Although the mayor of Providencia, Colonel (ret.) Cristián Labbé Galilea, threatened the Intendant of the Metropolitan Region, Marcelo Trivelli, with a lawsuit for libel and slander because the regional authority accused him of having been a DINA agent and part of a dictatorship that committed crimes against humanity, in practice, the document has not yet reached the courts.

Lanacion.cl presents below the document that provides proof that Colonel (ret.) Labbé was indeed a DINA agent: a document signed by the head of that organization himself, the then-Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, in which he requests a passport from the Foreign Ministry for Labbé as a DINA agent.

But Labbé’s history in the DINA was not just that mysterious “service commission” to which Contreras sent him in 1974 along with three other individuals. Furthermore, Labbé was part of the DINA elite as an instructor for the agents who were being selected as early as late 1973, at Rocas de Santo Domingo in the Fifth Region.

It was there that the first instructions for violating human rights and for the commission of multiple crimes by chiefs and subordinates began to be imparted. The name of Labbé as a DINA instructor at Rocas de Santo Domingo was provided to some judges investigating human rights cases by some former agents, as was the case with Samuel Fuenzalida Devia, a statement of which our newspaper has a copy.

Source: La Nación, October 12, 2004

By September 11, 1973, merchant marine officer Anatolio Zárate was serving as president and fleet manager of the state-owned fishing company Arauco in San Antonio. As such, he represented President Salvador Allende on the company's board of directors.

Furthermore, Zárate was a member of the Socialist Party, the son of a renowned gynecologist, and a personal friend of Allende. His brother was the President's godson. Reasons enough to head the list of the most wanted in the port.

On the day of the coup d'état, he was arrested at his home on Calle Luis Alberto Araya in San Antonio by an Army reserve officer and a group of conscripts. The military raided the residence, interrogated him for almost two hours, and informed him that he was under house arrest.

Nine days later, on September 20, 1973, he was sent to the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers Regiment, where he remained detained until October 30, accused—like many others—of participating in the false Plan Z.

His ordeal began at that facility. In December 2004, Zárate gave a statement before Judge Alejandro Solís in the context of the investigation into the lawsuit filed by the victims of Tejas Verdes. “Upon arriving at the regiment, they kept me with my forehead pressed against a wall, my hands tied behind my back, and my legs spread apart from ten in the morning until approximately seven-thirty in the evening.

Later (...) they took me to the prisoner camp, a place where I remained for 15 days out in the open, sleeping outdoors.” Days later, they made the prisoners sleep in shacks built by the prisoners themselves.

During that period, Zárate claims to have seen the councilman and president of the CUT (Central Workers' Union) of San Antonio, Luis Norambuena, and Ceferino Santis, a PS (Socialist Party) leader from the city, who currently appear as forcibly disappeared.

In the 2004 statement given by Zárate, one of the last to be called to testify before Solís, he recounts the abuses he heard and the duress to which he was subjected: “They made us wait under the torture room, where we heard the screams of those being tortured, the screams of the women who begged not to be raped.

In the torture room, they applied electricity to me; I suffered hangings, blows from feet and hands, and the 'submarine' [waterboarding] with excrement.” He also named other former detainees from San Antonio, including Ana Becerra, Mariela Bacciarini, and Luis Sepúlveda.

Furthermore, Zárate declared before Solís that during his last interrogation he managed to see “a lieutenant who was one of the main torturers; he was tall, solid, blond, freckled, straight hair, very savage, and I know his name was Lieutenant Labbé, I don't know his first name.” The following year, the former president of Pesquera Arauco filed a lawsuit against Cristián Labbé, Manuel Contreras, and other military personnel.

In that filing, he detailed that when he spoke of “Lieutenant Labbé,” he was referring to Cristián Labbé Galilea. The summary of the Tejas Verdes case remains open. There are several individuals under indictment, among them Army Major (ret.) Mario Jara Seguel, former Investigations prefect Nelson Patricio Valdés, and doctor Vittorio Orvietto Teplizky, identified by Zárate as the people who tortured him.

However, the judge in the case has not deemed Zárate's 2004 statement sufficient evidence to indict the mayor of Providencia to date. Sources close to the courts claim that Solís has not followed that line of investigation because the plaintiff lawyers had not provided new information or requested other proceedings until now.

Last Friday, Anatolio Zárate's lawyer, Alejandra Arriaza, provided the court with a sworn statement from her client, adding information that would identify Colonel (ret.) Cristián Labbé Galilea as one of those present while he was being tortured. “We believe it is fundamental that Labbé's responsibility be determined, since there is more than one witness who recognizes having seen him at Tejas Verdes.

Mr. Zárate's motivation for providing this new judicial testimony is the search for truth and to ratify his statements so that the investigation of his lawsuit can be accelerated,” says Arriaza. Anatolio Zárate lives in an apartment located in Providencia, very close to the municipality that Labbé runs.

Today he asserts that in one of the torture sessions to which he was subjected, he recognized him clearly: “It was Lieutenant Labbé, who today is the same person who is the mayor (...) I was tortured by Labbé.

From the moment he was in the torture room, regardless of whether he turned the current on or not, he participated.” He recounts that on that occasion, they had him with his hands tied behind his back, hanging from a rope in the torture position known as “the little dove” (la palomita).

He was in the basement of the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers. He points out that they applied electric shocks: “They put alternating current on my nipples, on my anus, on my testicles. One moved a lot or felt like one was moving a lot.

When they put current on you, you feel like a flare coming out from inside your head.” He then recounts that after stripping him, they had placed a thick hood on him that did not even let the room's electric light in, nor did it allow him to breathe.

The interrogator realized he was in bad condition. “He called the doctor, and he auscultated me. The physician ordered a nurse to take off my hood because I was suffocating. That’s when I felt more air come in,” he tells LND.

In his new judicial testimony, he adds that he heard his torturers whispering, except when they asked him questions: “Only the clear questions, like where is the weapon or what did you do, were loud.” The electric shocks followed one another vertiginously.

His body contorted until the rope holding him snapped and Zárate fell face-first to the floor. “Instinctively, I turned my face and saw Doctor [Vittorio] Orvietto and a blond Red Cross nurse. Then I turned my face to the other side and saw Captain Mario Jara, Lieutenant Cristián Labbé, and [Nelson Patricio] Valdés [of the Investigative Police].

They were looking like that, as if they didn't care at all that I had hit the floor brutally. Then a guy came from behind, I didn't know who it was, and, thwack!, he gave me a heel kick in the spine. That’s where they broke a vertebra.

After the blow to my back, they hung me up again and the torture continued,” the sworn statement reads. The pain was unbearable, and the fracture marked his fate. Due to the severity of his injuries, on October 30, 1973, he was sent to the San Antonio hospital, where he arrived in danger of death. “Even though the medical record says I was transferred to the San Juan de Dios Hospital, that is a complete lie,” he adds to LND, visibly affected by the memories.

He never stepped foot in Tejas Verdes again. Until this week, when we accompanied him to that place where he confronted his past. Some of his former companions from the Tejas Verdes concentration camp were waiting for him.

They had not seen each other since those ungrateful days. “I have mixed feelings,” Zárate said moments before getting out of the car and meeting the members of the San Antonio Human Rights Committee. Luis Sepúlveda, president of the organization, recognized him immediately.

They gave each other a strong hug. A little further back was Ana Becerra, arrested when she was only 17 years old. It was hard for Anatolio to recognize her: she is a few years older now. “I am Ana Becerra,” she tells him. “My father told me that he had brought her and her siblings into the world,” Zárate responds while hugging her.

A third former detainee appears. It is Luis Barrera. On one occasion, they met in the infirmary of the San Antonio Public Jail. According to Zárate, he was transferred there after his spinal fracture. The constant transfers were due to the fact that, a few days after being admitted to San Antonio, UN doctors arrived. “The doctors left satisfied, as they verified my state of health.

But I was immediately transferred to the Santiago Public Jail, where they kept me hidden for a long time.” While the former detainees are standing on the bridge that overlooks the concentration camp, the memories begin to surface. “The shacks were there, and the bathrooms, over there,” they comment at the very moment that a group of conscripts performs war exercises in the facility.

Later, the group visited the Rocas de Santo Domingo Barracks, located a few kilometers away and from where dozens of political prisoners disappeared. It is the only place that Cristián Labbé admits to having stepped foot in.

On several occasions, Cristián Labbé has testified regarding the Tejas Verdes case. In his statement of December 22, 2003, before Solís, he denied having been there. In 2005, he was called to testify again.

He reiterated that he never visited the detention center. This media outlet accessed the testimony of Raúl Humberto Quilodrán Alcayaga, a prisoner at Tejas Verdes and a plaintiff in the same case that Alejandro Solís is investigating, which contradicts him.

In his statement of January 14, 2005, he points out: “On January 11 [1974], they took us out of the cell and lined us up in the courtyard, and a man with an energetic voice said to us: ‘By superior orders, from this moment on you will be in free communication,’ and he ordered them to take off our blindfolds.

That is how the soldiers took off our blindfolds, and I managed to see that the person who addressed us was Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and next to him, to be more exact, to the left of Contreras, was Cristián Labbé and several other officials; they were all wearing uniforms.

I am sure of that because they are unforgettable faces for me due to the situation I was living through.” Although more than three decades have passed since that chapter, Quilodrán remembers the event as if it were today.

When asked by this media outlet, he recalled that the encounter with Labbé recounted in his statement made sense years later one day in front of the television: “He was in a political campaign, and upon seeing him, I had no doubt.

He was a little older, but his features, like the mole on his face, are unmistakable. I am sure that the person I saw is the current mayor of Providencia, Mr. Cristián Labbé, who was next to Contreras.

At Tejas Verdes, the two seemed very close. They were not carrying weapons. Two privates next to them were the ones in charge of that.” In his statement for the Tejas Verdes case on December 22, 2003, Labbé pointed out that he was at the Rocas de Santo Domingo Barracks to teach physical education. “But I only stayed for two or three days (...) After this period, I was sent back to Santiago to take charge of President Pinochet's security.” His assertion is refuted by Samuel Fuenzalida Devia, a former DINA agent and one of his “students” in Santo Domingo.

Fuenzalida has been one of the main witnesses in cases involving the organization led by General (ret.) Manuel Contreras. In October 1976, he fled to France, from where he began to collaborate with the justice system.

He states that Labbé's words are not true. “He was there for quite a bit longer [at Rocas de Santo Domingo]. There were about 600 of us DINA students. My instruction was in December 1973 and lasted about three weeks.” Fuenzalida says that Labbé's work was not limited to physical education classes.

Something denied by the mayor when he was confronted with him. “The course he taught me was on intelligence: how to register, how to follow, and how to subdue a person. In this work, he functioned hand-in-hand and in coordination with Miguel Krassnoff and Ingrid Olderock.

Everyone used the same manual that Krassnoff presented in his defense,” says Fuenzalida. He refers to the argument of Krassnoff's lawyer, Luis Valentín Ferrada, when he presented these manuals to the courts in 2004 to prove that his client received orders from the Army and that the torture was not individual excesses, but a State policy.

Ferrada delivered 19 original documents and showed several drawings that make explicit the treatment of prisoners and torture techniques. Fuenzalida remembers that some of his generation's classmates at Rocas de Santo Domingo, during December 1973, were Basclay Zapata, Luis Torres Méndez, Luis Pampillioni, Luis Escobar, Raúl Toro Montes, Luis Espinace, and Luis Gordillo, all DINA agents who were later assigned to torture centers such as La Venda Sexy, Londres 38, and Villa Grimaldi.

Some of them became famous for the level of cruelty they reached. “Labbé constantly visited DINA centers during 1974,” says Fuenzalida. “I saw him at Marcoleta 90, the headquarters, at Villa Grimaldi, and at Londres 38.” He did not see him enter torture sessions because he was generally at the door.

He adds that Labbé went directly to the offices of the authorities of each of those places. Another former DINA agent, on the condition of protecting his identity, states that he received instruction from Labbé and that he remained at least between one and two months at Rocas de Santo Domingo.

In his case, the classes were only physical education. After so many years, the place where Krassnoff and Labbé taught classes seems abandoned. The group of former detainees is expectant. From the outside, one can see the group of “A” cabins that, before the coup, served as a summer vacation center for CUT workers.

Later, it was transformed into one of Chile's most cruel torture centers. The facility still belongs to the Army, and until two years ago, it was used as a recreational place for military personnel. Two of the members of the group accompanying Zárate on his visit to the place, Ana Becerra and Teresa Soto, were tortured there. “Ask me to talk to you about the torture at Tejas Verdes, but not at Rocas de Santo Domingo.

It is too hard,” says Becerra. The doors of the cabins are open. Ana and Teresa slip inside. Before entering, Ana says: “I remember the bunk beds were here.” And they are still there. She lies down on a bed.

It feels like she is on the same bed frame. She remembers it well because for a month she was almost always lying there. Teresa sits on a chair. Because of the height and width of the backrest, she feels it as her torture chair. Strangely, it has a beautiful carving of the face of Christ.

