Marcia Alejandra Merino, known as "la Flaca Alejandra," was one of the three main female leaders of the MIR until the coup d'état. Afterward, she was detained on two occasions. Although she warned that she would not be able to withstand torture and requested permission to seek asylum, the MIR maintained its policy of prohibiting its militants from leaving the country.

In May 1974, the DINA kidnapped her and subjected her to brutal torture. From that moment on—along with two other leftist militants—she became an active collaborator with the dictatorship's security services.

Several of her friends and fellow militants in the movement were forcibly disappeared thanks to the information she provided. In 1992, once democracy had been restored, "la Flaca Alejandra" confessed to the role she had played and collaborated with the justice system.

Only some forgave her; others did not. The character in the series "Los archivos del cardenal," broadcast on Thursday the 21st, is inspired by her; in the episode, a woman confirms that Fabián is a MIR militant and urges him to collaborate with the dictatorship. This is the true story of that informant.

In 1990, President Patricio Aylwin created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and judicial cases regarding human rights violations slowly began to be reopened. Lawyers from the Commission and police from the Investigations department, by order of certain judges, began the search for information.

In late 1991, they found the whereabouts of Marcia Alejandra Merino, "la Flaca Alejandra." The MIR leader admitted, from her very first statement, that she had betrayed her comrades under torture, several of whom were disappeared, and that she later became a collaborator for the DINA and the CNI, with a salary and paid vacations provided by those security services.

In November 1992, Marcia Merino held a press conference at the Chilean Commission for Human Rights. "I ask for forgiveness," she said that day, but today, almost 20 years later, the request continues to cause discomfort and division among the men and women to whom it was directed.

Her story, and that of other former militants who became collaborators for the dictatorship's security services, is the basis for the character of the woman who lives with Fabián in the Torres de San Borja in the series "Los Archivos del Cardenal." In the episode broadcast on August 21st, the character inspired by Marcia Merino is the one who confirms that Fabián is a MIR militant and urges him to collaborate with the dictatorship's security services.

The Flaca, the Tough One

Marcia Merino is a native of Concepción, the youngest of three siblings. Her father died when she was four years old. Her mother, a primary school teacher, placed her older siblings in a boarding school.

Marcia grew up amidst many economic difficulties as a sickly, lonely, and shy child. Her personality only changed when she entered university in the early 60s. There, she met the MIR and embraced militancy with a complete and unreserved commitment.

In her book "Mi verdad… Más allá del horror; yo acuso" ("My Truth... Beyond the Horror; I Accuse"), she admitted that "I became a rigid and tough militant," for whom any gesture of hesitation from her comrades constituted "treason."

When the movement asked her to, Marcia Merino abandoned her studies and moved to Santiago, living semi-clandestinely. By the late 60s, she had already become one of the few female leaders of the MIR. Santiago had been divided into four Political-Military Groups (GPM). She was named the head of GPM-1, which covered the southern zone of Santiago.

"She was a very assertive woman, with a political discourse and impressive oratory," recalls a former militant, who was under Marcia Merino's orders at the time, on the condition of anonymity. "She was always surrounded by a group of boys, her favorites, to whom she granted the privileges of her trust.

She was tough and had no life outside the party. With the high-ranking leaders, it was the opposite: she was affectionate and warm."

Enérico García, a former member of the GAP and former head of security for MIR leader Miguel Enríquez, recalls that Marcia Merino had direct access to the house where the movement's Political Commission (CP) operated.

"La Flaca Alejandra had a tremendous capacity for organization. Even before the coup, not everyone had access to or knew where the CP met. Marcia Merino was one of the few who arrived there freely. She was the partner of Alfonso Chanfreau, with whom she at one point made a kind of public commitment, which was 'sanctified' by Bautista Van Schouwen."

Gladys Díaz, then a leader in another GPM in Santiago, recalls that there were barely three women with that level of relevance in the MIR leadership: "la Flaca Alejandra," Lumi Videla, and Gladys Díaz herself. They were a reference point and a source of pride for the movement.

From Prisoner to Collaborator

Marcia Merino has recounted that in the first days after the coup, she was detained, but she was not tortured, nor did her captors seem to know about her militancy, so she was quickly released. After a brief period in which the MIR kept her "frozen," she was ordered to reorganize the party structure between Curicó and Chillán.

On May 1, 1974, she was arrested again and taken to Curicó, where she was tortured with electricity on the orders of military prosecutor Lautaro Bache. That was how she began to yield; she admitted to the prosecutor that she was a MIR militant, stated what her responsibilities were in the zone, and acknowledged that her party had two conscripts infiltrated in the Army.

"When I first admitted the information to Bache, I felt that I had betrayed my party. My world was absolutely collapsing. Just as my dedication to the revolution and the party had been total and absolute, having provided information, even if it was already known to them, meant an absolute breakdown for me as well," Merino recounts in her book.

