The efforts of the FACh (Chilean Air Force) to distance itself from the crimes committed during the military dictatorship have proven futile. A direct consequence of the investigative reports by journalist Víctor Gutiérrez published in the newspaper “La Nación” was the resignation of the fifth-ranking officer in the institutional chain of command, General Patricio Campos Montecinos, former head of the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics and the institution's liaison during the roundtable dialogue.

His wife, Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval (“la Pochi”), played an active role in the sinister Comando Conjunto, according to statements made to “La Nación” by the former agent “Colmillo Blanco,” whom the newspaper “El Mercurio” identified as retired FACh Colonel Otto Trujillo, currently prosecuted and held in the former Penitentiary.

Former aviation captain Jaime Donoso Parra is writing his memoirs. The Comando Conjunto allegedly reorganized with the goal of distorting the information provided by the FACh to the roundtable dialogue and obstructing judicial investigations involving members of the Air Force, with the help of civilian lawyers funded by the institution.

The “La Nación” informant also mentioned Colonel Roberto Serón Cárdenas, Commander Juan Luis López López, and the civilian Alejandro Figari Verdugo (former militant of Patria y Libertad) as active agents of the repression.

Most were prosecuted by visiting judge Carlos Cerda in 1986 and later dismissed by the Supreme Court. Despite the significance of the allegations, the Court of Appeals rejected the appointment of an extraordinary judge, and the judicial investigation remained in the hands of the judge of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Mario Carroza, who oversees the majority of the cases involving victims of the Comando Conjunto.

Furthermore, President Ricardo Lagos requested that the high command conduct an internal investigation within the Air Force, and there was no shortage of voices calling for the departure of the commander-in-chief, General Patricio Ríos.

This is the second major crisis to shake the FACh under General Ríos's command. Last year, his right-hand man, General Hernán Gabrielli, chief of the general staff and second in institutional seniority, was forced into retirement.

He had been positioned as the future commander-in-chief until five lawsuits for torture thwarted his plans. Regardless of whether or not the Comando Conjunto has been reorganized, the former Air Force personnel who are confronting those who tortured them during the early days of the military dictatorship in court do not doubt that a plot has been hatched to obstruct justice.

Captain Donoso Parra leads a parade at his air base. One of them is Jaime Donoso Parra, an aeronautical engineer and retired FACh captain, who was part of the group of constitutionalist officers opposed to the coup d'état. “I have testified in many trials and participated in several confrontations, and all they do is deny what they did,” he says. “Then, one leaves the confrontation and in the courthouse hallways sees how the guy who just testified tells his lawyers everything he said to the judge.

That allows them to instruct the next person summoned by the court on what to say to avoid contradictions. I am convinced they are hiding information about the forcibly disappeared. Commander-in-Chief Patricio Ríos cannot be unaware of this, and it is very likely that there is interaction between the four institutions, which seems to me a mistake because, in my judgment, those responsible for the crimes are individuals, not the institutions themselves.” The testimony provided by former Captain Jaime Donoso concerns the repression exercised by the FACh against approximately 60 men from its own ranks in the early years of the military regime, specifically at the Air War Academy (AGA), a true training ground for those who formed the Comando Conjunto in 1975. One of the most brutal torturers at the AGA was the head of the nascent Comando Conjunto, Edgar Ceballos Jones (“Comandante Cabezas”).

BACHELET AND THE OTHERS

Captain Donoso, with two years of seniority at the time of the coup d'état, had early evidence of what the high command was preparing. Between May and June 1973, he served as the patrol officer for the Santiago Garrison, and on one occasion, he was ordered to inspect the Air War Academy at two in the morning. “Upon identifying myself to the non-commissioned officer on guard, who knew me because I was a student at the Academy, he tried to prevent me from entering.

That seemed highly suspicious to me, so I drew my pistol and arrested him for preventing the patrol officer, the highest authority of the garrison, from entering the base. He then explained to me that General Gustavo Leigh, who was inside, had asked him not to let anyone in,” the former officer recounts.

He decided to take him at gunpoint to where General Leigh was—at that time, the chief of the general staff and the second-highest rank after the commander-in-chief, César Ruiz Danyau. Upon entering the base, he saw that the cars of almost all the generals were parked there.

The conference room was lit, but the door was locked. “I kicked it open, with my pistol in my hand and the non-commissioned officer by my side. The room fell into a spectral silence. Normally, when a captain kicks down a door, the least a general does is arrest him.

But they all stayed quiet. What was immediately etched in my mind was the map of Santiago, where they had placed planes designing circuits to attack La Moneda, the president's house in Tomás Moro, and radio stations.

I had no doubt that a coup d'état was being planned. General Leigh asked me to excuse him, gave me every possible explanation, said they were playing a war game... Right, at two in the morning! I imagine the insults the general who sent me to perform the patrol must have received.” What did you do after having that evidence? “It was a warning light for the five or six of us captains who were constitutionalists.

We had been to university; most of us were engineers and had a different relationship with society than the pure military man. We were not for the coup d'état, and we felt our mission was to denounce what was being prepared.

We decided to group together more closely and seek political channels to deliver that information to the President of the Republic. We met with senators Eric Schnake (PS) and Anselmo Sule (PR), and with Carlos Lazo, president of the Banco del Estado.

They managed to get an interview for some members of the group with President Salvador Allende, but he did not believe them. He said he was convinced that the military would never stage a coup d'état because they had sworn loyalty to him.

I think Allende was very proud. He was convinced he could handle the situation politically and that he would not be overwhelmed.” Did you sympathize with any political party? “No, we didn't even agree with Allende's government, which by then was not good, although I had voted for him because I liked his program.

But we had the conviction that we had to respect the Constitution and the law, in accordance with what we had sworn. For us, the supreme chief was the President of the Republic, not the commander-in-chief.

That is why, until the very last moment, we continued to insist on delivering the information we had. When the coup d'état occurred, they arrested us all, along with generals Alberto Bachelet and Sergio Poblete, and Colonel Ernesto Galaz.

They attributed Marxist ties to them, but they were only doing their duty.” Were you kept at the AGA? “Yes, and the aggression against us was brutal because they considered us traitors... to them. When we talked, we told them that they were the ones betraying the Constitution and the country.

They beat us, performed mock executions, applied electricity to our most sensitive parts—even on open wounds—and burned us with cigarettes. They also used drugs and hypnosis. Some were hung from hooks, like in a butcher shop, and whipped.

The Air War Academy was an atrocious torture center. The generals were kicked on the ground by the enlisted men. They sought the maximum degradation of our personality. There were prisoners whose fingernails were pulled out.

Others were mangled, cut just like a butcher cuts a pig.” Who was in command? “Leigh was involved there. I saw him giving precise instructions on what had to be done. I had been a flight instructor for General Orlando Gutiérrez, and later he was my torturer.

He was the boss; he witnessed everything. Leigh was also present when they tortured General Poblete. He told me about it in a letter he wrote to me, which is in the trial records. They burned him on his chest and hands.

In the Air Force, in 1973, torture was established as a standard procedure for interrogating prisoners. They didn't ask what to do with a prisoner; they simply tortured him and said, ‘this is what you have to confess.’ It was a standard procedure.” Were you prosecuted? “After the torture, they subjected us to the famous wartime summary proceeding called ‘FACh against Bachelet and others,’ which we are now challenging before the Court of Appeals.

Unfortunately, the court indicated that the case should go to military justice, which is an aberration. We will continue to insist because we want it recognized that due process was not followed and that they provide us with the documentation we are entitled to.

After the summary, we were put on trial where we had no defense; our lawyers were not allowed to argue torture. I, who had denounced the coup, was accused of ‘incitement to sedition,’ ‘treason to the country,’ ‘creator of Plan Z,’ and the ‘Escape Plan.’ None of that existed.

We were sentenced in December 1973, five to the death penalty and others to prison. My sentence was 20 years. Later, it was reduced to 15 years, and for those sentenced to death, to 30 years in prison.

I was a prisoner for two years in different military centers, and in the end, they took us to the General Mackenna public jail. In 1975, they applied Decree Law 504, which allowed us to go into exile.” Did you ever meet General Alberto Bachelet? “We were together in jail.

General Bachelet had a heart problem that was perfectly treatable, but if they applied current, things got complicated. That is what happened. One day they took him out to take him to the Air War Academy.

He returned with cigarette burns, electrode marks, and violent tachycardia. Dr. Alvaro Yáñez, who was one of the prisoners, said he was very ill and needed special care. Shortly after, he died. On one occasion, Leigh said how could anyone think that the Air Force could do such things.

The cynicism of the torturers was incredible.” Have you had the opportunity to face your torturers? “I have been confronted with those who were my direct torturers in different trials led by judges Juan Guzmán, Mario Carroza, and Rubén Ballesteros.

I have testified against Hernán Gabrielli, General Orlando Gutiérrez, and a whole list of torturers. In the confrontations, I have verified the pettiness of these men who, when they were torturing and had all the power, surpassed human rationality.

At the Academy, they killed a sergeant with a gunshot, and General Gutiérrez congratulated the soldier who shot him. And now I see some of them seriously damaged, like Edgar Ceballos Jones; commanders Ramón Cáceres and Sergio Ulises Swain; General Orlando Gutiérrez.

At that time, they walked around the Academy like real peacocks; now I see them hidden and crestfallen in the courthouses. One says to them, ‘coward, cursed coward, how can you not admit what you did?’ They lower their heads and answer, ‘I don't remember.’” Do they show no remorse? “I don't think so, but they do show shame, because they don't dare to look you in the eye.

And they never give their addresses. They are cursed cowards; there is no other way to say it. Happily, they have fallen into contradictions. The big difference with them is that we walk with our heads held high, we show ourselves anywhere, and we go to the courthouses openly, without any fear, because we have a clear conscience.”

THE GABRIELLI CHAPTER

The former FACh prisoners lived in exile in different countries, but they always maintained bonds of friendship. Jaime Donoso Parra went to England, where he studied advanced aeronautics and earned a doctorate in aerodynamics and fluid mechanics at the University of London.

He became a highly qualified scientific researcher and developed a successful professional career in the private sector. He invented four high-tech methods to solve complex mathematical problems, which were duly patented.

With one of them, he won a National Science and Technology Award in 1997 granted by the Ministry of Defense. He lived his last years of exile in Switzerland. When did you initiate legal action? “The former FACh prisoners were only able to return to Chile at the beginning of the 90s, when it was impossible to bring a lawsuit against the Armed Forces because the de facto powers had their power intact.

But we thought we had to do something, and we participated actively in the process of creating the law for exonerated persons. Finally, some people decided to sue for physical and moral damages. There are former prisoners who are insane in England, confined in psychiatric hospitals.

Others have damage to their ears, some part of their body immobilized, bone diseases due to the beatings and electricity, or some parts of their brain do not function well, and they forget things. That is how we met with Codepu, which has advised us in the trials, and with the problem of General Hernán Gabrielli.

In February 2001, Carlos Bau Aedo, a former executive of the Industria Nacional de Cemento S.A. (Inacesa), denounced that Gabrielli had tortured him and other prisoners in 1973 at the Cerro Moreno air base in Antofagasta, then under the command of Commander Marcial Vargas del Campo.

Joining his complaints were former detainees Juan Ruz, a doctor of pedagogy and current official at the Ministry of Education, and Héctor Vera, a doctor of communications and vice-rector of the University of Antofagasta.

All three were victims of physical and psychological torment and witnessed how the then-second lieutenant Gabrielli savagely tortured Eugenio Ruiz-Tagle Orrego, manager of Inacesa, who, along with Corfo manager Mario Silva Iriarte, was machine-gunned on October 19 by the Caravan of Death.

The affected parties initiated a torture lawsuit against Hernán Gabrielli, in which former FACh prisoners have participated as witnesses. According to statements by one of them, the then-aviation second lieutenant Ricardo Navarro Valdivia, Hernán Gabrielli not only tortured him but also a 14-year-old boy, causing him sequelae that ended his life in the Antofagasta hospital.

Navarro testified from Spain in an interview with Televisión Nacional: ‘The entire Air Force knew and knows that Gabrielli is a torturer.’ Other FACh witnesses who were victims or witnessed torture carried out by the man who became chief of the general staff of that institution are Captain Juan Muñoz and Second Lieutenant Oscar Navarro, officers of the FACh finance branch in Antofagasta, and second corporals Luis Gabriel Torres Valeria and Antonio Jara Castro.” Did you know former General Gabrielli? “We met at the Aviation School; we were friends, and I held him in high esteem.

When we were in jail, prisoners from Antofagasta began to arrive, like Carlos Bau and some non-commissioned officers, who described Gabrielli as one of their torturers. There was no doubt. I wrote him two letters between 1999 and 2000, before the trials, so that he would see a way to compensate those of us who were from the Air Force.

First, in the moral aspect, which is what interests us most, and then material, because they cut our lives short at 30 years old. He never answered those letters. The lawsuit that Gabrielli filed against Carlos Bau, Juan Ruz, and Héctor Vera for defamation, insults, and slander was closed after three months by Judge Ballesteros, making it evident that Gabrielli tortured, although this remains the statement of one person against another.

He continues to deny it, but everyone who saw him and suffered the torture will continue to testify. According to what is legally established, we will have these people on the front line until at some point they have to break.

A pilot or non-commissioned officer will eventually appear who will tell how they cut open the bellies of the prisoners and threw them into the sea! We have to keep looking for the mechanisms to corner them.” What kind of torturer was Gabrielli? “There were ‘professional’ torturers, like those at the Air War Academy, and others who were occasional, who were the ones on guard duty.

Gabrielli, who at that time was a 24 or 25-year-old lieutenant, was in this latter group. The ‘official’ torturers of the Cerro Moreno base, like Commander Gonzalo Pérez Canto, told the young lieutenants to ‘soften up’ the prisoners before they went in for interrogation.

And although they could have avoided it, because it was not their obligation, they grabbed them and beat and kicked them. I call them ‘clumsy torturers.’ This happened at all the bases, including Quintero, where General Patricio Ríos, the current commander-in-chief, was.

All the lieutenants and second lieutenants of that time, if they were on duty, must have had contact with prisoners. Also, the ensigns and sub-ensigns, who today are the generals under Ríos, must have participated at least in the ‘mop-up operations,’ where torture also took place.

Who hit more and who hit less, history will have to determine. That is what we are conducting these trials for. We are going to dig until we find witnesses who dare to testify, because the truth is that many in the Air Force have not yet taken that step.

In the years 96-97, some asked me please not to name them, because they and their families had been threatened. But now we have a press law that allows us to speak. That is why I am writing a book with my memoirs where I will say what I saw of history, from the place where it put me.

And it put me on this side, because I had different principles than theirs, as simple as that.” Have you ever been threatened? “Indirectly, they sent me threats by phone when I filed an amparo appeal against General Fernando Rojas Vender, at the time he was commander-in-chief.

