campus. It will include the delivery of Posthumous Degrees from the University to the victimized students, and Diplomas that the Federation of Students of the Universidad Católica (FEUC) will deliver to the professors and professionals who were forcibly disappeared or political executions during the dictatorship.

More information on Facebook: Colectivo Memoria PUC and on YouTube: colectivomemoriapuc.

Brief history

28 students and academics of the PUC were murdered or made to disappear by the 17-year civil-military dictatorship established by the same economic and political groups that are once again governing Chile.

For almost four decades, the university maintained an ominous silence about these 28 students and professors of the institution, which was controlled in 1973 by the Movimiento Gremial (MG) and those who today form part of the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) and Renovación (RN), who turned the PUC into the "think tank" of the dictatorship, the cradle of neoliberalism imported from the Chicago School of Economics, as early as more than a decade before the 1973 coup.

The PUC was historically the cradle that trained the political class of the two factions of the conservative right currently in power. Including Sebastián Piñera, almost all the ministers and high officials of the current government were trained in the classrooms of the PUC and later pursued postgraduate studies at emblematic American universities: Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and others.

The PUC School of Economics signed the agreement with the University of Chicago in 1956, which, with the dictatorship, forcibly introduced the neoliberal model in Chile.

Who were they?

The disappearance and/or death of these 28 people was a taboo never recognized by the Catholic University authorities. An informal memorial plaque located in the sociology school cafeteria even disappeared mysteriously; no one knew when, why, or who removed it. In 2007 there was a mass, and that was it…

The Colectivo Memoria PUC brought the matter to light in 2010, with the presentation of the book "Una luz sobre la sombra: detenidos desaparecidos y asesinados de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile," 180 pages that reflect an investigation by the editorial team and the journalist/writer Nancy Guzmán, with a prologue by historian Gabriel Salazar and graphic design and cover by José Bórquez.

The presentation of that book was the first activity in memory of these 28 victims held officially on PUC premises, thanks to the interest of the Federation of Students of that university, then presided over by Joaquín Walker.

Among the victims are talented young people, such as journalists Diana Arón and Eduardo Jara, cinematographer Carmen Bueno and her partner, documentarian Jorge Hernán Müller Silva—cameraman of the "La batalla de Chile" trilogy by Patricio Guzmán—engineering student Allan Bruce, English professor Alejandro Ávalos, pedagogue and former priest Omar Venturelli, and other truncated lives.

Former Army prosecutor Alfonso Podlech, an anti-communist lawyer and landowner who sent Venturelli and dozens of people in Araucanía-Temuco to their deaths, was imprisoned in Italy from 2006, tried by a court investigating the murder of him and other citizens of Italian origin killed in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, but was "acquitted" in July 2011, although the Italian Prosecutor's Office had requested life imprisonment.

Five victims—Ismael Chávez, María Teresa Eltit, Ángel Guerrero, Samuel Lazo, and Ernesto Ríos—studied at the Departamento Universitario Obrero Campesino (DUOC), which was born in 1968 with the University Reform and the first lay rector of the PUC, Fernando Castillo Velasco (recently deceased), to provide free education to the children of workers and peasants, just like other programs at the universities of Chile, Técnica del Estado, and Federico Santa María aimed at workers and poor students who received training in high-level technical careers.

One year after its founding, the DUOC had 475 students and continued to grow, but today education must be paid for.

Among the victims are also Eugenio Ruiz Tagle-Orrego, a civil engineer and Mapu militant, a relative of former president and current Christian Democrat senator Eduardo Frei R-T. His political ideas led all the PUC victims to be militants or sympathizers with the different parties and movements of the political diversity that marked the presidency of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) and the rise of social struggles in Chile in the 60s.

