Address: Sector 8, house No. 9, Población Pedro Aguirre Cerda, San Bernardo, Santiago Marital Status: Married, 11 children Occupation: Retired from the Social Security Service. At the time of his detention, he was working as a laborer Repressive Status: Militant of the Socialist Party. Former community leader Date of Detention: October 22, 1975

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Horacio Yáñez Jiménez, married, father of eleven, a retiree of the Social Security Service and a militant of the Socialist Party, was detained under the following circumstances: on October 22, 1975, around 02:00 in the morning, two individuals dressed in civilian clothes, carrying handguns and identifying themselves—verbally—as officials of the Investigations Service, violently broke into his home and proceeded to detain him without presenting any legal warrant.

The subjects, who had jumped over the house's gate and pounded heavily on the door while threatening to shoot if they were not allowed to enter, did not permit the residents to turn on the lights, so their faces could not be clearly seen.

As soon as the captors had entered the home, they went to the bedroom of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez, where he was lying in bed. They made him get dressed and, indicating that they wanted to talk to him and that they would only take him to ask "a few questions," they led him out to the street and put him into a white station wagon-type vehicle, which had a logo that read "defensa" (defense), driving him to a destination that remains unknown to this day.

Eyewitnesses to these events were his spouse, Mrs. Leontina Muñoz Gómez, and two of the couple's children, Silvia and Juan.

Immediately after the victim's detention occurred, they contacted the San Bernardo Investigations Police headquarters by telephone, where they were informed that personnel from that service had not been involved in the reported events.

Some time later, Leontina Muñoz would point out that the agents who detained her husband were wearing gray uniforms with blue turtlenecks and boots, clothing that matches that used by Air Force personnel.

In a sworn statement provided by Marta Yáñez Muñoz, the victim's daughter, she states that on June 30, 1978, three well-dressed people arrived at her home in the Población La Portada in San Bernardo. Identifying themselves as officials of the Investigations Service, they stated that they had been commissioned by the President of the Republic to inquire about data regarding the victim and to investigate the veracity of the situation.

On this occasion, the "visitors" were given all possible cooperation, providing them with all the background information they requested in order to achieve better results in the investigation.

The following day, two of the aforementioned individuals returned to ask the family members again about the location of Placilla, the birthplace of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez.

To date, the victim remains in the status of forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 10, 1975, Hernán Yáñez Muñoz filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) on behalf of his father before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under No. 1651-75.

On December 30, the Director of Air Force Intelligence, Brigadier General Enrique Ruiz Bunger, reported that the victim had not been detained by that Directorate.

On January 7, 1976, it was certified in the case file that the Minister of the Interior, via Official Letter No. 27-F-389, had reported that Horacio Yáñez Jiménez was not being held under the orders of that Ministry of State.

To better resolve the appeal, the Court ordered on January 8, 1976, that the petitioner be summoned to a first hearing. The petitioner ratified the circumstances surrounding the victim's detention, adding that the subjects who carried it out were traveling in a white station wagon-type vehicle with a white disc, whose characteristics were similar to those used by the Air Force.

Still as a measure to better resolve the case, and having sent official letters to the Commander-in-Chief of the Second Army Division and the Commander of the Air Force Combat Command, General Mario Viveros Avila, it was reported that the victim was not being held or prosecuted before the Second Military Court of Santiago or the Aviation Tribunals.

With the background information presented, the Court rejected the filed writ of amparo and ordered the records to be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court so that the existence of a possible criminal act in the disappearance of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez could be investigated, on March 9, 1976.

While the processing of the amparo appeal (roll 1651) was pending, the victim's daughter, Marta Yáñez Muñoz, filed a new writ of amparo on behalf of her father on January 23, 1976, before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under number 98-76.

In the relevant document, the petitioner requested that reports be requested from the Minister of the Interior, the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, and the Commander of the "Cuatro Alamos" prison camp. The Court only granted the first of the requested measures.

On January 30, 1976, a sworn statement by Mrs. Silvia Yáñez Muñoz, an eyewitness to the victim's detention, was added to the case file.

On February 6, it was certified in the file that the Ministry of the Interior, via Official Letter No. 615 dated the 2nd of the current month, had reported that Horacio Yáñez Jiménez was not being held under the orders of that Ministry of State.