But I was never afraid; I am doing what is right.” Why that amparo appeal? “It relates to another problem we have. When we retire or are discharged, they have to give us a document stating that one is an Air Force officer who has been discharged, retired, exonerated, or whatever.

They have not given us that document, and for that reason, they do not allow us to enter some FACh facilities. They have even obstructed my passage at the Ministry of Defense. To what level does the isolation of the uniformed personnel reach that they do not even allow the Minister of Defense to intervene in this!

It should be enough for Minister Michelle Bachelet to tell the commander-in-chief to give us the documentation, because that is what is legally appropriate. At this moment, an attempt is being made to reach an agreement, but if there isn't one, I am going to sue the Air Force high command.

Previously, I filed an amparo appeal against General Rojas Vender and Jaime Lavados, rector of the University of Chile. It happened that both institutions called for a diploma in Aeronautical and Space Law, and I applied like any other citizen.

The classes were held at the Air War Academy. The rector of the University of Chile consulted the FACh, and they sent him a letter signed by Rojas Vender saying that I could not enter. Clumsily, he forwarded that letter to me.

And with it in hand, I filed the appeal. Fernando Rojas delayed the processing of the appeal as much as he could, and in the end, he sent a letter to the Supreme Court saying that I had no prohibition to enter the Academy.

He presented it on August 28, and the course ended on September 1. That is the dirty mentality these people have! But nothing can be surprising from someone like Fernando Rojas Vender, who took furniture to his house.” as war supplies.

He has a dark history within the FACh, because he was always of low character. Of course, all the generals who traveled abroad at that time brought back jet skis and furniture as war supplies, in circumstances where the law allows them, just like diplomats, to bring in goods of up to 15 or 20 thousand dollars tax-free. But they brought much more!”

Have you ever confronted Hernán Gabrielli?

“He has refused to speak with me. The day we were scheduled for a confrontation before Magistrate Mario Carroza, he went to the United States and left the judge and me standing there. He also failed to appear for another confrontation before Judge Ballesteros.

I have no doubt that he tortured; we have witnesses who were tortured by him and others who witnessed those tortures. That is what I have declared in three courts. Judge Carroza is going to call me again, because I asked him that I want to see Gabrielli and confront him.

General León Duffey, a brute of a man who knew how to hide very well, tortured with Gabrielli in Antofagasta and later moved to the Air War Academy. He was rarely seen at the Academy, just like Florencio Dublé, who became Chief of Staff when Fernando Rojas Vender was Commander-in-Chief.

But we identified them well. They are all being prosecuted and will have to testify. They must be judged, but not with the goal of having them punished. The only thing that interests me is that they acknowledge what they did to us and that their guilt be clearly established.”

FACh Torturers

The following officers, non-commissioned officers, and civilian personnel of the Air Force, mainly from the Air War Academy, participated in, practiced, or directed the torture sessions to which the accused were subjected in the “FACh against Bachelet and others” trial, according to a list compiled by retired Captain Jaime Donoso:

• General Engineer Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, operational chief and prosecuting attorney in the trial.
• Group Commander Pilot Sergio Lizosain Mitrano, presumably second in the chain of command of the torturers.
• Squadron Commanders Edgar Ceballos Jones (engineer), Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, and González Pérez Canto (pilots). The latter operated at the Cerro Moreno base and was well known for his sadism.
• Squadron Commander Pilot Jaime Lavín Fariña (later promoted to general and prohibited from entering the U.S. due to his participation in acts of torture).
• Flight Captain Pilots Alvaro Gutiérrez (also recognized for his aggressiveness and sadism), Víctor Mettig, León Duffey (operated in Antofagasta and AGA, later promoted to general), and Florencio Dublé (also promoted to general).
• Lieutenants Juan Carlos Sandoval (engineer), Hernán Gabrielli Rojas (pilot, operated in Antofagasta and was promoted to general), Franklin Bello, and another with the surname Dumont.
• Non-commissioned officer Juan Norambuena, Aviation Sergeant Hugo Lizana, and Aviation Corporal Gabriel Cortés.
• Legal advisors Víctor Barahona, Jaime Cruzat, and Cristián Rodríguez.

Retired General Sergio Poblete and other former FACh prisoners identified Lieutenants José García Huidobro, Alberto Waschtendorf, and John Ramírez—most with military intelligence degrees obtained in Panama, Brazil, and the United States—as well as Colonel Lawyer Julio Tapia Falk, who was an auditor in the war council that convicted the defendants.

That council was presided over by Brigadier General Juan Soler Manfredini and included Colonels Eduardo Fornet Fernández (later promoted to general), Humberto Berg Fontecilla (physician), Sergio Sanhueza López (engineer), Javier Lopetegui Torres, and Group Commander Pilot Carlos Godoy Avendaño.

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The F-16 Business

Retired Captain Jaime Donoso makes serious accusations regarding the purchase of F-16 fighter-bombers which, according to his information, continue to be managed in the United States by retired Generals Hernán Gabrielli and Fernando Rojas Vender, representing the FACh. “The buying and selling of armaments and aircraft is the dirtiest market in the world.

Bribes are paid openly and the money is deposited in different banks. I worked with the Americans, as an Air Force officer and later as a scientist in Europe, and I know that their policy is that ‘everything’ can be bought.

They are corrupt. With that background, the least that should be done is to investigate the properties of these two generals. No general can buy a house in La Dehesa for 400 million pesos with his salary. Many say they received an inheritance, but in most cases, it is ill-gotten money. Neither Rojas nor Gabrielli has any way to get the money to buy those types of houses or sports cars.”

Why do you say that?

“It concerns the purchase of 10 F-16 aircraft for 600 million dollars. How can anyone think it is reasonable to pay 60 million dollars for one plane! The Gripen company, from Sweden, was selling 27 planes and the French were offering around 20 Mirages for the same amount.

Those planes are just as good as the F-16s, or better. The Gripens are fourth-generation, more modern than the F-16s, and possess enormous versatility. The F-16 is a transition between old and modern warfare.

Furthermore, the Swedish government offered to invest the same amount of money—600 million dollars—that we would spend on buying armaments into industrial civil-use companies in Chile. For me, the only explanation for rejecting an offer like that is that there must be something dark going on.

I was assigned to the purchase of aircraft in the United States and I saw how the Yankees handled the military; they would buy them a car, send them to the Bahamas... I hope the government of President Ricardo Lagos is intelligent enough, because if it signs a contract like that, I don’t know what world we are living in.”

Should the government know about this?

“It is one thing to know, and another not to want to see. The government cannot let the military be the ones to buy the planes. The political power must do it! This is where you see that the de facto powers are still operating.”

Source: puntofinal.cl, October 20, 2003

Open Letter to Evelyn Matthei

Madam

Evelyn Matthei Minister of Labor and Social Security.

PRESENT.

Madam Minister, I am writing to you to express my feelings, in accordance with the statements made by your illustrious person, regarding the responsibilities your father, Fernando Matthei, might have in the death of General Bachelet. Regarding that, I indicate the following:

Your father, in the sight of all Chilean men and women, gave an interview on CNN Chile to journalist Mirna Schindler, where he said he felt “ashamed of the human rights violations committed during the 17 years of the Pinochet regime,” and reaffirmed that he, once the Rettig Report was known, had asked for forgiveness for all the human rights violations that were committed in the FACh while he was in charge of that institution.

That he knew, but that he could do nothing about it.

Let me tell you that your father is lying, because there are no records of alleged apologies by any of the institutions of the Pinochet regime, filed during the 17 years of dictatorship. If it had been like that, Mrs.

Matthei, rest assured that your father would have met the same fatal destiny as General Bachelet and even worse, because that would have been a “betrayal of the fatherland,” as the coup plotters considered it.

Furthermore, Minister, I highly doubt that your father feels “ashamed”; rather, I would say that in his attempt to look good to the citizenry by making those statements, he only wants to clear his conscience in the twilight of his life.

I am also a son and I would defend my father, but you know that your father has direct responsibilities for the crimes that were committed, since he was one of the main architects in the operation to overthrow a legally constituted government, establishing a regime of state terrorism with the fallacious argument that Chile was at war.

I must also remind you, Mrs. Evelyn, that your father was the head of the main FACh torture center, which confirms that his participation in the dictatorship was real, and as a member of the military junta, he was one of the protagonists who planned, protected, and participated, as he himself has said, in what happened at the Air War Academy.

I ask you sincerely why your father lies like that. He says he did not participate in anything, but he did know about the human rights violations and he also says he is ashamed of what happened, but he does not repent. In politics, it is possible to speak of prudence or discretion, but not to lie in a petty way, attempting to hide a past that the Chileans of that era knew and lived through.

At the Air War Academy, he himself directed and issued orders, where he also received detailed information on what was happening, together with former military personnel of the institution, the torturers, the then-Squadron Commander Pilot Jaime Lavín Fariña, the Flight Captain Pilots Álvaro Gutiérrez, Víctor Mettig, León Duffey, Florencio Dublé, Juan Carlos Sandoval, and Lieutenant Dumont, among others, who at those moments were his subordinates and acted under his command.

It is sufficiently accredited and documented that the military chiefs and political authorities of the dictatorship established a number of detention and torture centers to confine those they defined as extremists or political and ideological opponents of the regime. In this system, thousands of Chileans were detained, mistreated, and imprisoned in places that were transformed into death camps.

As a direct relative of victims of the Pinochet regime and an active militant in human rights organizations in Chile, I ask you, please, that if you want to defend your father, do so with humility, starting by acknowledging that your progenitor was a cover-up for the tortures and murders committed at the Air War Academy, and has direct participation in the murder of General Bachelet and also in the detention and torture of millions of Chileans who were victims of the atrocities they committed.

Even so, do you have the lack of prudence to appeal to his defense, and indulge in the luxury of speaking of vengeance and hatred? Madam Minister, do not be provocative and insolent; you only seek to generate a false equivalence regarding situations that you will never be able to compare, without aiming to acknowledge what really happened during seventeen years of dictatorship in Chile.

If the law says that no one is above another, of course your father has responsibilities, so it is the duty of the justice system to investigate him.

Hermann Hesse in Demian wrote it: “I would a thousand times prefer the evildoer who does not repent and pays for his sins in hell, to the one who tries to redeem himself to win heaven by weeping at the side of the agonizing Christ.”

Sincerely, Felipe Henríquez Ordenes ~ @PipeHenriquezO Human Rights Groups – Chile.

Source: piensachile.com, July 21, 2013

Press

Alleged Chilean Torturer Asked to Cut Short U.S. Visit

A high-ranking Chilean official, visiting the United States as a guest of the State Department, has been asked by U.S. officials to leave the country following allegations by human rights organizations that he supervised and participated in the torture of prisoners after the Chilean military coup in 1973.

According to State Department sources, Jaime Lavin Farina, the director general of the Chilean Foreign Ministry, will leave the United States today. The sources said Lavin had been "recalled by his government" following an agreement by the United States and Chile that his departure was "in the best interests of both countries." Had the Chilean government chosen not to recall Lavin, a State Department official said, "I think he would have had to leave anyway." Noting that visitor visas can be canceled by the U.S. government, the official said: "It didn't come to that, but it could have." The Chilean embassy said yesterday that any questions regarding the Lavin situation could not be answered until Monday. The State Department's action adds a new dimension to U.S. policy concerning human rights. Earlier this week, department spokesmen issued strong statements regarding treatment of dissidents in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. During his campaign and since his inauguration, President Jimmy Carter has said that human rights issues would play an important role in the determination of U.S. policy. During the campaign, Carter specifically referred to the situation in Chile. Lavin, who is the third-ranking officer in the Chilean Foreign Ministry, arrived here for a four-week "leadership-grant program" tour of the United States on Jan. 4. Candidates for such tours are nominated by U.S. embassies abroad as potential leaders in their own countries. Soon after his arrival, the State Department began receiving protests from Chilean exile groups and American organizations involved with Latin America. According to testimony before an international commission of inquiry held in Mexico in 1975 on the Chilean coup, Lavin was mentioned by name as having supervised and participated in the torture of former Chilean air force officers in his capacity as warden of the Academy of War, an alleged detention and torture center. Testimony by former prisoners presented in Amnesty International documents makes similar allegations. One of Lavin's first appearances in the United States was at the Columbia University Institute of Latin American studies on Jan. 17. According to a letter to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, signed by eight professors and students present at that meeting, Lavin was questioned about human rights in Chile and answered that he was not aware of prisoners being illegally detained or of instances of torture. "This man," the letter said, " . . . was directly responsible for the torture of military colleagues. Conditions in the prison in which this man was warden and interrogator are well known." A spokesman for Rep. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said yesterday that Harkin and several other members of Congress who are active in human rights issues plan to send a letter to Vance protesting Lavin's trip. While one State Department official cautioned that the charges against Lavin were only "allegations" and that "there are some people who might think this is some kind of kangaroo court if all it takes to keep Chileans out of the U.S. is to say 'This guy is a well-established torturer'," others said the most important question was why Lavin had been invited in the first place. "I doubt that anybody who knew of these accusations would have dreamed of inviting him," one source said. "What it suggests is that a lot of our people don't have the contacts" needed to be aware of such information. Regardless of U.S. government opinion on Lavin's guilt or innocence, the source said, "Where there's smoke, the prudent bureaucrat sees fire, and therefore does not make a move." "This whole thing," the source said, "is something of a disaster."

Source: washingtonpost.com, January 20, 1977

Former FACh officials ask justice system to revoke ruling that accused them of being traitors

Commander (r) Ernesto Galaz, and non-commissioned officers (r) Mario González, Manuel Moya, and Mario Cornejo, exonerated from the Air Force as "traitors to the Fatherland" in 1973, maintained that the institution is currently contaminated, since those who participated in torture today occupy high positions. October 8, 2002 | 17:23 | Carolina Valenzuela, El Mercurio on the Internet

A group of former Air Force officials, self-styled "former prisoners of war," called on the Supreme Court today to declare null and void the War Council that in 1973 accused them of being "traitors to the Fatherland" for opposing the military coup, the reason for which they were discharged, tortured, and imprisoned.

Commander (r) Ernesto Galaz, and non-commissioned officers (r) Mario González, Manuel Moya, and Mario Cornejo, requested through the Corporation for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of the People (Codepu) that the judicial processes be reopened so that the qualification for which they were exonerated from the FACh be removed, a request that was rejected last September by the Court for considering that it is not within its powers to review processes that were carried out in times of war.

In September 1973, the Air Force, in the process titled "Aviation against Bachelet and Others," prosecuted and convicted more than one hundred officers, non-commissioned officers, and civilian personnel of the institution for the crimes of treason to the Fatherland and failure to perform military duties.