According to the alphabetical order of their surnames, the victims whose memory the PUC now officially remembers are Diana Frida Arón Svigilsky, Alejandro Ávalos Davidson, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, Leopoldo Raúl Benítez Herrera, Patricio Biedma Schadewaldet, Alan Roberto Bruce Catalán, Carmen Cecilia Bueno Cifuentes, Mauricio Jean Carrasco Valdivia, María Teresa Eltit Contreras, Ismael Darío Chávez Lobos, Ángel Gabriel Guerrero Carrillo, Ignacio Orlando González Espinoza, Luis Enrique González González, José Eduardo Jara Aravena, Juan Alberto Leiva Vargas, José Patricio del Carmen León Gálvez, Samuel del Tránsito Lazo Maldonado, Enrique López Olmedo, Víctor Eduardo Oliva Troncoso, Jaime Ignacio Ossa Galdámez, Ernesto Igor Ríos Céspedes, Alicia Viviana Ríos Crocco, Juan Carlos Rodríguez Araya, Eugenio Ruiz Tagle Orrego, Enrique Antonio Saavedra González, Jilberto Patricio Urbina Chamorro, Omar Roberto Venturelli Leonelli, and Héctor Patricio Vergara Doxrud.

Of the victims, 5 belonged to the Mapu, 2 to the PC, 1 to the Socialist party, 18 to the MIR, and the rest do not record specific militancy, such as Ernesto Ríos, 18, who died in 1986 from a bullet to the skull fired from a helicopter while he was witnessing a popular protest at his home.

There are also three foreigners, such as sociologist Enrique López Olmedo, born in Spain, and architect Patricio Biedma, a native of Buenos Aires, who finished his studies at the PUC and stayed to live and work in Chile after fleeing the Argentine dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía.

His secret murder, like the disappearance of 118 other people, was masked by Operation Colombo of Plan Cóndor, with the journalistic montage of a fake confrontation "in the Argentine pampas" in which 119 supposed Chilean leftist refugees died.

The colossal lie was fabricated by the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), with Colonel Manuel Contreras at the head, and the National Directorate of Communications (Dinaco), managed by a certain Álvaro Puga (Alexis).

The lies were disseminated by all the media, particularly the newspapers of the El Mercurio and La Tercera chains and others, with the complicity of some journalists of the time. Operation Colombo is also known as the case of "The 119."

Another episode skewed the life of the young Bolivian Enrique Saavedra, 18, who never showed any interest in politics. He only traveled to Chile to train as a commercial engineer at the PUC, already famous for its adherence to the neoliberal theories of the University of Chicago.

He managed to pass the first semester in 1973, and with his cousin Ramiro Carlos González, they faced the adventure of living alone in a downtown hotel in the Chilean capital. Four days after the September 11, 1973, coup, they went out to walk the streets, to look around and buy food, after the long curfew imposed by the junta.

They never returned to their hotel. Nothing more was ever known of them. No corpse ever appeared, nor was there any judicial case. They passed into oblivion as if they had never existed.

The racist and xenophobic phobia was turned into state policy by the military, as an ideological pillar of the coup against Allende, inspired by the lie of "defending the homeland threatened by international communism." The military fallacies and montages invented the Plan Zeta fabricated by the CIA (supposed lists of right-wingers who would be murdered by the Allende government and its supporters), and they proclaimed the absurd myth of a secret army of 10,000 Czechoslovaks, Hungarians, Cubans, and all kinds of "communists" determined to dominate the country.

Any Latin American was a "tropical" suspect; whoever spoke differently from a Chilean became a dangerous "Cuban communist," even if they were Brazilian or Central American, and if they were Black, worse.

Since the Chilean territorial expansion conquered in the so-called War of the Pacific of 1879, Bolivians and Peruvians have always suffered in Chile from the racist xenophobia underlying the propaganda of the bicentennial property-owning class and its armed apparatuses.

PUC-dictatorship empathy

The PUC, which is called Pontifical because it belongs to the Vatican, was an important ideological and theoretical support for the military. The university never showed interest in rescuing the memory of these 28 members of the institution, in contradiction with the undeniable 17-year effort of the Catholic hierarchy to "give a voice to those who do not have one" by defending the human rights of the victims of the dictatorship (1973-1990) through the Vicaría de la Solidaridad.

The PUC faculty of economics motorized the political-economic theories coined by Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, which moved from academic debate to being forcibly implanted in Chile on a working class unable to defend itself from the fierce military repression, in the first neoliberal experiment in contemporary history worldwide.