Based solely on the merit of the transcribed report, the Court rejected the appeal filed on February 9, 1976, ordering the records to be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court so that a summary investigation could be opened to investigate the possible commission of a crime in the victim's disappearance.

The preceding resolution was appealed and confirmed by the Supreme Court on February 17, 1976, without the High Court addressing the request contained in the document upon which the appeal was based: to issue official letters to the Ministry of the Interior, the National Intelligence Directorate, and the Commander of the "Cuatro Alamos" prison camp in order to better resolve the appeal.

Thus, by Official Letter from the Santiago Court of Appeals, the process under roll 44.956 was initiated before the San Bernardo Criminal Court on March 17, 1976, to investigate the alleged misfortune of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez.

On March 18, Marta and Hernán Yáñez Muñoz appeared before the Court to ratify the reported facts.

On October 26, 1976, the order to investigate issued to the Investigations Police was added to the file, which yielded no information that would allow for the victim's whereabouts to be established. After interviewing the petitioners of the filed amparos, and noting that the victim's spouse, Leontina Muñoz Gómez, had not been interviewed at the request of her son and due to her delicate state of health, unsuccessful efforts were verified at the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees (SENDET) and the Legal Medical Institute.

On December 1, 1976, Marta Yáñez Muñoz filed a complaint for the crime of kidnapping on behalf of her father before the San Bernardo Criminal Court, which was registered under No. 45580-H.

On January 11, 1977, the eyewitnesses to the victim's detention—his spouse Leontina Muñoz Gómez and his children Silvia and Juan Yáñez Muñoz—as well as the complainant, testified before the Court, all of whom confirmed the circumstances of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez's detention.

A new order to investigate was dispatched to the Investigations Police, which also failed to establish the victim's whereabouts. Inquiries were made without results in prison and hospital establishments, as well as at the Legal Medical Institute and detention centers.

On July 26, 1977, it was ordered that the kidnapping complaint be consolidated with case roll No. 44.956-1, which was being heard before the same Court and for the same facts, retaining the indicated roll number and following a joint procedure.

It must be noted that, during the processing of the case, the complainant requested the execution of the following measures, all of which were duly reiterated and most of which were not fulfilled, despite being decreed in the document through which the complaint was filed: that Official Letters be sent to the corresponding Investigations headquarters, the Legal Medical Institute, and the San Bernardo Infantry School; on February 23, 1977, that Official Letters be sent to two nursing homes in the San Bernardo commune; on July 22 of the same year, that an official letter be sent to each and every Intelligence Service of the Army, Air Force, Investigations, Carabineros, and the National Intelligence Directorate, separately; on August 12, 1977, that an Official Letter be dispatched to the Central Identification Cabinet so that it would send the victim's affiliation extract and report whether the Legal Medical Institute had sent a copy of his fingerprint file.

Only the last of the aforementioned Official Letters was answered negatively by the Head of the Fingerprinting Sub-department of the Investigations Police, Laura Silva Cárdenas, with the Central Identification Cabinet also sending the affiliation extract of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez.

On December 2, 1977, a photocopy of a press publication that appeared in the newspaper "La Segunda" on October 25 of the same year was added to the case. It alluded to the responses given by the Chilean Government to the Report of the United Nations Working Group, which studied the human rights situation in our country, emphasizing that in said responses, the Chilean Government stated that an investigation had been carried out into the case of the disappeared, the partial results of which were reported to the International Red Cross.

Based on the merit of this news, it was requested that an official letter be sent to the aforementioned organization so that it could report on the matter.

While the response to the indicated Official Letter was pending, the complainant submitted a photocopy of a new press publication reporting on the statements of the then-Secretary General of Government, René Vidal B., regarding the clarification of the situation of 1,200 cases of alleged disappearances, whose names were, in part, contained in the alluded information.

Based on its merit, it was requested that an Official Letter be sent to the named person and, subsequently, an equal measure was requested regarding the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

On May 17, 1978, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Brigadier General Enrique Valdés Puga, informed the Court that the archives of that Ministry of State did not record that Mr. Horacio Yáñez Jiménez had left the country via asylum.

For his part, Brigadier General René Vidal Basauri, Minister Secretary General of Government, reported on May 4, 1978, that the requested information was not within the competence of that Secretariat.