Source: La Nación, August 20, 2006

The content of Krassnoff's book and the provocative presentation of it represent a clear attempt by the far-right and Pinochet-era militarism to politically regroup, to justify the cruelest human rights violations during the military regime, to vindicate the DINA agents in charge of the dirty work, and a clear blackmail of the right and the government to reposition their demands.

The fact that Mayor Labbé is the only one of the DINA figures who has achieved electoral reintegration during the years of democracy, and who invites people to the demonstration of support for Krassnoff, makes it clear that this was planned, that thought was put into how to do the most damage by re-proposing the specter of the past.

With Labbé as the host of the initiative, they wanted to give it the greatest possible communicative prominence; they sought to open the controversy and involve the government and the right in it. He has transformed the act not only into a cruel provocation to the victims of Krassnoff and the DINA, but into a true challenge to Piñera and the entire right, which is reminded that if Piñera is President and they enjoy the privileges of government positions, it is because Pinochetism also cast its votes to consummate that objective.

By vindicating Krassnoff, they remind Piñera that said support was agreed upon, that the right-wing candidate met with the “Pinochet military family,” and that there were commitments to review cases, to apply amnesties, and to incorporate military personnel involved in human rights violations into the presidential pardon—something that has not happened and that it is almost impossible for Piñera to want or be able to fulfill, given the repudiation that this would entail in a Chilean society with a greater capacity for criticism and mobilization.

For this reason, the visible role of the convocation is played by Mayor Labbé, who has already challenged the government with his repressive measures against the student movement, causing embarrassment and discomfort in La Moneda, in a government and a parliament where men who were in one way or another linked to the dictatorship still subsist.

Precisely, they choose Krassnoff, given that he was the organizer of the emblematic “Chacarillas Act,” as a message, so that none of these figures easily forget their old Pinochet-era identity. Almost like a mafia gesture, a warning, they send an invitation to the President to participate in the book presentation without imagining that the inoperance and carelessness of a civil servant, or her connivance with the ideology of the dictatorship, would directly involve the President in a greeting that he did not know about or formulate, and where they even go so far as to rescue the figure of Krassnoff as representative of a generation of military personnel and wish the meeting success. This unexpected gift constitutes a gigantic victory for the organizers since, in some way, in the communicative sphere, the government has been involved, has had to give explanations, the old confrontational scenario—always favorable to Pinochetism—has been re-proposed, and it drags the image of a sector of the right along with it. With this, the importance of an initiative has been enhanced which, even while being completely isolated in Chilean society, repositions the issue of “Pinochet's soldiers” beyond what they surely expected. This error by the government, the participation of Labbé as organizer of the event, the stammering of many exponents of the old right who do not dare or do not want to condemn the crimes and human rights violations, has allowed Krassnoff, unexpectedly, to become a further factor of weakness for Piñera and his alliance, pressured by the past, which looms over them like a ghost that is not willing to disappear from the scene. The act, of course, is inscribed in an effort—to which Pinochet-era activism does not renounce, however vain that may seem given that the raw truth of the dictatorship's crimes is already strongly installed in the conscience of Chilean society—to reinterpret history. For this reason, in these days, we have returned to hearing figures from the former military dictatorship, brought to TV screens, to radio microphones, and to newspaper columns, like true specters from beyond the grave, speaking again of the brave soldiers who confronted Marxism and, based on that, justifying the crimes committed, presenting the military personnel involved as “political prisoners,” even denying the veracity of the evidence with which the courts of justice have sentenced Krassnoff and the DINA leadership to hundreds of years in prison. One of the most despicable figures of the repression is chosen as an emblem, a psychopath directly involved in dozens of crimes and who has always made an apology for them, precisely so that it is clear that their demands reach very high up, that it is not just about the demand to free a soldier who received orders or a subordinate who participated, like so many, in the disappearance of people or in the transfer of remains. No. The ambition is greater. It is about directly vindicating the DINA, about installing the idea that thanks to it and to these men unjustly condemned and imprisoned, the war on communism was won and today the country lives in freedom. They know that they can achieve this only with a right-wing government, and they use pressure, blackmail, and veiled threats to demand that the President fulfill the promise to free the imprisoned men of arms or, failing that, pay a very high political price in terms of image, by reminding many of their old belonging to the dictatorship, or even deepening the loss of support in this sector that is surely today among those who respond against Piñera in the polls. They do not resort, for this, to a request for forgiveness from society. They do not commit to providing information that would allow for the clarification of the whereabouts of the disappeared; they do not open the can of worms regarding Pinochet's direct responsibility in the crimes executed by the DINA; they do not make any gesture that would favor reconciliation or a spiritual reconversion that could lead to forgiveness. No. They resort to the plea of the legitimacy of the crimes, to arrogance, to the space that they believe the dictatorship should have in the history of this country. Precisely because of the objectives behind the Pinochet-era initiative, it is even more reprehensible that it is a mayor, elected by popular vote, who organizes this meeting, since deep down Labbé uses this citizen consensus for an ignoble purpose, such as promoting the legitimacy of the crimes and the henchmen of the dictatorship. For this reason, all those who feel part of a vision and adherence to democratic values and respect for human rights must react together in the condemnation of this communicative uprising prepared from Punta Peuco and from the desks of the old exponents of the military regime. For this reason, too, all democrats should unite in an operation of democratic cleansing to prevent Labbé, a DINA man of Manuel Contreras, from continuing to be the Mayor of the Providencia commune. It would be a great response to the arrogance of the old dictatorship that looms through Krassnoff and his 144-year sentence for the crimes committed against so many Chileans.

Source: La Nación, November 21, 2011

The Temuco Court of Appeals confirmed the three-year prison sentence against retired colonel and former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, as the perpetrator of the crime of illegitimate duress against Harry Cohen Vera in Panguipulli, in the current Los Ríos region, in 1973.

The first-instance sentence was issued by the minister visiting for Human Rights cases, Álvaro Mesa. According to the ruling, everything happened on November 8, 1973, when Cohen was arrested in the framework of the so-called Operation Peineta, which was in charge of Labbé's military reserve.

During the time the victim was detained, the former mayor threatened the victim with a corvo (curved knife) to his neck. He was then tied up and taken to other facilities, where he was hung and subjected to electric shocks while being interrogated.

After a few days, he was released. Minister Mesa also ordered the State to compensate the victim with 30 million pesos for the moral damage resulting from the duress against him.

Source: elclarin.cl, April 15, 2020

Former agent identifies Mayor Labbé and Krassnoff as DINA instructors

Until now, the mayor of Providencia has only acknowledged his affiliation with the organization created by Manuel Contreras in his capacity as the officer in charge of the personal security of General (ret.) Augusto Pinochet, but this is the first judicial link to "his other missions" within the repressive agency.

A revealing testimony includes details of repressive activity at Villa Grimaldi and Londres 38.

"Among the instructors, I remember Miguel Krassnoff and Cristián Labbé," states former DINA agent Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia, recounting his transfer to Tejas Verdes, where Manuel Contreras told him that "they should be proud to belong" to that repressive organization.

The document annexed to the Tejas Verdes case, which is being processed by presiding judge Hernán Matus of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, details the stay of the conscript—who later became an intelligence service agent—who wandered for two years between Villa Grimaldi and Londres 38.

In his judicial statement—made in the context of the Chanfreau case—Fuenzalida indicates that he was called up for military service in March 1973, "being assigned to the 15th Reinforced Motorized Regiment of Calama.

I was there at the time of the coup d'état when, approximately in December of that year, the company commander, Major Langer, indicated that due to my merits I had been awarded a stay on the coast of the central zone."

He was given a document that appeared to be a nationwide circular, which other members of the Army also received, reiterating that due to their status, they were being assigned to the 2nd Engineer Regiment of Tejas Verdes.

"From there, we were transferred to Rocas de Santo Domingo, to a place where there were some summer houses. At this location, we had a visit from Colonel Manuel Contreras, who was accompanied by two people.

He asked us if we knew why we had come and about the document we had signed, clarifying that the truth was that from that moment on we were becoming part of the nascent DINA and we should be proud of it, since it was due to our personal merits," the agent notes.

"The instruction at this place lasted a relatively short period; I do not remember the exact duration. We were taught physical education, hand-to-hand combat, guerrilla warfare, counterintelligence, and intelligence by instructors among whom I remember the Carabineros official Ingrid Olderock, Miguel Krassnoff, Cristián Labbé, Gerardo Ernesto Ulrich, Manuel Andrés Carevic, and others."

The current mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, has publicly acknowledged his participation in the DINA between 1973 and 1975. In fact, he has stated to the press that "it is no news that I was the main person in charge of the security of General Augusto Pinochet and, precisely, that function had to be performed by a member of the DINA."

However, the retired colonel and former Minister Secretary General of Government during 1989 has excused himself from speaking about "any other mission" he may have performed during his time in the intelligence service. Even less has he referred to his role as a teacher to many agents who would later go on to form the list of the most notorious human rights violators.

According to the account of former agent Fuenzalida, nearly 600 personnel, including members of the three branches of the armed forces as well as the Carabineros, learned the new tactics and were distributed into the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade (BIM) and the Provincial Intelligence Brigade (BIA).

Some time later, the conscript learned of the presence of civilians who had voluntarily enrolled in the Directorate.

At the end of January 1974, Fuenzalida was sent to his new assignment at the Rinconada de Maipú, an experimental farm of the University of Chile. By that time, he was already a member of the BIM and enjoyed the privileges of belonging to the most feared brigade, as the subgroups that carried out the repression with the greatest force depended on it.

Under the command of Army Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Manríquez and with a general staff in charge of non-commissioned officers Matamala, Caballero, and Barrales, and soldiers Avalos of the Air Force and Letelier of the Army, Fuenzalida was transferred to Londres 38.

"I was an operative"

The constant among the human rights violators who participated in repressive services is their refusal to acknowledge that they were operatives. This status directly incriminates them in the detentions, torture sessions, and surveillance of prisoners.

Hence, as strange as it may seem, the DINA had almost no operatives—at least according to them—and the majority of its members confess to being guards or desk clerks who wrote down names they forgot with incredible speed.

This is the fundamental difference that marks Fuenzalida, as he admits that he witnessed torture, lived with the prisoners, and describes details of life in a prison camp, even though he does not admit to having participated in any crime.

"Always on the first floor in the hallway, and under one of the staircases, there was a small cubicle where the prisoners were kept. In the rooms on the ground floor, which were accessed by going down a couple of steps, the detained people were kept, always in high numbers.

The people were kept sitting, many of them leaning against the walls, blindfolded but with their feet free. They had to sleep in the same position," his testimony indicates.

But the detail of the barracks' structure continues: "On the second floor, the different brigades operated; the Caupolicán [brigade], to which I belonged, occupied the room in the north area, which faced a hotel, El Princesa. In the other rooms, the other brigades or groups operated: Puma, Tigre, Lautaro, Aguila, Purén, and Tucán."

During his time at the location, the leadership rotated according to the brigade that was on duty. "Among these chiefs, I remember Ulrich, Marcelo Moren Brito, Lieutenant Ricardo Lawrence, Ciro Torres, Manuel Castillo (from the Artillery, but who was at Londres 38 for a very short time), Miguel Krassnoff Marchenko, among others."

Caupolicán, Pincetti, and the torture

Fuenzalida admits that he saw a series of tortures at Londres 38, but among them, he remembers most strongly the case of a woman he knew only by the name of Valeria, who was on a surgical table accompanied by Ciro Torres and "Doctor Mortis," Osvaldo Pincetti.

"Torres directed the action of some three or four agents who applied electric current to the woman's body; she screamed and they asked her about a certain Antonio or Marco Antonio (...) later I learned that Pincetti had administered a pentothal injection, which other agents commented on when I saw her again a few days later in one of the rooms on the mezzanine where torture took place.

She was in very bad physical condition, very mistreated and unconscious; she did not speak. That was when I knew she was close to death, in my opinion," he commented.

The account of the former agent, who today lives abroad, adds background information common among the few survivors of Londres 38. "The detainees remained blindfolded, without sanitary conditions, sufficient food, or beds to sleep on, and were subjected to interrogations by the different DINA groups, in which they applied electric current, especially to the genitals and breasts, in the case of women; they were also burned with cigarettes and beaten, which I can attest to because I witnessed some of those sessions."

In his testimony, he establishes that there was permanent contact between the different detention centers, a fact that is made clear by remembering that the trucks of the Arauco fishing company were the ones that transported the detainees to Londres 38 and that the same ones were used to take prisoners to Tejas Verdes.

"I don't know where the Arauco fishing company was based, but these vehicles were always in San Antonio and I understand that they were part of a brigade that operated in that city, under the command of Army Major Jara, of the engineering branch, who was a person very close to the supreme head of the DINA, Manuel Contreras, as Corporal Manuel Delgado of the Terranova barracks (Villa Grimaldi) told me."

Torture as doctrine

Repentant, the former agent confesses how the detainees' days ended. "They were handed over to the trucks by the commander who was on duty at that time at Londres 38. They were transported blindfolded and with their feet free.