"We want concrete facts, that it be publicly stated that we were not traitors to the Fatherland, that we did not commit a crime, and that all of that was obtained through torture," maintained Commander (r) Galaz.

The former officials stated that the response of the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which recognizes that there was a war in the country, seems "absurd" to them, since the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation denies such a situation.

Codepu lawyer Alejandra Arriaza stated that "it is time for the courts of justice to take charge of what corresponds to them, that is, to enter into exercising jurisdiction, to investigate those facts.

The law empowers them to be able to review those sentences that were poorly dictated, by incompetent courts, or that were not subject to law," which is why they requested a reinstatement of the case.

Arriaza also anticipated that if they do not have a response from the Court, they will resort to international courts to annul the trial to which General Bachelet, father of the current Minister of Defense, was also subjected.

Commander (r) Galaz also denounced that to this day, both they and their families suffer discrimination by the Air Force, since, for example, they are prevented from entering the institution's premises.

The former FACh officials also provided new names of people who actively integrated the Comando Conjunto, among whom are General Orlando Gutiérrez, Group Commander Sergio Lizosain, Squadron Commanders Edgar Ceballos, Ramón Cáceres, Jaime Lavín Fariña, and Aviation General Fernando Matthei, among others.

Asked about the responsibility of General (r) Matthei in the torture and illegal coercion that was carried out, Galaz maintained that he directed the Air War Academy when it was transformed "into a detention center where torture was practiced. He knew that under his command in that institution, there were prisoners of war who were being tortured."

The former uniformed officer also maintained that Matthei allowed officers who were involved in torture to continue being promoted until they became generals, "for which he has a great responsibility."

Regarding the situation that the Air Force is currently experiencing, Galaz maintained that the institution is "a victim of this whole process of contamination that comes from the military coup," contamination that in his opinion still exists today, since those who participated in torture 27 years ago are those who are leading the FACh today.

Source: emol.cl, October 8, 2002

Former officers assert that the Comando Conjunto was born in the FACh

A group of former FACh officers, accused in 1973 of treason to the fatherland for opposing the military coup, accused the air institution of having a double standard with the Concertación governments and asserted that at the Air War Academy (AGA), torture was habitual and that the Comando Conjunto originated there.

Commander Ernesto Galaz indicated that "the Comando Conjunto originates in this group; they are the ones who begin with the torture, making use of military installations like the Air War Academy (AGA) to take prisoners and torture enemies they considered enemies of the fatherland.

That is the embryo of the Comando Conjunto." Regarding the double standard of the FACh, they explained that the institution commits to providing information on the forcibly disappeared, but continues to protect the perpetrators of the crimes, even financially.

In a statement, they directly blamed General (r) Orlando Gutiérrez, Group Commander Sergio Lizosain, Squadron Commanders Edgar Ceballos, Ramón Cáceres, Jaime Lavín Fariña, and mid-ranking officers León Duffey, Víctor Mettig, and Florencio Dublé for torture.

They also said that the former Commander-in-Chief of the FACh, Fernando Matthei, who at the time led the AGA, knew of the existence of human rights violations and torture at the site.

Source: cooperativa.cl, October 8, 2002

The torturers: who they are and where they are: What the Valech Commission Report does not say

“I was raped, they gave me electric shocks, they burned me with cigarettes, they gave me ‘hickeys,’ they put rats on me. I think I was at Venda Sexy (a secret DINA facility); they tied me to a stretcher where trained dogs raped me.

I was always covered in tape, then a blindfold, and then a hood. They would laugh, offer us food, and give us orange peels. They would wake us up at night to make us lose our sense of time.” (Testimony of a 16-year-old girl, kidnapped in the Metropolitan Region, who was later expelled from the country without her family.)

The horror became a reality for all Chileans. Some will continue to say it is a lie, that the survivors “were paid to speak against the Armed Forces,” or ultimately that “they deserved it.” But the country has already learned the truth, and even a model-host wants to “know the names of the torturers.” That is the idea of this special report: to deliver a part of the truth that does not have to wait 50 years to be known.

That is one of the many criticisms leveled at the Report on Political Imprisonment and Torture presented by Ricardo Lagos on the night of Sunday, November 28, through a pre-recorded speech for the national broadcast aired before the television channels’ news programs began.

Alone, without victims or family members to look in the eye, the President of the Republic fulfilled the ritual of informing his fellow citizens. There was no symbolic delivery of the text, no possibility of asking questions, no recognition of the motives that led so many men and women to torture their compatriots, no accurate criticism, no names of victims or perpetrators, and no information was handed over to the Justice system, as had been done after the Rettig Report and even the Dialogue Table.

Reactions from hatred

Designated senators and former uniformed officers reacted by dismissing any participation in the crimes. Former Admiral Jorge Martínez Bush demanded a “full stop” to end the “lies” against his institution.

The other former admiral, Jorge Arancibia, flatly denied the possibility of “decommissioning” the La Esmeralda, “which can only be decommissioned in combat,” and threatened: “I cannot commit myself, nor can anyone else, to ensuring that something never happens again if I do not know what causes it.” Many insisted on Hermógenes Pérez de Arce’s thesis regarding the baseless slanders against the uniformed officers and the “military government,” repeated by retired generals and admirals.

Designated senator and former commander-in-chief of the FACH, Ramón Vega, supported his institution’s official statement and added: “We are lamenting the consequences today and we are investigating them, but as for a plan for torture, I at least never heard of it, it was never analyzed, nor in the War Academy, nor in the Aviation School, nor in any training school was the word torture ever heard.”

Senators Rodolfo Stange and Fernando Cordero, former general directors of the Carabineros, did not accept institutional responsibility for the torture and asserted that “there are no grounds for the uniformed police to apologize.”

Stange criticized the report on torture “because it borders on the unconstitutional, calling into question institutions and not individuals. I participated in the government junta, but I do not offer a mea culpa because I do not feel responsible for any extreme situation as is being indicated in the Bishop Valech commission,” he stated.

Cordero, for his part, said that one would have to “complete the third leg of the table, because at this moment the table is wobbly; a mea culpa must be made for what occurred before September 11, 1973, which was the cause of all the situations that occurred subsequently.”

The current General Director, Alberto Cienfuegos, also appeared distant from the possibility of apologizing or assuming institutional responsibility, although he should answer regarding what his role was, starting March 25, 1974, when as a lieutenant he was appointed on a service commission to serve as Head of the Information Office of the National Executive Secretariat for Detainees, remembered by many people by its acronym: SENDET.

The UDI, National Renewal, and Lavín opted to downplay the profile, to appear in deep shock, even asserting that their participation in the dictatorship was, precisely, to prevent further abuses from being committed and to open the way to democracy.

No one believed them. Sergio Fernández continued trying to dismiss his participation in human rights violations, but his cabinet colleague Mónica Madariaga asserted that in the clandestine torture centers, agents knew him as “the car’e jote” (vulture face).

Soon he will have to begin continuous visits to the courts, along with Sergio Onofre Jarpa, Sergio Diez, Ambrosio Rodríguez, among so many others, to answer the many questions that arise regarding their responsibilities as civil authorities.

A new avalanche of lawsuits for torture, like those already filed by hundreds of former political prisoners, is announced following the delivery of the report. Fernández Fernández must answer, for example, for why he denied the existence of Villa Grimaldi to the Justice system, as demonstrated by the confidential official letter in which he responds on May 18, 1978, to the inquiry from the Third Major Criminal Court of Santiago.

Demands from organizations

The coalition of organizations of former political prisoners reacted in unison (see page 2), and groups of victims’ families joined the denunciation. The Communist Party announced new lawsuits and added that “the main reparation the country expected is that which relates to it being proportional to the damage caused.

This implies truth and full justice for all victims. We demand that for the sake of those principles, the Report be made public in its entirety; that the names of the torturers be handed over to the courts of justice and all judicial proceedings that are required be initiated; that their files be declassified immediately and not in 50 years; that all those responsible for torture and abuse be immediately removed from the armed and police forces; that an end be put to the military doctrine whose matrix is established by American imperialism, and in which Chilean military and police cadres are and have been systematically instructed to repress their own people.”

The issue of monetary reparation was not the center of the controversy, except for Ricardo Lagos’s attempt to blackmail the tortured with the threat of having to take money from social programs to pay their compensation.

From CODEPU, another demand was made: “Just as new deadlines are going to be opened to reconsider the status of victims for those who did not qualify, we propose that because it is a crime against humanity, there cannot be an exclusionary deadline for qualification.

In this sense, the State must open a new deadline for new submissions from people who, for various reasons, did not attend the initial call, especially when the Report itself points out that the testimonies collected ‘only represent a partial sample of the total universe of people affected by such human rights violations during the military regime.’”

Thus, neither the mea culpa that some media outlets, such as Canal 13, attempted to make, nor the “astonishment” of some dictatorship officials like Jorge Hevia, have managed to remove the main issue from the center: torture took place in Chile.

Torture was systematic and organized, supported by the entire infrastructure of the State, which had become a terrorist entity; hundreds of men and women were trained to subject other men and women to the most terrible abuses.

The use of rats and dogs to sexually assault prisoners, electricity on the most delicate parts of their bodies, mock executions, food deprivation for long periods, and many other aberrations were committed against those they considered “enemies,” “humanoids” in the words of one of the members of the Military Junta.

The other thing that has been clear is that the survivors have had the courage and dignity to recount what they suffered, to transform it into hope and the desire to continue insisting on the need to transform this country, to continue fighting to make the dreams of those who could not come to give their testimony a reality: the executed and the forcibly disappeared.

DINA: Pinochet’s hand

“I always complied (…) in accordance with the orders that the President of the Republic gave me. Only he, as the Superior Authority of the DINA, could dispose of and order the missions to be executed, and always, in my capacity as Delegate of the President and Executive Director of the DINA, I strictly complied with what was ordered of me.” (Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, director of the DINA).

In the trials against the DINA, looking at the list of the accused and convicted, it would seem that the only ones who made it up were a few commanders led by their director Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, alias “Mamo” and “Mojón.” Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, alias “Don Rodrigo,” always appears; Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, alias “Don Elías” and “Luis Gutiérrez”; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, alias “crazy horse”; and the operatives Gerardo Godoy García, Basclay Zapata Reyes, and Osvaldo Romo Mena.

But the torturers were many more.

Caupolicán Brigade

Major Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito, Head of the Caupolicán Brigade. Alias “coronta,” “ronco,” and “oso.” Lieutenant Colonel Vianel Valdivieso Cervantes, alias “Víctor.” Head of the Psychological Operations Department.

He maintained contact with journalists who worked for the DINA, such as Roberto Araya, Julio López Blanco, Claudio Sánchez, Pablo Honorato, Ricardo Coya, and Beatriz Undurraga, and the publicist Manfredo Mayol.

He retired in 1987 and settled in Temuco with a private company. Corvette Captain Sergio José Peñaloza Marusic, operative agent. Corvette Captain Alejandro Paulino Campos Rehbein, alias “Antolín.” ID 3.704.573-K.

Operative agent. Later joined the Foreign Intelligence Sub-directorate. Captain Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima. Alias “Max Lenoux.” Head of the clandestine torture center known as José Domingo Cañas, replacing Ciro Torré.

Partner of “Pedro Diet Lobos” and instructor at the National Intelligence School, teaching courses on “secret service and observation.” He continued his work in the CNI and remained in active service at least until the early 90s with the rank of colonel.

Lieutenant Fernando Eduardo Laureani Maturana, alias “Lieutenant Pablo.” Agent of the Caupolicán Brigade and head of the Aguila group, known as “the fat ones.” Until the early 90s, he continued in active service, with the rank of colonel, as Chief of Staff of the 3rd Army Division in Concepción.

Carabineros Lieutenant Jaime Gustavo López Abarca, agent of Londres 38 and Cuatro Alamos. ID 1.822.793-2. Involved in the disappearance of María Cecilia Labrín Sazo. Carabineros Corporal Emilio Hernán Troncoso Vivallos.

ID 4.236.940-3. Involved in the disappearances of Juan Bautista and Washington Maturana Pérez, Mario Juica Vega, Gabriel Castillo, and Daniel Palma Robledo. Carabineros Corporal Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo Acevedo.

Army Lieutenant Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez, ID 5.293.833-3. In the first days of the coup, he participated in the massacre at the Panguipulli timber complex. He acted under the direct command of Krassnoff at the Terranova barracks (Villa Grimaldi).

In August 1979, already in the CNI, he participated in the application of the torture that caused the death of professor Federico Alvarez Santibáñez. In 1991, he was a major in the Metropolitan General Garrison and a member of the DINE.

Carabineros Corporal José Aravena Ruiz, alias “devil’s doll” and “little spoon,” the latter nickname given to him by prisoners because he used to hit their knuckles with a spoon after torture. He was funado (publicly denounced) in December 1999 at his home at Alfonso Leng 5569-0, in the Villa Santa Elena de Macul, a site he abandoned shortly after.

Army Conscript Samuel Enrique Fuenzalida Devia, alias “cat.” Emilio Iribarren Ledermann, alias “Joel.” Went from being a MIR militant to a DINA agent. Leonardo Alberto Schneider Jordán, alias “Beard.” Went from being a MIR militant to an agent, first of the Joint Command and then of the DINA.

These days he is being prosecuted in several cases of torture and disappearance. Carabineros Captain Egladio Salgado Torres, agent assigned to the Belgrano General Headquarters, but also with operative functions in kidnappings and torture at Villa Grimaldi.

In 1980, he returned to his institution, joining the DICAR. He retired with the rank of colonel. Sergio Bernardino Ortega Parada, alias “gil culiao.” Corvette Captain Sergio José Peñaloza Marusic. ID 4.782.486-9.

DINA operative agent until its dissolution. Carabineros Corporal José Avelino Yévenes Vergara, alias “Quico” or “Daniel Cáceres.” Member of the Halcón II group, with duties as a torturer at Londres 38, José Domingo Cañas, and Villa Grimaldi. At the end of the DINA, he went to the CNI and then to the DINE. He was funado at his home on Calle B 5266, Villa San Luis de Macul, Peñalolén commune.

Purén Brigade Army Captain Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena, Head of the Purén Brigade. ID 5.454.077-1. On September 11, he was serving at the San Bernardo Infantry School, participating in the executions and disappearances in Paine and Cerro Chena.

He continued his work in the CNI. After the end of the dictatorship, he settled in Talca, where he has a company that supplies forage and grain to the Army. Army Colonel Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos, alias “Raúl” and “Claudio.” Second in command of the Purén Brigade.

He continued his work in the CNI and, in 1989, was appointed Plaza Chief in the district of La Pintana, Puente Alto, Pirque, and San José de Maipú. Until the early 90s, he was part of the DINE with the rank of colonel.