Thus, on May 25, 1978, the Court declared the summary closed and definitively dismissed the case by virtue of Decree Law 2191, which extinguishes the responsibility of the perpetrator(s) through amnesty.

The preceding resolution was appealed and was revoked by the Santiago Court of Appeals on June 28, 1978, returning the case to the summary stage. The Judge was ordered to carry out all measures necessary for the success of the investigation, keeping in mind that among the reported crimes was a possible kidnapping, which by its nature is of a permanent character.

On July 28, 1978, the complainant submitted to the case a photocopy of a Supreme Court resolution dated June 27 of the same year, by virtue of which it was determined that "criminal judges shall employ the greatest zeal and diligence in the instruction of cases regarding the disappearance of persons, illegal arrests, and kidnappings, dedicating preferential attention to them in order to obtain success in the investigation of the reported facts and those responsible." In the same document, it was requested that Official Letters be sent to the Investigations Service and the Central Identification Cabinet, to which the Court agreed.

On August 17, 1978, the response Official Letter from the Informatics section of the Investigations Police was added to the file, which fundamentally stated that after carrying out the pertinent inquiries, it was verified that Horacio Yáñez Jiménez appears on the list of alleged disappeared persons from the Vicaría de la Solidaridad dated October 22, 1975.

In the same way, the Chief Physician of the Thanatology Department of the Legal Medical Institute, Dr. Julio Veas Ovalle, stated by Official Letter that, having reviewed the index and entry books for corpses between October 22, 1975, and March 31, 1979, the name of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez does not appear.

Based on the merit of these new reports, the magistrate of the First Criminal Court of San Bernardo, Mr. Hernán Cortez Ramírez, declared the summary closed and temporarily dismissed the case on May 16, 1979.

The preceding resolution was appealed and the records were sent to the newly installed Court of Appeals of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Department, where it was approved by this Tribunal on November 30, 1979.

Marta Yáñez Muñoz, the victim's daughter, presented her case before various international organizations.

Thus, on December 21, 1976, she made the corresponding report of the detention and subsequent disappearance of Horacio Yáñez Jiménez to the International Commission of Jurists, expressly requesting that they take cognizance of the victim's case; report it to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, UNESCO, the European Parliament, and other international bodies, organizations, and legal figures, so that they may issue statements and carry out actions tending to overcome the situation originating from the reported facts; represent the situation to the Government of Chile so that it commits to clarifying the described situation within a set period; and represent to the Supreme Court of Chile the situation of denial of justice, so that it commits to instructing judges to exhaust all possibilities and exercise all their prerogatives in these cases.

Likewise, in 1977 and 1978, the situation that affected and continues to affect Horacio Yáñez Jiménez was reported to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the International Red Cross.

All efforts to know the truth of what happened proved useless; since that day when the victim was taken from his home in the commune of San Bernardo, he remains disappeared.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

SAN BERNARDO.- Over the weekend, the "Route for Memory" took place, organized by the Human Rights Groups "Jenny Barra" and "Ferroviarios Mártires de la Maestranza" (Railway Workers 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 (Seremi) of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, Alejandra Jiménez, arrived at the Chena barracks of the Infantry School. Accompanied by the Provincial Presidential Delegate, Miguel Ángel Rojas, the deputy (PS) Leonardo Soto, and the president of the "Ferroviarios Mártires de la Maestranza" organization, Claudio Quintanilla, she 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 "Casa de Techo Colorado" (Red Roof House) once stood, the groups want to erect a monument remembering the event. For this reason, the Seremi's visit was of great importance. "Today, family members of the victims, new civil and military authorities visited these 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 made this arrangement for the Seremi to come, because the company with which we were going to build 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 comrades 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 located on the land where the South Metropolitan Park (Cerro Chena) is being built, and it considers the installation of a perimeter fence to mark the boundary 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 is integrated into the plaza, because with the current fence, people think it is a separate space.

And the idea is that people can walk through it and use it for different artistic and cultural manifestations," said Susana, sister of Jenny, a young woman from San Bernardo, a nursing student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), and a victim of political imprisonment and torture who was forcibly disappeared during the military dictatorship.

She was 23 years old at the time of her detention.

Source: elcomunicador.cl 7/25/2022

Date: 07-25-2022