Many academics from the PUC faculty of economics became millionaires, ministers, and high-ranking cadres of the state's economic-financial apparatus, which under the military dictatorship privatized all public companies, including the airline LAN, which after years ended up in the hands of Sebastián Piñera.

The greatest theoretical contribution of those commercial engineers was a heavy fundamentalist text of neoliberal economic theory nicknamed "El Ladrillo" (The Brick), which became the catechism of the dictatorship.

In the legal field, the right-wing academic Jaime Guzmán, ideologue of the military regime, very close to Pinochet and a law professor at the Catholic University, founder of the far-right movement that still calls itself "gremialismo," was one of the forgers of the constitution imposed by the dictatorship in 1980, after governing for 7 years without any fundamental charter.

This constitution remains in force in Chile thanks to the makeup of successive modifications that rather legitimized a charter that only reflects the interests of the owners of the country and the political class at their service.

Some professors, such as the lawyer and former UDI senator Carlos Bombal, even helped the DINA capture and torture their then-colleagues and students of leftist ideology.

"The cases of the lawyer Carlos Bombal, who helped the DINA in the detention of Alejandro Ávalos Davidson, [of] Andrés Terrisse, who allegedly participated in interrogations of detainees from the Universidad Católica, and that of the nurse who graduated from this institution, María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada, who was known in the DINA as the 'Queen of Pentothal' for being the one who injected it into detainees before they were loaded onto the helicopter that threw them into the sea, are well known," cites a paragraph of the book (page 24) "Una luz sobre la sombra..."

Source: reddigital.cl, October 22, 2015

Not to be forgotten: Cerro Chena is now a site of memory

The Cerro Chena Memorial Corporation (Cormech), led by its president, Mónica Monsalve, highlighted that "it is very important news, which carries a very great emotional burden. This place holds a painful history for more than a hundred families in the Maipo Province."

SAN BERNARDO.— With great joy and emotion, the Cerro Chena Memorial Corporation (Cormech), led by its president, Mónica Monsalves, received great news today. After years of struggle, they managed to get the road authority to install 2 signs on the western frontage road of the Autopista Central (in front of Cerro Chena and between the San Bernardo and Catemito exits), which indicate and remind that crimes were committed in this place during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

"This is very important news, which carries a very great emotional burden. Cerro Chena, beyond being recognized for the '18 Chico', Independence Day celebrations, and motorcycle races, holds a painful history for more than a hundred families in the Maipo Province. Here, where barracks 2 of the Infantry School operated, people were tortured, murdered, and made to disappear," said the leader.

"It was a long process and years of knocking on doors. This is an effort that we carried out for many years with the road authority, but this is not a recognition by the State, we make that clear. After many, many years of struggle, we achieved the goal of making that place visible, so that all people traveling to the South will see and read that here (Cerro Chena) there is also a site of memory," added Monsalves.

Source: delh.cl, February 22, 2022

Former DINA-CNI agents sentenced for qualified kidnapping of young MIR woman in 1977

The minister on extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeal, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced four former agents of the dissolved DINA-CNI for their responsibility in the consummated crime of qualified kidnapping of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, perpetrated starting October 17, 1977, in Santiago.

The 23-year-old, a nursing student at the Universidad Católica and a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), was kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and made to disappear. The repressive agents threw her body into a sinkhole at the 'Los Bronces' mine, in Cuesta Barriga, the place where part of her remains were found in 2001.

In the month of January 1979, by decision of the tyrant Pinochet, CNI agents carried out an operation in Cuesta Barriga with the aim of extracting the remains of the prisoners executed and thrown at that site, with the purpose of eliminating all evidence of their crimes, which were removed and moved to an undetermined location, but remains were left scattered that allowed for the subsequent identification of victims once the site was revealed.

In the ruling (case roll 6-2002), the visiting minister sentenced the former Army officers and repressive hierarchs Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, and Juan Hernán Morales Salgado to 10 years in prison, as authors of the crime. Meanwhile, Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was sentenced to 541 days in prison as an accessory.

