On September 24, 1973, at approximately 16:00 hours, troops belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment arrived at the El Escorial vineyard in Paine, mobilized in a truck and a jeep. They proceeded to detain five agricultural workers, whom they forced to lie on the ground on a soccer field.

From there, they were taken to the Infantry Regiment, where they remained until nearly 22:00 hours, when they were blindfolded and loaded onto a truck bound for the Cerro Chena Detention Center. The arrested individuals were:

• Héctor CASTRO SAEZ, 18 years old, single, no political affiliation;
• Juan Guillermo CUADRA ESPINOZA, 26 years old, married, Socialist Party militant;
• Gustavo Hernán MARTINEZ VERA, married, no political affiliation;
• Juan Bautista NUÑEZ VARGAS, 33 years old, married, Socialist Party militant; and
• Ignacio del Tránsito SANTANDER ALBORNOZ, 17 years old, single.

On the dawn of October 3, an operation was carried out in which thirteen other agricultural workers from the town of Paine were detained. On this occasion, the troops belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment traveled in a red truck, with their faces painted black.

They entered the homes from which they took the detainees, to transport them to San Bernardo and from there to the Cerro Chena Detention Center. These thirteen people were detained that night, along with others who were subsequently released:

• José Angel CABEZAS BUENO, 21 years old, single;
• Francisco Javier CALDERON NILO, 19 years old, single;
• Domingo Antonio GALAZ SALAS, 23 years old, single;
• José Emilio GONZALEZ ESPINOZA, 32 years old, married;
• Juan Rosendo GONZALEZ PEREZ, 23 years old;
• Aurelio Enrique HIDALGO MELLA, 22 years old, single;
• Bernabé del Carmen LOPEZ LOPEZ, 23 years old, single;
• Carlos Manuel ORTIZ ORTIZ, 18 years old, single;
• Héctor Santiago PINTO CARORA, 34 years old, married;
• Pedro Hernán PINTO CAROCA, 42 years old, married;
• Aliro del Carmen VALDIVIA VALDIVIA, 39 years old, married;
• Hugo Alfredo VIDAL ARENAS, 27 years old, married; and
• Víctor Manuel ZAMORANO GONZALEZ, single.

Several people who were detained at the Cerro Chena Detention Center report having been transported there along with the detainees already identified. In that place, they were generally kept blindfolded and subjected to torture and interrogation.

Subsequently, some of them were released. The relatives of the forcibly disappeared went on several occasions to that Detention Center, where the detention was not officially acknowledged. However, in the Writ of Amparo 283-79 filed on behalf of Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza, it was reported on April 16, 1974, by the Interior Zone Chief of the Departments of San Bernardo and Maipo that “the detainees Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza were discharged by the sentries of the Chena Prison Camp on October 4, 1973.” In the month of December, relatives were informed at the Legal Medical Service that there was a record of the entry of the remains of all these detainees and that they had been buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. Around the same date, locals discovered human remains in the Cuesta de Chada area. The relatives went there and were able to recognize, in most cases, remnants of the clothing that the detainees were wearing when they were taken from their homes. The remains, which were scattered at the site, were collected by Carabineros personnel and sent to the Legal Medical Service, where the corresponding forensic examinations were performed, but the identities of the individuals were not determined. In the month of September 1990, the Minister of the Court of Appeals, Germán Hermosilla, constituted himself at that Medical Service with the objective of identifying the remains that had remained as unidentified since 1974. The bodies finally recognized correspond to the following people: José Cabezas Bueno; Francisco Calderón Nilo; Domingo Galaz Salas; Emilio González Espinoza; Juan González Pérez; Aurelio Hidalgo; Bernabé López; Héctor and Pedro Pinto Caroca; Aliro Valdivia Valdivia; Hugo Vidal Arenas, Manuel Zamorano González, Hector Castro Saez, and Juan Nuñez Vargas. According to the information indicated and gathered, the direct responsibility of State agents and civilians from Paine in the detention and death of the detainees on September 24 and October 3, 1973, is proven. Therefore, this Commission has formed the conviction that all of them are victims of a violation of their right to life, with the remains of sixteen of them having been identified: fourteen whose bones were recognized in 1990 and two whose execution was acknowledged by the authority of the time.