The prosecutor subsequently transferred her to the Curicó jail. There, she wrote a report to the MIR Political Commission on cigarette paper, stating that "I had not been able to tolerate the torture and had admitted some of the things they asked me; that I was desperate." The MIR, whose policy was that its militants should not seek asylum, remained silent.

Marcia Merino remained in jail until August 1, when she was "released" by the prosecutor and kidnapped at the same location by civilians who took her to the clandestine detention center known as Londres 38, where she experienced the most extreme forms of torture.

A group commanded by Osvaldo Romo—one of the DINA's most bloodthirsty agents—interrogated her by applying electric shocks, particularly to her genitals. At other times, they hung her up or put her on the "parrilla" (grill) face down. Until she began to talk.

"The truth is that I was desperately searching my mind for something to say to stop the torture. I gave the addresses of María Angélica Andreoli Bravo (...) I also gave the address of Muriel Duckendorf Navarrete." Both were friends of Marcia Merino and are currently forcibly disappeared.

Additionally, she mentioned the name of Adriana Urrutia, who survived. The DINA forced her to identify their homes and to collaborate in the arrests of those three.

Then the spiral began. She provided new addresses, and when she had no more information that she knew personally, the DINA agents took her out "porotear" (hunting). That is, they took her to meeting points for MIR militants.

As soon as she recognized someone she knew, she would start to tremble. Thus, the agents confirmed the information they needed. In this way, dozens of people were kidnapped, many of whom are currently forcibly disappeared. Among them was her friend Lumi Videla.

After several months of torture and providing information about the militants she knew, Marcia Merino was installed in Villa Grimaldi along with her friend María Alicia Uribe Gómez, "Chica Carola," who belonged to the MIR's Information structure, and Luz Arce (a former socialist militant).

The three began to receive privileges (better food, a bathroom, an end to the "parrillazos") in their capacity as collaborators. Marcia Merino recounts that whenever they could, the agents boasted of their collaboration in front of the prisoners, as a way to demolish the morale of the detainees.

Each of the collaborators fell under the protection of a DINA leader: Luz Arce under Rolf Wenderoth; "Chica Carola" under sub-director Pedro Espinoza; and Marcia Merino under Miguel Krasnoff Marchenko, the operative agent in charge of eliminating the MIR.

In July 1975, they were "released," but at the Belgrano offices, the DINA's Central headquarters, Manuel Contreras personally offered them the chance to continue working as employees of the structure he commanded to eliminate leftist parties.

All three accepted and were sent to live together in the apartment seized from former GAP member Max Marambio, in the Torres de San Borja, very close to the Diego Portales building. By 1978, Marcia Merino moved to another apartment with Alicia Uribe, "Chica Carola," "in Tower 4 or 5 of the San Borja complex, No. 194, which belonged to Federico Willoughby."

"There were events that were destroying me more and more and that made me feel like 'the traitor.' This was exacerbated by the DINA, which constantly showed me MIR pamphlets in which they lied regarding my 'privileges' and sentenced me to death," Marcia Merino states in her book.

Merino, Arce, and Uribe lived together for a long time and were visited monthly by Contreras. During that period, the women became romantically involved with agents, drafted documents proposing ways to strengthen social support for Augusto Pinochet, attended intelligence courses funded by the Army, and were awarded in a ceremony. "Mónica Madariaga participated in the graduation, and she presented me with the corresponding award, for second place or second in seniority." In 1977, Mónica Madariaga was the Minister of Justice.

The fact is that these collaborators gained such a level of trust that they were entrusted with intelligence tasks abroad. Their work was remunerated, and they went on vacation like any other civil servant.

The former prisoners, Marcia Merino states, feared the possibility of being summoned to testify, and as far as she was concerned, she always refused to collaborate with judicial investigations when the opportunity arose.

Until democracy arrived and, despite the fact that she was still controlled by the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), she dared to take the step. The former socialist Luz Arce did the same. Alicia Uribe, "Chica Carola," remained submerged in the shadow of protection of the former security apparatuses.

The Liberating Conference

One day in November 1992, the journalist Gladys Díaz—now a psychologist—received a strange call at her home. It was the president of the Chilean Commission for Human Rights, Jaime Castillo Velasco (the Vicariate had been dissolved in 1990), ordering her to appear at the headquarters of that entity early the next morning. He did not tell her why.

"I arrived a little late, and upon entering the room where I was expected, I found myself with a cloud of photographers and journalists. A woman had begun to speak at the podium, sitting next to Jaime Castillo, whom I did not recognize. Only when she said, 'I ask for forgiveness,' did I realize it was her, 'la Flaca Alejandra,'" recalls Díaz.

