On September 23, while at his home in Mulchén, José del Carmen ORELLANA GATICA, 23 years old, an agricultural worker at Fundo El Verdún and a peasant union leader, was detained by civilians and taken to an unknown location.

To this date, his fate and whereabouts remain unknown. The Commission, based on the testimonies received and the repetition of similar cases in the area affecting peasants—especially when they were union leaders—formed the conviction that the detention and disappearance of José Orellana involved human rights violations for which civilians acting under the protection of State agents were responsible.

Source: Rettig Report

The untold story of the 36 civilians who caused the deaths of hundreds of peasants.

An LND team traveled 2,500 kilometers across three regions in southern Chile to scrutinize the secrets of the most ferocious massacres of peasants that occurred during the dictatorship. Behind these crimes were landowners, merchants, and neighbors who waged a dirty war in alliance with military personnel and Carabineros.

Thirty-five years after these crimes, and despite the fact that justice has been served in some cases, the majority remain free and still roam the country's fields, towns, and hamlets as masters and lords.

It was a vengeance that terrorized entire villages, sheltered each time by the darkness of night. The perpetrators of the crimes against peasants and workers of other trades were local civilian masters who, after the military coup and in alliance with the military and the uniformed police, decided the life and death of the victims they chose.

Some acted disguised in war attire, prepared and determined to exterminate those who had defended their rights against the exploitation that had always been installed in the fields. Sometimes, even before the coup, they carried out paramilitary tasks alongside the far-right movement Patria y Libertad.

Others acted in connection with various fascist-leaning groups organized to violently oppose the workers' achievements during the years of the socialist dream. But all responded with the hatred of witnessing how their eternal subjects and servants of their fortune-producing desires were gaining ground, countering humiliations and abuses against their dignity and that of their families.

Especially inside the fundos (estates), where the law was the boss. These are dramatic stories where, on some occasions, the parents or relatives themselves blamed their own kin for getting involved in union struggles for labor improvements, justifying their bosses, these civilian activists, and the military for having hunted them down and made them disappear.

In every city, in every town or foothill hamlet where death arrived dressed in civilian clothes or disguised in olive green, the terror instilled by the hand of these powerful men remains to this day. The inhabitants are hostile to questions about those times.

They invoke oblivion due to the passage of time, or simply confess while looking around that they still fear the return of the scourge that filled the streets and rural paths with blood. Some of these civilian perpetrators of the massacres still walk the same paths frequented by the relatives of the fallen to buy their daily bread.

Sometimes they spit on them as they pass, insulting them for having brought them to sit on the defendants' benches in a court. The mothers or siblings who dared early on to overcome the fear of constant threats by judicially pursuing these perpetrators suffered the double punishment of losing their own and receiving the contempt of their neighbors.

And even from the fellow combatants of their loved ones, who crossed to the other side of the street to avoid those sad and helpless eyes that, to this day, have never stopped searching for their disappeared.

La Nación Domingo compiled the list of the 51 civilians prosecuted or convicted for the kidnapping and disappearance, or for the homicides, of field workers and others who practiced multiple trades. Of the total, 15 are Germans from Colonia Dignidad, who are not addressed in this report because their movements are well known.

However, for the vast majority of the other 36, their identities and actions remain publicly unknown. The team of three LND journalists traveled 2,500 kilometers and crossed three regions between Osorno and Los Ángeles, including foothill areas, to retrace the route of vengeance.

Everything happened in the midst of the biggest storm in the last 30 years, which left 17,000 victims, navigating their vehicle through flooded highways and interior roads. Miguel Ángel Fuentealba was five years old when, on October 10, 1973, the black of night was stained red in the hamlet of Liquiñe, 150 kilometers east of Valdivia, near the border with Argentina.

His father was taken along with ten other peasants to the Toltén River bridge in Villarrica; they shot him several times and opened his belly with a corvo (knife) so that his body would not float and would disappear into the current.

Miguel, now in his forties, did not know for many years what happened to his father, Isaías. In the afternoons, he would comb his hair well, put on his best clothes, "and all polished up, I would sit in an armchair outside the house to wait for my old man to return on the estate bus he always arrived on." He stutters a little—a condition that began then—looks you in the eye, and suddenly his voice becomes softer due to the emotion of the memory.

