The crime occurred on October 6, where 500 people were also detained. Several of the criminals have been identified. Ricardo Klapp Santa Cruz. Former Political Prisoner at Cerro Chena. Following the 1973 coup d'état, Cerro Chena was converted into a center for detention, torture, and extermination.

Forty-six years ago, on October 6, 1973, eighteen political prisoners were massacred by genocidaires. Around 500 of us were detained at that location, including a hundred women. The most well-known torturers and criminals were the Army officers: Andrés Magaña Bau (who admits to only 36 crimes in Cuesta Chada, Nuevo Sendero, and El Transito), Alfonso Faúndez Norambuena (who participated in the DINA), Víctor Pino Pérez (a member of the DINA, currently deceased), and Sergio Rodríguez Rautcher (who denies being a criminal), as well as Carabineros Lieutenant Sergio Ávila Quiroga (who was part of the Comando Conjunto and continued murdering detainees). Furthermore, based on various testimonies, the minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases, Marianela Cifuentes, identified other torturers: Army Captains Eduardo Octavio Silva Bravo, Juan Carlos Nielsen Stambuk, Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos, Carlos Kyling Schmidt, Luis Cortez Villa, Marcial Cobos Farías, Luis Villarroel Contreras, Héctor Maturana Zúñiga, Luis Garfia Cabrera, and Julio Cerda Carrasco. Lieutenants Víctor Sandoval Muñoz, Jorge Saavedra Meza, and Carlos Duran Rodríguez. Majors Iván de La Fuente, Hernán Pizarro Collarte, and Ciro Ahumada Miranda. Led by Colonel Pedro Montalva Calvo. Added to this list are the Carabineros and Investigations police officers: Oscar Hernán Vergara Cruces, Roberto Arcángel Rozas Aguilera, and Mario Jesús Campos Ripley, among other state terrorists. Some of these criminals have died. Several were members of the DINA, the CNI, and the Comando Conjunto. Some are convicted and prosecuted, others are imprisoned. According to judicial statements and reports, the workers and prominent communist militants of the San Bernardo Railway Workshops were detained on September 28, 1973: Pastor Roberto Ávila, Arturo Koyk Fredes, Alfredo Acevedo Pereira, Raúl Castro Caldera, Hernán Chamorro Monarde, Manuel González Vargas, Ariel Monsalve Martínez, José Morales Álvarez, Pedro Oyarzún Zamorano, José Silva Oliva, and Ramón Vivanco Díaz. Additionally, young socialist students were detained on September 27: Francisco Viera Ovalle, 19 years old, and Héctor Hernández Garcés, 17 years old. Also Javier Antonio Pacheco Monsalve, a furniture maker and former GAP member, detained on October 5. His death was agonizing, and his body was mangled by beatings. Ricardo Solar Miranda, who worked as a night watchman, was a MIR militant. The peasant MIR militants from Linderos and Paine, Juan Cuadra Espinoza, Gustavo Martínez Vera, and Carlos Ortiz Ortiz, were also there. On October 6, the two young socialists, the three peasants from the MIR in Paine, a young man from the MIR in San Bernardo, the communist militants from the Workshops, and the GAP escort Javier Pacheco—who had been dragged away after being tortured to death—were called out by the torturers. None of them returned to the wooden manger with the red roof, fenced in by barbed wire, located 250 meters from the Pan-American Highway. Today, it is a destroyed site. Most of the prisoners appeared massacred at the Legal Medical Institute. At Cerro Chena, around a hundred comrades were massacred. Human rights organizations have demanded the construction of a site of historical memory. October 6 is recognized as "Railway Worker Day" in recognition of those martyred. It is added that the Ministry of Education declared the Access Portico, the Little School, and the Hill of the Red-Roofed House as a National Monument in the "Historical Monument" category. In 1973 and 1974, family members would arrive at the Access Portico, where they were humiliated when requesting information. The modest classrooms of the little school were used as prisoner cells. There was a stone wall and a shed where torture took place during September 1973. The Hill of the Red-Roofed House operated from October 1973. Today, the government promotes impunity and oblivion, annulling the National Human Rights Plan that contained 634 actions. It will not promote the investigation, sanctioning, and reparation of crimes against humanity. It will not assist survivors of torture. It will not annul the Self-Amnesty Decree Law. It will not form any commission to qualify victims of torture during the dictatorship. It will only prepare self-reports and monitor internal drafts to continue protecting murderers. Every year, on October 6, family members and comrades hold commemorative acts, pilgrimages, and candlelight vigils demanding no oblivion, truth, justice, memory, and reparation.

Source: El Siglo, October 6, 2019

The pain and hope of Paine

The town of Paine holds the sad record of having the highest number of political executions and forcibly disappeared persons in proportion to its inhabitants. After the military coup, gangs of civilians, police, and military personnel operated there, leaving a trail of blood and pain, murdering peasants from "settlements" born from the Agrarian Reform.

In Paine, victims and perpetrators still live side-by-side under the mantle of impunity and oblivion. In 1979, the Military Justice system took charge of dismissing the cases opened for the events in Paine by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Law, approved by General Pinochet himself to cover up his crimes.

After 29 years, Judge María Estela Elgarrista is approaching the truth. The Agrarian Reform, initiated in the 1960s and accentuated under the government of Salvador Allende and the Unidad Popular, allowed many peasant families to benefit from the allocation of lands that, until then, belonged to a handful of landowners.

Thus, the peasants gave life to the "settlements," but in Paine, as in the rest of the Chilean countryside, September 11, 1973, turned everything back. Gangs of far-right civilians, police, and military personnel exacted "revenge," murdering union leaders and "settled" peasants.