Díaz enjoyed great prestige among her comrades for having had the opposite conduct to that of Marcia Merino. Despite the fact that her partner was disappeared and she had been brutally tortured in the feared Tower of Villa Grimaldi, she refused to collaborate with her captors.

Even when, on one occasion, they brought "la Flaca Alejandra" to her cell to urge her to talk, Gladys Díaz responded with disdain: "This is a collaborator. What influence could she have over me? How could you think she is going to convince me of anything?" On another occasion, Marcia Merino put a cigarette in her mouth, and Gladys Díaz spat it out.

"Sitting there, at that press conference, I realized that any gesture I made would have enormous consequences. I made a tremendous effort to discern what I felt I had to do. At that moment, it was an almost functional consideration.

I realized that she had very valuable information to give us and that if I did not welcome her, she would be left in no-man's-land. So I stood up and hugged her. For her, it was a very impactful moment. Everything was said in that hug," recounts Díaz.

Over time, the former MIR leader states, she has processed the gesture she made with greater depth, and although it cost her the criticism of many of her former comrades, she continues to defend it.

"I think what she did was tremendous. I don't justify it. It had a very high cost for us, but I cannot stop seeing that the breakdown she suffered was primarily due to torture," she says.

Díaz, who endured the worst torments without betraying her comrades, states that stoically facing torture does not depend on will, nor on people's political commitment, but on something that is normally outside their control, such as their biographical characteristics.

"She was a very fragile woman. She sent word to the MIR after the first torture she suffered that she knew she would not be able to withstand a second session and asked for permission to seek asylum, but we did not listen to her. The slogan 'the MIR does not seek asylum' prevailed. We are all responsible for her breakdown," she adds.

According to the professional's analysis, the emotional deficiencies of her childhood, the absence of her father, made Marcia Merino an easy prey for the DINA, which made a study of her weaknesses to exploit them. "I refuse to believe that this is a story between the brave and the cowards," she emphasizes.

The Damned Life

For Díaz, the subsequent period, in which Marcia Merino, Luz Arce, and María Alicia Uribe became paid employees of the security services, is explained by fear. The corrosive and immense fear of death.

To make matters worse, she says, the MIR sentenced Marcia Merino and other former militants who had collaborated with the intelligence services to death. Among them were Hernán González, Humberto Menanteaux, Cristián Mallol, and Hernán Carrasco, who were forced to give a press conference in 1975, in which they declared the defeat of the MIR and asked to put an end to armed resistance.

Menanteaux and Carrasco, when they were released, informed the MIR leadership about the way they were forced to give that press conference—in which Bernardo de la Maza acted as an interviewer—and tried to ask for help to go into exile.

Their communications were intercepted by the DINA, which recaptured them, and they were murdered by having their entrails ripped out while alive, according to the judicial testimony of the former collaborators.

The therapist who treated Marcia Merino for four years recounts on the condition of anonymity that the former MIR member suffered from constant anxiety and panic attacks, as she feared that if the DINA or the CNI did not kill her, her former comrades would.

She adds that the fear followed her even after she decided to testify publicly. Only when she was confronted with Krassnoff and accused him as her tormentor did she manage to break with the contradictory feelings of fear and security that he provoked in her.

However, there are still those who do not believe in the sincerity of her repentance. "Life is not built on the basis of speeches and convictions," states a former MIR member and former prisoner who has known Marcia Merino since before the coup d'état. "Life is made up of small, everyday experiences.

I can understand that she broke under torture, like many. What I don't understand is what came after. How she managed to earn the DINA's trust to the point that they paid her a salary and let her take vacations.

What she said to them when they went out partying, when she slept with them. Why she didn't take any of the opportunities that were presented to her to escape. And why, if she became aware of the damage she did, she didn't get sick, or go crazy in the contradiction between what she supposedly believed and what she did."

Enérico García says that he would not have the courage to look Marcia Merino in the face: "I don't feel capable of forgiving her. I don't have the authority to forgive on behalf of the dozens of people who fell because of her."

Marcia Merino was in therapy for four years after breaking her ties with the DINA, the CNI, and the DINE. Like Luz Arce, she made long judicial statements providing information about the prisoners who fell because of her and those she saw in different detention centers, many of whom are currently forcibly disappeared.

She also provided names of agents and their positions in the structure of the security services.

However, the former militants who welcomed her could be counted on one hand. For example, Viviana Uribe and Erika Hennings, former prisoners and relatives of the disappeared, paid a high cost among their friends for having protected her and today prefer to refrain from giving new interviews on the subject.

Marcia Merino currently lives on Easter Island with her husband. Luz Arce moved to Mexico with her husband and children. Alicia Uribe remains hidden somewhere in Santiago, probably with a false identity.

Source: casosvicaria.udp.cl, las-imperdonables