The destinations that were spoken of were the following: Puerto Montt, which I later learned meant 'death on land' (muerte en tierra), and Moneda, 'death at sea' (muerte en mar)."

"Regarding this, I remember that in 1975 a paratrooper, whose name I do not remember but who was known even by the prisoners, said that he killed the detainees by opening their thorax and throwing them into the sea; he told me this at the Terranova barracks and was later detained for talking too much.

The paratrooper was from Peldehue, but had been performing duties at the Diego Portales [building]," the agent adds.

Fuenzalida denies having information about bodies buried in Colina, Peñalolén, and Peldehue, but instead, he knew that detainees were murdered in the Cajón del Maipo, at the "stone house," where years later bodies appeared floating in the river.

The statement is one of the key pieces in the investigation by Judge Matus, who initially declared himself incompetent to hear the case, but later—once presiding judge Juan Guzmán Tapia reviewed the background information and returned it to him—chose to hear it.

However, the inquiry being conducted by the magistrate will only be in a preliminary phase so as not to interfere with the investigations being carried out by Judge Guzmán, who has the jurisdiction to hear cases involving Augusto Pinochet.

Regardless of this, the plaintiffs in the case pin their hopes on the special judge advancing preliminarily in defining the hierarchies and links of Tejas Verdes and the DINA detention centers. With this, progress will be made in one of the processes that most directly involves Manuel Contreras and other agents.

Source: Primera Línea, December 26, 2001

Mayor Labbé interrogated for crimes as a former DINA agent and "Black Beret"

In his capacity as an accused party for crimes committed after the military coup against political prisoners at the Tejas Verdes concentration camp in San Antonio and in the town of Liquiñe, in the foothills of Valdivia, presiding judge Alejandro Solís interrogated former DINA agent and current mayor of the Providencia commune, Cristián Labbé, yesterday.

Labbé was an instructor for the DINA when this criminal organization—declared as such in several resolutions by Chilean courts—began to form in November 1973 at the Rocas de Santo Domingo seaside resort, near what was the Tejas Verdes prison camp.

Dozens of detainees disappeared from this location. At that time, the zone chief in the San Antonio province was Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, who later became the director of the DINA.

On the other hand, Labbé was also at that time a member of the "Black Berets" (boinas negras) of the Paratrooper School, a detachment that in the days immediately following September 11, 1973, under the command of then-Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina Lois (currently a retired general), participated in the repression against the peasants of the Panguipulli Lumber Complex in the foothills of the 10th Region.

Among those operations, these forces, in conjunction with detachments from Valdivia regiments and civilians from the area, detained 15 peasants from the Trafún, Paimún, and Carranco farms of that complex on October 10, 1973. In the night hours, the 15 peasants were murdered on the Toltén River bridge and their bodies thrown into the waters. To this day, these peasants remain forcibly disappeared.

Labbé's membership in the DINA was uncovered when, in its June 15, 1999 edition, La Nación published original DINA documents of a "secret" nature. One of them, Official Letter No. 4380 of December 2, 1974, signed by Manuel Contreras, requests a passport from the Foreign Ministry for "DINA personnel," which includes Labbé.

Reacting to this publication at the time, Labbé accused La Nación of being "revanchist," but acknowledged having been a DINA agent. "Indeed, I belonged to the DINA and I was the first person in charge of the security of President Augusto Pinochet," said the current mayor.

Now, Judge Solís must decide whether or not to prosecute Labbé for his eventual participation in the aforementioned crimes. Some time ago, Labbé removed the bust of the poet Juan Guzmán Cruchaga (father of presiding judge Juan Guzmán Tapia) from a central plaza in Providencia, and despite protests from Judge Guzmán, replaced it with one of the late Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly.

Source: La Nación, December 23, 2003

Cristián Labbé was confronted with former detainees at Tejas Verdes

The mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, arrived at noon at the Palace of Courts to be confronted with five former detainees from Tejas Verdes, who pointed him out as having been seen at that facility alongside former DINA director Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda.

The proceeding was ordered by Judge Carmen Garay. Upon his arrival, Labbé stated that the accusations against him are "a pure falsehood." He reiterated that he was at Tejas Verdes for only a few days and that his mission there was to teach physical education classes to military personnel. "Even if you can't tell now because the bodywork is a bit dented," he joked.

Labbé stated that "there were no detainees where I was, I can assure you of that."

He also said he felt "proud" to have been an Army officer and added that he was available for all proceedings required by the justice system. However, he launched a defense of the military personnel under investigation for human rights violations: "We are 30 years later and we are still with the same story.

I share the hopelessness of my military friends who see that justice does not exist for them," he said, referring to the suicide of Colonel (ret.) Germán Barriga.

Source: El Mercurio, January 25, 2005

From the DINA to La Rioja, passing through Providencia

"A very unique speaker." That is how the Spanish newspaper El País, the most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world, described the mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, who on February 5 attended as a speaker at a conference on innovation and cultural change organized by the conservative government of the Autonomous Community (region) of La Rioja.

Of course, what caught the attention in the Old Continent was not Labbé's ideas on municipal administration, but his past linked to human rights violations.

"Labbé has not only been a DINA colonel, prosecuted for torture cases and recognized by some of the detainees at Tejas Verdes. Former prisoner Anatolio Zárate, a member of the Socialist Party, directly accused Labbé of having tortured him. Labbé was also accused of being present at the Rocas de Santo Domingo torture center.

Prisoners from that center recognized him, and even a former DINA agent testified that his presence was habitual in 1974," notes the report, titled "From the DINA to La Rioja," which highlights that the mayor was acquitted, as the judge considered that teaching torture methods is not a crime.

"No one, neither the government nor the opposition, noticed the background of the current mayor from the Independent Democratic Union (UDI). The Riojan government downplayed the intensity of the event, but went ahead with the conference, forgetting the past of the main speaker," laments the newspaper, which also recalls that the former military officer was Augusto Pinochet's head of security and the right-hand man of the convicted Manuel Contreras.

Source: La Nación, February 25, 2008

Mayor Labbé declared as an accused party for Operation Colombo

The statement of the colonel (ret.) before Judge Raquel Lermanda was requested by the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, within the framework of the proceedings required in this human rights case.

For more than an hour, Judge Raquel Lermanda interrogated the mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé Galilea, within the framework of the investigation into the crimes committed during the so-called Operation Colombo.

According to information from judicial sources, the colonel (ret.) declared in the capacity of an accused party, meaning he was "exhorted to tell the truth."

The magistrate, who replaces Judge Víctor Montiglio, had already taken a statement from the mayor's brother, Alberto Labbé Galilea, currently Chile's ambassador to Panama, for the same process.

The mayor of Providencia arrived at the courts to comply with the proceeding, accompanied by lawyer Christian Espejo. Upon leaving, the retired Army colonel expressed annoyance that the summons was requested by the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, within the framework of the proceedings required in this investigation.

"The terrorists are holy doves who have turned into intellectuals. The accomplices can become Presidents of the Republic and we, the military, are still in the dock. We, the military, cannot take it anymore, believe me; this cannot be, we cannot live in peace," he indicated.

Through Operation Colombo, which was part of Operation Condor, the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet murdered and forcibly disappeared 119 left-wing militants, making it appear that the forcibly disappeared did not exist and attributing their deaths to internal political infighting.

Source: La Nación, August 17, 2010

Mayor of Providencia and retired military officer criticizes his appearance for Operation Colombo

Judge Raquel Lermanda interrogated Cristián Labbé, Army colonel (ret.) and mayor of Providencia, in the capacity of an accused party within the framework of the Operation Colombo investigation.

The municipal chief, upon leaving the courthouse, expressed his annoyance by saying that the military "cannot live in peace."

In this sense, the retired military officer said that "the terrorists are holy doves who have turned into intellectuals, the accomplices can become Presidents of the Republic and we, the military, are still in the dock."

Labbé was interrogated at the request of the lawyers of the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior regarding his time at the Tejas Verdes regiment.

Source: radio.uchile.cl, August 18, 2010

Untold stories of the "Black Beret" Mayor Labbé

At the beginning of 2004, the mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé Galilea, had his heart in his mouth. On December 22, 2003, he had to testify in the case being carried out by Judge Alejandro Solís, which investigates the death of 15 people that occurred in October 1973 in Liquiñe, near Valdivia.

The murdered were simple peasants who worked at the Panguipulli lumber complex. Their relatives state that on the night of October 11, 1973, the 15 were executed by firing squad and their bodies thrown into the Toltén River.

In the following days, locals saw the remains downstream. According to their testimonies, the bodies were tied by their hands and feet. Some were inside sacks. Others even showed signs of decapitation.

Providencia Mayor Labbé appears in this sinister file for one reason: he was named by Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Arturo Antonio Bosch González as part of the military delegation that operated in the area when the events occurred.

Liquiñe, however, is not the only story that claims Labbé from the past. The former officer, who retired with the rank of Army colonel, is also mentioned in another case being substantiated by Judge Alejandro Solís.

This is the investigation into the crimes of illicit association, illegal detention, and torture that occurred at Tejas Verdes, in the V Region. In this case, former conscript Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia identifies Mayor Labbé as one of the instructors who had the mission of training the personnel who later formed the DINA.

On March 31, Alejandra Arriaza, a lawyer for the Corporation for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of the People (CODEPU), requested that Labbé be confronted with Fuenzalida. The court's response was that the request would be resolved in due course.

Municipal elections are approaching, and many take it for granted that Labbé will be the UDI candidate for the position of mayor of Providencia. The testimonies from these processes do nothing to help his aspirations. He has plenty of reasons to have his heart in his mouth.

The other "Caravan of Death"

For human rights organizations, the deaths in Liquiñe are not an isolated case. On the contrary, they would be part of an extensive operation carried out between September and October 1973 that affected towns south of Temuco.

José Araya, executive secretary of CODEPU in Valdivia, goes further and states that the deaths in Liquiñe are part of "another Caravan of Death, similar to the one that operated in the north." In its wake, more than 70 people were executed, and many of them remain forcibly disappeared.

For Araya, although military and Carabineros from the area participated in these deaths, a group that came from Santiago played a central role in the events: these were paratrooper commandos from Peldehue, better known as "Black Berets." Nearly 200 personnel from that select combat group appear today linked to the various processes for the executions that occurred from Temuco southwards.

José Araya states that the presence of this elite corps was due to a specific reason: "The military believed that the forests of the region were full of Cuban guerrillas. For months, they operated even with armed helicopters and bombed the mountains.

You can still see the craters they left," Araya states. An account of that extensive operation was recorded in the November 18, 1973 edition of El Mercurio. There, under the title "Cleanup operations of armed extremist groups," the action of a "Special Anti-Guerrilla Brigade" is reported, which, under the orders of General Nilo Floody Buxton and Commander Carlos Medina Lois, operated in Neltume, Arquilhue, Lago Ranco, and, of course, in Liquiñe.

The note describes the preparation of this anti-guerrilla brigade: "It is made up of professionals who graduated abroad, with places of honor. They have been in courses held in France, Panama, and the United States.

They have survived in the middle of the jungle with indigenous people, precisely for the purpose of specializing in this type of combat and for the fight against guerrillas." The facts show today that the Cuban guerrilla that Floody's men claimed to be fighting never existed. This elite force simply fell upon unarmed peasants.

Bad memory

During the investigation of the Liquiñe deaths, a central obstacle has been identifying the officers who were actually in the area. Sources from the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police, who have participated directly in this process, assured The Clinic that "the higher-ranking officers do not remember the names or positions of their subordinates, or they declare dates that do not match the proven facts." However, slowly the protective circle has been cracking and "the lower-ranking military personnel at the time of the events are collaborating," the source states.

Due to this, it would already be proven that the Paratrooper School of Peldehue participated in this delegation with its almost complete staff, a unit in which Cristián Labbé served with the rank of officer. "Now, the judge has to define the dates and the participation of each officer," the source concluded.

Labbé's name appeared in this slow delivery of data only on December 18 of last year. That day, Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Arturo Bosch González revealed to Judge Solís the names of the officers who acted in the Valdivia area.

In the list, Labbé appeared as an officer who "exercised command." Bosch stated that the contingent, composed of between 200 and 300 people, arrived in the area at the beginning of October, "remaining in the south of the country uninterruptedly until shortly before Christmas." He states that the area was divided into strips under the charge of different officers, although today he cannot link names with territories.

He believes, however, that Liquiñe could have been under the control of General "Nilo Floody or personnel under the charge of officer Saldes, or personnel from the Mountain School." Mayor Labbé appeared before the judge two days after Bosch did.

In his statement, to which The Clinic had exclusive access, Labbé admitted to having been part of the brigade commanded by General Floody. He also admitted that the contingent was made up of nearly 200 people and that if it was under the command of a general, it was "because it was an important operational unit." When asked about the objectives of this delegation, he declared: "It was thought that there could be a rural guerrilla in the Panguipulli Lumber Complex; there was the idea that there could be a focus of this type of group.