Outside, in the streets of Villarrica, where we found him in a café, the rain is imposing. Luis García Guzmán was the son of Julián, owner of the Termas de Liquiñe (Liquiñe Hot Springs), both rabid anti-communists.

The inn and cabins of the complex served as headquarters for the hunt. There, Luis García and his father, now deceased, made the list of who had to be hunted for Captain Hugo Guerra Jonquera, who arrived with military forces from Valdivia.

The Garcías also provided the vehicles to transport the detainees to their final destination. Eleven peasants from the Paimún, Trafún, and Carranco estates suffered the sentence imposed on them by these masters and lords of the small town.

The Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, to which the three properties belonged—the largest timber area in hectares and peasant power in the history of Chile, strengthened during the Allende government with José Liendo Vera, "Commander Pepe," as its main leader—was feared then by the landowners of the foothills of the X Region.

Now it was time for the reversal, when it was time to collect in lives. But that night, the wife of Luis García, María Hernández Calderón, saw everything. Twenty years later, García abandoned her and their two children for another woman, and it was she who now took revenge and denounced what she witnessed that October night: the eleven peasants tied up and blindfolded in the Garcías' vehicles, and her husband driving, one of them dressed in military uniform.

She saw the death convoy leave the inn headed for the Toltén River. Refugees from the rain under the eaves of the building where she lives in Villarrica, María spoke with LND to tell of her misfortune.

But after her confession to the justice system in 2005, García visited her and, with threats, forced her to sign a letter retracting her statements where she recounted what happened. "I signed the letter so he would leave me alone, because he was arrogant; nobody likes him anymore because of that." But months later, the woman struck back and again ratified her statements in the process being investigated for this episode.

Her integrity and courage are surprising, as are her clear ideas. We fled the cold and rain, and she joined us for hot chocolate to warm the bitter memories. As a prank of fate, Luis García, who was also a "constable" for the Carabineros, baptized his current native wood business with the name of one of the estates from the tragedy: "Maderas Nativas Paimún S.A.," on the highway between Villarrica and Lican Ray.

We looked for him there without luck. His wife says he is in Santiago. Miguel Ángel, one of the five children his father, Isaías, left behind, does not hide that for a long time he thought about killing the Garcías when he learned the truth years later.

As a teenager, he had to work at the hot springs because they were the only ones in the village providing work. His mother, Honorinda, also served the masters. And the Garcías, with their military cronies, continued to come to celebrate and sing with the guitar at his grandmother's tavern in Liquiñe. "There is still a hope that he will return, although I know it is irrational.

My daughter sometimes says to me: 'What if Grandpa is alive in another country?' The mind is so strange," Miguel Ángel muses, looking out the café window at the wet street. In October 1994, the Garcías sold the tourist complex to the Navy, which acquired it for 196 million pesos, under the scrutiny of Panguipulli notary Leonardo Calderara.

When asked, the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Rodolfo Codina, claimed to be unaware of the tragic past of what is now a recreation site for officers and seafarers. "I am unaware if these hot springs had any connection to human rights violations," the admiral replied to LND.

In Liquiñe, Miguel Ángel's aunts, Gloria and Marta, are surprised by our arrival to ask about that past that they and the whole town would like to bury forever. The expressions of affection toward "Grandpa Julián" and "Don Lucho"—the Garcías who helped kill their brother-in-law Isaías—sound violent.

Marta is direct: "He asked for it; why was he getting involved in nonsense?" she sentences in defense of the masters of the hamlet. And she completes the sentiment by warning that it was Isaías who was the true culprit of his own death and not the Garcías.

The woman's words seem like her own sentence in the store where we found her. Her daughter also speaks familiarly of "Grandpa Julián" as if he were her own. A couple of years ago, the small town of Liquiñe took to the streets with flags and banners to support Luis García, after he was sentenced in the first instance to five years and one day as the perpetrator of the kidnappings and disappearance of the peasants. "Don Lucho" arrived asking for signatures of support in his favor, and almost all of the 1,200 inhabitants of the place backed and hugged him.