In the resolution, Minister Cifuentes established that on Monday, October 17, 1977, in the afternoon, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales was at a friend's house on José Joaquín Pérez street in the commune of San Bernardo and, upon leaving in the direction of her home in the same commune, she was detained by security agents, who took her to the clandestine detention center 'Villa Grimaldi', the same facility where José Tobar Quezada remained detained.

Previously, on Saturday, October 15, 1977, in the morning, José Miguel Tobar Quezada, also a militant of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), was detained on a public street by security agents who took him to 'Villa Grimaldi' and subjected him to interrogations and torture in order to obtain information about other MIR militants, managing to obtain the identification of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, whose political name was 'Hilda'.

Immediately, the agents went to the vicinity of Jenny Barra's home, located on Industrias street in the commune of San Bernardo, interviewing a neighbor, whom they asked about the young woman's activities, then consummating her detention.

In 'Villa Grimaldi', Jenny Barra Rosales suffered the same torments as the rest of the detainees; in fact, Tobar Quezada heard her voice and her crying at the moments she was being interrogated and, broken by the torture, she allegedly provided the information that allowed for the detention of Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, a photographer and MIR militant, practiced on October 19 of that year in the commune of Pudahuel and who was also made to disappear.

The three detained militants, José Miguel Tobar Quezada, Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, and Hernán Santos Pérez Álvarez, collaborated closely with the preparation of the publication called 'El Rebelde'.

Subsequently, José Miguel Tobar Quezada and Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales were transferred to the clandestine detention center called 'Simón Bolívar', where they remained locked up for an indefinite period.

The described events had their beginning of execution in the month of October 1977, a time when the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) had been declared dissolved and continued operating as the National Information Center (CNI), an intelligence agency that continued carrying out repressive actions against militants of political parties opposed to the military regime, especially the Communist Party and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), and which, for such purposes, received the personnel and assets of the dissolved DINA, in particular the clandestine detention centers called 'Villa Grimaldi' and 'Simón Bolívar', the agents in charge of their operation, and their hierarchical superiors.

By reason of the above, in the period of the events, the clandestine detention center 'Villa Grimaldi' was in charge of the then Army Captain Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, who also exercised command of the operational teams in charge of pursuing and exterminating militants of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), and, on the other hand, the clandestine detention center 'Simón Bolívar' was under the command of the then Army Major Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, who additionally held the leadership of the Lautaro Brigade.

Likewise, Army General Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda—currently deceased—, Army Colonel Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo served as director, director of Operations, and deputy director of Internal Intelligence of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), respectively, and, after the dissolution of said agency, they continued carrying out their functions in the National Information Center (CNI) in the period in which these criminal events began to develop.

by Daría Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, April 27, 2024

Santiago Court increases compensation to siblings of disappeared university student

In a unanimous ruling, the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court set the amount of compensation that the treasury must pay for moral damages at $150,000,000 to the siblings of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, a nursing student at the time of the events, detained in October 1977 in San Bernardo, and who remained as a forcibly disappeared person until 2012, the year in which the Legal Medical Service managed to identify fragments of her bone remains found in Cuesta Barriga in 2001.

The Santiago Court of Appeal set the total amount of compensation that the treasury must pay for moral damages at $150,000,000 to the siblings of Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, a nursing student at the time of the events, detained in October 1977 in San Bernardo, and who remained as a forcibly disappeared person until 2012, the year in which the Legal Medical Service managed to identify fragments of her bone remains found in Cuesta Barriga in 2001.

In a unanimous ruling (case roll 13.802-2024), the Eighth Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Lilian Leyton, Érika Villegas, and lawyer (i) Francisca Amigo—confirmed the appealed sentence, issued by the Fifth Civil Court of Santiago, with the declaration that the compensation amount is increased in proportion to the proven damage.

"That the allegations of the defendant—reparation, prescription, and legal preterition—were dismissed at length by the magistrate, according to the arguments recorded in her sentence and which this Court shares in its entirety; notwithstanding this, these topics are again questioned in the appeal of said party, but it will be necessary to refer to the reasoning recorded in the rebutted decision, so that the review that has been proposed via appeal of the same cannot prosper," the ruling maintains.

