• Jorge Orlando VALENZUELA VALENZUELA, 30 years old, single, agricultural worker, with no political affiliation.

Around midnight that day, a group of armed Carabineros arrived at the Capetillo home, where Jorge Valenzuela was staying. After kicking the door open, they proceeded to arrest them, placing them into civilian vehicles that were waiting outside the house.

The following day, the family went to the Paine Sub-Comisaría, where the detention was acknowledged, and they were asked to bring food and clothing. That same afternoon, they were informed there that the detainees had been transferred to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment.

Considering that Ramón Capetillo and Jorge Valenzuela were detained by state agents with the collaboration of civilians, it must be concluded that the responsibility for their disappearance lies with state agents, thus resulting in a violation of their human rights; given that their arrests are sufficiently documented and that all news regarding them was lost while they were in custody.

Source: (Rettig Report)

The Paine Case. The Kast clan, the participation of landowners and truck owners in the execution and disappearance of 70 inhabitants

It was the owners of large estates and trucks who participated alongside state agents in the torture, execution, and disappearance of the 70 inhabitants of Paine, mostly peasants, during the military dictatorship.

The justice system has prosecuted six of them, and one, Francisco Luzoro Montenegro, was indicted for crimes against humanity. However, the Kast clan, who according to witnesses participated, has remained unpunished.

In 2017, the Supreme Court ratified the ruling against the first civilian convicted of crimes against humanity: Francisco Luzoro, for the murder of Carlos Chávez Reyes, Raúl del Carmen Lazo Quinteros, Orlando Enrique Pereira Cancino, and Pedro Luis Ramírez Torres.

The sentence was 20 years and one day. However, the criminal requested provisional release on bail, arguing that he was "not a danger to the security of society," while maintaining the obligation for the defendant to sign in at the court's offices.

Francisco Luzoro was the leader of the truck owners of Paine, who acted as the ringleader for several civilians who provided vehicles and logistics for the repressive operations of the Carabineros and military, and participated in the executions of at least seventy peasants and agricultural workers from Paine, a town located 46 kilometers southwest of Santiago, in the current Maipo province.

There were also five other civilians prosecuted, such as Rubén González Carrasco, Claudio Orregón Tudela, and Juan Francisco Luzoro, as accomplices to the aggravated kidnapping of two victims. Later, Luzoro and Mario Tagle Román were charged as authors of the qualified homicide of other victims.

In a third prosecution, Juan Francisco Luzoro and Ricardo Tagle Román were also prosecuted as authors of qualified homicide. In 2017, civilian Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez and retired military officer José Vásquez Silva were also prosecuted as authors of the qualified kidnapping of 22 people, among them Andrés Pereira, father of human rights lawyer Pamela Pereira.

These 22 victims were detained in the town of Paine in October 1973, from where they were taken to the Los Quillayes ravine in the vicinity of Lake Rapel, where they were allegedly executed. The Kast clan and their impunity The accusations against the family of the far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast returned after the Supreme Court ruling on the "Paine Centro" case, which involves the execution and disappearance of 38 inhabitants.

The ruling sentenced 11 former members of the Army and Carabineros. On the program Sin Filtros, Dauno Tótoro, a leader of the Revolutionary Workers' Party (PTR), challenged Teresa Marinovic, a Republican Party convention member, regarding the complicity of the Kast family in the execution and disappearance of 70 people, all men and mostly agricultural workers.

During the discussion, Tótoro invited Marinovic to read the book A la sombra de los cuervos (Ceibo Ediciones, 2015) by journalist Javier Rebolledo, which addresses the role of civilian accomplices in the civil-military dictatorship.

The Kast family is renowned on the right; Miguel Kast, brother of José Antonio Kast, a famous right-wing operator and one of the founding pillars of the UDI, was an architect of the changes to the State (ODEPLAN) during the 80s to adjust it to the new neoliberal economic system that was being implemented at the time, and also had links to the DINA itself, as revealed in the book A la Sombra de los Cuervos by journalist Javier Rebolledo.

Voices against Agrarian Reform At the time of the Coup d'État, Miguel Kast built a good relationship with Jaime Guzmán, also a UDI founder. Earlier, in the 70s, while Agrarian Reform was beginning to rise from peasant organizations and agricultural worker unions in various localities such as Paine, the Kast family allegedly provided trucks and even identified some of those who were later murdered.