The idea was to form this brigade to sweep these focuses. And in the event that a confrontation occurred, in addition to sweeping the place, to open fire." Later on, Labbé also acknowledged having participated in the counter-guerrilla operation.

But—and here the contradictions begin—he argues that he was only in charge of the reserve troops. "I moved along with the reserve unit to Panguipulli," he declared. He then insisted on that point when asked about the events in Liquiñe: "I had no intervention in the operation because I was in charge of the reserve troops, which are deployed in extreme cases, which were not reached on that occasion," he said.

The statement is striking. None of the officers who have already testified mention the participation of reservists in these operations. There is only talk of permanent staff and conscripts. On the other hand, a retired military officer of the same rank as Labbé, who was exonerated after the military coup, told The Clinic that in a Black Beret commando, there is no reserve. "The Black Berets are an elite force, with highly trained and permanent personnel.

Furthermore, for a mission of that magnitude, they were not going to take reservists," the former uniformed officer stated on condition of anonymity. Like Bosch, Labbé was also unable to specify which officers acted in each area, and according to his memories, almost no Black Beret marched to the south.

In his case, he claims that he was only in the area for two weeks, at the end of November, when the Liquiñe deaths had already occurred. However, he makes mistakes. In court, for example, they asked him about a note made by General Medina in the service record of officer Patricio Landaeta.

The note is dated September 30, 1973, and reports that the group faced "enemy fire." "I ignore what he refers to with the expression 'enemy fire,' because from September 21 to 30, 1974, I was not at the Paratrooper School," Labbé declares.

If you did not notice the mayor's error, read the sentence again. Labbé is asked about an event from 1973 and he answers about 1974. In the long run, Labbé is only clear that he is not responsible for the deaths under investigation, that during the period in question he was assigned to guard Pinochet's house, and that he only had the task of instructing reserve officials.

And the truth is that there is no evidence that Labbé participated in the Liquiñe crimes or in the massacres carried out throughout the area. But the fact that he is mentioned by Bosch makes him a relevant witness to help clarify the deaths and, above all, those responsible.

Regarding this, Alejandra Arriaza, a lawyer for CODEPU, has no doubts. "All the background information confirms Labbé's participation. It only remains to specify his specific responsibility in the events," she told The Clinic.

Gymnastics instructor

It is not only Liquiñe that complicates the life of the mayor of Providencia today. His time at the detention center that operated in the exclusive seaside resort of Rocas de Santo Domingo, Tejas Verdes, also does.

The investigation into this center is being carried out by the same Judge Solís and pursues the crimes of illicit association, illegal detention, and torture. In this investigation, Labbé's name jumped from the judicial statement of Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia, a former conscript who on October 30, 2000, identified Labbé as one of the instructors of that torture camp. "During my stay in Rocas de Santo Domingo, a place that functioned as a DINA intelligence school, we received instruction in physical conditioning and various courses related to intelligence and tracking people.

In that place, we had as instructors César Manríquez Bravo, professor of the intelligence course; Cristián Labbé, physical trainer and current mayor of Providencia; Miguel Krassnoff Marchenko, in charge of hand-to-hand combat, urban and suburban guerrilla techniques," said Fuenzalida.

The former soldier has testified in several human rights cases, providing relevant information about the origin and operation of the DINA, an organization that for years was led by General (ret.) Manuel Contreras.

Before Judge Solís, Fuenzalida recounted that between December '73 and January '74, he was transferred to the Santo Domingo seaside resort, along with military personnel from other parts of the country.

The group was received by Contreras himself, who informed them "that we had been chosen from among the armed forces to integrate a select group of people to form the DINA, an entity that was under his command." Fuenzalida's statement has special relevance.

It sets the "zero hour" when Manuel Contreras began to prepare the agents who later participated in the bloodiest period of Pinochet's dictatorship. Fuenzalida maintains that Labbé Galilea was an instructor for approximately 600 military personnel, who months later were the first DINA officials.

The data available today indicate that in those years Tejas Verdes was a sort of counterinsurgency academy where future agents not only received theoretical instruction but were also able to exercise their knowledge on the people detained there.

According to the Rettig Report, this facility began operating as a detention center from September 11 itself, with testimonies of its systematic use until 1975. According to those who survived that hell, there were periods in which Tejas Verdes had more than 100 prisoners.

Most were brutally tortured. Some disappeared. None of the survivors accuse Labbé of having participated in torture. Neither does Fuenzalida. But everyone who knows about this investigation believes that if the mayor of Providencia was an instructor, as the former soldier points out, he could provide relevant information about what happened there.

Especially because Fuenzalida's testimony is not the only thing that links Labbé to the DINA. There is also a confidential official letter in which Contreras himself mentions Labbé as an agent of his organization.

This is official letter 4380/19, dated December 1974, where Contreras asks for "the extension of a diplomatic passport to the following DINA personnel: Mr. Cristián Labbé Galilea, Mr. Carlos Marín Castro, Mr.

José Riquelme Villagra, Mr. Rolf Esser Muller." Contreras states that "the mentioned personnel will fulfill a certain service commission and, in accordance with the established policy, no Supreme Decree is issued.

As it is an urgent commission in Peru, we thank you for ordering whoever corresponds to have the maximum speed in the delivery of this document." According to lawyer Arriaza, Labbé is a heavyweight military officer in the DINA, not a simple gymnastics instructor. "He helped create that organization, then he travels outside the country, in an irregular procedure.

All of this is illegal; he must clarify his responsibility in the events being investigated," the lawyer told The Clinic.

Source: theclinic.cl, October 27, 2011

Neither the current mayor nor any other member of that detachment could be prosecuted and convicted for these crimes against humanity, despite their participation in the operation being documented. Court and police sources agree that the "pact of silence" they swore to and the "total lack of cooperation with justice" were two reasons they managed to evade responsibility.

They acted in clothing without rank insignia, at night, and with their faces semi-covered, according to witnesses of the arrests, and for the inhabitants of these Andean foothills, "it was impossible to recognize anyone."

Night falls on a Santiago that still trembles under the bombs of the Hawker Hunters. The men of Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina Lois rest at the Telecommunications regiment in Peñalolén. They are General Augusto Pinochet’s "strategic reserve," stationed there during the first days of the Military Coup.

Elite commandos from the Paratrooper School and Special Forces led by Medina. They are the "Boinas Negras" (Black Berets).

After the first 48 hours of the assault on Salvador Allende’s government, everything is under control. Allende is dead. There is no armed popular resistance. The President’s main collaborators are detained. The socialist revolution is now a memory. Smoldering. Sorrowful. Tragic.

But a thrust disturbs the security of the victorious insurgents. In the still-dark early hours of September 12, 1973, a group of peasants and young revolutionaries from the south in the Andean foothills of Valdivia becomes an alarm.

They surround the Neltume police station and demand that the Carabineros hand over weapons and ammunition if they are not willing to fight the coup plotters. Among them is MIR militant José Liendo Vera. The legendary and feared "Comandante Pepe."

The police refuse and open fire. A shootout begins. After a couple of hours, the group acting from the outside disperses. Silence returns. There are no dead or wounded on either side. From then on, the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex becomes one of the military's main targets.

It is presumed that dangerous guerrillas are operating in the area. Pinochet orders their elimination. "Operation Leopard" is born.

To this end, Pinochet creates the "Special Anti-Guerrilla Brigade" with the Black Berets from the Peldehue Paratrooper School and other men prepared for combat. Under the command of General Nilo Floody, between 250 and 300 soldiers are sent to suppress the insurgency. One of them is the young officer Cristián Labbé Galilea.

Most are killing machines. Their specialties: mountain military instructor, with courses in parachuting, commandos, special warfare, assault, guiding, and explosives and ammunition.

Days after the Coup, the brigade begins the journey from Peñalolén aboard military trucks. They carry sufficient light and heavy weaponry and ammunition. They are prepared for war and to kill guerrillas. "The brigade was formed because a rural guerrilla could exist in the Panguipulli Lumber Complex.

We had to sweep those pockets, and if clashes occurred, the order was to open fire." It is Labbé who testifies before the courts in December 2003 regarding the crimes against 15 peasants in Liquiñe, 150 kilometers east of Valdivia, near the Argentine border. For the first time, Labbé uncovers his well-kept secret: he acknowledges that he was indeed part of that operation.

From Brazil, where before September 11, 1973, he studied various techniques to become the elite of the elite, Labbé returns to the Paratrooper School at the Directorate of Instruction. In other words, he is not just a common Black Beret; he is the one who trains them.

During the operation in Liquiñe and other places in the Valdivian foothills, the current mayor of Providencia reports directly to the supreme chief of the Black Berets, Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina, who on this long journey was the Chief of Staff for General Nilo Floody. "My work depended on the Chief of Staff," Labbé maintains in his judicial statement.

As is known, with that comprehensive training, he was later one of the trainers for DINA agents and, in fact, a prominent member of this illicit criminal organization.

"We first arrived in Valdivia, but we didn't really know what we were going for. We were only told that the objective was to fight a guerrilla," recalls a Black Beret non-commissioned officer who spoke with El Mostrador but preferred to keep his identity confidential.

A day later, the non-commissioned officer maintains that they headed toward the foothills, to the area of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, and arrived in Liquiñe.

"The Black Berets set up tents in the courtyard of the nuns' school," states Julián García, an industrialist and owner of the Termas de Liquiñe and the inn, in the judicial investigation. It is the Liquiñe Missionary School.

Another military contingent under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Guerra Jorquera, which arrived earlier from Valdivia, sets up its camp on the large site of the same hot springs, according to Julián García. He is a recognized anti-communist, according to judicial statements from surviving peasants.

The Complex is born

The Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex extended between the Chihuío Baths in the south and Liquiñe in the north, about 150 kilometers east of Valdivia. It reached 360,000 hectares. It was made up of 22 large estates.

Starting in the late 1960s, the properties were occupied by members of the Revolutionary Peasant Movement (MCR), an organization controlled by the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). By 1973, more than 3,000 peasants worked there.

Many followed "Comandante Pepe," leader of the MCR. Along with Liendo Vera, a handful of MIR students arrived in the area in the late sixties to begin a "land recovery" alongside the peasants.

When Allende triumphed in 1970, his government expropriated the 22 estates. Thus, the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex was officially born as a subsidiary company of the Production Development Corporation (Corfo).

The dream of building their own destiny was fulfilled. The complex and Comandante Pepe became the terror of the latifundist right. Therefore, the revenge after the military coup was fierce.

After the Liquiñe police station episode in the early hours of September 12, 1973, Comandante Pepe, along with his wife, Yolanda Ávila, and MIR militants Luis Pezo and Pedro Barría—who used a crutch to walk—hid for a few days and went up into the mountains.

But on September 19, they were found and taken to the Valdivia prison. On the night of October 3, 1973, Liendo Vera was executed at the Llancahue military camp. The next day, eleven other MIR members accused of participating in the attack on the Neltume police station were murdered.

The crimes were handled by General Sergio Arellano’s "Caravan of Death," present in Valdivia in those days. To do so, Arellano signed a sentence from a sham War Council. The man who would later become the second-in-command of the DINA, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, attended that night to witness the death of Liendo Vera.

Accusing the Black Berets

The night of October 10, 1973, can never be forgotten by the inhabitants of Liquiñe. Julián García’s inn operated as "headquarters." From there, the list of the 15 peasants who were to be arrested and killed immediately was issued.

As established in the trial, Julián García and his son Luis, who were dressed in military attire that night, provided the names of those who were to die. The Black Berets began the raid along with Carabineros from the Liquiñe station, led by non-commissioned officer Luis Anguita Castro. They knew the chosen ones well.

According to the police report signed by the sub-prefect of the Valdivia Investigative Police, Benjamín Leal Riquelme, and sub-commissioner Manuel Castro Contreras, "a Carabineros corporal named Quintana from the Liquiñe station and several Black Beret soldiers" participated in the arrests of the Complex peasants José Miguel and Alejandro Antonio Tracanao Pincheira and their father, Eliseo Maximiliano Tracanao Valenzuela.

The owner of the Liquiñe hot springs, Julián García, testified judicially that "the Black Berets carried out the arrests."

The judge of the Villarrica court in 1973, René García Villegas, maintains in his book Soy Testigo (I Am a Witness) that one of the bodies of those riddled with bullets on the Toltén bridge remained in the river hours later, "tangled among some rocks, headless."

Elcira Figueroa Arias, wife of Salvador Alamos Rubilar, one of the 15 victims of Liquiñe, declared in the trial that, while looking for her husband, "at the Temuco Military Prosecutor's Office, Captain Ubilla told me that on the date of my husband's disappearance (October 10, 1973), an operation by the Colina (Santiago) Black Beret Command was in the area, so the local military authorities 'washed their hands of it,' and that if my husband fell into their hands, 'you had better mourn and consider him dead.'"

On the Toltén bridge

Bound hand and foot, the 15 peasants were driven that night in two pickup trucks toward Villarrica. One of the vehicles was provided by Julián García and driven by his son Luis. The other was provided by merchant Juan Carmach and driven by the Liquiñe ambulance driver, Sixto Díaz.