Carabineros Major Eduardo Víctor Espinoza Paiella. ID 3.662.969-K. Agent of the Economics Department. He retired along with Manuel Contreras. Carabineros Captain Germán Jorge Barriga Muñoz, alias “Don Jaime.” ID 5.060.938-3.

Member of the Purén Brigade and later of the CNI. With the rank of colonel, Barriga held positions in the National Mobilization Directorate in 1991. He was funado at his residence at Irarrázaval 2061, apartment 105, a place he abandoned hastily.

Today he is head of security for Lider supermarkets. Lieutenant Manuel Abraham Vásquez Chahuán, alias “Lieutenant Manuel.” ID 5.090.309-K. Responsible for the disappearances and executions in Paine and Cerro Chena.

He continued in the CNI and in 1989 was appointed commander of the Logistics Battalion in Concepción. Army Corporal Basclay Humberto Zapata Reyes, alias “the troglodyte.” Known for being very cruel in torture and raping detained women.

Prosecuted for multiple cases of disappearance, executions, and torture. Until the early 90s, he remained an instructor at the “Daniel Rebolledo” Non-Commissioned Officers School and held operative duties in the DINE.

Carabineros Officer Gerardo Urrich González, alias “black hand.” Instructor at Tejas Verdes. Responsible for a series of executions in the sector known as Barrancas, today mostly the Pudahuel commune. He was funado at his office of “Alcázar Security Services,” located at Ahumada 236, office 408.

Army Lieutenant Manuel Jorge Provis Carrasco. As a member of the San Bernardo Infantry School, he participated in the crimes of Paine and Cerro Chena. He continued in repressive tasks and was commander of the CNI barracks on Calle Borgoño, participating in Operation Albania.

At the end of 1989, he returned from a professional trip he made to Israel. Until 1991, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Army Intelligence Brigade. Army Lieutenant Marco Antonio Sáez Saavedra. ID 5.795.624-0.

Specialist in the repression of the Communist Party and Socialist Party. In 1991, he was a lieutenant colonel and performed his duties in the Army Operations Directorate. Brother-in-law of CNI major Joaquín Molina, murdered by Manuel Contreras Valdebenito.

Army Lieutenant Manuel Rolando Mosqueira Jarpa. Detective Manuel Gregorio Chirinos Ramírez. Detective Jorge Lander Cabezas. Detective Francisco Aladino Caamaño Díaz. Detective Arturo Patricio Vargas Cid. Investigative Inspector Juan Saldías Valdés, alias “Dirty Harry.” Investigative Inspector Risiere del Prado Altes España, alias “Pedro.”

Other commanders and agents

Army Lieutenant Colonel Jerónimo Luzberto Pantoja Hernández, Sub-director of the DINA and the CNI. ID 2.095.044-7. Responsible for the Chihuío massacre as vice-commander of the Maturana Regiment of Valdivia.

In 1990, he was arrested for his participation in the illegal financial firm known as “La Cutufa.” Army Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Elissalde Muller, Head of the Economics Department. ID 3.118.465-7. As head of the Personnel Sub-directorate, he paid the agents’ salaries through the front companies “Villar y Reyes” and “Elissalde y Poblete.” At least until the late 90s, he lived on one of his extensive properties in the southern part of the country.

Major Carlos Rafael Parera Silva, Alias “Luis Gutiérrez,” ID 3.090.193-2. Head of the Foreign Department (successor to Iturriaga Neumann). In 1973, he was Second Commander of the Black Berets in Peldehue.

When the DINA was dissolved, he rejoined the Army and was assigned as Commander of the Dolores Regiment, Director of the Paratrooper and Special Forces School, and in 1985, military attaché in France. During the government of Patricio Aylwin, he was Military Attaché at the Chilean embassy in South Africa.

Andrés Terrise Castro. Agent of the Psychological Operations Department, where he performed duties of covering up crimes and preparing propaganda campaigns. He continued in the CNI and the DINE as a civilian agent.

Today he appears as a businessman for an advertising firm based in the Ciudad Empresarial of Huechuraba. Major Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, head of Villa Grimaldi. ID 3.870.222-K. He was the boss and lover of Luz Arce.

In 1985, he was a military attaché in the Federal Republic of Germany, retiring in 1987 to go south, where many high-ranking DINA officials have extensive areas of land. Major Julio Cerda Carrasco, Head of Security of the Central Headquarters (Belgrano).

Responsible for disappearances and executions in Cerro Chena. He retired in December 2002 as Commander-in-Chief of the IV Army Division. Army Captain Eugenio Armando Videla Valdebenito, operative agent.

ID 4.209.466-8. Participated in the Tejas Verdes courses before belonging to the DINA. He was director of the Tejas Verdes Engineer School and governor of San Antonio. In active service until the early 90s, he eventually joined the Army General Staff.

Army Lieutenant Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton, ID 3.704.546-2. Foreign Department agent. In 1973, he served in the aviation command and was one of the pilots who accompanied General Arellano Stark to the south and north of the country in the “Caravan of Death.” In 1974, he became part of the DINA.

Funado at his home on Avenida El Bosque Norte and his work at the mining company Kvaerner-Chile, of Dutch origin. Lieutenant Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, 5.392.869-2, Head of the Halcón 1 Brigade. Alias “big cheek.” Prosecuted for numerous cases of kidnapping, execution, and torture, including the disappearance of María Cecilia Labrín Sazo, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy.

He was funado at Tabancura 1382, his place of work at the shrimp distributor “Kamaron Bay,” where he uses the alias “Ricardo Flores” in his contact with owners of numerous restaurants in Santiago. Carabineros Lieutenant Emilio Patricio Sajuria Alvear, partner of the front company Pedro Diet Lobos.

ID 5.122.525-2. Funado at Telefónica, where he worked in its Legal Department. Today he practices as a lawyer for tourism companies. Carabineros Sub-lieutenant Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García, Head of the Tucán Support Group and Head of Venda Sexy.

Alias “little cheek.” Until March 1991, with the rank of major, he was head of the Ancud police station. After that date, he was transferred to Santiago. Today he is convicted for the kidnapping of Miguel Angel Sandoval, having to be transferred to Punta Peuco II, although he is still seen at his house in La Reina.

Carabineros Officer Gerardo Alejandro Aravena Longa, operative agent. ID 4.567.685-4. Involved in the execution of five political prisoners in Cuesta Barriga and in the disappearance of José Guillermo Barrera.

When the DINA ended, he went to the CNI and in 1985 returned to the Carabineros, retiring as a commander. Today he is General Manager of Radio Santiago. Army Officer Mario Alejandro Jara Seguel. ID 3.319.824-8.

Head of the DINA barracks in the IV Region, based in Coquimbo. At another time, he was in command of the brigade that operated in Rocas de Santo Domingo. Personal friend of Manuel Contreras. He acquired a plot of land between Coquimbo and La Serena where he would live with his former secretary, named Nancy.

Joint Command Terrorism from the FACH The so-called Joint Command (CC) was an intelligence group that operated approximately between the end of 1975 and 1976, and whose main objective was the repression of the so-called Central Force of the MIR, and the central committees of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth.

During this period, according to the Rettig Report, it was responsible for the disappearance of about 30 people. Other sources speak of more than 70. The CC was formed mainly by agents belonging to the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (DIFA) and later with significant participation by personnel from the Carabineros Intelligence Directorate (DICAR).

It also counted, to a lesser extent, on the participation of agents from the Naval Intelligence Service (SIN) and some personnel from the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE). In addition, members of the Chilean Investigative Police and civilians from the far-right group Patria y Libertad collaborated in that Command.

The beginnings at the AGA

Witnesses who survived the torture at the Air War Academy remember as their torturers, among others, Generals Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo and Juan Soler Manfredini; commanders Sergio Lizasoaín Mitrano, Edgar Cevallos Jones, Jaime Lavín Fariña, Carlos Godoy Avendaño, Juan Bautista González, Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, and Humberto Velásq

Juez Estay; the FACH colonel and physician Humberto Berg Fontecilla; colonels Sergio Sanhueza López and Javier Lopetegui Torres; captains León Duffey Treskoff (who reached the rank of general within the FACH), Alberto Waschtendorf, Juan Carlos Sandoval, Alvaro Gutiérrez (currently residing in Melipilla), Jaime Lemus, Víctor Mattig Guzmán, Florencio Dublé, Contreras, and Hernán Fucshlogher (head of the permanent guard); the lawyer Julio Tapia Falk (the mastermind behind the war council and principal advisor to General Leigh.

Appointed Rector of the U. de Chile, lawyer for Manuel Contreras when he attempted to take refuge in the Talcahuano Naval Hospital and, lately, a plaintiff against the play «Arturo Prat». He works at his private law firm in the Providencia commune, on Calle Santa Magdalena); the legal advisors Cristián Rodríguez, Jaime Cruzat Corvera (who has his office right on Paseo Huérfanos), and Víctor Barahona; lieutenants Juan Carlos Sandoval, Luis Campos, José García Huidobro, Franklin Bello, and Gonzalo Pérez Canto; Sergeant Hugo «chuncho» Lizana, Warrant Officer Juan Normabuena, Corporal Eduardo Cartagena, and 2nd Corporal Gabriel Cortés (who changed his name).

The most sinister

Sergio Manuel Barra Von Kretschmann (ID 1.614.559-9), head of the Naval Intelligence Service within the Intelligence Community (José Antonio Ríos 6). Frigate captain at the time of the coup d'état, part of the DINA leadership in 1974 and deputy director in 1975.

In 1976, he became part of the CNI. He was prosecuted as an accomplice to criminal conspiracy and the kidnapping of Edrás Pinto and Reinalda Pereira by Judge Cerda.

Freddy Enrique Ruiz Bunger, general (ret.) of the FACH. Head of the DIFA at J.A.R. 6. Prosecuted as the perpetrator of criminal conspiracy and accomplice to the kidnapping of Edrás Pinto and Reinalda Pereira, for the kidnapping of Víctor Vega, and the disappearance and death of Juan Luis Rivera Matus.

Also for the crime of aggravated kidnapping of Víctor Vega, David Urrutia, Juan Carlos Orellana, Ricardo Weibel, Alonso Gahona Chávez, and Miguel Rodríguez Gallardo, and the illegal detention of survivors Isabel Stange, Jaime Estay, and Amanda Velasco.

Mario H. Vivero Avila, general (ret.) of the FACH, Aviation judge and commander of the Santiago garrison in 1976. Prosecuted as an accessory to criminal conspiracy and the disappearance of Víctor Vega.

Edgar Benjamín Cevallos Jones, colonel (ret.) of the FACH. Director of the DIFA and later the SIFA, torturer at the Air War Academy and boss of Roberto Fuentes Morrison at the CC. Alias «Inspector Cabezas».

ID 2.895.236-8. Prosecuted as the perpetrator of criminal conspiracy and accomplice to the kidnapping of Edrás Pinto and Reinalda Pereira, and for the disappearance of Luis Baeza Cruces and the murder of Alfonso Carreño Diaz in 1974.

Carlos Arturo Madrid Hayden, commander (ret.) of the FACH. Vice-commander of the Colina Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, where the «Remo Cero» torture center operated. Prosecuted as the perpetrator of criminal conspiracy, and the kidnapping of Víctor Vega and Juan Luis Rivera Matus.

Daniel Luis Enrique Guimpert Corvalán,

lieutenant (ret.) of the Navy (ID 4.638.149-1). Prosecuted as the perpetrator of criminal conspiracy and accomplice to the kidnapping of Edrás Pinto, Reinalda Pereira, and Víctor Vega.

Eduardo Enrique Cartagena Maldonado, alias «Lalo».

ID 5.083.760. Sub-officer (ret.) of the FACH. Agent of the CC since 1975, participating in kidnappings, torture, and disappearances of numerous communist leaders between that year and 1976. After the dissolution of this organization, he joined the Air Force Intelligence Service (SIFA).

His last known address is Del Rey 394, Maipú, where he was denounced by the FUNA Commission. It is most likely that he is living in the central coastal area.

Miguel Arturo Estay Reyno, alias «El Fanta». ID 6.446.545-7. Former communist militant, he went from informant to agent after being detained in 1975 by members of the Comando Conjunto. Prosecuted by Judge Cerda and granted amnesty by Silva Ibáñez, he is currently serving a life sentence in Colina for the murder of the three communist professionals and is being prosecuted for the disappearance of Víctor Vega.

César Luis Palma Ramírez, alias «El Fifo». ID 6.387.372-1. As a militant of Patria y Libertad, he participated in numerous terrorist attacks against the UP government; he was detained in August 1973 for his participation in the homicide of presidential aide-de-camp Arturo Araya, and granted amnesty after the coup d'état by Admiral Adolfo Waulbaum.

A friend of Fuentes Morrison, who brought him to the CC, he became his right-hand man in the execution of repressive tasks. His last known address is El Quilo 5535, Quinta Normal, where the cooling equipment factory FRIGOMET LTDA. operates; they claim not to know him, yet his fax number 7738010 remains registered under the name Palma Ramírez.

Leonardo Alberto Schneider Jordán, alias «El Barba». ID 5.521.250-3. Former MIR militant, agent. Accused by numerous survivors of having participated in their detention and torture at the Air War Academy.

He later joined the brigade dedicated to repressing the MIR within the DINA. Prosecuted for torture and permanent kidnapping in at least two Santiago courts. His last known address is Las Hualtatas 4966, phone 2633546, Vitacura.

Roberto Alfonso Flores Cisterna, alias «El Huaso». ID 7.767.975-8. Soldier (ret.) of the FACH. On September 11, 1973, as a FACH soldier at the El Bosque Air Base, he participated in the interrogation and torture of detainees.

In 1975, he became part of the CC, being responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of dozens of communist militants. Until the mid-90s, he remained in active service in the SIFA; today he appears to be working in the commercial sector. His last known address is Villa Tantauco, Block 10282, apt. 31, San Bernardo.

Otto Silvio Trujillo Miranda,

civilian agent, alias «Colmillo Blanco» in a report by La Nación. ID 5.684.434-1. A DC militant in his youth, he later joined Patria y Libertad where he met «Wally», who would take him to the CC. He participated in the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of dozens of left-wing militants until his expulsion due to an incident with the DINA.

After a long stay in the Penitentiary Hospital, he has been seen circulating in the La Florida commune.

Guillermo Antonio Urra Carrasco, alias «Willy». ID 6.687.227-0. Second corporal (ret.) of the FACH. Operational agent of the CC since its formalization in 1975. He was prosecuted by Judge Carlos Cerda for his participation in the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of dozens of left-wing militants.

According to direct witnesses, he is responsible for the execution of prisoners in the Cajón del Maipo (among them José Weibel and agents Carol Flores and Guillermo Bratti), in Cuesta Barriga (among others Horacio Cepeda, Fernando Ortiz, and Reinalda Pereira), and for throwing others into the sea off the coast of Quinteros. His last known address is Santa Blanca 1990, Las Condes.