Christian Kast, son of the owner of the Bavaria establishments and brother of José Antonio, was summoned to testify by the justice system in 2003. The case was reopened in 2002 by the minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, María Stella Elgarrista, consolidating them into a single case, named "Paine," because 70 citizens from localities such as Pintué, El Escorial, Chada, Culitrín, and Hospital, among others, had been murdered or remained disappeared.

Francisco Luzoro acknowledged that "the operations carried out by Carabineros personnel escorted by us [the civilians] were exclusively to detain people in different places, who were then taken to the Paine Sub-Comisaría, without knowing what their final destination would be (...)" . The Kast family had ties to loans and transport that linked the military and Carabineros to the detentions.

Source: laizquierdadiario.cl 17/6/2022

Date: 06-17-2022

Supreme Court sentences former Carabinero for kidnapping and homicide of 7 victims from Paine

The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court sentenced the former head of the Paine Police Station, Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza, to a total of 37 years in prison for crimes committed against seven residents of Paine in 1973.

Bravo Espinoza, a former captain of the Paine Carabineros, was sentenced to 6 years in prison as the author of the qualified kidnappings of student Pedro Vargas Barrientos, an event that occurred on September 13, 1973; and of brothers Fernando and Juan Humberto Albornoz Prado on September 15 of the same year at the La Esmeralda settlement in Hualquén; and of Jorge Orlando Valenzuela Valenzuela on October 8, 1973.

All these victims remain, to this day, in the status of forcibly disappeared. The highest court also sentenced Bravo to 5 years in prison as an accomplice to the qualified homicide of student Gustavo Hernán Martínez Vera on October 6, 1973; of lathe mechanic José González Sepúlveda, an event that occurred between October 11 and 15, 1973; and of Luis Alberto Díaz Manríquez, who were executed at the San Bernardo Infantry School, located at Cerro Chena.

This is only a part of a total of 70 victims left by the military dictatorship in the town of Paine, starting on September 11, 1973. For the plaintiff lawyer, Nelson Caucoto, "these sentences bring an end to a struggle that lasted 46 years, which seems excessive to us, but which, nevertheless, provides some justice.

Time has done its work, and other defendants in the case passed away during the course of the investigation. There remains a huge number of victims from Paine who are also waiting to successfully conclude their cases."

Source: caucoto.cl 10/10/2019

Date: 10-10-2019

Minister Marianela Cifuentes issues sentence for the qualified kidnapping of Jorge Valenzuela

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced retired Carabineros officer Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza to six years in prison as responsible for the qualified kidnapping of Jorge Orlando Valenzuela Valenzuela, committed starting on October 8, 1973, at the Campo Lindo settlement in the Paine commune.

In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay a total sum of $180,000,000 (one hundred and eighty million pesos) to the victims' families, according to the distribution of amounts specified in the ruling.

The magistrate's investigation established that: 1st. That on October 8, 1973, during the night, police officers from the Paine Carabineros Sub-Comisaría arrived at the "Campo Lindo" settlement in the Paine commune and illegally detained agricultural worker Jorge Orlando Valenzuela Valenzuela, whose whereabouts have been unknown since then, as he was not placed at the disposal of the corresponding administrative or judicial authority, and it is unknown if he was executed and, if so, in what manner, on what date, and the place where his remains were buried. 2nd.

That, on that date, the Paine Carabineros Sub-Comisaría was under the command of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza.

Source: pjud.cl 8/3/2018

Date: 03-08-2018

PAINE CASE: MINISTER MARIANELA CIFUENTES ISSUES INDICTMENT FOR QUALIFIED KIDNAPPINGS AND HOMICIDE

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, issued an indictment in three investigations she is conducting for the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicide, illicit acts perpetrated by state agents between September and October 1973 in the Paine commune.

In the first case (case file 04-02 F "Paine – Canal Viluco"), Minister Cifuentes presented an indictment against Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza and José Osvaldo Retamal Burgos as authors of the crimes of qualified kidnapping and homicide of lathe operator José Gumercindo González Sepúlveda.

According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, the visiting minister was able to establish that "on October 10, 1973, in the afternoon, while José Gumercindo González Sepúlveda was working at his trade as a lathe operator at the Pereira family's workshop, located in the Paine commune, he was illegally detained by Carabineros officers from the Sub-Comisaría of said town, a police unit in charge of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza, among whom was Corporal José Osvaldo Retamal Burgos.