Source: Rettig Report

The highest court condemned 10 Army officials as authors of the qualified homicide of 38 people and one Carabinero for the qualified kidnapping of two victims. The Court reclassified the crimes from qualified kidnapping to qualified homicide, nullifying the statute of limitations and increasing the sentences of those convicted.

After 49 years since the events occurred, the Supreme Court issued a final ruling in one of the most emblematic cases perpetrated by the military dictatorship. Through its Second Criminal Chamber, it condemned former uniformed officers for the qualified homicide of 36 agricultural workers and 2 businessmen, all from the town of Paine, who were executed at Cuesta Chada and the Los Quillayes ravine on October 3 and 16, 1973, respectively, at the hands of officials from the San Bernardo Infantry School.

Ministers Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, María Teresa Letelier, and the participating lawyers Diego Murita and Leonor Etchebery, in a historic ruling, condemned Jorge Romero Campos and Arturo Fernández Rodríguez, Army captain and second lieutenant respectively, to 20 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as authors of the qualified kidnapping of the victims.

In this case, the highest court increased their sentences in relation to the second-instance ruling issued by the San Miguel Court of Appeals, in which Romero had been sentenced to 15 years and Fernández to 10.

Similarly, the Court increased the sentences for Corporal José Vásquez Silva and conscripts Carlos Lazo Santibañez, Juan Opazo Vera, and Carlos Durán Rodríguez from 5 to 10 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, also as authors of qualified homicide.

The same sentence was received by conscripts Roberto Pinto Labordarie, Jorge Saavedra Meza, and Víctor Sandoval Muñoz. In the case of conscript Raúl Francisco Areyte Valdenegro, the Court increased his sentence from 5 to 6 years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as the author of 14 qualified homicides.

It should be noted that for all the aforementioned convicts, the highest court reclassified the crimes in relation to the second-instance ruling, from qualified kidnapping to qualified homicide. Likewise, the ministers recognized the collaboration provided by the conscripts through their statements, which contributed to the identifications, and applied the special mitigating factor of substantial collaboration and irreproachable prior conduct.

Meanwhile, Carabineros Captain Nelson Bravo Espinoza was sentenced to 10 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree, a sentence that was increased by 5 years, and his crime was reclassified from simple kidnapping to the qualified kidnapping of Ramón Capetillo Mora and Mario Muñoz Peñaloza, which occurred between October 8 and 10, 1973.

Meanwhile, Osvaldo Magaña Bau, Juan Guillermo Quintanilla, and Carlos Kylling Schmidt, who had been convicted during the process, were dismissed due to being deceased, as was Víctor Pinto Pérez. Plaintiff lawyer Nelson Caucoto, who represents the families of 37 victims, was satisfied as the Court accepted all the cassation appeals they presented and celebrated the ruling, stating that “tomorrow will be a brighter day for the families of the victims of Paine, executed by soldiers of the San Bernardo Infantry School, a day filled with new sensations and hopes.” Caucoto, who has handled the case since its inception, noted that “The highest court of the Republic has issued a final sentence in this case, which speaks of a massacre that occurred 49 years ago in that rural town. Impunity, indolence, and barbarity have been overcome. What the Supreme Court has done is an act of healing for those families and for Chilean society in general. One of the unforgivable crimes of the civil-military dictatorship has been resolved by the Chilean justice system in a civilized manner. Despite the long time that has passed, Justice is possible.” It should be mentioned that the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, the Association of Relatives of Political Executions (AFEP), the Student Federation of the Catholic University (FEUC), and lawyer Luciano Fouillioux, as representative of the father of lawyer Pamela Pereira, Andrés Pereira Salsberng, also acted as plaintiffs in the arguments. In civil matters, the res judicata that had been decreed by the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which prevented some relatives of the victims from accessing reparations, was set aside.

THE FACTS

Cuesta Chada According to the investigation led by the minister in extraordinary visit for human rights cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, it was established that on the afternoon of September 24, 1973, soldiers from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School appeared at the 'El Escorial' settlement in the commune of Paine and detained, without legal basis, Héctor Guillermo Castro Sáez and Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, among others.

After their detention, Héctor Castro Sáez and Juan Núñez Vargas were taken to the Cerro Chena prison camp of the San Bernardo Infantry School, a place where they were kept illegally imprisoned. On October 2, 1973, soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School appeared at the 'El Escorial' settlement in the commune of Paine and detained José Ángel Cabezas Bueno, who, immediately thereafter, was taken to the Cerro Chena prison camp.