Fernando Patricio Zúñiga Canales, Alias «Chirola». ID 5.974.807-6. Sub-officer (ret.) of the FACH. As a soldier at the El Bosque Air Base on September 11, 1973, he participated in the torture of his comrades-in-arms.

He was then transferred to the Air War Academy to perform the same functions and from there became part of the DIFA. In 1975, he joined the CC, where he participated in the kidnapping, torture, and disappearance of dozens of left-wing militants. He belonged to the FACH Intelligence Service (SIFA) at least until the early 90s. His last known address is Pasaje Simón Bolívar 1298, San Bernardo.

Jorge Rodrigo Cobos Manríquez, FACH reserve lieutenant, from Patria y Libertad. Alias «Kiko» or «Elefantito» (ID 5.890.505-4). Prosecuted as the perpetrator of criminal conspiracy and accomplice to the kidnapping of Edrás Pinto, Reinalda Pereira, and Víctor Vega.

Jorge Arnoldo Barraza Riveros, Commissioner (ret.) of the Investigative Police. Alias «El Zambra». Prosecuted as an accomplice to criminal conspiracy.

Pedro Ernesto Caamaño Medina,

Sub-officer (ret.) of the FACH. Alias «Peter» (ID 7.024.319-9). Operational agent at the «La Firma» torture center. Prosecuted by Judge Carlos Hazbún for the kidnapping of Víctor Vega. He participated in the kidnapping of José Weibel and dozens of militants of the Communist Youth.

His last known address is José Miguel Carrera 424, apartment 702, Santiago Centro, a place where he was denounced to his neighbors by the FUNA Commission.

Alejandro Fígari Verdugo, alias Luty,

from Patria y Libertad, second in command of the detention team, after «Fifo» Palma (according to Otto Trujillo). ID 6.693.227-3.

Alex Damián Carrasco Olivos, FACH official, bodyguard for Leigh, Fernando Matthei, and Ramón Vega. Alias «Loco Alex» (ID 6.243.426-7). Operational agent of the Comando Conjunto.

Juan Arturo Chávez Sandoval, corporal (ret.) of the FACH. Alias «Peque», «Rucio», or «Pol». ID 6.476.141-2. Torturer at the AGA and CC operative. Prosecuted for the kidnapping of Víctor Vega.

Raúl Horacio González Fernández,

official (ret.) of the FACH. Alias «Rodrigo» or «Wally Chico». ID 6.519.815-0. Witnesses state that he participated in the detention of José Weibel. He was "funado" (publicly denounced) in Puerto Montt in October 2002, in front of the radio taxi company Volcanes located at Calle Doctor Marín 459, phones 313131 and 313989, from which he offered services to the newspapers El Mercurio and El Llanquihue, and to the local Coca-Cola subsidiary.

Prosecuted as an accomplice to the illegal detention of Amanda Velasco Pedersen in the 25th Criminal Court.

Antonio Benedicto Quiros Reyes, ID 3.189.349-6. Colonel (ret.) of the FACH and head of the Counterintelligence Department during the years of the CC. Prosecuted by Carlos Cerda as the perpetrator of criminal conspiracy.

Andrés Pablo Potin Lailhacar,

civilian agent of the CC. Alias «Yerko». ID 5.390.709-1. Militant of Patria y Libertad detained in August 1973 for his participation in the homicide of presidential aide-de-camp Arturo Araya. Prosecuted by Judge Hazbún as a participant in the kidnapping of Víctor Vega. He is listed as a businessman in the computer sector with an office at Américo Vespucio Norte 2506.

Robinson Alfonso Suazo Jaque, soldier (ret.) of the FACH. Alias «Jonathan». ID 7.641.894-2. Torturer at the AGA. Prosecuted in the 25th Criminal Court for the kidnapping and disappearance of Víctor Vega.

Pedro Juan Zambrano Uribe, FACH official. Alias «Chino». ID 6.969.320-2. Prosecuted by Judge Hazbún as the perpetrator of the kidnapping of Víctor Vega.

Franklin Bello Calderón, lieutenant (ret.) of the FACH, prosecuted in the Ninth Criminal Court of Santiago for the disappearance of Luis Baeza Cruces and the murder of Alfonso Carreño Diaz in 1974.

Other torturers of the Comando Conjunto

Miguel Angel Perucca López, FACH reservist. Víctor Misael Robles Mella, officer (ret.) of the FACH. Luis Eduardo Rojas Campillay, FACH official. Patricio Eugenio Saavedra Rojas, commander (ret.) of the FACH.

Ramón Eduardo Valenzuela Cuevas, 5.934.129-4. Alberto Roque Badilla Grillo, ID 5.164.080-2. Tito Alejandro Figarí Verdugo, ID 6.693.227-3. Angel Gabriel Valdivia Pérez, ID 3.277.893-3. Lénin Figueroa Sánchez, ID 4.633.329-2.

Enrique Augusto Werner Haase, 4.086.322-2. Santiago Segundo San Martín Riquelme, ID 4.530.448-5. Angel Segundo Valdivia Pérez, ID 3.996.083-4. José Florentino Fuentes Castro, ID 5.340.552-5. Francisco Hidalgo García, 2.633.797-6. Francisco Segundo Illanes Miranda, ID 4.294.918-3. Ernesto Arturo Lobos Gálvez, ID 5.082.345-8. Jorge Aníbal Osses Novoa, ID 4.818.025-6. By Julio Oliva García

Source: elsiglo.cl, December 10, 2004

The pending accounts of Ambrosio Rodríguez

The face of Ambrosio Rodríguez is a bitter memory for many political prisoners from the time of the dictatorship, but without a doubt, his bitter and unpleasant expression reminds the Stoulman-Pessa family day by day of the disappearance of their parents, in the midst of Operation Condor designed by the DINA, in which the former «Attorney General of the Republic» is absolutely involved, at least as an accessory.

The current President of the Supreme Tribunal of National Renewal and defender of Pinochet could have gone to live quietly in some remote region of the country, as some have done who prefer to hide in protective anonymity, but he desisted from that and remained at the center of events as if challenging those who have more than one pending account with him.

On September 10 of last year, the FUNA Commission arrived at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile to denounce Ambrosio Rodríguez Quiros, a professor at said school and a well-known man of Pinochet.

Among the «feats» of the former public official, the "funeros" denounced «the carrying out of the summary proceedings that ended with the expulsion, after the military coup, of almost all the academics of the School of Journalism of the University of Chile.

Later, being a member of Pinochet's Ministry of the Interior, he signed expulsions from the country, such as that of his former professor Eugenio Velasco, and also prevented the entry into the country of a 4-year-old child for ‘being dangerous to the fatherland’.»

Despite having been summoned to testify on repeated occasions in the case of the forcibly disappeared Alfonso del Carmen Araya Castillo, he never appeared in court. As Attorney General of the Republic, a position invented by Pinochet, he supervised the defense of human rights violators, extended the period of ‘legal’ kidnapping determined for the CNI, and denied plaintiffs access for months to the summary proceedings for the crimes of Operation Albania.

He has been part of the defense for criminals such as Augusto Pinochet, Humberto Gordon, those guilty of the Degollados Case, the Valmoval case -better known as the ‘Pinocheques’-, and in Operation Albania itself, in conjunction with his partner Fernando Uribe-Etxeverría.

He also assumed the defense of former Supreme Court minister Hernán Cereceda Bravo, dismissed by the Senate ‘for notable abandonment of duties’ in the case of Alfonso Chanfreau, who disappeared in 1974.

Reference was also made to his summons to testify «by Judge Juan Guzmán in the case of the disappearance in Argentina of the Jewish-Chilean couple Stoulman-Pessa, in which he was implicated by the DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel», a case that was recalled by human rights lawyer Eduardo Contreras in the recent hearing on the petition to strip Pinochet of his immunity for the Operation Condor Case.

The letter from Arancibia Clavel.

Although he hid behind «professional secrecy» before Judge Juan Guzmán to avoid speaking about his participation in the case of the disappeared Jacobo Stoulman and Matilde Pessa, a letter sent from Argentina by agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, today sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of the Prats-Cuthbert couple, incriminates him directly.

The confessed murderer, who signed his letters as Luis Felipe Alemparte, asserts in one of them that on July 17, 1977, Ambrosio Rodríguez met with «the manager» (Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda) and with him to construct a narrative about the disappearance of the Jewish couple.

From there, the false lead was born that linked Jacobo Stoulman to the financing of the Argentine Montoneros and the Uruguayan Tupamaros. In those days, Rodríguez was in Buenos Aires at the request of the Stoulman-Pessa daughters, who had paid him a large sum of money so that, as an influential lawyer for the military regime, he would help them in the search for their parents, who disappeared on May 29, 1977.

However, the lawyer had also received payments from others interested in ensuring the Jewish couple did not reappear. These were some of their direct relatives and Jacobo Stoulman's partners at the Andes currency exchange, León Dobry and Enrique Chamorro, who in this way would keep the couple's assets, while the «grand rabbi» Angel Kreiman avoided confrontations with the dictatorship.

The money and censorship.

One of those most interested in ensuring the Stoulman couple did not return from Argentina was Rabbi Angel Kreiman Brill, who in those days appeared as an important opponent of the dictatorship. Although in the first days of the disappearance he appeared to be making efforts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out their whereabouts, Kreiman soon forgot about the subject and did not even attend a meeting, arranged by FACH colonel and ministry official Jaime Lavín Fariña, to discuss the case in July 1977.

But Kreiman was worried about not making «waves», as he had many things to hide that were known to the intelligence services.

Together with Cambios Andes and Turismo Top Tour, Stoulman's businesses, his «partners» proceeded to clean out the accounts held in Switzerland, which today would be equivalent to about 35 million dollars. In this way, in addition to losing their parents, the three Stoulman-Pessa daughters were left without the possibility of recovering part of their investments.

The case has been censored on many occasions, especially after the end of the dictatorship, because in addition to accusing high-ranking figures of the military regime, such as those involved in Operation Condor ranging from lawyer Ambrosio Rodríguez to his client, the former Commander-in-Chief, it crosses the national Jewish community and its links with the most varied political sectors.

Journalist Iván Cabezas, after publishing the report «The million-dollar question: Who made businessman Stoulman disappear with his wife, his fortune, and the PC's money» in the Weekly Magazine of La Nación, did not appear in the publication again.

Editor Luis Alberto Ganderats submitted his resignation shortly thereafter. From some ministries, discreet calls were made to TVN, and a 5-minute chronicle made by journalist Rodrigo Espinoza was made to disappear by the Press Chief, Abel Esquivel, even from the computerized record of reports.

Also on the journalistic internet page El Mostrador, a report prepared by journalist Pascale Bonnefoy was censored. A call from León Dobry to his friend -and fellow Board member of the Dresner Bank- and co-owner of the electronic newspaper, Juan Agustín Figueroa, prevented the publication of the topic.

Shortly after, Pascale Bonnefoy's contractual relationship with El Mostrador was terminated.

Alejandra Stoulman Pessa does not forget the money given, despite the economic difficulties they were experiencing at that time, to lawyer Ambrosio Rodríguez to find out about the whereabouts of her parents.

She does not forget that, upon returning from Argentina, the former «Attorney General of the Republic» told them about her father's relationship with the Montoneros and the Tupamaros. Pinochet's lawyer hides behind «professional secrecy» before Judge Juan Guzmán, but he had already contradicted himself in other statements, when he admits that he traveled to Buenos Aires with the professional task of searching for the disappeared couple and later maintains that his trip was the result of «sports-related efforts» as a soccer executive.

The truth is that he went to Argentina, that he asked about the Stoulman Pessas, and that he met with «the manager» Manuel Contreras, who has also known his defensive hand in the Chilean courts.

The need to strip immunity.

For lawyer Eduardo Contreras, Operation Condor «is one of the most emblematic criminal episodes of the military dictatorship, at least for three of its unique features. First, for the dramatic nature of the horror applied to the victims, then for its international reach, and finally because, perhaps more than in other cases, here the personal participation of Pinochet as a direct perpetrator is clearer than ever.»

The stripping of the former dictator's immunity, today presented as «former president», is requested due to «the existence of the crimes and well-founded suspicions of his participation in them, since to prosecute him it is necessary to remove the protection given to him by the immunity of former presidents of the Republic, created expressly in favor of the accused by Law 19.672, published in the Official Gazette on April 28, 2000,» as Contreras points out.

For the plaintiff lawyers, «the existence of the criminal conspiracy and the crimes of aggravated kidnapping that this process deals with is amply accredited. The participation in the illicit acts of Augusto Pinochet in the capacity of perpetrator -in the terms of Article 15 of the Penal Code- has been fully demonstrated.»

It is not a minor detail to recall that the trials regarding the crime of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit, the case of the 119 of Operation Colombo, that of the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía, and the attack against Bernardo Leighton and his wife, although they have been treated separately for procedural reasons, are precisely part of the strategy of the Condor Plan.

The public statements of the accused himself, the press reports of the time, and the explicit confession of the DINA director, Manuel Contreras, confirm it.

The crimes we are analyzing do not only violate the provisions of our penal system. They are crimes against humanity that also violate, among other documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Geneva Conventions in force in Chile at the time of the illicit acts, and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

The «incurable dementia».

The plaintiffs highlighted the fact that «faced with the impossibility of proving the innocence of the accused, his defense alleged his supervening dementia. Beyond the irregularities of the expert report to which he was subjected in the Caravan of Death case, which were opportunely denounced, the examination showed that his memory, attention, and recognition functions were very good and that he distinguished perfectly between good and evil.

That is to say, he is perfectly imputable, and today we have new evidence of that. We attach the video of the interview for Miami television from last December, along with its transcript, where he appears perfectly lucid.»

Furthermore, the accused himself shows us day by day that he is neither crazy nor demented. A few nights ago, as reported by ‘El Mercurio’, Pinochet attended a lively dinner at the ‘Lily Marlene’ restaurant, where he listened to those Nazi marches that he likes so much. He is seen smiling, brimming with health, so performing new mental examinations is absolutely possible and necessary.

Source: elsiglo.cl, June 2, 2004

The FACH and the torture of General Bachelet

It is undoubtedly a step forward to identify and sanction the torturers who operated under the protection of the military dictatorship. Hopefully, this is also the beginning of a process to identify and bring to justice all those who seized military institutions—in this case, the Air Force—to commit one of the most reprehensible acts: treason, murder, and torture against innocent people in the name of freedom and military duty.

May this not be another frustrated attempt. There are high expectations for justice, that these issues related to torturers and human rights violations will no longer be negotiable for political ends or to maintain impunity.

No one asked us, the Chilean people, if we agreed with the 1978 Amnesty Law that protects hundreds of military and civilian perpetrators or accomplices of what happened in Chile; it was imposed upon us.