It is the real and contradictory life of these villages where sometimes it seems that not even Christ himself has arrived yet. As contradictory as the stormy sky that suddenly opens in a break from the deluge, and in the midst of the darkness, the loneliness, and the fullest silence, reveals its mantle of stars and constellations that are overwhelming and that we contemplate, numb, with respect for the immensity and mystery of that southern universe.

Heading north, in the VIII Region, is Santa Bárbara. From there, more than 30 kilometers toward the mountains, an endless winding road, full of mud and plagued by forest plantations, ends at the imposing El Huachi estate.

It is preceded only by the hamlet of the same name, humble in its surroundings, which seems like a haphazard extension of the field owned by the Barrueto Barting family. It is no coincidence that everyone knows them, since many of the locals work their lands and settled there looking for a way to survive.

To reach the estate where the brothers Manuel and Ricardo Barrueto live, one only needs to pronounce their surname, and arms are always raised in the same direction, deep into the forests. Once inside the property, one of the house employees with an impressive view of the Huequecura River tells us that "the boss" left in the morning, as he has another residence in Los Ángeles and alternates his stay between both places. "He is somewhat ill; he left to have some tests done.

It is most likely he will arrive tomorrow or the day after," she says kindly. After the discouraging response, the return to Santa Bárbara became inevitable. After advancing through steep hills, the road indicating the exit of the estate appeared.

But the gate is blocked by an all-terrain motorcycle that is lying across it, as if it were just another pine among the thousands that the Barruetos have on their property ready for logging. To the side of the vehicle, a tall man waits in a threatening attitude.

He has gray hair, dry eyes, and a face wrapped in a pair of pale cheeks. He wears a red jockey cap and, with his gaze lowered, approaches inquisitively. In one hand he carries a digital camera; the other rests on a bulge located at his waist.

After scrutinizing the car and its occupants, his small mouth states briefly that he is Ricardo Barrueto Barting. He does not acknowledge it, but he is one of the two brothers who are currently being prosecuted for the kidnapping of six peasants, which occurred just after the coup, all of them employees on his estate.

Without further ado, he expels us from the property; there are no more questions. "No one enters here without my permission," he sentences. He takes a photograph of our car and the license plate, while we immortalize him back with our camera.

Twenty-four hours later, we would learn that a supposed detective from the Investigative Police called the company Seellmann Rent a Car, where the vehicle was rented, to ask for the renters' data, arguing that it had been used "by Mapuche activists to cause disturbances." Mrs.

Norma Panes knows the tricks of Ricardo Barrueto well. In 2006, after the minister of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana, took on several human rights cases in the Bío Bío area, she had a confrontation with him.

It took place in the middle of the reconstruction of the scene for the 20 kidnappings of workers and peasants that the town of Santa Bárbara suffered between September and October 1973, and which to this day have left many families without knowing the whereabouts of their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers.

There, facing his face, Ricardo pointed out to her that on the night her husband, Miguel Cuevas Pincheira, "was taken from the house in his underwear by uniformed men," he was not there. But she asserts that the Barruetos were part of the group of civilians who, disguised as military personnel, took her husband in the middle of the night on September 20.

Norma Panes says she saw them clearly, and so did her daughter. Upon showing her the updated photo (see image) that we obtained of Ricardo Barrueto, Norma does not hesitate: "It's him." His face, like Manuel's, remained etched in her memory with as much force as those years when her husband was just another worker on the El Huachi estate, a job he alternated with his trade as a shoemaker.

The testimonies of the families of six more peasants who worked at El Huachi, kidnapped on the same day and at similar hours, allowed for the prosecution in 2002 of the Barruetos and the civilians Sergio Fuentes Valenzuela, Jorge Domínguez Larenas, and the brothers Jorge and José Valdivia Dames, who formed a true mini-Caravan of Death.

Norma illustrates it in the following way: "That day, what the group of civilians, all of them members of Patria y Libertad, did together with the Carabineros was, literally, to clean the field for the Barruetos." Then, a memory of the years following her husband's disappearance comes to her mind: "They were all friends with each other.

On one occasion, in the middle of the dictatorship, I ran into a couple of them on a corner. Since they knew I was still looking for my husband, they spat in my face," she says. The attitude of the Barruetos, apparently, is not very different.