Immediately thereafter, González Sepúlveda was taken to the aforementioned Sub-Comisaría, and his body was later found in the Viluco canal, inside the Carmen Vineyard in Linderos, confirming that his death was caused by a gunshot wound to the cranium." In the second resolution (case file 04-02 E "Paine – Panadería El Sol"), the minister indicted Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza and José Osvaldo Retamal Burgos as authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Pedro León Vargas Barrientos.

In the investigation, the visiting minister established that "on September 13, 1973, while Pedro León Vargas Barrientos was at the El Sol bakery in the Paine commune, he was illegally detained by officers from the Sub-Comisaría of said town, a police unit in charge of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza, among whom was Corporal José Osvaldo Retamal Burgos.

Immediately thereafter, Vargas Barrientos was taken to the aforementioned Sub-Comisaría in a pickup truck driven by Claudio Oregón Tudela, currently deceased, where he was kept locked up and was last seen alive, with no news of his whereabouts to this date." In the third case (case file 04-02 H "Paine – Campo Lindo"), Minister Cifuentes held Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza responsible as the author of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Jorge Orlando Valenzuela Valenzuela.

A case in which it was established that "on October 8, 1973, Carabineros officers from the Paine Sub-Comisaría, a police unit that, at the time, was in charge of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza, illegally detained Jorge Orlando Valenzuela Valenzuela while he was spending the night inside the Campo Lindo settlement in the Paine commune, with his whereabouts unknown to this date."

Source: cronicadigital.cl 30/1/2017

Date: 01-30-2017

Testimony of Juana Mora Díaz, partner of Jorge Valenzuela (germina.cl) (EXTRACT)

My name is Juana Mora Díaz, I was the partner of Jorge Orlando Valenzuela Valenzuela, who was detained on October 8, 1973, in Campo Lindo. I was nearly 26 years old, he was 30, and we were going to get married.

I had two siblings, Guadalupe, "Lupe," and my brother Ramón Capetillo. I met Jorge in Campo Lindo because he was a friend of Ramón; they played soccer together. He was single and had no children. We had been dating for a month when I became pregnant with my son Jorge, who is now 44 years old.

I already had one son, Juan Carlos, and later I had three more: Rosa, Luis, and Alejandro. Today I have six grandchildren, two of whom are Jorge's children. Jorge and I had set the date to get married in November of '73, a month after he was detained.

He had already looked for a house and told me: "When we get married, we are going to live in a house, we are going to buy things." Jorge was quiet; the only thing he liked was smoking. He was just as quiet as my brother Ramón, who was 25 years old when they took him.

He didn't drink, he just smoked like a chimney, and they both liked to play soccer. On Sundays, they would have lunch and head to the April 24th field. My brother was taken from the house. I remember it was around eleven at night when two Carabineros and four civilians arrived and pulled us out of bed.

One of them was the cop Reyes and the other was Sergeant Bravo, who opened the door and entered saying: "We came to look for you, Capetillo, so get dressed, and we're leaving." Ramón got dressed and said goodbye to us.

We asked where they were taking him, and they told us: "We are taking him to the station, you'll see him tomorrow." They also asked us not to go out "Because the soldiers are out and something might happen to you.

They just arrive and shoot. So stay quiet and nothing will happen to you." We didn't do anything, not a thing, just cry and cry. Besides, at that time there was a curfew, so you couldn't go anywhere. The next day, with Eliana Videla, Ramón's wife, we went walking to where Jorge was staying because it wasn't far; we went through the fields to the stable in Campo Lindo, near Buin.

I was seven months pregnant, and Julio, the youngest of Ramón's children, was also with us. We were going to tell him that Ramón had been detained and to have him accompany us to the Paine station so we could find out about him.

We entered the place where Jorge slept, and his things were on the bed. The bed was unmade; his ID card, watch, and documents were on the nightstand. We saw that he wasn't there, that his clothes were there, but at that moment we didn't think they could have taken Jorge too.

It was the neighbors who told us that they had dragged Jorge out with beatings, in his underwear and a vest, around eleven at night—that is, more or less at the same time as Ramón. Maybe they took my brother first and then stopped to get Jorge.

The neighbor said that he was screaming because they were hitting him with a submachine gun or I don't know what they were hitting him with... https://germina.cl

Source: germina.cl 2019 (EXTRACT)