Juan Hernández Rivera is the current director of the Carabineros de Chile Social Security Directorate (Dipreca), an institution that manages the social security and health system for members of the Carabineros, the Gendarmería, and the Policía de Investigaciones (PDI).

Although his role has gone largely unnoticed by the press and public opinion, this has not been the case for the more than 400 employees nationwide, and even less so for the representatives of the entity's civil servant associations, who, in conversation with Interferencia, accuse Hernández of intimidation and even threats.

Hernández is an auditor accountant from the Universidad de Chile, a forensic accounting expert, and holds a master's degree in didactics for higher education, although his career was primarily built within the PDI, where he reached the institutional high command, serving as Chief of Finance, Chief of Anti-Narcotics, and Operational Deputy Director.

In June 2018, he was appointed General Administrator of Dipreca, an entity under the Ministry of the Interior. Subsequently, he was appointed acting director until December of the same year—via a decree signed by then-President Sebastián Piñera and Minister of the Interior Andrés Chadwick—when he was appointed National Director of Dipreca.

As the months progressed, tension between the employees and the director escalated, as it did with union leaders. However, the situation became untenable for the presidents of the associations on September 23, 2021.

According to Janette Droguett, president of one of these associations, Anfup, when the meeting had concluded, she went down in the elevator with the national director and two other officials. There, as she recounts, Hernández asked her if she still lived in Renca, the commune where he had also lived.

She replied that she did, to which he said, "And what would happen if I sent some friends to your house?"

According to Droguett, this threat referred to his "friends" in the PDI and other uniformed personnel, some of whom were also linked to the dictatorship's intelligence services.

"It was a direct threat to me personally, a repeated situation, and with witnesses; the institutional prosecutor was there. It may sound self-referential, but I see it beyond being the president of an organization; as a woman and representative of an organization, behind me are employees whom I represent," states Droguett.

The threat generated fear not only for the leader but also for her family, affecting Droguett's mood and stress levels for some time.

This was not the first time Hernández had engaged in verbal abuse against Droguett. Months earlier, after she recovered from Covid and returned to her duties, he had commented that he would have liked "for you to be intubated," referring to severe cases of Covid-19.

The leader of another civil servant association, Anfudi, Patricia Catalán, states that in addition to these attitudes, the national director has insisted on the dismissal of members of both associations, cases that in many instances ended up in court.

In addition to these accusations, there are several disagreements between Hernández and Dipreca employees, who are mostly civilians. One was the arbitrary transfer of workers from the Service's Welfare department, a department that also included union leaders from Anfup among its staff.

The measure, in July 2021, which leaders and workers argued did not comply with regulations, ended with a ruling from the Court of Appeals ordering a stay of execution, and therefore, that the workers remain in their positions.

Also, at the beginning of this year, Hernández attempted to close the employees' cafeteria at the Dipreca office facilities on Calle 21 de Mayo in Santiago, which is used by an average of 200 employees per month.

However, the measure was not implemented. Added to this is his fixation on security and surveillance in the same building, which has resulted not only in the hiring of more security guards but also in the installation of cameras in almost every space of the premises.

Hernández's attitude was also reportedly repeated in the case of a professional employee of the institution, who constantly received comments from Hernández about his long hair and sexual orientation, a case that even reached the Comptroller's Office.

"The director would see the employee in the hallway and tell him that he looked like a woman, that from behind he looked like a woman, and that it caused confusion," says Droguett.

"It is a way of operating in the institution: intimidation. Intimidating the leader also generates fear among the employees, since the leader has union immunity and a certain level of protection, but the employees do not, and therefore they fear being fired," the leader adds.

Interferencia attempted to contact the director of Dipreca to obtain his version of these situations, via telephone and email, without receiving a response by the time this edition went to press.

Seeking the removal of Hernández before Boric

Given this series of situations, the leaders have begun to appeal to the new authorities to request the removal of Hernández from his position.

"We delivered two letters before the new government took office, at 'la Moneda chica.' And after they took office, we delivered a letter to President Boric, to the Minister of the Interior, Izkia Siches, and to the undersecretariat. We also had a hearing with authorities from the Ministry of Women, since female leaders have been intimidated here," says Patricia Catalán.

This week marks one month since both letters were issued to the president and the minister, on March 15, so they hope to finalize a meeting as soon as possible.

Controversial advisors

Among the hires Hernández has made in his position as director of Dipreca for his cabinet are four former PDI officials, the institution where he worked for years. The four, with salaries of over $1.8 million pesos, also receive their PDI pensions, which fluctuate between $1 million and $3 million pesos.

Among these advisors hired by Hernández is Sergio Mellado Faúndez, retired from the PDI with a pension of $3.4 million and a salary at Dipreca of $2.46 million. Mellado's name also appears in the 2012 book by journalist Javier Rebolledo, La Danza de los Cuervos (The Dance of the Crows), as a former DINA agent.

In the book, Rebolledo recounts that in the late seventies, the DINA created the Loyola Barracks in the commune of Quinta Normal, located on Camino de Loyola, between Marte and Neptuno streets. The facility was in charge of Army Captain Ernesto Ureta Pernas.

"Last in the chain of command was the sub-commissioner of the Policía de Investigaciones, Sergio Mellado Faúndez. Mellado reached the rank of prefect and was Chief of Informatics and Telecommunications for the PDI until 2009, the year he retired.

I recall this name only for this book. It is not found in his statements for the case," narrates Rebolledo in his book, alluding to the narrative of Jorgelino Vergara, known as "el mocito," a former DINA agent.

Subsequently, he adds that Mellado, along with Vergara and other DINA agents, participated in an operation to vote illegally in several schools for the 1980 plebiscite. As narrated in the book, the agents moved in groups from one school to another in Santiago to vote multiple times to approve the Constitution proposed by the dictatorship.

In a 2008 report by the newspaper La Nación, Mellado Faúndez is also mentioned as being close to the then-director of the PDI, Arturo Herrera. It is also mentioned that Mellado was a field agent for the CNI in the eighties.

"As stated in court, Mellado Faúndez has testified in several judicial proceedings (among others, Operation Albania), because he was an operational agent of the CNI, that is, he performed field duties.

He has testified before Santiago Court of Appeals judges Joaquín Billard and Jorge Zepeda. For many, it was a surprise that the former agent had ascended from chief of a small communal brigade (Bicrim Peñaflor) to a national leadership position," the article notes.

One year after that report, Mellado retired.

Another of the advisors hired by the Dipreca director is Fernando Antonio Vega Evaristi, also a PDI pensioner with $1.8 million, who currently earns over $3 million pesos. Vega was Chief of Finance for the PDI for years, a position in which the Comptroller's Office, in 2018, held him responsible, along with other officials, for approving $1 billion pesos in expenses for study tours, as reported at the time by El Desconcierto.

Darío Andrés Ortega Moreno is another advisor to the Dipreca director. Retired from the PDI with more than $3 million pesos per month, he holds a salary of almost $2 million pesos. He was the Operational Deputy Director of the PDI and in August of last year was called to testify by the Prosecutor's Office in the case of the use of reserved funds in the institution, where Héctor Espinosa is being investigated.

Espinosa is under investigation for the embezzlement of public funds of more than $140 million pesos.

Source: interferencia.cl, April 13, 2022