After moving the motorcycle to clear the way, minutes later, one of the peasants hitched a ride with us to get to the highway that connects Ralco with Los Ángeles. On the way, he said that Barrueto had asked him if he knew whose white vehicle had entered the estate without permission.

And he warned us about Ricardo: "When he saw you enter, he said that you weren't leaving here." The young man, a simple forestry worker, lucidly added that "he is a bad man, arrogant, a jerk as a boss, who pays just enough to survive.

He takes advantage of the suffering and need of the worker." Currently, the civilians responsible for the massacre remain prosecuted. After executing them, most were thrown into the Bío Bío River from the Santa Bárbara bridge.

A few kilometers south of Santa Bárbara, in Mulchén, another wave of kidnappings was carried out thanks to the coordinated work of civilians and Carabineros. Organized in the same way, but on this occasion dressed in their own clothes, they arrived in the night to seek their vengeance.

One of them fell upon the worker and leader of a peasant union, José Orellana Gatica. His captors: Rolf During Pohler and Samuel Arriagada Domínguez, plus the police contingent at their service. The motive was clear: the worker worked inside the Verdún estate (a name that alludes to the bloody battle of the First World War fought by Germans and French), whose owners were During's parents.

The wife of José Orellana, Sara Mendoza, remembers that on the night of September 28, '73, the picket arrived outside the house they had inside the master's property. Without asking, they opened fire, and after a few moments, they kicked down the door.

They took her husband and dragged him out by force. It was not difficult for her to recognize During and Arriagada, since she always saw them together inside the estate. Desperate, she went out with a candelabra, but a gunshot blew it from her hand.

José's father, who also lived there and worked for the Durings, did not get up. His wife begged him to intercede on behalf of his son, but the man, faithful to his boss, told her to shut up and keep sleeping.

A few days later, the man kicked Sara out of the estate and continued working for the Durings for his entire life. At that moment, she was 21 years old and six months pregnant. For the LND team, it was impossible to find Rolf During, as he moves between several properties he maintains between the VIII, IX, and X Regions.

However, we found his inseparable friend until now, Samuel Arriagada, with whom he traveled in the same vehicle to testify for this case at the Concepción Court of Appeals. Also the son of large landowners, but today fallen on hard times, Arriagada does not appear in any public registry.

Only the house in his sister's name alerts us to his possible presence. It is an old wooden mansion located on the corner of Soto and Villagrán streets. In a small store located to the side, they confirm to us that Samuel Arriagada lives in that house and that, although he is an unfriendly character, they do not know that he is involved in crimes committed during the dictatorship.

In the presence of a camera, of all the people who passed by the place, the only one who gave a suspicious look and was annoyed when they photographed the front of the house was a guy about 65 years old, wearing a jacket and blue jeans.

A few seconds later, he enters the house, and there is no doubt: it is Samuel Arriagada. Asked about his procedural situation, at first, he denied being involved in any trial. Upon reminding him that he was detained for several weeks in 2003, he says he has nothing to do with it and that he does not trust the press.

He did not accept more questions; he just kept his gaze fixed until we disappeared from his corner. His silent hermeticism contrasts with the image Sara took with her when she confronted him. "He only lacked hitting me," she remembers.

But she never shrank. "Every time I found them at the bank or somewhere, I would arrive with my son in my arms and say to him, especially to Rolf: 'Kill me too.' He always limited himself to lowering his face.

His mother even offered me money so that I would stop accusing them. I wasn't interested in that. I didn't accept a single peso from them," says the woman with black eyes and a tender smile. Sara's combative attitude is isolated.

José's brothers, for example, refused to undergo DNA tests at the Legal Medical Service to determine if any of the bone remains found in various parts of Chile could match. "They are afraid that the coup will return and they will wipe everything out again," warns Sara.

In any case, for her, the longing to find her husband again was always stronger. Although she lived for 20 years with another man and had a son with him, she does not hesitate to show her cards. "I choose José a hundred times.

My best moments are when I dream of him. I am by his side and he tells me to stop looking for him. That's when I listen to him and I am happy. When I wake up, everything changes," she says. Although neither of the two confessed to the kidnapping, Samuel Arriagada is currently sentenced in the first instance to five years and one day in prison for the aggravated kidnapping of José Orellana.