The resolution adds: "That, however, for the purposes of addressing that section of the appeals that is coincident and that refers to the compensation amount, it is not superfluous to point out that the harmful events from which the action that has been attempted in the case derives correspond to the same ones that gave rise to the criminal conviction decision of several State agents, pronounced on April 24, 2024, in the criminal case substantiated before the Minister on Extraordinary Visit of the Illustrious Court of Appeal of San Miguel, Mrs.

Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, in case Roll No. C-06-02-F 'Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales Episode', referred to previously, but now in its civil reparatory aspect; and, given the extent of the evil caused by it, without there being any doubt, as the lower court judge also reasons, that such events constitute a crime against humanity, and that for the same reason, its full reparation falls on the State."

"That related to the latter, regarding the compensation for the damage produced by the criminal offense, its examination must attend to the statute of rights committed in the species, which is none other than the International Human Rights, integrated by positive norms of International Law, formed by Conventions, Treaties, or other institutes ratified by Chile and which oblige the State to recognize and protect the right to full reparation, as provided by articles 5, paragraph 2, and 6 of the Political Constitution of the Republic," the sentence highlights.

For the appellate court: "(...) the normative block integrated, among others, by the 1907 Hague Regulations, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Resolution 2005/35 of April 19, 2005, of the Commission on Human Rights, which together enshrine the right to seek and obtain full reparation, including restitution, compensation, satisfaction, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition, imposing such reparation on the respective State that has violated the human rights of its citizens, cannot be forgotten."

"Then—it continues—, and as established by the American Convention on Human Rights, in its article 63.1, States have the duty to pay fair retribution to those injured in the event of human rights violations, which must include compensatory compensation for the material and immaterial detriment they have experienced and which must consider psychological and moral damages, the individual and collective life project, and the prejudice to the family's assets."

Likewise, the ruling records: "That in that context, it has been demonstrated that the plaintiffs are full siblings of Ms. Jenny del Carmen Barra Rosales, who was detained on a first occasion in 1974, for a period that lasted approximately 8 months; and that subsequently, in 1977, at only 23 years of age, she was again detained by State agents and after having been tortured in various torture and detention centers, she disappeared, with some fragments being found only in 2001.

Then, the plaintiffs' compensation claim clearly derives from the kinship relationship with the victim of the crime of permanent kidnapping, facts that, besides not having been disputed, are proven with the documentation added to the process, demonstrating in particular from the merit of the background information provided by the witnesses who appeared at trial, the suffering of the plaintiffs for the detention and subsequent disappearance of their sister, the sequelae that such events have caused in their lives and that they have had to endure for a long period, considering that at the date of the occurrence of the kidnapping they were 8, 17, 26, 27, and 29 years old."

"That in accordance with everything indicated, the quantification of the damage will be done prudently by the court, taking into account the nature, entity, and extent of the same, having for this especially present the circumstances in which the events occurred, that the plaintiffs were deprived of their sister, the age they had at the date of occurrence of those, the pain of living under a permanent mourning and an irreparable absence, which affected the family nucleus and the future life of all its members, without there being elements that allow this Court to distinguish between the suffering of the plaintiffs, which leads to determine that it must be compensated in the same way. Consequently, it is noted that the sentence did not sufficiently weigh the damage caused to the plaintiffs on the occasion of the action of the State agents to the direct detriment of their sister, so they will be prudently assessed by this Court, according to the background information indicated above," the ruling details.

Therefore, it is resolved

"

I.-

That the cassation appeal in the form deduced by the defendant, the Treasury of Chile, against the sentence of July 11, 2024, issued in case Roll C-1619-2023, of the 5th Civil Court of Santiago, is rejected.

II.-

That the referred sentence is confirmed with the declaration that the amount ordered to be paid to the plaintiffs as moral damages is increased to the sum of $30,000,000 for each of the plaintiffs, with current interest for readjustable operations, once the debtor incurs in default."

Source: pdju.cl, May 16, 2025