On the bridge over the Toltén River, the peasants were taken out, and the Berets ordered both drivers to move away. In a few minutes, the detainees formed a macabre human carpet laid out on the bridge.

Red in color, like the blood flowing in torrents from their bodies riddled by repeating rifles with war ammunition. Below, the rushing waters of the river could not drown out the sound of the machine-gun fire. Díaz and García heard it, as they later declared in court.

After Liquiñe, still in search of guerrillas, the Black Beret contingent in which Labbé participated headed to other localities that made up the Lumber Complex. But the non-commissioned officer we spoke with maintains, smiling ironically: "We didn't find any; there was nothing, no guerrillas or anything." The Anti-Guerrilla Brigade remained in the area until the beginning of December 1973. (...) A couple of days before the nightly massacre in Liquiñe, in Chihuío, 25 kilometers south of Liquiñe, 17 members of the Complex were also riddled with bullets—all peasants who lived in the area with their families.

One by one, the bodies were thrown into the river. The Liquiñe list was fulfilled. The executioners thought that the multiple perforations in the bodies would allow them to sink and be lost forever downstream to the sea.

The boatmen and the authorities

But days later, local boatmen who were fishing discovered some bodies clinging to branches on the riverbank or stuck between rocks. They notified the Villarrica Carabineros. The secretary of the Villarrica Criminal Court, Osvaldo Wiegand Carrasco, went to the scene with the sub-commissioner of the Villarrica sub-station, Captain Ramón Torrealba Guzmán.

In the trial, secretary Wiegand says he managed to save a couple of bodies. But the boatmen contradict him. They state that the order they received from both the secretary and the sub-commissioner was to free the bodies from whatever was holding them and throw them back into the current so they would disappear.

Boatmen Eliseo Rosas Maldonado and José Carrasco Rodríguez were confronted with Wiegand and Torrealba. They maintained their statements that they were forced by both authorities to release the bodies and return them to the torrent. The same was confirmed by boatmen Guido Mora, Leopoldo Ghisolfo, and Juan Yáñez Cares.

After Liquiñe, still in search of guerrillas, the Black Beret contingent in which Labbé participated headed to other localities that made up the Lumber Complex. But the non-commissioned officer we spoke with maintains, smiling ironically: "We didn't find any; there was nothing, no guerrillas or anything." The Anti-Guerrilla Brigade remained in the area until the beginning of December 1973.

However, in the area where the Berets moved under the command of General Floody and Medina Lois, in addition to the 15 from Liquiñe, another 30 peasants from the Lumber Complex were murdered. A couple of days before the nightly massacre in Liquiñe, in Chihuío, 25 kilometers south of Liquiñe, 17 members of the Complex were also riddled with bullets—all peasants who lived in the area with their families.

Members of the Cazadores regiment of Valdivia also participated in this operation. The raid was supported by Air Force Puma helicopters, which came from the Maquehua Air Base in Temuco.

The secret Some other officers who participated in "Operation Leopard" are: Carlos Parera Silva, Emilio Timmermann Undurraga, Arturo Bosch González, Manuel Pérez Santillán (DINA agent), and Sergio Candia Muñoz.

Why could Labbé or any other member of the Black Berets not be prosecuted and convicted for these crimes against humanity? Court and police sources agree that the "pact of silence" they swore to and the "total lack of cooperation with justice" were two reasons they managed to evade responsibility.

According to the sources, this is compounded by the fact that, because it was an unknown contingent from Santiago that acted in clothing without rank insignia, at night, and with their faces semi-covered, according to witnesses of the arrests, for the inhabitants of these Andean foothills, "it was impossible to recognize anyone." The former DINA agent, retired Colonel Cristián Labbé, avoids prison once again while waiting to be re-elected as mayor on October 28.

Source: elmostrador.cl, October 23, 2012

Shocking revelation: six newspapers, two magazines, and three agencies received DINA funding during the dictatorship.

Among the media outlets that received funds from the sinister organization were El Mercurio, the magazine Qué Pasa, and the agencies UPI and France Press. They were checks signed by the convicted former director of the DINA, Manuel Contreras.

Supreme Court documents accessed by the Spanish news agency EFE and known to Cambio21 from a primary source indicate that the newspapers El Mercurio, Las Últimas Noticias, La Nación, La Prensa (currently out of circulation), El Día de La Serena, and La Discusión de Chillán; the weeklies Qué Pasa and Ercilla; the Consorcio Periodístico de Chile; and the news agencies Orbe, United Press International (UPI), and France Press received financial support from the dictatorship's secret service.

The information comes to light on the eve of another fortieth anniversary: that of the birth of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA). Created de facto in November 1973, its cruelty in the use of torture still shocks today, and now it is surprising for the millionaire access to money it enjoyed.

Recent discoveries raise questions about the origin of its "black money."

Guiding principle of the DINA

In November 1973, not only were the National and Chile stadiums full of detainees. Several people had already been murdered and would never be returned to their families. The DINA was created de facto, thus beginning its dark harvest of death and pain.

There are several investigations that reveal that, together with the idea of the military coup, work was being done very closely on developing a dynamic of struggle against an internal enemy, based on a system of war within the country.

The person who best expressed that logic was the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, General Gustavo Leigh, on the very night of September 11: "We are going to extirpate the Marxist cancer," he warned.

The guiding principle of the DINA, then, is based on the existence of a war against an enemy hidden within the citizenry that "gave no quarter." In the midst of the madness of those days, that nomenclature included leftist politicians (socialists, communists, terrorists, union organizations), the so-called "Marxist sedition," and, in reality, any public opponent.

To carry out that struggle, all means were permitted, legal and otherwise.

School of the Americas

There is also clear evidence that there was learning in the application of this policy at the School of the Americas, developed in Panama by the United States shortly after the end of World War II.

"For many years, Chilean soldiers and those from the region were indoctrinated there in various techniques for confronting leftist ideologies. The effects of that policy in Latin America show that there was a similar application of these types of practices," journalist Javier Rebolledo, author of the books La danza de los cuervos (2012) and El despertar de los cuervos (2013), both from Ceibo publishing house, explains to Cambio 21.

The author, who investigated the DINA's working methods and various links in its intelligence dynamic, maintains that the persecution of the internal enemy was designed at the School of the Americas. Applying its points of view, it is considered that this "war" within countries was "unfair" for the Armed Forces, because the enemy hides in areas that are not typical theaters of operation for a conflict, which—according to this argument—forces the infiltration of the civilian world.

"However, what the security agencies ended up developing exceeded the limits of the 'unfairness' of the conflict itself, falling into arbitrary procedures and imprisonments outside the law. The disloyalty with which the Armed Forces ended up acting far exceeds the criticism they themselves make of this type of conflict. They became two or three times more disloyal," Rebolledo emphasizes.

Factual collusion

In its four years of operation, the National Intelligence Directorate was responsible for the death of some 3,000 people and the forced disappearance of nearly a thousand. Given its connections, it is clear that in its actions, it determined with full will the life and death of anyone who crossed its path.

When its existence was legalized in June 1974 through Decree Law No. 521, there was no doubt about the power it held. It had the authority to detain, torture, extract information under duress, and confine people in its operational centers during states of exception, which lasted for almost the entire dictatorship. It reported directly to the Government Junta.

Recently, the Spanish agency EFE revealed a Supreme Court report that was attached to the file of the trial for the assassination of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, which indicates that the DINA financed its actions through a fictitious "National Rehabilitation Directorate" (DINAR).

Through it, it accessed millionaire economic capital that served to make various payments through checks signed by the then-colonel Manuel Contreras himself.

The information coming from the Chilean justice system allows us to know about several DINA agents who appear receiving payments issued by the ghostly "DINAR," including the retired colonel and former mayor of Providencia Cristián Labbé, the former Air Force officer Carlos Ottone, and the former head of the DINA Electronic Brigade, Vianel Valdivieso, among others.

Favored media The records indicate that "DINAR" also gave checks to various media outlets. The Supreme Court report, from which the news arises, shows that—among others—the newspapers El Mercurio, Las Últimas Noticias, La Nación, La Prensa (currently disappeared), El Día de La Serena, and La Discusión de Chillán; the weeklies Qué Pasa and Ercilla; the Consorcio Periodístico de Chile; and the news agencies Orbe, United Press International, and France Press appear cashing checks with Manuel Contreras's signature.

From its de facto birth in November 1973, the DINA was linked to the CIA. The Hinchey Report, carried out in the U.S. Congress, indicates that between 1974 and 1977, the U.S. intelligence agency maintained regular paid contact with Contreras.

The United States government approved this relationship because his position as head of the main intelligence organization in Chile was useful for the fulfillment of the CIA's mission.

Thus, with money and connections, the DINA became part of the most powerful factual instances in the country. It must be remembered that the American researcher Peter Kornbluh stated last September at the Alberto Hurtado University that the evidence "is clear" that "Agustín Edwards was one of the people most involved as a collaborator of the CIA and the military.

We have the declassified documents to prove it," he said.

The collusion is even clearer with the checks discovered by the Chilean justice system and made known by the EFE agency. In his book Chile inédito (Ediciones B, 2002), American journalist Ken Dermota demonstrates that the CIA "donated" nearly US$2 million of the time to El Mercurio as a way to alleviate the economic requirements to "confront" the Allende government.

The long arm In 1975, Manuel Contreras drew from the "DINAR" account—number 13280724 of the then Banco de Crédito e Inversiones—the sum of 1,598,496,520 escudos. For reference, the minimum wage at the time was 27,000 escudos. The difference is galactic. The withdrawals include a dozen documents cashed by the "Government Junta," which amount to 165,630,800 escudos.

Also noteworthy are payments of large sums to various Army regiments and offices, including the commander-in-chief and the Army Weapons and Materials Factory (Famae), and even the Central Bank.

Until now, more and more is known about the repressive activity of the DINA, but these types of findings indicate that little is known about the economic implications of the organization. For Mireya García, vice president of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, the facts lead to two conclusions: "Now we know that the arm of the DINA was much longer than we thought and that the repression was an institutional action of the Chilean State."

Complex network

The other immediate question is where the money the DINA spent came from. With so much power and free access, the organization expanded its field of action beyond intelligence. It generated parallel financing mechanisms for its dark actions. Although its primary source of money came from the State's reserved expenses, its autonomy of action began to require more direct access to fresh money.

Journalist Manuel Salazar points out that "a large part of the money was used to pay informants and collaborators, who numbered in the thousands and in all spheres of national life. Another part was used to finance international operations." Salazar also states that the DINA created a complex financing network, the true magnitude of which is still unknown. "It had numerous companies and intercepted significant amounts of money coming from abroad to finance the Chilean resistance," he explains.

The parallel "kitchen"

The experience of other right-wing paramilitary organizations or security entities in Latin America allows some researchers to speculate that the DINA could also have been financed through links with the Cuban community in the United States and with Italian neo-fascists involved in drug trafficking, a common source for many covert operations of the Southern Cone dictatorships.

According to American journalists John Dinges and Saul Landau (authors of the book Assassination on Embassy Row, Pantheon Books, 1980), the DINA offered protection to drug traffickers, receiving payments for it that went both to the Chilean organization and to the anti-Castro Cuban lobby.

Even a version widely commented on in the United States, collected in the aforementioned book, indicates that after the coup, Pinochet sent the DEA (the northern country's Anti-Drug Agency) a plane loaded with drug traffickers.

After that, Contreras took over the production sites and embarkation points and associated with the anti-Castro Cubans. The enormous profits went to supplement the DINA's clandestine budget.

Although sarin gas was basically used to assassinate political enemies (as is being investigated in the deaths of former President Eduardo Frei and even Pablo Neruda), the DINA's chemical business seemed to quickly have other implications with drug links between Peruvian former military intelligence agents, Chilean moneylenders, and Latin American uniformed officers.

Eugenio Berríos, considered one of the best "cooks" in these matters, was in charge of producing black or Russian cocaine. Berríos was a chemist of great importance in the DINA, as he is considered a pioneer in the use of several of the mechanisms used to eliminate opponents. One of them, and the most successful, is sarin.

Also cocaine The chemist Berríos was allegedly part of a powerful cocaine trafficking network that supplied drugs to Australia and Europe. Journalistic records from Uruguay indicate that more than once he met in Buenos Aires and Montevideo with international drug traffickers, under the strict custody of Chilean and Uruguayan military intelligence.

In 1995, he appeared dead under strange circumstances on El Pinar beach in Uruguay.

With all these facets, is it possible to think that these types of networks were deactivated with the arrival of democracy in the various countries of Latin America? Manuel Salazar comments: "It is very likely that some vestiges of them still remain.

There is evidence indicating that during the years of the CNI, links were established with criminal organizations in other countries dedicated to drug trafficking and arms trading, which still survive."