Rolf During, meanwhile, was given 10 years. The reason is that the descendant of Germans keeps another dead man under the table. In this last case, he does acknowledge that he was one of those who pulled the trigger.

In his judicial statement before the minister with exclusive dedication Carlos Aldana, Rolf During acknowledged that on September 28, while he was on guard duty supporting the Carabineros, he received Jorge Narváez Salamanca, who arrived detained in the company of "a group of people." He does not remember who they were.

Subsequently, During relates, he got into a car and sat next to Narváez until they arrived at the Quilaco police station, a small town located a few kilometers from Mulchén. There, Carabinero Lieutenant Jorge Maturana (also convicted) was waiting for them.

After an hour of waiting, they took him to the Quilaco bridge, located over the Bío Bío River, sat him on one of the railings, and then proceeded to execute him. The other civilian who was present at the crime scene, José Horacio Pacheco Padilla, also declared that During was one of the three who fired.

Regarding his participation, he indicated that he participated in the detention and that, as he was not armed, he was only an eyewitness. However, Pacheco Padilla was a schoolmate at the Liceo de Hombres of the city with Jorge Narváez (he was one grade ahead), belonged to the Patria y Libertad group, and also to the civilian support group for the Carabineros.

On the other hand, Narváez was 15 years old at the time and was a member of the MIR. Hence, the judicial evidence points to the fact that it was he who gave the name of his classmate. When one asks about José Pacheco, in Mulchén his name sounds familiar. "He drives one of those yellow-sign shared taxis," comments a neighbor.

The description adds that he works for "line number 2," which has its booth at the end of Victoria Street, almost at the urban limit of the small city. It is a green wooden shack, surrounded by the classic black vehicles that arrive and leave.

The rest of the taxi drivers say that Pacheco drives a Chevrolet Corsa, the only one on the line. Furthermore, everyone says he is an affable and nice guy. None of them acknowledge knowing that he has any kind of problems with the justice system.

They consider him a quiet man who lives with his family. After a few minutes of waiting, the vehicle appears. From its interior descends a guy about 52 years old, robust, pot-bellied, gray-haired, and with a mustache.

He hurries to inquire about the reason for our presence. "A little ride to Los Ángeles," we answer as an excuse to know how he carries himself despite his past. He decides to pose next to his vehicle, with absolute relaxation.

In more than 32 years, no one, except for one or two relatives of the victims, reminded him of his crime: having been part of a group of volunteers who illegally detained Jorge Narváez Salamanca and participating in his execution.

Like Rolf During, for years Pacheco denied his participation in the death of Narváez. Only in recent years has his memory been refreshed. He is currently sentenced to five years and one day. If his first-instance sentence is confirmed, he will have to go to prison.

During as well. The machine-gun fire and the buzzing of bullets broke the silence of the southern night. Today, at midnight, in the corners of the X Region, one can still hear the beating of the trees resisting the wind, the drops of water falling from the branches, and the murmur of the nocturnal fauna.

The night of September 16, 1973, was one of those where it was not the thunder that tore through nature, but the bursts of weapons from uniformed men and civilians that were discharged against peasants, who were a generational part of that nature.

On that same date, at the same time, the Valderas family was preparing to sleep. Although they had heard about the coup in Santiago, they did not think that the caravans of death that were unleashed in the country could reach them.

Moreover, the 16 siblings who made up the family were beginning to arrive to gather for the days of the National Holidays. All this until the footsteps of several men were heard coming toward the humble dwelling, located 200 meters from the road that bordered Lake Puyehue.

Flavio, the eldest son, accidentally ran into the group halfway when he was heading to the latrine. "Halt there, we are looking for Flavio Heriberto Valderas, don't move, you son of a bitch; we're going to kill you, asshole," said a Carabinero.

A blow with the butt of a rifle broke the young man's right supraorbital arch and detached part of his skin. "My mother said that his eye had popped out from the blow," relates his sister Luz Marina. In her simple house, located on Diego de Almagro Street, she related to LND that "my brother was a quiet, hardworking kid who, a couple of weeks earlier, had fought with a Carabinero, and he had threatened him.

That night, Barrientos accompanied the Carabinero patrol, guided them, and provided them with vehicles. He also indicated where 'Cantarito' lived and entered with the detachment to point him out, because he also thought that my brother had locked his door to annoy him." It is on record in the case file that Flavio Heriberto never had any political activity and that his death corresponded more to a personal vendetta.