On the dawn of October 3, 1973, soldiers commanded by Captain Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos left the Cerro Chena prison camp, under the charge of Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Alonso Magaña Bau and Second Lieutenants Carlos Walter Kyling Schmidt and Arturo Guillermo Fernández Rodríguez, with the detainees José Ángel Cabezas Bueno, Héctor Guillermo Castro Sáez, and Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, in a red Dodge truck driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez.

They headed to the 'El Escorial' settlement in the commune of Paine and detained Francisco Javier Calderón Nilo, Domingo Octavio Galaz Salas, José Emilio González Espinoza, Juan Rosendo González Pérez, Aurelio Enrique Hidalgo Mella, Bernabé del Carmen López López, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, Hernán Pinto Caroca, Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, and Víctor Manuel Zamorano González.

Subsequently, in the same truck, they transported all the detainees to a ravine in Cuesta de Chada and executed them, shooting them with the firearms they were carrying, their corpses being found abandoned at the aforementioned site some time later.

The bones of the bodies were found by the relatives themselves some time later and were collected in a disorganized manner by Carabineros and taken to the Legal Medical Service, where they remained for 20 years piled up in a warehouse without being examined for identification, which was only obtained in the 90s.

Los Quillayes Ravine On October 8, 1973, officials from the Paine Carabineros Sub-station appeared at the 'Campo Lindo' settlement in the same commune and detained, without legal basis, Ramón Alfredo Capetillo Mora, who, immediately thereafter, was locked up in the aforementioned police unit.

In the following days, Ramón Capetillo Mora was taken to the Cerro Chena prison camp of the San Bernardo Infantry School. Two days later, on October 10, 1973, officials from the Paine Carabineros Sub-station appeared at the '24 de Abril' settlement in the same commune and detained, without legal basis, Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza, who, immediately thereafter, was locked up in the aforementioned police unit and taken to the Cerro Chena prison camp of the San Bernardo Infantry School.

At the time of the events, the Paine Carabineros Sub-station was under the charge of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza. Meanwhile, on the dawn of October 16, 1973, soldiers from the same San Bernardo Infantry School, commanded by Captain Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos, left the Cerro Chena prison camp, under the charge of Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Alonso Magaña Bau and Second Lieutenants Carlos Walter Kyling Schmidt and Arturo Guillermo Fernández Rodríguez, with the detainees Ramón Alfredo Capetillo Mora and Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza, in a red Dodge truck driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez, with the objective of detaining twenty-two people in the town of Paine. Thus, in their respective homes, located in the urban area of the commune of Paine, they detained, without legal basis, René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo and Andrés Pereira Salsberg. While at the '24 de Abril' settlement, they detained Patricio Loreto Duque Orellana, José Germán Fredes García, Carlos Enrique Gaete López, Rosalindo Delfín Herrera Muñoz, Jorge Hernán Muñoz Peñaloza, Ramiro Antonio Muñoz Peñaloza, Silvestre René Muñoz Peñaloza, Carlos Alberto Nieto Duarte, Laureano Quiroz Pezoa, Luis Ramón Silva Carreño, and Basilio Antonio Valenzuela Álvarez. At the 'Nuevo Sendero' settlement, they detained José Domingo Adasme Núñez, José Ignacio Castro Maldonado, Luis Alberto Gaete Balmaceda, Luis Rodolfo Lazo Maldonado, Samuel del Tránsito Lazo Maldonado, Carlos Enrique Lazo Quinteros, and Samuel Altamiro Lazo Quinteros; and finally, at the 'El Tránsito' settlement, they detained Pedro Antonio Cabezas Villegas and Roberto Esteban Serrano Galaz. Subsequently, the aforementioned detainees were taken to the Los Arrayanes ravine, in the Los Quillayes sector, in the vicinity of Lake Rapel, where they were executed by firing squad by the aforementioned soldiers and the civilian who accompanied them, who, immediately thereafter, buried their bodies at the same site. Years later, only bone and dental fragments of eleven of the twenty-four victims were found, because their bodies were removed and moved to an unknown location to this date, within the framework of the "Operation Television Removal" in 1978.