It is time for these issues to leave the barracks and the halls of Congress, turning them into a great national debate to which we have a right. In Chile, the restricted democracy we live in does not allow us to participate in decisions; therefore, it is time for the public's opinion on the broad spectrum of human rights to be heard.

We have always maintained that it must be the high military commands, the senior and junior officers, the permanent staff involved, and the political and business leaders who colluded to conspire against a legitimate and democratic government who must answer for their actions before the justice system.

Today, a pending truth has been corroborated: that former Colonels Edgard Ceballos and Ramón Cáceres tortured General Bachelet and are guilty of his death, and that they did the same to a hundred of their former brothers-in-arms who opposed the coup d'état and the transformation of the FACH into an institution at the service of ambitious politicians and businessmen, both domestic and foreign.

The justice system knows that there were other torturers at the War Academy: the now-General Gabrielli, the then-Squadron Commander Pilot Jaime Lavín Fariña, the Flight Captain Pilots Álvaro Gutiérrez, Víctor Mettig, León Duffey, Florencio Dublé, Juan Carlos Sandoval, and Lieutenant Dumont.

The non-commissioned officers, Aviation Sergeant Hugo Lizana, and Aviation Corporal Gabriel Cortes, among others. It also knows that in December 1973, the director of the Air War Academy was General Fernando Mathei, of the most well-known detention and torture center of the era.

And that this general was at the head of the military facility during the period in which General Alberto Bachelet and we, former members of the FACH, were tortured in that place.

I do not know if there is a greater cowardice than hiding behind a military uniform, power, or "due obedience" and amnesty laws to justify or commit violations and cruel torture inflicted upon handcuffed people, or clandestine murders.

To do this, the perpetrators have justified themselves by claiming they were waging a war against communism and Marxism, which has been proven false; the confrontations were nothing more than a few pockets of brave and heroic resistance against the firepower of the Armed Forces against a defenseless people.

As a reward for the "battles" that all these brave soldiers fought in torture chambers against handcuffed, mistreated, and disarmed enemies, they pinned hundreds of medals to their chests and decorated each other, some blessed by the church, feeding the false ego of duty fulfilled.

It is good to remind these gentlemen that the fulfillment of military duty and honor, military values, and patriotism are concepts that are materialized and proven in real life, in the practice of military work.

That the value of military personnel lies in the value of their principles and the way they live them, the example of which is found in the figure of General Alberto Bachelet, and the non-commissioned officers Enrique Reyes and Ivan Figueroa, among others.

That is why we proudly reclaim what we did. It was these torturers who accused us of treason to the country and of failing in our military duties because we propagated the freedom to think as part of military professionalism, the freedom of conscience to exercise command and obey on the basis of conscious discipline, identifying ourselves with respect for those who, dreaming of their freedom, responsibly and peacefully chose Salvador Allende as President.

We believe it is time for the Armed Forces to look at their history, the good and the bad of their actions, because they need to redeem themselves on the basis of their combative potential, which is their relationship with the Chilean people.

Rescuing that necessary identity involves recognizing the period in which the Armed Forces were instruments of state terrorism exercised by a military dictatorship.

A noble action that would allow, once and for all, for many families to know the whereabouts of their forcibly disappeared loved ones, which would facilitate the rebuilding of the identity between the Chilean people and their army.

As we have stated before, the history of Chile cannot be cut in two, between the current reality and that of that era, because both periods correspond to a process and are the basis of a coherent explanation of why we are still a divided country.

That is why we recognize the importance of what the justice system has done in identifying and judging former Colonels Ceballos and Cáceres, because it does not follow the path of oblivion, which, as has been shown, helps no one.

On the contrary, it is a historical mistake that does great damage to the country. Especially to young Chileans, who, without having lived through this difficult and very harsh stage, are direct or indirect victims of it, for which they remain condemned to live in a divided country.

It is also very important because, by having justice, it allows us, the Chilean people, to enter the future by reading our own past. And that will indeed allow society as a whole to pass judgment on the facts and decide the course to follow on this delicate issue.

But there is still more to do, and we must advance in this effort. Judicial rulings like this in no way alter the functioning of the Armed Forces; on the contrary, they open a necessary path to establish institutional recognition of past events and responsibilities in each of the cases investigated.

The younger generations of military personnel have the right to know the history of their country, that Army officers not only tortured their brothers-in-arms but also murdered the General and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Rene Schneider, to prevent Allende from assuming the government in 1970.

They must know that officers and non-commissioned officers of the Armed Forces murdered General Carlos Prats and Ministers of the Popular Unity government, José Toha and Orlando Letelier. That the Commander of the Chilean Air Force, Gustavo Leigh, ordered the bombing of La Moneda and the presidential house with the objective of murdering Salvador Allende, and that they are responsible for the fact that more than four thousand Chileans were murdered and that many of them remain forcibly disappeared.

For quite some time, we have stated that we were witnesses to the outcome of a history we tried to denounce and a military offensive we tried to oppose. For this reason, we can attest that the Chilean Air Force, led by Leigh and company, was part of a war plan and assumed the responsibility of bombing La Moneda, so that later on the ground, the Army, with Infantry forces, could finish the task of liquidating every vestige of "enemy" resistance.

We have denounced that the Hawker Hunter planes carried out a tactical bombing mission when they attacked the Government Palace, the most important symbol of democracy in Chile, assuming that "enemy troops" and the command post of the Allende government were entrenched there, with the mission of annihilating them.

We have also stated that to execute this mission, they must have had a prior and studied plan, in addition to practicing it, which demonstrates not only the conspiracy but that the action was planned with the explicit mission of murdering Salvador Allende and all those who were resisting in the presidential palace.

If anyone has doubts about this, let them review the journalistic reports of the time: the planes unloaded rockets onto the presidential Palace, one entered through a window into the presidential hall and the other impacted the ceiling of a hallway on the second floor; in total, they made eight low-altitude passes, unloading 18 rockets in 20 minutes.

Today, the justice system knows that the practice runs for the bombing of La Moneda were carried out at Cerro Moreno and that the then-Lieutenant Ernesto Amador González Yarra, Lieutenant Fernando Rojas Vender, Captain Eitel Von Mühlenbrock, and Lieutenant Gustavo Leigh Yates—son of the FACH Commander-in-Chief and member of the military junta—participated.

However, those who are still alive from this group of officers have testified to the justice system and have refused to acknowledge their participation, alleging a secret of honor.

These statements are an offense and an insult to our intelligence. These gentlemen forget that we are living witnesses to their outrages and that we know they acted in a premeditated and conscious manner, using all their firepower against enemies created by them to justify their actions.

The officers and non-commissioned officers who participated in all the operations before, during, and after the military coup were part of the demented declaration of war that the Armed Forces waged against the supporters of the Popular Unity government—enemies who, as we have said, were not captured in combat, but were ordinary Chilean citizens taken from their homes and brought to different military barracks, handcuffed with hoods on their heads, only to be cruelly tortured and mistreated.

These junior officers at that time feel proud of what they did, a sentiment shared by General Mathei, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force, who feels honored, as he declared some time ago, "to have participated in the military government, as a minister and as a member of the Government Junta."

It is time, then, for the justice system to help Chile unmask so much lying and hypocrisy. There are many witnesses and records that allow us to advance in this aspect, which is so important and decisive for national coexistence.

The Armed Forces of today must assume the moral obligation before the nation and recognize, without ambiguity, the acts against human dignity committed by members of our institutions during the military dictatorship.

During that period, the Air Force was part of and involved in state terrorism and set up torture centers in its military units and under its jurisdiction. The most important was the Air War Academy, a situation shared and accepted by the high institutional commands and, through them, passed down to the entire chain of command of the institution.

This is a subject that should awaken the interest of academics and jurists in the heat of these types of post-dictatorship trials, linked to the extermination programs carried out by people like the two recently prosecuted.

The profuse amount of documentation and testimonies that were made public in the reports of the Rettig and Valech commissions, in addition to everything compiled by the UN itself and Amnesty International, show the world a complex state bureaucracy placed almost exclusively at the service of crime and torture—that is, state terrorism.

Having been part of the structure of the Armed Forces, we affirm that those pieces of evidence also demonstrate the degree of responsibility of their executors. If we start from those who carried out the murders with their own hands, in the Air War Academy for example, and ascend through the chain of command of the organizational structure of the Army and the dictatorship, until reaching Pinochet himself, as we move away from the executors, not only does the responsibility for the acts increase, but also the control over the decision of what came to be called the war against Marxism.

Conversely, as one descends the chain of command, the control over the concrete configuration of the murders increases, until reaching those who were in charge of guarding the victims or taking them to the military torture and death facilities.

Finally, the complex issues linked to this topic manifest themselves above all with respect to state criminality, given that the very structure of the State, with its enormous economic and human resources and its chains of officials forming a gigantic bureaucracy, turns out to be the organization that adapted and placed itself at the head of all this.

It is also necessary to note that, being a criminal organization of this magnitude, the commission of the crime in no way depends solely on the individual executors. They occupy a subordinate position in the power apparatus, are interchangeable, and cannot prevent the man behind it, the "author from the shadows," from achieving the result, since it is he who at all times retains the decision regarding the consummation of the planned crimes.

That is why in our country there are a few unspoken truths and a few sympathizers and officials of the dictatorship who try to wash their image, either by claiming they voted NO in 1989 or by distancing themselves from what they themselves promoted.

It is pending to prosecute those who held power in Chile since 1973 and headed a scheme of state terrorism against those they considered enemies of the regime, to condemn them as indirect perpetrators in relation to the homicides, kidnappings, torture, and robberies that were proven in each case.

In the case of Chile, the members of the Military Junta first, and the military government as a whole, always maintained control over the executors and must answer as indirect perpetrators of the crimes committed.

It is also true that they built a power apparatus parallel to the formal one, based on the military structure, and ordered, through the chain of command of both the military forces and state security, to act in illegality by making use of that clandestine apparatus; not only that, they guaranteed the cadres that they would not interfere in their actions, and most importantly, they ensured their impunity by all means within their reach.

From the Study Center for Exonerated Air Force Personnel 1973, we will continue to contribute to ensuring that truth meets justice. We have the moral stature to do so; we were loyal to our oath and to our people.

Dr. Enrique Villanueva M. Vice President, Study Center Exonerated Air Force Personnel 1973

Source: Radiouchile.cl, July 19, 2012

A Chilean general who opposed the dictatorship died in Belgium by euthanasia

General Sergio Poblete of the Chilean Air Force, who in 1973 opposed the coup led by Augusto Pinochet and was therefore convicted of "treason to the country" in a court-martial, died in Belgium after requesting the application of euthanasia, his daughter Mónica revealed to EFE today.

Although his death occurred in Belgium on November 25, the circumstances of Sergio Poblete's death were unknown until today. He was one of the constitutionalist military officers who rejected the coup against the government of Salvador Allende and therefore suffered imprisonment, torture, exile, and the stripping of his nationality.

Poblete was 93 years old when he passed away, after his request for euthanasia was approved by a team of five doctors and a psychologist, his daughter explained.

She added, in a conversation with EFE from Belgium, that her father opted for that path after confirming that he was suffering from generalized cancer, which would no longer allow him to lead an active life.

"He was seriously ill, but he had all his intellectual faculties intact. Morally, he did not want to see himself diminished, nor did he want the family to see him in that state," she explained.

"It was emotional for me, his daughter, to accept his request. For me and the family, it was the first time we had confronted euthanasia," she added.

When the doctors accepted his request, "it was also emotional, because from that moment on he knew his hours were numbered. We were able to say goodbye to him. The whole family, plus some friends, were with him until the end. He left peacefully; it was very painful for us, but he left us the message of a man of integrity," she remarked.

In Chile, it would not have been possible for Sergio Poblete to carry out his decision, since euthanasia is legally prohibited.

"A month before he died, he broke a leg and then it was discovered that he had generalized cancer. He was consistent with his ideas until the end of his life," she stated.

After the coup of September 11, 1973, General Poblete was taken prisoner and led to the Air War Academy, where he was tortured, according to testimonies, in the presence of the head of the FACH and member of the Military Junta, Gustavo Leigh.

He was later held in the Santiago public prison, where he was with General Alberto Bachelet, father of former President Michelle Bachelet, at the time he died as a result of torture.

In the court-martial against the anti-coup members of the FACH, General Poblete was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but in 1975 his sentence was commuted to exile, and he left for Belgium.

In 1977, the dictatorship stripped him of his Chilean nationality, which he only recovered in 2004, 14 years after the restoration of democracy in Chile.

Sergio Poblete... A General, a free man

"I ask you to understand that I am only a man, with all the frailties and weaknesses that a man has; and if I was able to endure—because I was fulfilling a task—the defeat of yesterday, today, without arrogance and without a spirit of vengeance, I accept this triumph, which has nothing personal about it and which I owe to the unity of the popular parties, to the social forces that have been with us." Salvador Allende (1)

Salvador Allende inhabited the house of the presidents...

Sergio Poblete, general of the Chilean Air Force (FACH), retired from his institution in 1973 to join effectively in the historic task of laying the foundations for a new model of society, where concrete answers are given to the demands and requests of millions of Chilean men and women, who for so many years have traveled the disastrous paths left by a sector of society, eternally condemned to misery and marginalization.

"We have triumphed to definitively defeat imperialist exploitation, to end monopolies, to carry out a serious and profound agrarian reform, to control import and export trade, to nationalize, in short, credit—all pillars that will make Chile's progress feasible, creating the social capital that will drive our development." Salvador Allende (2)

Those times in our recent history were not a light wind that passed by General Sergio Poblete. His convictions were rooted in the will for change, in the construction of his ideas and thoughts. He knew the country and its needs very well, the pain caused by the existence of millions of illiterate people.

History leaves written for future generations that in delicate and sensitive moments for a country, for the homeland, there was a man in uniform who was capable of establishing a dialogue between the uniform and the shovel, that for that reason, one had to work. Those words and acts that are conjugated from the Temples and the profane world, indispensable, necessary.

Sergio Poblete, a constitutionalist general... one of the few.

Most bent their backs before their masters... Gustavo Leigh, and his hierarchy.

Joining a project with the special historical and social characteristics of the Popular Unity—an attempt that remains a benchmark for all time—was strong enough to join the simple and historic work of the man who was democratically elected on September 4, 1970.

"Today no one should ignore it: it is feasible to provide all beings with the elements they require to satisfy their biological, spiritual, and cultural needs, in any of their expressions and nuances. It is possible to give structure to a community in which there are planned systems capable of defeating the effective alienations that subordinate man." Salvador Allende (3)

One always finds in time the reasons that motivate the steps of men, the deep causes of their determinations, and among them, without a doubt, is sensitivity; wonder and gestures of solidarity inhabit them, which are nothing more than fraternal actions, that imperative eternal journey to be free men, certain steps toward a fuller society.