But Luz Marina Valderas has not forgotten any of the numerous occasions she has had to encounter Jorge Barrientos Camadro in Osorno. The justice system says he was one of those responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of her brother Flavio Heriberto, whom they nicknamed "Cantarito." Currently, Barrientos is a guy who always wears a jacket, blue jeans, and boots.

He wears a huaso (cowboy) hat and gets around in an all-terrain vehicle. He has two estates: one in Puerto Octay and another in Puyehue. His life, in the last 35 years, has been quiet, except for his constant violent outbursts and his well-known bad temper.

The former owner of Radio Sago, Pedro Burgos, related to those close to him about a meeting at the local hunting and fishing club, which the subject attended. The elderly man related how Barrientos took a pistol from his waist to shoot into the air because he did not agree with a decision.

That is how he has spent his life, between the estates, the Tattersall livestock fair, and, recently, parading through courts and spending some time in jail. Luz Marina has worked for Senator Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle for many years.

She takes care of the apartment the legislator maintains in a downtown building. But she has also worked for years as a waitress at events. "Once I had to work the inauguration cocktail for a Soprole drying plant.

I was serving from a tray and had to pass by his side. He recognized me and knocked the tray out of my hand with a slap," the woman remembered. She also says she does not forget the hatred with which he looked at her the morning when, again by chance, she was passing by to drop off the keys to her truck at a flower stall, before leaving for Concepción, where several days of preventive detention awaited him—the only time he has been deprived of liberty for the forced disappearance of the peasant.

After the journey, we confirmed that 35 years after the massacres, these "gentlemen" remain the masters of their small kingdoms, whose subjects continue to fear them, as if that same fateful night that many would have preferred not to live were today.

Source: La Nación, September 7, 2008

Date: 09-07-2008

The Concepción Court of Appeals issued a second-instance sentence in the investigation into the aggravated kidnappings of seven people, which occurred between September 22 and November 3, 1973, in the town of Mulchén, Bío Bío Region. In a unanimous ruling, the ministers Irma Bavestrello, Claudio Gutiérrez, and the participating lawyer Nelson Villena determined the following sanctions:

• Jorge Pacheco Padilla and Eduardo Arriagada Domínguez: 3 years of imprisonment with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence for the kidnappings of Jorge Narváez Salamanca and José Orellana Gatica.
• Rolf During Pohler: 4 years of imprisonment with the benefit of supervised release for the aggravated kidnappings of Jorge Narváez Salamanca and José Orellana Gatica.
• Jorge Maturana Concha: 5 years of imprisonment with the benefit of supervised release for the kidnappings of Jorge Narváez Salamanca, Valentín Lara Espinoza, and Nibaldo Seguel Muñoz. In addition, he was acquitted for the kidnapping of Segundo Reyes González.

Source: Judicial Bulletin, April 3, 2009

Date: 04-03-2009

Mulchén judge prosecutes former Carabinero for human rights violation

The former uniformed officer is the former head of the Mulchén Carabinero Station, Captain (ret.) Jorge Maturana, prosecuted for his responsibility in the disappearance of the student Gabriel Lara Espinoza, 17 years old.

CONCEPCION.—The Mulchén Court today submitted to prosecution a former Carabinero and two civilians for their participation in cases of human rights violations that occurred in the Bío Bío province, Eighth Region, during the military regime.

The former uniformed officer is the former head of the Mulchén Carabinero Station, Captain (ret.) Jorge Maturana, prosecuted for his responsibility in the disappearance of the student Gabriel Lara Espinoza, 17 years old.

The other two accused are the civilians Samuel Arriagada and Roll Muren, for the kidnapping of José Orellana, son of a worker at the Verdún estate. The latter two have already been submitted to prosecution for the kidnapping of Jorge Narváez Salamanca, a 17-year-old youth, executed and thrown into the waters of the Bío Bío River on September 28, 1973.

It should be noted that the Mulchén Criminal Court is substantiating five cases related to human rights violations during the military regime; three of them are the ones that record significant progress in the investigation.

Source: emol.cl, April 28, 2003

Date: 04-28-2003