Source: adprensa.cl 15/6/2022

Date: 15-06-2022

Bodies of 14 peasants were collected in sacks by their families: New stage in the investigations into executions in Paine

The minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, who is leading new proceedings in the investigation, highlighted that the corpses of the peasants remained for 16 years in cold storage at the SML, without being handed over to their relatives.

A new stage has begun in the investigations into the case of 14 peasants from the Viña El Escorial settlement in Paine, who were detained and executed in 1973 by agents of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

The minister in extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, led a series of proceedings last Monday, November 25, together with officers from the Investigative Brigade of Crimes against Human Rights of the Investigative Police (Bridehu) and personnel from the Legal Medical Service (SML) to carry out an exhaustive analysis of the terrain where soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School executed the 14 peasants in October 1973.

The proceedings will last for a week and include the use of a drone, metal detectors, and excavation, both of the property and of the settling ponds located at the foot of a ravine. "We are at Cuesta Chada, kilometer 38, to begin the proceedings decreed in case 14-2024 for illegal inhumation.

In this place, in 1973, precisely on October 3, soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School executed 14 peasants from the El Escorial sector," indicated the visiting minister. A new stage has begun in the investigations into the case of 14 peasants from the Viña El Escorial settlement in Paine. "That day, after their execution, the bodies were abandoned, and relatives were only able to find them in the month of January 1974.

On that occasion, no work was done at the crime scene; instead, the bodies were collected by the relatives themselves, and after the local Carabineros were notified, they were placed in three burlap sacks.

The bones were disarticulated, fragmented, and were transported to the Legal Medical Service," she explained. "Subsequently, in the month of March of that year, at the Legal Medical Service, a study of these bones was carried out, managing to determine that they were approximately 14 people," she added.

Cifuentes highlighted that the victims' corpses remained for 16 years in cold storage without being handed over to their relatives. "After that, the bodies were not handed over to their relatives, but were placed in cold storage at the Legal Medical Service and remained there for 16 years until 1990, the date on which Minister Germán Hermosilla of the San Miguel Court of Appeals ordered a study of those bones and constituted himself at this place," she recounted, as reported by a press release from the Judiciary. "On that occasion, he constituted himself on October 16 and 17, 1990, managing to find bone evidence, ballistic evidence, and even cultural evidence again. But it was not done with the latest technology either, and therefore, although the case related to these events, which is the main Paine case, is closed, a complaint was filed by the Human Rights Program within the framework of the National Search Plan in order to carry out an exhaustive study of the terrain, which is what is going to be done on this occasion," she concluded. Kidnapping and homicide of 14 Paine peasants According to the information gathered during the investigation stage, the visiting minister established the following facts: "That, on the dawn of October 3, 1973, at the El Escorial settlement in Paine, soldiers from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School, under the charge of Second Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Magaña, detained, without legal basis, Francisco Javier Calderon Nilo, Domingo Octavio Galaz Salas, José Emilio González Espinoza, Juan Rosendo González Pérez, Aurelio Enrique Hidalgo Mella, Bernabé del Carmen López López, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, Hernán Pinto Caroca, Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, and Víctor Manuel Zamorano González, to then execute them along with Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, Héctor Castro Sáez, and José Cabeza Bueno, in the Cuesta Chada sector, to which they were transported in the aforementioned red Dodge truck, driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez, shooting them with the firearms they were carrying, their corpses being found abandoned at the aforementioned site some time later."

Source: elciudadano.cl, November 27, 2024

Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas Testimony of María Soto Garrido (EXCERPT)

Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas is one of the seventy men who were forcibly disappeared and executed in Paine. He was 33 years old at the time of his detention and disappearance, married, had two daughters, was a Socialist Party militant, and worked as an agricultural laborer.

He was detained on September 24, 1973, from the El Escorial settlement in Paine by troops belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment, who were mobilized in a truck and a jeep, proceeding to detain four more agricultural workers, who were taken to the Infantry Regiment and subsequently to the Cerro Chena Detention Center.

He was executed by military personnel on October 3, 1973; his body remained at the Legal Medical Institute from 1974, and his remains were handed over to his relatives in 1991. Below, we present the testimony of María Soto Garrido, wife of Juan Núñez Vargas.