Operation Condor

The expansion beyond borders must have been a treat for the DINA, which probably felt that Chile was too small for it. Hence, the organization was one of the main promoters of the so-called Operation Condor or Plan Condor, which was a coordination of operations between the leaderships of the dictatorships of the Southern Cone (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, and sporadically, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador) in conjunction with the CIA.

This particular international agreement consisted basically of tracking, surveillance, detention, interrogations with torture, transfers between countries, and the disappearance or death of people considered subversive or simply enemies.

Basically, as various lawyers explain to Cambio21, this plan constituted a clandestine international organization for the practice of state terrorism, through which assassinations and disappearances of tens of thousands of opponents were orchestrated.

Operation Colombo

In that context, "Operation Colombo" is framed, in which 119 people were detained in Chile in 1974 and whose whereabouts are still unknown. Most were young (ten were even minors). To hide their disappearances, an international montage was created through supposed newspapers in Argentina and Brazil in which lists with the names of the detainees were published as if it were a vendetta among them in trans-Andean territory.

By then, the DINA had already carried out several actions abroad on its own initiative, organizing the assassination of General Carlos Prats in Argentina and the attack on Bernardo Leighton in Italy. But it would not stop there.

In a dynamic of absolute power, with links at the highest levels, this security organization in a country far from the world came to feel capable of organizing and carrying out a major blow in the very heart of the United States, attacking the former foreign minister of the Allende government, Orlando Letelier, in the center of the American capital.

Is this crime the ultimate expression of the sense of power and impunity that the DINA expressed in its years of operation? Journalist Manuel Salazar reflects: "The Armed Forces—initially—and then the DINA assumed the task of exterminating Marxism not only from Chile, but as far as their arms could reach.

The assassination of Orlando Letelier, as well as that of General Prats and the attempt to kill Leighton, among other international attacks, express the eagerness of Pinochet and Colonel Contreras to lead that struggle."

Source: Cambio21.cl, November 2, 2013

Labbé accused of torturing young man for not cutting hair and beard in 1973

He was summoned to testify as an accused by a minister of the Valdivia Court of Appeals. The regional head of RN, Eduardo Hunter, chief of staff to Senator Carlos Larraín in the area, will also be interrogated. Both allegedly led torture sessions against Harry Cohen.

In October 1973, electrical technician Harry Cohen Vera, then 24, traveled from Santiago to Futrono to see his parents. He was uneasy about what might happen in that Valdivian town after the coup. Cohen wore his hair long and had a beard, but he did not participate in any political activity.

Throughout the country, the military had issued edicts against that "revolutionary and hippie look," contrary to the values of the Junta, but Cohen did not comply with the order. After all, he did not get involved in politics. But at the Valdivia bus terminal, he aroused suspicion as soon as he was seen arriving, and someone denounced him just for his appearance.

The next day, three trucks with soldiers and a helicopter descended on Futrono, where they had never seen such a deployment. Everyone came out to see how they raided his parents' house on Balmaceda Street, the main street of the town, after which they took Cohen away as a detainee.

After remaining at the local police station, he was transferred to a military facility in Panguipulli, where they tortured him. They applied electricity, beat him, and hung him by his feet and hands at the same time. They also forced him to eat food contaminated with fly larvae.

HE HAD FORGIVEN THEM, BUT...

Cohen was released in November 1973, after remaining imprisoned for 22 days, without a single charge being brought against him. His case was included in the Valech Report on political torture victims and exonerated persons, but after 40 years, he had forgotten the matter and even forgiven his torturers.

These were allegedly the former mayor of Providencia, Colonel (Ret.) Cristián Labbé, and the current regional president of National Renewal (RN) in Los Ríos, journalist Eduardo Hunter. Cohen decided to file a complaint against both after seeing the actions of the former municipal chief during student protests.

Roberto Ávila Toledo, the plaintiff lawyer (on the right), told nacion.cl that Cohen was deeply bothered by Mayor Labbé’s repression against students and, above all, his public profile. For that reason, six months ago, he decided to file the legal action for torture, a crime that does not prescribe.

"If Labbé had remained silent, in a low profile, nothing would have happened, there would be no complaint, because Cohen had forgiven him, but seeing him in the media giving statements against the student movement irritated him and led him to file the complaint," recalled Ávila.

The lawyer explained that the complaint was first heard by Minister Mario Carroza, who declared himself incompetent and referred it to the Valdivia Court of Appeals, where it was placed in the hands of Minister Juan Ignacio Correa. Last Thursday, Correa dispatched an order to the PDI (Investigative Police) to interrogate Labbé as an accused.

The procedure will be carried out by the Human Rights Brigade, which has a period of 30 days to complete it. And in Hunter's case, the order was dispatched last Friday; he will also testify as an accused. After these interrogations, lawyer Ávila will request the prosecution of both and their detention.

HUNTER, "WAR CORRESPONDENT"

According to what lawyer Ávila told nacion.cl, Hunter was dressed in military combat gear when he interrogated Cohen. This individual, who currently works in the area as chief of staff to Senator Carlos Larraín, was "playing out" war-type fantasies and acted in the case as a "war correspondent."

Lawyer Ávila stated that Hunter is the author of Plan Z in the Valdivia region. In 1973, he wrote in the newspaper El Correo that Cubans would enter the city in inflatable boats via the Calle Calle River, in a supposed trip from the Caribbean island itself, and that the main representatives of the opposition to Allende in the area would be assassinated at the Coliseo theater.

Ávila added that Hunter wrote a report in the magazine VEA in which he described Cohen as a "dangerous guerrilla." In addition to being regional president of RN, Hunter currently serves as a councilman for Panguipulli and is also being prosecuted in other torture cases, such as those that affected former intendant Sandor Arancibia and former mayor Luis Bórquez.

LABBÉ WITH CAMOUFLAGE ON STEEL HELMET

Regarding the then-Army Lieutenant Cristián Labbé, lawyer Ávila indicated that when he arrived at the torture site against Cohen, Cohen lifted his face and saw him in uniform and with a steel helmet camouflaged with leaves.

Immediately, Labbé became enraged and began to mistreat him because Cohen dared to lift his gaze and look him in the face. He then continued to participate in the torture sessions.

According to lawyer Ávila, Cohen also earned the hatred of a certain Sergeant Barra, who harshly reprimanded him for ruining his opportunity to meet an officer who was "famous" within the Army. The former mayor of Providencia is the son of Colonel Alberto Labbé, who became known in 1971 for not rendering honors to Fidel Castro during his visit to Chile.

Colonel Labbé withdrew the entire detachment stationed at the National Congress and marched them along Avenida Santa María toward the Army Military School, of which he was the director. For this act of grave indiscipline, Labbé was immediately called to retirement.

Finally, lawyer Ávila indicated that the complaint is based on the statements of the detainees who were with Cohen at the time of the events and who have already testified in the process, fully recognizing Labbé and Hunter.

Source: La Nación, November 12, 2013

Labbé faced FUNA and confrontation in Tejas Verdes torture case

A group tried to block the 4x4 in which the former mayor of Providencia left the San Miguel Court, where he had a face-to-face confrontation with two former political prisoners who accuse him of having led the torments against them in 1973.

Relatives of victims and human rights defense groups threw themselves this Friday into the path of the vehicle in which the former mayor of Providencia and former Army Colonel, Cristián Labbé, was leaving the San Miguel Court, where he had gone for a confrontation regarding the complaint against him for alleged torture at the Tejas Verdes Regiment.

The former instructor at the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) remained for nearly two hours inside the courthouse, which was surrounded by Carabineros, for the face-to-face confrontation with Anatolio Zárate and Héctor Salvo, who were detained at the San Antonio military barracks.

Labbé left as a passenger in the back of a jeep from the courthouse and encountered the crowd that tried to block his transit amidst scuffles with the uniformed officers, who finally opened the way and allowed him to head off at high speed down one of the small adjacent streets. There were no injuries or arrests in the incident.

Anatolio Zárate, upon leaving the procedure, commented: "Justice is very slow; what I hope for is only justice. Justice here has shown itself to be very slow to advance. Especially after remembering everything that happened, of course one gets tired. One leaves tired, like previous fatigues."

Source: La Nación, June 20, 2014

Former Mayor Labbé confronted in Tejas Verdes torture case

The former mayor of Providencia will be confronted with former detainees Anatolio Zárate Oyarzún and Héctor Salvo Pereira, who maintain in court that the former agent participated in torture in the basement of the Officers' Casino at the Tejas Verdes regiment, where both were subjected to torment.

The former DINA agent, Colonel (Ret.) and former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé Galilea, will be cross-examined this Friday with two former political prisoners who accuse him of intervening in torture at the Tejas Verdes regiment.

Labbé will be confronted with former detainees Anatolio Zárate Oyarzún and Héctor Salvo Pereira, who maintain in court that the former agent participated in torture in the basement of the Officers' Casino at the Tejas Verdes regiment, where both were subjected to torment.

The cross-examination will take place starting at 09:00 today, June 20, at the San Miguel Court of Appeals before Judge Marianela Cifuentes.

The magistrate is investigating a complaint regarding 13 victims from the Tejas Verdes prison camp. They are: Carlos Carrasco Cáceres, Jorge Cornejo Carvajal, Gustavo Farías Vargas, Carlos Galaz Vera, Oscar Gómez Farías, Aquiles Jara Álvarez, Genaro Mendoza Villavicencio, Víctor Mesina Araya, Miguel Moyano Santander, Luis Norambuena Fernandois, Jorge Ojeda Jara, Ceferino Santis Quijada, and Florindo Vidal Hinojosa.

The stories of Zárate and Salvo, as well as those of other former prisoners, are recounted in the book El despertar de los cuervos (The Awakening of the Crows), by journalist Javier Rebolledo.

Source: El Mostrador, June 20, 2014

Labbé cross-examined for more than three hours at the San Miguel court

Colonel Cristián Labbé reaffirmed that he never applied torture to detainees at Tejas Verdes.

Colonel and former mayor of Providencia Cristián Labbé was cross-examined for more than three hours this morning regarding one of the facets of the so-called Tejas Verdes case. Labbé had requested this proceeding to be conducted with Anatolio Zárate and Patricio Salvo.

In particular, Zárate has accused Labbé in other proceedings of having tortured him at Tejas Verdes and also of having belonged to the structure of that military unit during the first year of the dictatorship.

According to Zárate, Labbé denied his presence at the regiment in question, while he stood by his statements.

Labbé left at 12:10 in the pickup truck he was driving, which was struck by the relatives and victims of Tejas Verdes who were stationed outside the parking lot of the San Miguel Court of Appeals.

It must be remembered that at Tejas Verdes, Manuel "Mamo" Contreras began creating, at least by 1972, what would later be known as the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA).

In that structure, Labbé was an interrogation instructor, but until now he has not been indicted in any case for human rights violations regarding the application of torture to detainees.

Furthermore, it was from Tejas Verdes that a large military contingent departed on the day of the coup, bound for Santiago, and some of the troops took charge of the Estadio Chile, where Víctor Jara was murdered. For this reason, Tejas Verdes has regained importance in the investigation of the artist's crime.

Cristián Labbé was part of Pinochet's personal guard, and in that context, he has stated in his declarations that he was assigned to the DINA, not because he belonged to the torture and disappearance apparatus of the repressive organization. In fact, Labbé published a book where he recounts his experiences as an escort to the former dictator.

Following today's interrogation, the magistrate must evaluate whether the evidence contained in the case provides sufficient grounds to indict Labbé for the crime of torture.

Minister Marianela Cifuentes has been in her position for just over a year, replacing the late Alejandro Solís, also of the San Miguel court; all were appointed as ministers with preferential dedication to exhaust investigations into human rights cases.

Source: The Clinic, June 20, 2014

Former mayor of Providencia Cristián Labbé remains under preventive detention for crimes at Tejas Verdes

During this Monday, the minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, ordered the detention of retired Colonel and former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé.

The former municipal authority is being prosecuted for illicit association, for his participation in the disappearance and qualified homicide of 13 people opposed to the dictatorship who were sent to the Tejas Verdes Regiment in San Antonio.

Along with Labbé, nine other retired officers and non-commissioned officers have been indicted and notified. Meanwhile, the former mayor was transferred to the Peñalolén Telecommunications Regiment to serve his preventive detention.

Read also: “El despertar de los cuervos”, the book about the origin of the DINA and its torture at Tejas Verdes.

In June, the former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) was cross-examined alongside Anatolio Zárate, who was detained at the Tejas Verdes regiment and accused having been subjected to torture, where the retired colonel was allegedly present.

This has been denied on repeated occasions by the man who led the Providencia municipality from 1996 to 2012.

Labbé's lawyer, Christian Espejo, in an interview with CNN Chile, expressed surprise at the detention, which he stated would last for two days. He added that "this must be faced as appropriate."

From La Moneda, the Minister Secretary General of Government, Álvaro Elizalde, stated that both the Government and Chilean society expect human rights crimes to be clarified "like all crimes committed in Chile, but it is the courts that must determine responsibilities."