"I want to point out before history the transcendental fact that you have carried out, defeating the arrogance of money, pressure, threats, deformed information, the campaign of terror, insidiousness, and evil." Salvador Allende (4)

Sergio Poblete knew that taking sides in a project for a better distribution of wealth, initiated by his brother Salvador Allende, represented him; there he found his idea of a country. A remarkable and historic gesture to leave his brilliant military career to enlist alongside the millions who were touching bread and honey with their fingertips.

It was the continuation of the many who preceded them, something of what was said aloud by Marmaduque Grove Vallejo when the month of June 1932 arrived... something of that.

While in the times of the Popular Unity some FACH generals were conspiring and happily counting their chickens, there were others who made themselves available for the greatest gesture of generosity remembered in the history of Chile, the one won by the poor, all the consciences that began the journey in 1952.

Chile, an unfinished country, with its dreams, its nightmares... a task to be finished.

"The program of the Popular Unity, Dear Brothers, is hard enough to hurt interests that are powerful enough; international and national interests that we will have to hurt implacably, because if we do not, we will not have the means and resources to fulfill what we have said.

And what brother does not want those who are brothers—not because they are inside the Temple, but because they were born in the same homeland—to have the right to work?" Salvador Allende (5)

Santiago, cell 12 of the public prison...

Sergio Poblete, general of the Chilean Air Force, inhabits hallways, bars, and padlocks with dignity and consistency alongside General Alberto Bachelet, Colonels Carlos Ominami, Rolando Miranda, Ernesto Galáz, Captains Jorge Silva, Patricio Carvacho, and Raúl Vergara, a civil servant named Cortéz, non-commissioned officers Franklin Silva, Millarán, and San Martín, and Army Lieutenant Carlos Pérez Tobar...

Between February 18 and 21, 1975, in Mexico City, at the Third Session of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes of the Military Junta in Chile, General Poblete said:

The Prosecutor General Gutiérrez also headed a select group of torturers of the most cowardly and vile kind, whose names I want to give so that Chileans do not forget them, namely:

Aviation Colonel (Air) Horacio Otaiza

Commander (Air) Sergio Lizasoain Mitrano Commander (Engineer) Edgardo Ceballos Jones Commander (Air) Jaime Lavín Fariña Commander (Air) Ramón Cáceres Commander (Air) León Duffei Commander (Technical) Erick Barrientos Commander (Air) Gonzalo Pérez Canto Commander (Air) Dinosera Captain (Air) Víctor Mattig Captain (Air) Víctor García-Huidobro Captain (Air) Florencio Dubblé Captain (Air) Álvaro Gutiérrez Captain (Air) Alberto Waschtendorf

Chile and its political prisoners thank you. (6)

Sergio Poblete decorates the Eternal East...

"Think about this and think about the struggle that the founding fathers of the Nation gave to make it possible for our land to be a land that owns its destiny; think about how O'Higgins was fought for the tremendous crime of not being an oligarch, and how the oligarchy spat in the face of his status as a natural-born son." Salvador Allende

REFERENCES

(1) (2) (4) Speech, September 4, 1970. The night of the victory of the Popular Unity. (3) Salvador Allende. Letter of resignation. June 21, 1965. To Dear Brother Luis Olguín Blando. Venerable Master of the Respectable Lodge "Hiram N°65". (5) (7) Salvador Allende.

Speech, October 16, 1970. (6) DENUNCIATION AND TESTIMONY. Third Session of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes of the Military Junta. Mexico City, February 18-21, 1975. By Pablo Varas

Source: granvalparaiso.cl, April 18, 2012

Ricardo Lagos Salinas Present!

Ricardo Lagos joined the Socialist Youth (JS) in Chillán in 1965, where he became president of the Student Center at the Commercial Institute of that city, where he studied Accounting. Later, while studying Economics, he served as vice president of the Student Federation of the University of Concepción.

From a young age, he demonstrated a natural tendency toward leadership: some of his family’s friends still remember that, at 11 years old and accompanying his mother, he climbed onto a platform during an assembly at a land occupation to speak to the people about their right to dignified housing.

Due to his militant capacity and responsibility, he was elected to the Ñuble Regional Committee of the Socialist Party (PS) and was a delegate to the XXIII National Congress, becoming a member of the Party’s Central Committee and Political Commission.

Ricardo was barely 20 years old. The PS assigned him the responsibility of directing its National Secretariat of Political Education (EDUPOL), a position he held until September 11, 1973.

A year earlier, he had married Patricia Paredes. They met while both were studying at the Commercial Institute. They married very young: she was 17 and he was 19. The couple soon moved to the capital, where their son was born. During that period, he balanced his party work with his studies at the University of Chile, where he had resumed his Economics degree.

Based on his leadership roles in the PS, Lagos Salinas assumed the general direction of the Latin American Institute of Social Studies (INESAL), a type of extension and political training center where intellectuals such as Marta Harnecker, Gabriela Uribe, Theotonio Dos Santos, and Carmen Sabaj collaborated.

The premises, located at Bustamante N° 12, were also the operations center for the collective’s so-called “Defense Commission.”

Sergio Martínez, responsible for one of the areas of INESAL, remembers Ricardo Lagos Salinas with special affection: “He was a very particular person, in the sense of projecting different images. Because of his physical appearance, he looked younger than he actually was; one could be deceived, but it was enough to hear him speak to realize that he was someone with very clear ideas, very serious in his dedication to his work and in demanding identical dedication from others.

But that did not necessarily mean he was grave; on the contrary, he was very affable and had a contagious smile, to the point that many female comrades found him charming, and it is known that he had several admirers in the PS. He was close to the elenos group and, in that capacity, was part of the Party’s political commission.”

As a center for studies and extension, one of the main activities that INESAL carried out, under Ricardo’s coordination, was a seminar in July 1973 in the Conference Hall of the Gabriela Mistral Building (UNCTAD), in which Jorge Arrate, Armando Cassigoli, Theotonio Dos Santos, and Pedro Holtz participated.

At the same time, INESAL operated as an entity functional to the PS. For example, the Department of Political Extension—coordinated by Sergio Martínez and Eduardo Charme—was, in practice, the Party’s School of Political Education, which in turn branched into two areas: one of political training proper (with courses on Marxism, history of the labor movement, fundamentals of economic theory, situational analysis, and public speaking workshops) and another “technical” one, linked to the teams coordinated by Arnoldo Camú and directed by Eduardo Charme.

All of this was under the periodic supervision of Ricardo Lagos Salinas.

The murder of his family

The three years of the Popular Government passed quickly for the young couple. A week before the 11th, Ricardo expressed to his partner his vision regarding the imminence of the coup. He persuaded her that it might be necessary for her and their son to leave the country, especially considering that she was pregnant with their second child.

On September 11, the young couple left their home very early. After leaving their young son in the care of one of Ricardo’s aunts, the young man headed to FESA, a packaging company in the social sector, part of the Cordón Cerrillos, where the Political Commission was supposed to meet.

Rolando Calderón, Exequiel Ponce, Arnoldo Camú, Luis Lorca, and Hernán Coloma, among others, arrived. From the first moment, he integrated himself into the work of the Clandestine Leadership of the PS.

One of the main emotional blows he suffered was the news of the execution of his father, Ricardo Lagos Reyes, mayor of Chillán, his stepmother Sonia Ojeda—who was pregnant—and his brother Carlos, who were shot on September 16, 1973, in their own home. Under those circumstances, he instructed his wife to leave the country. Shortly after, on January 20, 1974, he wrote the following letter:

Dear Patty and son

These lines contain neither recommendations nor literature. Nor the existential musings of a father who feels alone. They are only my suggestions for naming the baby.

The three of us want a little sister, don’t we? But if another future rascal (read: little boy) arrives, it doesn’t matter, we will love him just the same, agreed?

Now, my opinions: I don’t want to hear about far-fetched names. Let them sound good, and that’s it. Nor the usual names of my mother and my brother. Is that clear? I suggest (with much emphasis) that if it is a girl, she be named after her mommy, Patricia. To complete it, I like Patricia María, or Carmen Patricia, you will say.

If it is a boy, I want him to be Eduardo Agustín. I have reasons why both names mean a lot to me.

“Eduardo” and, above all, “Agustín,” were two of the political names that Arnoldo Camú had used.

In clandestinity

Exequiel Ponce, head of the PS in Chile, decided that Ricardo should leave Chile to protect his safety and also to try to distance him emotionally from the painful situation experienced by his family.

The message was transmitted by Anita Corrales, who had served as Arnoldo Camú’s secretary until his assassination and who later assumed the role of liaison between the members of the Political Commission.

They met at the Central Station and then walked toward the center, turning onto Calle Cumming. “We were walking in silence. I dared to break it to communicate the mandate of the leadership. He rejected the order. His duty was in Chile. We both embraced, crying,” she recalls.

“Renato,” the name he used in clandestinity, not only did not accept leaving the country, but also placed himself at the disposal of his party for the tasks that the organization deemed necessary.

In a letter addressed to his wife—who had sought asylum in the GDR—dated June 16, 1974, Ricardo Lagos summarized the harsh human and political conditions in which the attempts to reorganize the Party were taking place:

The pain for every murdered comrade, the anguish for every imprisoned and tortured comrade, the responsibility toward family members that we must have morally and materially, the desperate void to be filled on every front dismantled or touched by repression, make up a dramatic experience that hardens us more every day.

Not in the human sense: we have the obligation to be cold and serene, to continue advancing without flinching, but our sensitivity necessarily develops, seeking channels of expression. We feel more deeply and vibrate more intensely than before with all, absolutely all the pains and miseries, the joys and hopes, the heroic gestures of some and the breaking points of others, with the vital expressions of each one of our own in the Party, of the suffering and noble people who shelter us.

We harden ourselves, a particular way of maturing politically, in work styles, in the revolutionary and proletarian treatment of each of the daily problems that affect the movement’s progress.

We try to ensure that this evolution is reflected particularly in work norms, in security norms, and also in the political sphere, the intransigent defense of unity and the violent combat against defeatism and adventurism, wherever they may be.

It worries us not to always know to what extent these lessons, which daily practice impregnates us with by force and with tragic insistence, are understood and assimilated outside. Particularly two things: the application of all security norms raised to the point of exaggeration and the need for a single political line for the entire Party, defined correctly based on principled positions.

The capture

On June 17, 1975, in the Población Las Rejas, DINA agents arrested Ricardo Lagos Salinas, in the company of the young Michelle Peña Herreros.

Days later, on June 24, Héctor Eduardo Riffo, also a socialist, went to a residence in Villa Ríos, in Santiago, where he had agreed to meet with Ricardo. He arrived around 3:30 PM and saw that a white and light blue Chevrolet car, with license plates from Quinta Normal, was parked near the house.

Inside was the young leader. Riffo thought he had just arrived, so he went up to the apartment. He was immediately arrested by two armed civilians. The place was being raided. He was led to a yellow MG car to which Ricardo had been moved. Both were taken to Villa Grimaldi and tortured there.

Riffo was questioned intensely about the activities of Ricardo, Exequiel Ponce, and Carlos Lorca. On June 26, he saw Ricardo Lagos in the bathroom area and at the moment he was being pushed into a room located in a corner of the patio.

Luis Gormaz, another person held at Villa Grimaldi, noted that Lagos was hiding a bloodstained cloth under his bed and that his physical condition was very poor.

Luz Arce related in her 1990 statement before the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation that she had known her former party comrade was detained. She asked to speak with him; she was authorized to do so as long as she asked him to collaborate with the DINA.

“Ricardo Lagos asked me for candy; I got some for him in the Villa Grimaldi kitchen. The conversation was in the patio. I remember it perfectly because I knew him from before. On that occasion, he was dressed in a blue suit, without a tie, shirt open, and dirty.

I have the impression that Lagos knew they were going to kill him. I never saw him again,” she related. She added: “He indicated to me that Exequiel Ponce and Carlos Lorca were also detained.”

When Luz Arce commented to General Manuel Contreras, director of the DINA, that she had seen Ricardo, he replied: “You were mistaken,” and then told her he would look into it. Luz Arce specified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the DINA Directorate necessarily had to be aware of these facts, since every unit or barracks sent a report daily.

Ricardo’s detention was part of a DINA operation against members of the PS Political Commission, their liaisons, and collaborators, carried out between June and July 1975, which culminated in dozens of socialist militants being forcibly disappeared.

On September 3, 1975, a recurso de amparo (writ of habeas corpus) was filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals for the affected party; it was registered under N° 1072–75. After the negative response from the Minister of the Interior, General Raúl Benavides Escobar, who indicated that he was not detained by order of that State Secretariat, the appeal was rejected and the records were sent to the Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago, which opened case N° 77.497–75 on October 28.

The process was just beginning when, on November 4, 1975, information appeared in the evening newspaper “La Segunda” indicating that the Chilean representative to the Third United Nations Commission on Human Rights had stated that Lagos Salinas “is not only not imprisoned, but last week he was staying at the Hotel Tudor in this city (New York), and I personally saw him in the delegates’ lounge having an aperitif accompanied by some delegates of this Commission.” Only on July 6 of the following year did Group Commander (a) Jaime Lavín Fariña, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, inform the Court that they were referring to Ricardo Lagos Escobar and not Ricardo Lagos Salinas.

Minister Raúl Benavides persistently denied the victim’s apprehension, always in the same terms: “He is not detained by order of this Secretariat.” Only in October 1977 did he add that “having consulted the Provincial Governor of Ñuble, he stated that inquiries made in the area allowed the conclusion that the aforementioned citizen had left the national territory surreptitiously on a date immediately following September 11, 1973.”

On June 28, 1979, the processing of the case continued under the charge of visiting minister Servando Jordán López. Without any major progress, on December 11 of that year, the magistrate declared himself incompetent and sent the files to the Military Justice system, with the process being lodged in the First Military Prosecutor’s Office of Santiago, registered under N° 16–80.

On June 17, 1982—without further proceedings—the summary was closed, and on July 16 of the same year, the case was totally and temporarily dismissed. The Martial Court confirmed the resolution.

In October 1989, the Army Lieutenant Colonel and Interim Military Prosecutor General, Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, requested the application of the Amnesty Law. The 2nd Military Court of Santiago accepted the request and dismissed the process totally and definitively, which was confirmed in December by the Martial Court.

Previously, on July 10, 1978, a preventive recurso de amparo had been filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals by Patricia Paredes, the couple’s two minor children, and Alicia Parra, Ricardo’s mother-in-law. The appeal was registered under N° 408–78.

The filing stated that Lagos’s wife and children had returned to Chile only on July 4 of that year. The following day, they had received a visit from two civilians who claimed to be Investigative Police officers.