This testimony is based on conversations held between María and the researcher from Germina, knowledge for action. My name is María Soto Garrido and my husband was Juan Núñez Vargas; we had two daughters, María Teresa, who was not yet four years old, and Ximena, who was a little over a year old.

We lived in the El Escorial settlement. They detained him on September 24, 1973, along with four companions from the same settlement, by soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment, and they took them to Cerro Chena.

I never knew the reasons why they took him into custody. Juan drove a truck and would go to get food for everyone at the JAP, where they would give him chicken, sugar, all those things because there was nowhere else to buy anything.

That was all he did; perhaps that is why they took him. My family arrived in Paine from Navidad; I was 12 years old and we were seven siblings. My father came to work in the town of Colonias de Paine, because there was no work there and also to provide us with an education.

He had some land that he rented for grazing, which still exists, so he had never worked, and he left everything behind and came. At 18, I was living in Paine with a family from Angol and I went to El Escorial because someone spoke to me about the owner of the estate, Teresa Ossandón, and she sent for me to take care of the two little girls she had.

That is how I went to work as a live-in maid; I slept with the little girls. The bosses always treated me well, but regarding Juan's detention, they did not help at all. In fact, the boss himself, Mr. Patricio Gana Lyon, and his brother-in-law gave the names, surnames, and nicknames of those they detained on the estate.

In El Escorial, I met my husband, as his family was from there, and after a while, we got married. There, I stopped working taking care of Mrs. Teresa's girls, but we stayed living on the premises. The day they took him, I had my youngest daughter sick, so I took her to the Buin health clinic.

On the way back, we couldn't find a bus and had to come to Paine in a taxi. The taxi driver said to us, "Look, I'll just drop you off at the door, because inside it's full of painted soldiers, they are all painted." When we got out of the car, the truck with the detainees was leaving.

It stopped and my husband got out, handed me the keys to the house, and said, "Go talk to the Captain of Paine," because he, Nelson Bravo, was always in El Escorial, he would take wine and always told them that if anything happened, they should let him know so he could help.

That was the last time I saw Juan alive. I went to drop off Ximena, who was a little over a year old, at the house of Mrs. María Nilo, whose son, Arturo, was also detained at that time but they let him go.

She passed away recently and always took care of my girls. I left her and went to see the Captain, but he never came out; he wasn't there. Also, along with other women, we would arrive at the gate of Cerro Chena and ask for our husbands, and the military would not give us information; they only said that there were people inside.

There were many of us, Mrs. Genoveva Bozo, Alicia Santander; in reality, we all went, those of us who were left alone, whose husbands were taken from El Escorial. Days passed when we learned that on October 3, they transported them in a truck and executed them at Cuesta de Chada; they went there to kill them.

My brother-in-law, Marcial, who worked hauling animals to graze in that sector, was the one who found my husband's clothes, his pants, his light blue shirt—I remember it as if it were today—a red sweater, and rubber boots, because they took him when he was watering the vineyard; that was his job.

All his things were brought to me. My brother-in-law told me that he was coming down with more people with the animals and found the clothes and a ditch where there were human remains, but they didn't throw my husband in the ditch; they were a little further away, under a quillay bush; there were his clothes, his hair, and some little bones.

That is all there was; there was nothing more. I set off for Cuesta de Chada; in reality, we all set off, in whatever we could. We went in a tractor trailer, we went in a horse-drawn carriage. A whole afternoon to go and be there.

Some brought things that could serve to recognize those of their brother, son, husband, or father. All that clothing remained there; we just left it there. Later, the place was fenced off by the military because it was private property, and they didn't let anyone go up, not even the people who lived around those parts.

They also put up two rails from the train line, and that was as far as we could go. Now it is beautiful with the crosses they put up. (EXCERPT) The mosaic of Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas In the construction of my husband's mosaic, many people participated who came to help us: teachers, doctors, young people, and they did almost everything, because although I was always there, it made me sad.

But I gave all the ideas to make Juan's mosaic. Thus, two doves were made; the one on the right represents my husband and the one on the left, me. In the center, there is a heart with two little red roses; one is María Teresa and the other is Ximena, our daughters.

Some cacti were also placed because there are those in Chada, where they found them; a guitar, because he played it and liked it a lot; and a Chilean flag because it seemed to one of the people that it fit well. My husband's mosaic means a lot to me because all my inspiration is there, because everything came from me.

Source: germina.cl 2016