The crimes, impunity, and fear spread through the small towns of Paine, Hospital, Huelquén, Culitrín, Chada, Rangue, El Vínculo, Pintué, and Laguna de Aculeo. Many peasants and their families witnessed how local civilians guided the uniformed men through the "settlements," providing names and, most of the time, participating directly in the repression and crimes.

Two weeks ago, and after 29 years, the judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, María Estela Elgarrista, summoned family members and perpetrators for various confrontations. Holanda Vidal, wife of the forcibly disappeared Cristian Cartagena Pérez, states: "I was summoned for the lawsuit regarding the kidnapping and murder of my husband, who disappeared on September 18, 1973.

Our goal is for the culprits to be prosecuted: Carabineros from the Paine sub-station and civilians who acted in concert. I identified several of them: Sergeant Retamal, Corporal Ortiz, Albornoz, and Víctor Sagredo; and civilians: Darío González Carrasco, now a merchant, member of Patria y Libertad, who admitted that he detained my husband at the Chada School House where we lived, taking him to the sub-station at six in the morning." The former Carabineros have denied their participation in the crimes during the confrontations, arguing that they "were on guard duty." "That caused me a shock with paralysis of my arms, a crisis of crying and anguish. It is terrible to relive everything that happened, to see them so close, their cynicism, their audacity to deny the truth. To see them so arrogant, without accepting that what they did was atrocious. These are the first confrontations after 29 years of complaints, searches, and knocking on doors. This step was possible because of all our effort and work as an Association. We have not compromised on the trial and punishment of the guilty, and that they pay for their crimes with prison." After the confrontations, prosecutions should follow. The judge has a long list of civilians, Carabineros, and military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment. "One of the murderers is Lieutenant Magaña Baum, and among the Carabineros, Sergeant Verdugo, a torturer who now presents himself as an old man who has done nothing," adds Holanda Vidal. "Everyone saw them" Juan Maureira is the son of René Maureira Gajardo, who was forcibly disappeared on October 16, 1973, along with 22 other peasants from the Campo Lindo, 24 de Abril, and Nuevo Sendero settlements. As president of the Paine AFDD (Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared), he recalls that military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School also participated in the repression and murders: "The judge is investigating nearly 40 lawsuits filed before Judge Guzmán. In Paine, there are more than 70 victims, of whom about 40 are still disappeared. These are the cases compiled in the Rettig Report, but others were never reported. We presume that there are around 100 murdered in Paine, most of them peasants from the settlements. The minister will eventually have to prosecute the Carabineros, civilians, and military personnel involved. It is what we expect and what we have asked for, that true justice be done and that we can find our family members... We know that Lieutenant Magaña has records of what happened to my father and 22 other peasants, among other cases. He killed our family members... The Carabineros have denied their participation, but they are the same ones who still live in the town. How can they deny it if everyone saw them? The same happens with the civilians who acted. Paine is a small town." According to the family members, the judge has acted with rigor, caution, and intelligence. They trust the testimonies and statements she has managed to collect. For them, everything points to the fact that some of those involved will be prosecuted. "Many were even seen entering the houses. There is a countless amount of information collected since that time." So far, they are satisfied with the investigation and the proceedings carried out by the judge. For them, it is the first investigation after 29 years without achieving justice. Up to this minute, civilians and Carabineros have been summoned, and some confrontations have taken place: "Which gives us a bit of satisfaction because it had never been achieved before. For the moment there are no prosecuted individuals, but the minister continues to work. And we have been able to verify that," says Juan Maureira. Meanwhile, most of the civilians and Carabineros who murdered the peasants of Paine continue to live in the small rural town, in complete impunity. "As far as we have been able to see, for the first time there is an investigation as it should be. The criminals will have to provide information about what happened. They are the same Carabineros, civilians, and military personnel who are mentioned in most of the cases," he concludes. Murderers of Paine Carabineros Nelson Bravo Espinoza, Captain; Raúl Ortiz Maluenda, 2nd Sergeant; Carlos Aburto Jaramillo, 1st Corporal; José Retamal Burgos, 1st Corporal; Víctor Sagredo Aravena, 1st Corporal; Reyes, Sergeant; Luis Jara, Lieutenant of Pintué; and Carabineros Samuel Ahumada Cabello; Raúl Donoso Figueroa; Alamiro Garrido Ubal; Jorge González Quezada; Víctor Labarca Díaz; Eduardo Molina Armijo; José Piñaleo Pérez; and Jorge Verdugo, among others. Civilians Hugo Aguilera, Fernando Aguilera, Francisco Luzoro, Jorge Sepúlveda, Tito Carrasco, Claudio Oregón, Darío González Carrasco, Luis Guerrero, Mario Tagle, Ricardo Tagle, Yule Tagle, Jorge Aguirre. Military - San Bernardo Infantry School Leonel Köening Alternatt, Director; Samuel Rojas Pérez, Lieutenant Colonel; Mario Morales Durán, Conscript; Andrés Magaña Baum, Lieutenant; Pedro Montalvo Calvo, Colonel; Iván de la Fuente Sáez, Major; Hernán Pizarro Collarte, Major; Ciro Ahumada Miranda, Major; Juan Carlos Nielsen Stambuck, Captain; Sergio Rodríguez Rautcher, Captain; Luis Cortés Villa, Captain; Víctor Pinto Pérez, Captain; Marcial Cobos Farías, Captain; Jorge Romero Campos, Captain; Luis Villarroel Contreras, Captain; Héctor Maturana Zúñiga, Captain; Luis Garfias Cabrera, Captain; Eduardo Silva Bravo, Captain; Sergio Valdivia M., Captain; and Julio Cerda Carrasco, Captain, among others.

Source: February 25, 2003, El Siglo