Source: RadioBioBio.cl, October 12, 2014

Justice grants bail to former mayor Cristián Labbé; he must pay $200,000

The retired military officer, however, must remain detained at the Army Telecommunications Battalion in Peñalolén at least until tomorrow, when a hearing will be held at the appellate court to discuss the magistrate's determination.

The amount of 200,000 pesos approved in the first instance by Cifuentes must also be ratified at the hearing before the Court of Appeals.

The measure was taken regarding all those indicted in the Tejas Verdes case, which involves 9 retired uniformed personnel and one former civil police officer.

Labbé's defense attorney, Cristian Espejo, confirmed to La Tercera that the measure was accepted last night by the judge.

Espejo asserted that the retired colonel spent the night calmly, receiving support at all times from his family and friends.

"He has felt very supported, which makes him very happy. Many people have sent messages, calls, they love him," said the defense attorney.

Espejo stated that the former mayor "continues to be surprised, by virtue of the fact that he is innocent. He has a very clear conscience because he has not committed any crime, and he takes this prosecution with great manliness."

Labbé entered the Peñalolén regiment yesterday around 3:00 PM to comply with the preventive detention measure ordered by Minister Marianela Cifuentes, who indicted him for the crime of illicit association within the framework of the investigation into the Tejas Verdes case.

Source: La Tercera, October 21, 2014

Exclusive: Cristián Labbé faces imminent new indictment for torture. Summoned to Valdivia for cross-examination with complainant

Last August, cambio21 released unpublished information regarding the case of torture suffered by Harry Cohen Vera, which is being pursued in Valdivia against the former UDI mayor and then-Army lieutenant in the unit commanded by General Nilo Floody. Established in the south (1973-1974), its purpose was to repress the MIR and any focus of resistance against the dictatorship.

In a new resolution dated January 15 of this year, issued in the proceedings instructed by the Extraordinary Visiting Minister Juan Ignacio Correa Rosado of the Valdivia Court of Appeals against Cristián Labbé, his appearance is ordered for a cross-examination on February 20 with Harry Cohen. The notification will be carried out by the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) by order of the judge.

He has recovered part of his memory.

Following our report, Cristián Labbé appeared to provide new statements. This time he had no alternative and partially recovered his memory, acknowledging that he was indeed in the area of the events at that time.

He could not contradict the multiple witnesses who placed him there, which he had denied in previous statements. In his new testimony, however, he denied having participated in torture: "Never in my life have I applied duress to any person," stated the former DINA agent.

All statements from direct witnesses in the aforementioned case have consistently placed Cristián Labbé in the area and at the scene of the events between October and November. Witnesses who saw him and even spoke with him, such as another detainee held without a judicial warrant, Jaime Rozas, assert in his statements: "At that moment I met an Army officer (...) who told me his surname was Labbé (...) who talked to me, asked me where I came from, I told him from Futrono and asked if he was related to a Labbé family from Futrono and he told me no." Rozas would speak face-to-face several times with the lieutenant, also identifying him as one of his torturers.

Abuse of power

Labbé is charged with having witnessed and participated in the duress suffered by Cohen and others, and with having been in charge of the unit that held them captive without any judicial warrant. Harry Cohen was detained on November 7, 1973, while traveling from Santiago to Futrono, where part of his family resided.

He did so periodically for business reasons and on behalf of his brother, who lived with him in Santiago. Long hair and a beard stood out on the lanky figure of a young man of that era, indifferent to politics, more concerned with his work as an electrical technician and helping his own.

He had been harassed on previous trips by soldiers because of his appearance. It is known that in that post-coup era, long hair and beards on men and pants on women were not well regarded by the regime.

But he was used to it. What would come next, however, was not within any logic. "I was not an activist or a political militant," Harry Cohen told Cambio21, "I was an observer of what was happening."

Once in Futrono with his family, the day after his arrival and in the morning, he suddenly encountered a ferocity he had never imagined. Camouflaged and heavily armed soldiers surrounded his house and entered violently, pointing weapons at everyone in the family. He and a relative were taken prisoner and transported to the town police station.

The man with the corvo

From there, he was taken by helicopter until he was placed under the orders of Lieutenant Labbé, who was known for his fierce treatment of those who fell into his hands. But the worst was yet to come. He was locked up with another prisoner in a cell.

He was there when he saw Labbé face-to-face for the first time. He would never forget that face, the voice, that arrogance, the violence with which he was confronted, corvo (curved knife) in hand by the soldier, just for looking him in the face.

He would continue to hear the voice for some time, in every torture session, where he could no longer look him in the face, as the hood placed on him prevented it.

This is how Harry Cohen recounted that first encounter to Cambio21: "Before me appeared a heavily equipped soldier, who, looking at me in a threatening manner, shouted: 'Look down, you son of a bitch!'...

Faced with surprise and fear, I did not react instantaneously, provoking in him a state of hysteria that led him to draw the bladed weapon known as a corvo, advance toward me, and utter insults while threatening to cut my throat..." It was none other than the "Black Beret" Lieutenant Cristián Labbé Galilea.

For Cohen, "the tortures I suffered were senseless; questions about what I or my family were doing were accompanied by electric shocks, which increased if my answer did not seem adequate to them (...) every time I was tortured, I was hoisted with my hands tied behind my back, a hood on my head, and electrodes placed on my arms, feet, and hips.

It was a ritual that began in silence and then came the questions, insults, and threats. The electric shocks were unbearable," he indicated.

Unmistakable

There were three voices that interrogated him over and over again. The voice of the former mayor of Providencia and DINA member, Cristián Labbé, was unmistakable to Harry Cohen: "I am clear about who tortured me and threatened to kill me with a corvo; it was Cristián Labbé.

How could I not be sure if I looked him in the face and saw him lunge at me while he insulted me? Furthermore, I heard and identified his voice in my interrogations, and Sergeant Barra also confirmed it to me. When he interrogated me, it was clear to distinguish his voice, because I saw and heard him clearly when he threatened me," he affirms without doubt.

The torture sessions lasted for days, as evidenced not only by Harry Cohen's testimony but also by that of other prisoners who also suffered the rigor of the lashes. "We were tortured with electricity, they threatened us with corvos at our throats, they tried to execute us by firing squad while we were blindfolded," affirms Bernardo Santibáñez, a cellmate and companion in misfortune of Cohen, in case file 5-2013.

Contradictions

Labbé denies the facts, stating in his declaration on page 134: "My work was limited to commanding the strategic reserve of this unit; circumstances in which this unit was never employed, it had no action, it had no contact with irregular forces, and it remained exclusively quartered in the Panguipulli sector, reporting to Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina Lois." He thus avoids any connection to the events for which he is charged.

If that unit under his command had no activity, why in another part of his declaration (page 135) does Labbé state: "My unit stood out for being the best in the division; I appeared on repeated occasions in the local press"...

That is to say, if it was a "strategic reserve" unit that was "exclusively quartered" and "without contact with irregular forces," why was it chosen as "the best in the division"? How did he earn the commendations that appear in his service record and appearances in the press? Without doing anything?

"This is a case that has relevance not only because of the accused, because of the perpetrator, but because of the nature of the events, which, without being of extraordinary gravity like a homicide, account for the abuses with which the military acted in this country," stated the attorney for the case, Roberto Ávila Toledo, categorically to Cambio21.

The "press officer" will also be cross-examined

Another person who must appear on February 20 before the magistrate to be cross-examined with Cohen is the journalist who liked to walk around dressed as a soldier in that era to cover the news and who, in reality, as established in the proceedings, were nothing more than "staged scenes," true masquerades that sought to hide crimes and abuses, so typical of the servile press of that dark stage of our history.

This is Eduardo Hunter Abarzúa, who is also the regional president of Renovación Nacional and has held various positions within that group. Hunter is also in the status of an accused, and he personally interrogated Harry Cohen while wearing a military combat uniform and acting as a war correspondent.

In that capacity, he published a report in VEA magazine, labeling Cohen as a "dangerous guerrilla." Cohen never belonged to any party, much less had any relationship with politics. But according to the "journalist," he was a dangerous extremist.

"The cross-examination is vital for indictment"

The various statements contained in the case, including the confessions of the accused, the testimonies of the victims, as well as the evident contradictions of Labbé and Hunter, will culminate with this cross-examination, after which the court must pronounce itself regarding the indictment of Labbé, which, in light of the file viewed exclusively by Cambio21, is imminent.

Attorney Luis Toro agrees: "The elements that base the presumptions against Labbé are even more categorical than those that existed against Rosauro Martínez and even when he was indicted in Tejas Verdes. The files carry procedural certainty; then his lies in 6 files are laid bare," he asserts.

As will be recalled, the former mayor of Providencia is also being prosecuted for illicit association in the case regarding the torture and crimes of several prisoners at Tejas Verdes, the cradle where the DINA was born, commanded by the cruel General Manuel Contreras.

Finally, the face-to-face

Harry Cohen longed for the opportunity to face the man he recognizes as his torturer. This will be the opportunity to confront him with his procedural truth. Without violence, but with conviction, as he acknowledged to Cambio21.

"After the events and for a long time, I didn't know anything about Labbé, until I saw him on television and I was shocked. If I saw him face-to-face... I have so many things to tell him that perhaps I wouldn't be able to say anything, but the first thing that comes to mind is to tell him 'son of a bitch, murderer!'... because what Labbé lived, he enjoyed, and to this date, with his hatreds and lies, he continues to enjoy it.

It is not personal, but if I see that I can help punish someone who has done wrong, I will do it, by denouncing what he did to me to help others also achieve justice," concludes Cohen Vera.

Source: Cambio21, January 17, 2015

The evidence considered in the torture case against Harry Cohen has demonstrated the participation of the former mayor of Providencia in crimes against humanity committed in Valdivia between October and November 1973.

A confrontation in Valdivia took place between Colonel (ret.) Cristián Labbé and Harry Cohen Vera regarding the unlawful coercion inflicted upon Cohen. The lies of the former mayor of Providencia continue to crumble due to witnesses who place him at the scene at the time the events occurred.

Harry Cohen Vera, 22 years old at the time, was detained on November 7, 1973, while traveling from Santiago to Futrono, where part of his family resided. His long hair and beard stood out on the lanky figure of a young man of that era, uninvolved in politics, more concerned with his work as an electrical technician and helping his loved ones.

He was kidnapped, brutally tortured, and accused of being a terrorist without even being a member of any political party, when armed soldiers surrounded his house, pointing weapons at his family, and took him prisoner.

The extraordinary visiting judge, Juan Ignacio Correa Rosado, of the Valdivia Court of Appeals, ordered Cristián Labbé to appear for a confrontation with Harry Cohen.

The former mayor of Providencia has been known for denying any accusation against him regarding unlawful coercion carried out by him when he was a member of the Army, where he reached the rank of colonel. He was a member of the DINA, a personal bodyguard for Pinochet, and also served at one time as a minister of the dictatorship.

In this case, Labbé could not deny the facts and acknowledged that he was indeed in the area at that time. This was due to the large number of witnesses who placed him at the location and on the date the illicit acts occurred. However, in his new testimony, he denied having participated in torture: "Never in my life have I applied coercion to any person," the former DINA agent stated.

The problem with this case is that several contradictions have been identified on the part of the colonel (ret.), among them denying the facts that appear in his statement on page 134: "My work was limited to commanding the strategic reserve of this unit, circumstances in which this unit was never employed, had no action whatsoever, had no contact with irregular forces, and remained exclusively garrisoned in the Panguipulli sector, reporting to Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Medina Lois," in order to avoid his connection to the events.

There is also another statement on page 135 in which Labbé said: "My unit stood out for being the best in the division; I appeared repeatedly in the local press." Several doubts arise here, for if it was a "strategic reserve" unit that was "exclusively garrisoned" and "without contact with irregular forces," why was it chosen as "the best in the division"?

How did it earn the commendations that appear in his service record and appearances in the press? Without doing anything?

Following this confrontation, the court must rule on the indictment of Labbé, which, in light of the file viewed exclusively by Cambio21, is imminent.

As will be recalled, the former mayor of Providencia is also indicted for illicit association in the case regarding the torture and crimes against several prisoners at Tejas Verdes, the cradle where the DINA was born, commanded by Manuel Contreras.

In this case, Eduardo Hunter Abarzúa, former president of Renovación Nacional, current party councilor, and former secretary to Carlos Larraín when he was a senator, is also accused of interrogating the victims.

When asked about the importance of this process, one of the plaintiff lawyers in the case, Roberto Ávila, stated in an interview with Cambio21: "It is important because it puts an end to the accumulation of evidence that proves the crime of torture that was allegedly committed by Cristián Labbé Galilea and Eduardo Hunter Abarzúa.

It is the final stage of the investigative process, since Labbé's alibi has been crumbling, given that there were several witnesses who forced him to acknowledge that he was at the scene; however, he maintains that he did not face any combat action and that he did not detain anyone."

Regarding the steps to follow in this case, Ávila said: "We believe that sufficient evidence has been accumulated to request his (Labbé's) indictment. We already have an enormous amount of evidentiary material to request this in the coming days before the Valdivia Court of Appeals."