On July 6, civilians had also gone to an apartment owned by Ricardo, located at Quirihue N° 90, and spoke with the tenant, telling her that it was better for her to leave since it was “a dangerous place.” During the process, a person who was the tenant of the place in 1977 appeared, reporting that an individual who claimed to have the same name as the affected party had contacted her and given her a week to leave the place.

The stranger was tall, thin, with a beard, long-haired, and his face was barely visible. When shown a photo of Ricardo Lagos, the witness did not recognize him. The Court rejected the amparo on July 12, 1978.

At the time of his detention, Ricardo Lagos Salinas was 24 years old.

DEAR CHILDREN AND PATTY

I am taking advantage of this unofficial mail to write these lines that you must have been waiting for for a long time. Despite the ups and downs and difficulties, we continue to struggle, and without any desire to please the enemies from within and certain “friends from outside.”

Working conditions are not much better than last year. We have lost some valuable brothers and comrades, but we feel that despite everything, we are advancing, and the heroic example of our tortured friends strengthens us and commits us not to waver.

I would like to convey to you in these lines everything that these last months mean, and this whole stage of clandestine struggle, in overcoming personal conflicts, in the reaffirmation of a militant commitment, in concrete learning, from the people, from the problems, from what is at the base of our revolutionary struggle in our homeland.

Countless blows have been received, dramatic, painful. Under their impact, some have broken, and many more have come out better, stronger, more honest, clearer in their work, more mature and balanced.

I would like to make you feel strongly all this new reality that is felt growing under the skin, and that translates into new contents in the work, in tasks that cease to feel routine, in creative capacity and new mysticism that greatly increase the quality of the contribution that one feels capable of delivering.

The bitter hours that our homeland has lived have meant new tasks, have demanded the reconstruction of our Party, categorically defining its construction in a revolutionary proletarian sense, which requires, as a fundamental condition, renewed cadres and revolutionized men to be capable of making a revolution.

There is much to do, but we are advancing. The great tasks, the political tasks that have to do with the very destiny of our people, have favorable conditions to be fulfilled: the dictatorship is living through extremely difficult days, its isolation is greater, in the great masses oppressed by fascism the attitude of resistance and struggle against the dictatorship is growing, there is an increasing awareness of the importance of unity and active struggle, clarity is being made on the path to follow, and one learns to fight according to the circumstances.

The Leninist (revolutionary and proletarian) definition of the Party, defeating within its bosom the predominance of petty-bourgeois conceptions, is not seen so clearly… The underlying conflict (petty-bourgeois conceptions versus proletarian conceptions) manifests itself in the differences between the Interior Leadership and the groups that act outside.

The validity of the principle of Interior Leadership is decisive. Even if all the leaders elected in the last Congress fall, whoever the leaders may be (it is not a problem of names), the real Leadership of the Party must be in Chile, and the exterior organization must only be for support.

All the theses of Shared Single Leadership, etc., are nothing but contraband to displace the real Leadership abroad. On that, we will not compromise, even if the economic boycott is even greater and the Interior Leadership is discredited and attempts are made to isolate it. Our opinion is the opinion of the Party in Chile.

We also have to overcome and correct many things here. Work styles, incorrect methods of action that do not help. However, we are convinced that the revolutionary vitality of the Party will define things in the proletarian sense.

We know that outside there are those who, honestly mistaken, accuse us of denying the validity of the Party. We have shown that this is not so. Our practical conduct, defending the validity of the Party with our own skin, is worth much more than the grotesque verbiage of the gangs of immoral people who manage to boycott and divide the Party.

The cadres, the concrete men needed to fulfill our objectives, are not exceptional beings; they are ordinary, everyday human beings who are living a process of personal transformation that begins with ideology and that must come to encompass everything: habits, work, personal relationships, everything.

It is the experience we are living, the formation of the Marxist-Leninist cadres that the party needs, in the heat of daily struggle, without adequate material backing, without much support for their theoretical formation, but with a revolutionary conviction, with an enthusiasm to do things at all costs.

That is how things are here, according to our possibilities, and it is necessary to count on you. It is the task that commits all the honest militants of the Party who are outside. A general task that, for you, personally means a greater commitment that, I fully trust, you will be capable of fulfilling.

You cannot forget that you are there by decision of the Party, that there is a militancy that imposes concrete tasks, efforts, sacrifices, and that the outcome of the revolutionary struggle in Chile also depends on the fulfillment of those tasks.

In this, many lives are committed, and many have already been lost because the enemy is powerful and brutal, but also because at some point we have not known how to fulfill our obligations. The possibilities for personal development that your stay there gives you are very great.

It is fundamental to understand that international solidarity is not an obligation for anyone. One must know how to be grateful for it and contribute in everything one can. Do not forget that you are in a socialist country, the one with the greatest development in the socialist camp, which has behind it and its material achievements the overwhelming effort of its people in production, and the defense against the permanent aggression of imperialism, that this people lived the rigors of war, and that they have conquered everything by working and studying.

And one cannot expect them to share their effort if there is no consistent attitude on our part. You are representatives of the working class and the people of Chile and must become the vanguard of what our socialist homeland will be.

I am worried about knowing if you have achieved a certain integration into the properly German way of life (Patty in production, Carlos and Ricardo in some Kindergarten or something like that). It would be unproductive if you remain isolated as a “Chilean colony,” and not only because of the language.

It is very important that when you arrive in the liberated Chile that we are seeking, you bring the cultural baggage that you can obtain, mainly the language, the Marxist-Leninist ideological formation, acquired directly from its sources (Marx and Engels, in German). We will be happy ignoramuses willing to learn from you.

Source: psdechile.cl, 2013

Chilean Air Force expresses its condolences for former torturer

Obituary Jaime Lavín Fariña With deep sorrow, the Chilean Air Force expresses its condolences and joins in the grief of the family for the regrettable and sensitive passing of our former comrade, retired Aviation General, Mr. Jaime Lavín Fariña.

Source: September 13, 2019

The truth about how the father of former president Bachelet died in his prison cell

The Brazilian president, the ultra-rightist Jair Bolsonaro, launched a very harsh criticism of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, whom he accused of defending “vagabonds” and even attacked on a personal level.

“Mrs. Michelle Bachelet: If it weren’t for the personnel of (Augusto) Pinochet, who defeated the left in 1973, among them your father (Alberto Bachelet), today Chile would be a Cuba,” said Bolsonaro in response to statements by the former Chilean President, who criticized police violence and the human rights situation in Brazil.

Alberto Bachelet was not defeated: He suffered brutal torture while detained in prison

After the Brazilian president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro—a former military man, an extremist, misogynist, fascist, and worshiper of right-wing dictatorships and human rights violations by the armed forces—it remained floating in the air how the father of President Michelle Bachelet died.

There are several witnesses who saw the last minutes of Alberto Arturo Miguel Bachelet Martínez’s life. He was imprisoned in the Public Jail that was located on Calle General Mackenna at the corners of Amunategui and Teatinos, which comprised an entire block in the center of Santiago.

They had taken him there to join common prisoners and his comrades from the Air Force, some who were directly against the Coup d’État and others who, due to the denunciation of their own comrades, had been detained and taken to that detention center.

Alberto Bachelet was a general of the FACH and had been appointed in 1972 by President Salvador Allende as secretary of the National Directorate of Supply and Marketing (DINAC), a position in which he had to direct the Supply and Price Control Boards (JAP).

For the 1973 coup, General Bachelet was serving in the Accounting Directorate of the Chilean Air Force (FACh). As he opposed the Coup d’État of September 11, he was detained for the first time on September 11, 1973, in his office at the Ministry of Defense. Released that same night, his house was raided on September 14, and he was arrested again.

He was held at the Air War Academy of the FACh (AGA), its director being the then-colonel Fernando Matthei, father of the current mayor of Providencia. In that place, he was subjected to interrogations and torture by his own comrades-in-arms.

In December, he was detained again and sent to the Air War Academy of the FACh, where he was savagely tortured with beatings, electric shocks, wet sacks over his body to leave no marks, cigarette burns on his chest and back, and other tortures.

In a letter to his son Alberto (who passed away), who lived in Australia, he related:

“They broke me inside; at one moment, they were finishing me off morally—I never knew how to hate anyone—I have always thought that the human being is the most wonderful thing in this creation and must be respected as such, but I found myself with comrades from the FACH whom I have known for 20 years, my students, who treated me like a criminal or like a dog.”

He dies in his cell of a heart attack on March 12

On March 11, 1974, Alberto Bachelet, 50, was taken from the public jail to what would be his last brutal interrogation. Singularly, 32 and 40 years later, his daughter, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, arrived at the highest office in the country on that same day: On March 11, 2006, and March 11, 2014, she assumed the presidency of the Republic.

General Bachelet was very thin and suffered from arrhythmias. And the right-wing press said he played basketball. The day he died, no one ever played basketball in the jail.

An account by FACh Captain Jorge Silva, who slept next to General Bachelet in his 12-person cell, indicates that on March 11, 1974, he arrived at night very haggard. Very distressed. And he slept poorly. He was battered after the torture and duress from his own friends and comrades-in-arms.

In Ciper Chile, he relates the following about the day of Bachelet’s death:

“That morning, General Bachelet and I were on duty to wash the breakfast things. And people have forgotten that precisely that morning, Chaplain Gilmoure and the prison chaplain went to the jail to hold a mass.

They held it in the patio where we were. General Bachelet did not go to the mass; he was a Mason, and we both stayed in the cell while the rest went to the mass, because I was making breakfast and he was washing the dishes. And at one moment he said to me: ‘Flaco, I feel bad.’ ‘My General, lie down on General Sergio Poblete’s bed,’ I said.

“Because that was the first bunk in the cell. He lay down and said to me: ‘Pass me the trinitrine.’ I passed him the tablets. He put them in his mouth, and I realized he was sweating a lot. I took his pulse and realized it was out of control.

I remember I shouted and asked I don’t know who to bring Dr. Yáñez (Álvaro Yáñez del Villar), another of the political prisoners. As soon as Dr. Yáñez entered the cell, he examined him and immediately said: ‘He is having a heart attack! Help me!’

“Between the two of us, we took him down from the bed and put the General on the floor. And Dr. Yáñez got on top of him, starting to give him cardiac massage. I remember he even tried to take out the dental prosthesis he had and couldn’t.

Then Yáñez said to me: ‘Blow into him! Blow into him! You have to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!’ It was very impressive because everyone else was at the mass, and the background music was the singing of the prisoners at the mass: ‘The Lord is my shepherd….’ A very sinister thing. We were at that when suddenly the prison warden enters with the medical assistant:

-What is happening here! -says the warden, pushing Dr. Yáñez aside.

When the assistant approaches, Yáñez challenges him: ‘What are you going to do to him!?’

-I am going to put adrenaline in his mouth –the assistant responds.

-Don’t be ignorant! How are you going to put adrenaline in a man who is unconscious! –Yáñez says urgently.

-What do you know! –the assistant rebuked him.

-I do know what is happening to him, because I am a doctor –Yáñez said and approached the General again.

The warden took the assistant out of the cell and took him away, closing the cell. We stayed inside with Yáñez, and a few minutes later the assistant returns with a stretcher, they place General Bachelet on the stretcher, and they leave.

Dr. Yáñez relates: “They went to tell me he was bad, ‘it seems he is going to faint.’ I spoke with the warden: ‘General Bachelet is serious, he must be taken to an intensive care unit.’ He was having an arrhythmia attack, he was collapsing. ‘Please, he must be taken.

The J.J. Aguirre Hospital is five minutes away.’ He told me he couldn’t do it: ‘The FACh forbids taking anyone out without authorization.’ ‘Ask for authorization by phone.’ ‘I can’t, I have to send an official letter.’ ‘Please, he is going to die. I will accompany him. Chain me to the stretcher.’ We had to fight the collapse.

“It wasn’t possible. ‘He is fainting.’ He had no pulse and was not breathing. We began to give him mouth-to-mouth and cardiac massage. We ran him to the infirmary. We continued with the same. After 20 minutes, I saw that we could not create a pulse and I said he is dead, let’s leave him alone. ‘Rest from all this filth.’”)

-You and Dr. Yáñez saw him die…

I have the impression that General Bachelet left the cell dead. And I will tell you why. Because when they put him on the stretcher, his sphincters released. I saw it. So as not to forget those moments… And when I talked about it with my wife, who is a nurse, she told me that that happens when a person dies.

My General was taken to the infirmary and that is what I know, because I never saw him again. Many versions have come out. Many have wanted to be the last one who had Bachelet in his arms, but the truth is that only Dr.

Yáñez and I were there. No one else. Except for the moment when the warden enters with the assistant. The other lie that has been told is that General Bachelet had been playing basketball in the morning. Lie! Because that day, due to the mass, basketball was not played. And the uniformed men who were prisoners attended it, and civilian prisoners also went.”

According to the report of his death, Alberto Bachelet, 50, died due to “cardiorespiratory arrest resulting from the poor physical and psychological condition in which he had been left.”

In November 2014, colonels Edgar Cevallos and Ramón Cáceres were convicted as authors of the torture, both to four years in prison, absolute disqualification for political rights, and also absolute disqualification for public offices and positions during the period the sentence lasts. Ceballos died in February of this year, 2019. Cáceres is still alive.

The names of the torturers of the FACH Air War Academy (AGA) remained etched in the memory of the detainees, and new lawsuits were filed against them. Several of them have already passed away.

The torturers of the AGA

Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, General (r) Sergio Lizosoain Mitrano, Colonel (r) Julio Tapia Falk, Lawyer Cristián Rodríguez, Legal Advisor Jaime Cruzat, Legal Advisor Víctor Barahona, Legal Advisor Jaime Lavín Fariña, Group Commander (r) León Duffey, Squadron Commander (r) Edgard Ceballos Jones, Group Commander (r) Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, Squadron Commander Florencio Dublé, Captain (r) José García Huidobro, Lieutenant (r) Juan Soler Manfredini, General (r) Eduardo Fornet, Colonel (r) who served as secretary of the FACH; Carlos Cáceres, Squadron Commander (r) pilot, Gonzalo Pérez Canto, Squadron Commander (r) pilot, Alvaro Gutiérrez, Flight Captain (r) pilot, Víctor Mettig, Flight Captain (r) pilot, Juan Carlos Sandoval, Lieutenant (r) Franklin Bello, Lieutenant (r) Juan Norambuena, Non-commissioned officer (r) Hugo Lizana, Aviation Sergeant (r) Humberto Berg Fontecilla, FACH Medical Colonel (r) Sergio Sanhueza López, Engineer Colonel Javier Lopetegui Torres, Colonel (r) pilot Carlos Godoy Avendaño, Group Commander (r) pilot

Source: cambio21.cl, September 5, 2019