Regarding what Labbé risks in this case, the plaintiff explained: "Labbé already has an indictment for illicit association for killing and torturing. If an action for torture is added to that, the strict application of the law, not having an irreproachable prior record, would constitute a danger to society and he should receive pretrial detention."

The president of the Ethics Commission Against Torture, Juana Aguilera, was also consulted on this, who in conversation with Cambio21 said: "It is something we have been pushing for so that the State finally recognizes that a crime was committed and kept it hidden for 40 years."

"What the courts are doing has to do with what the victims themselves, who were imprisoned and tortured, are doing, but in reality, since 2004, the State became aware of what happened and it should have been handed over to the courts so that the facts could be investigated, but that was not done," Aguilera concluded.

Source: Cambio21, February 23, 2015

Case File 2.182-98: "Colombo Case" Episode, aggravated kidnapping of María Angélica Andreoli Bravo

EIGHTY-EIGHTH: That the accused, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, in his investigative statement on page 2925, states that he joined the DINA in November 1973 when he was a second sergeant in the Buin regiment, and with other companions—he mentions Víctor San Martín, Jaime París, Bahamondes, Luis Mora Cerda, Hiro Álvarez, Gustavo Apablaza, Saldaña—they went to Rocas de Santo Domingo and spent about two months at the Tejas Verdes regiment, where they received basic intelligence instruction; in total, he calculates there were about three hundred members from the different branches; they were received by César Manríquez, and among the instructors he remembers Cristian Labbé, Cristoph Willeke, and the classes were about political parties, subversive parties, and their weapons; they were taught to work camouflaged and undercover as security agents; in the end, he remained in the Puma group in charge of Major Urrich, and Jaime París, Luis Saldaña, and Luis Mora Cerda also remained there; his alias was Ricardo Benavides; in February or March, they were sent to Londres 38, a two-story building with an attic; he describes the building, the guard, the offices; Urrich gave the orders of the...

Source: Judiciary, April 10, 2015

Former mayor Cristián Labbé sentenced as perpetrator of torture crimes during the dictatorship

Visiting Judge Álvaro Mesa sentenced retired colonel and former mayor of Providencia, Cristian Labbé Galilea, as the perpetrator of the crime of torture against Harry Cohen Vera, which occurred in Panguipulli in 1973.

The judge for human rights cases in this area of the country sentenced Labbé to an effective prison term of three years and the suspension of public office or employment during the term of the sentence.

According to the ruling, the events occurred on November 7, 1973, when the victim, Harry Cohen Vera, was arrested in the framework of the so-called "Operación Peineta," while Labbé Galilea was in charge of the military reserve, who, as established by Judge Mesa, threatened the victim with a corvo (knife) that he would cut his throat while he was imprisoned in a facility that housed political prisoners in Panguipulli.

Subsequently, he was transferred blindfolded and tied to other facilities, where he was even hung and then subjected to electric shocks while being interrogated, only to be released after a few days.

The first-instance ruling was welcomed by the plaintiff lawyer, Roberto Ávila.

The lawyer for the convicted man, Cristian Espejo, announced that they will appeal a ruling that left his client without benefits.

The professional said he trusts the evidence, versus what was collated "by hearsay" by the judge, as he indicated.

For Humanist deputy Tomás Hirsch, the former mayor of Providencia should respond with jail time.

In addition, Judge Mesa ordered the Chilean State to compensate the victim with 30 million pesos for the moral damage resulting from the unlawful coercion perpetrated.

If appealed, the case will be reviewed by the Temuco Court of Appeals, without ruling out that it may later be elevated to the Supreme Court.

For the moment, Labbé Galilea is at his home, awaiting notification, as is his defense, which acknowledged that it learned of the ruling through the press and not from Judge Mesa.

Source: biobiochile.cl, October 2, 2019

Colonel (ret.) and former mayor of Providencia, Cristian Labbé, indicted as a torturer

The former mayor of Providencia and colonel (ret.), Cristián Labbé, was indicted as the perpetrator of the crime of torture, committed between the months of September and October 1973, against the then-merchant marine officer, Anatolio Zárate Oyarzún, in the framework of the Tejas Verdes case. He remains free on bail.

It was the visiting judge for human rights violation cases, Marianela Cifuentes, who verified the evidence collected in the investigation, which showed that "between September 20, 1973, and October 30 of the same year, Zárate Oyarzún remained detained in the prisoner camp of the Tejas Verdes School of Military Engineers," a clandestine DINA detention center.

According to the Judiciary, the victim "was transferred on repeated occasions to the basement of the officers' mess" of the facility, a place where he was "interrogated and subjected to physical and psychological mistreatment by officials of the Chilean Army, among them, Lieutenant Cristián Labbé Galilea."

The report details, among the torments suffered by Zárate Oyarzún, "electric shocks to different parts of the body, hangings, beatings with blunt objects, mock executions, and the so-called 'excrement submarine,' consisting of immersion in a drum of feces, among other inhumane forms of coercion."

Subsequently, and given the injuries caused, Zárate Oyarzún was referred on the morning of October 30, 1973, to the Claudio Vicuña Hospital in San Antonio. He remained in that medical center until December 7 of that year, when he was taken to the Santiago public jail and, after a brief period, to a penitentiary medical center.

Finally, Judge Cifuentes stated that "given that the accused Cristian Labbé Galilea is free on bail and that, according to the court's internal records, he has complied in a timely manner with his obligation to sign in monthly, it is ordered to maintain the release on bail" that was granted to him in the case.

Source: fortinmapocho.cl, October 12, 2018

Colina Municipality continues to employ former DINA agent Cristián Labbé, despite torture conviction

On September 30, 2019, visiting judge Álvaro Mesa sentenced Labbé to three years of effective imprisonment, in addition to the "suspension of public office or employment during the term of the sentence," for the crime of unlawful coercion, which he committed in November 1973 against student Harry Cohen in the midst of the military dictatorship period.

After a publication circulated on social networks asserting that the mayor of Colina, Isabel Valenzuela (UDI), hired former DINA agent Cristián Labbé at the municipality, said information was corroborated, although it is not entirely precise.

According to Cooperativa, it was verified on the Active Transparency portal that Labbé has been hired on a fee basis at the municipality since March 2016, during the administration of Mario Olavarría (UDI), and until August 2021, the month in which he received a salary exceeding 1.5 million gross pesos.

Throughout that time, Labbé—former mayor of Providencia—has performed two functions: "support in control and management related to the Municipal Strategic Plan," and "advice and consulting in training matters," a position for which he qualified as a graduate in Military Sciences.

On September 30, 2019, visiting judge Álvaro Mesa sentenced Labbé to three years of effective imprisonment, in addition to the "suspension of public office or employment during the term of the sentence," for the crime of unlawful coercion, which he committed in November 1973 against student Harry Cohen in the midst of the military dictatorship period.

The ruling was confirmed in April 2020 by the Temuco Court of Appeals, after which he filed an amparo appeal before the Supreme Court.

Consulted by the media outlet Fast Check, Fernando Uribe, Labbé's lawyer, said that the former agent of the dictatorship is currently free and that they meet once a month.

Source: elmostrador.cl, September 1, 2021

Former mayor of Providencia Cristián Labbé sentenced for torture in Panguipulli

Visiting judge Álvaro Mesa sentenced the retired colonel as the perpetrator of the application of torture to political prisoner Harry Edwards Cohen Vera, who relates in the process that the former "black beret" threatened him that he would cut his throat with a corvo and also led the torture sessions in which he was subjected to electric shocks, among other torments.

These human rights violation events in which Labbé is implicated are in addition to the Tejas Verdes episodes, where the former uniformed officer is also in the sights of justice. Labbé, who was mayor of Providencia between 1996 and 2012 for the UDI, has been away from political life for several years.

His past in the dictatorship continues to haunt the former Army "black beret" and former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé Galilea, who was sentenced by visiting judge Álvaro Mesa Latorre for torture against the political prisoner from Panguipulli, Harry Edwards Cohen Vera, in November 1973.

The events occurred in the town in the Los Ríos Region, when Cohen was detained by a patrol, in the so-called "Operación Peineta," carried out by military personnel in the mountain area between Concepción and Valdivia, and whose objective was the capture of people opposed to the dictatorship.

According to the victim's testimony, Labbé threatened him with a corvo that he would cut his throat and led the torture sessions where he was subjected to electric shocks, among other torments.

According to the ruling, Judge Mesa sentenced the former Army officer to an effective prison term of three years and the corresponding legal accessories of suspension of public office or employment during the term of the sentence.

In addition, the magistrate ordered the Chilean State to pay compensation of 30 million pesos to Cohen Vera for moral damage resulting from the unlawful coercion suffered by his person.

During the military dictatorship, Labbé was a bodyguard for Augusto Pinochet and an agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and since 2003 he has been investigated for cases of torture and human rights violations.

In fact, in 2014, he was already in pretrial detention for another case, the disappearance of 13 people at the Tejas Verdes regiment in the Valparaíso Region, where he is being investigated for illicit association.

And in 2017, he remained detained for a month at the Tucapel Infantry Regiment in Temuco by order of the same Judge Mesa, who investigates human rights violations for the Courts of Appeals of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique.

Labbé is retired from political life, after serving as mayor of Providencia between 1996 and 2012, when he lost the election to Josefa Errázuriz. Four years later, he declined to attempt a new candidacy, and in the process resigned from his membership in the UDI.

The facts

The affected party, Harry Edwards Cohen Vera, 26 years old at the time of the events, was a 2nd-year student of the "Electronics" career at the Nuevo Mundo Professional Institute in Santiago. According to the resolution, on November 6, 1973, he traveled to the town of Futrono, and the following day, when he was at his relatives' house, a group of "black beret" soldiers broke into the home and proceeded to raid the place and detain him along with Jaime Rozas González.

Both were immediately transferred to the Futrono Carabineros station, and subsequently were taken by military personnel to a helicopter that was parked in the city square, at which moment he was also able to notice the presence of other people in the capacity of detainees, the resolution points out.

"On the flight, they were threatened with being thrown into Lake Riñihue, but subsequently they landed in a place they recognize as a school located in the city of Panguipulli," the investigation adds. That was when Cohen met Labbé for the first time, who "heavily armed and in camouflage clothing, threatened him with a bladed weapon (corvo) that he would cut his throat," the process points out.

Labbé appears mentioned again by the victim when recounting other torments. "He was removed from his cell blindfolded and with a sack as a hood over his head, tied by his feet and hands, being transported in a truck toward a place that apparently could correspond to a warehouse.

That in these circumstances he was hung with his hands tied behind his back, allowing him to support himself only with the tips of his fingers on the ground. That at that moment he was interrogated by 3 soldiers, regarding whom he was able to identify the voice of that corpulent officer described in the preceding point, who in a mocking manner made repeated references to his Semitic origin.

That in said interrogation they connected electrodes to his ankle and wrists, which systematically produced electric shocks increasingly intense, at the same time that he was being interrogated," the resolution describes.

Source: elmostrador.cl, October 2, 2019

Supreme Court ratified sentence against former DINA agent Cristián Labbé for application of torture during the Dictatorship, but he will not go to prison due to alternative regime

According to the ruling issued in 2019 against Cristian Labbé, a few months after the start of the coup d'état, the former colonel detained the electronics student, Harry Cohen, at his parents' house, located in Futrono. Later, the detainee was transferred to Panguipulli, in the Los Ríos Region, and tortured with electricity under the charge of Labbé.

The Supreme Court of Justice ratified the conviction for the former DINA agent and former mayor of Providencia, Cristián Labbé, for the charges of "illegal detention, application of torture, and kidnapping with grave damage," during the dictatorship.

However, the Court established an alternative regime of conditional remission due to his advanced age.

Let us remember that the former colonel and head of Augusto Pinochet's escort presented a cassation appeal against the sentence issued by the Temuco Court of Appeals dated April 9, 2020, where the violation of the previous defense was alleged.

This, after Labbé's previous lawyer did not attend the hearings of the Temuco Court of Appeals when a nullity appeal of the case was being seen, which was rejected.

Given this, the subsequent lawyer for the former mayor of Providencia, Cristian Espejo, presented this argument to go to the Supreme Court.

According to the ruling issued in 2019 against Cristian Labbé, a few months after the start of the coup d'état, the former colonel detained the electronics student, Harry Cohen, at his parents' house, located in Futrono. Later, the detainee was transferred to Panguipulli, in the Los Ríos Region, and tortured with electricity under the charge of Labbé.

"He was connected to electrodes and after asking him successive questions, electric shocks were applied consecutively, causing him much pain throughout his body. He argues remembering particularly one of his interrogators given that the voice corresponded to the same Mr.

Cristián Labbé, he says, who had visited him violently in his first cell; it also remained very engraved because he made allusion in a mocking way to his surname which is of Semitic origin," reads the sentence of visiting judge Álvaro Mesa, in charge of the first-instance trial of the Army colonel (ret.).

By Leonardo Buitrago

Source: elciudadano.cl, February 4, 2023