Miguel Orellana Castro was a militant of the MIR in Santiago. He had been a construction union leader and a representative of the MIR at the regional Central Única de Trabajadores (CUT). After the military coup in Chile, he traveled to Cuba, where he was part of the MIR groups preparing to clandestinely re-enter Chile to fight against the military dictatorship.

However, it was decided first to enter Argentina and join the PRT-ERP while conditions for entering Chile were being prepared. Miguel Orellana left Havana for Argentina in February 1976 with a passport under the name "Pablo Laponzi Rocha." The Rettig Report on human rights violations in Chile states that he was forcibly disappeared in Buenos Aires in July 1976.

Source: Marianuska

"El Mostrador" gained access to the fundamental evidence against the former director of the DINA, which led to his indictment as an "Organizer" of "Plan Cóndor," the operation that allowed for the capture, exchange, and assassination of opponents of the dictatorships of the 1970s in the Southern Cone of America.

In the resolution signed by Argentine federal judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, of which El Mostrador publishes a full copy, a note dated September 25, 1975, is highlighted as "documentary evidence" against Contreras, in which Pinochet's director of national intelligence thanks the head of Paraguayan Investigations, Pastor Coronel, for "the cooperation provided to facilitate the arrangements related to the mission" carried out by Chilean agents in Paraguayan territory.

In the case file, which is being processed in judicial secretariat number 14, headed by Oscar Aguirre, a list of 48 forcibly disappeared Chileans captured in Argentina, prepared by the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared of Chile, was incorporated.

Also considered "documentary evidence" is information from the Argentine Ministry of the Interior regarding the disappearance of Chilean citizens Humberto Cordano López, Leandro Llancaleo Calfunquen, Heriberto Del Carmen Leal Sanhueza, Guillermo Roberto Beausire Alonso, Miguel Iván Orellana Castro, Juan Carlos San Martín Zuñiga, and Carlos Patricio Rojas Campos.

Judicial sources explained that the incorporation of these cases into the one presented by the plaintiffs (the disappearance of Cristina Carreño Araya in July 1978) aims to establish the systematic nature of Operation Cóndor through the actions of DINA agents in Argentina.

Source: El MOSTRADOR – April 21, 2001

Date: 04-21-2001

Victims of Chile Miguel Iván Orellana Castro

Case description

Miguel Iván Orellana Castro, a Chilean, was 27 years old at the time of the events. In 1973, he lived in Santiago, Chile, with his wife, Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga, and their daughter, Tania. A member of the MIR, he began living clandestinely once the persecution of its members began.

In November 1973, he was kidnapped by the Chilean civil police and remained detained for 15 days at the Department of Investigations. Although he regained his freedom, he feared being apprehended again, which is why he did not return to his home, where they returned to look for him shortly thereafter.

Members of the Investigations police appeared and interrogated his wife, Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga, about his whereabouts. Faced with her negative response, the repressors took little Tania and threatened to take her away.

Fearing what might happen to her daughter, Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga took refuge in the city of Linares with her parents. On December 20, 1973, Miguel Iván Orellana Castro sought asylum at the Venezuelan embassy in Chile and contacted his wife, who appeared at the embassy a few days later with their daughter.

On January 24, 1974, they left for Cuba, where the MIR's foreign committee was waiting for them. A week after arriving, members of that party began training Miguel Iván Orellana, since the MIR's plan was to send a first group of men to Buenos Aires, who would remain under the orders of Edgardo Enríquez to complete their preparation, and then enter Chile clandestinely.

Indeed, days before Christmas 1975, Orellana Castro left for Argentina using a false document under the name Pablo Laponti Rochi. He did not do so alone, but with a group of comrades, including two of Chilean nationality, known as “Mauro” and “Marco,” and one of Paraguayan nationality.

Orellana Castro settled in Buenos Aires, where he placed himself at the disposal of Edgardo Enríquez who, as we have mentioned in detail when referring to what happened to him, was the representative of the MIR in the JCR.

Orellana carried out grassroots political work in humble neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, spreading the ideas of the MIR and distributing propaganda material. As a result of this political activity, he formed very close ties with the neighbors, who allowed him to stay and take refuge in their homes.

But this activity also exposed him to the regional repressive coordination that, in the first half of 1976, had intensified against his organization. In this regard, we have already mentioned how, as soon as the coup d'état occurred in Argentina, operations to kidnap members of the MIR began en masse in our country.

In this trial, it was proven that in less than a month, that coordinated action, mainly and in what concerns us here, between Chilean and Argentine state agencies, had kidnapped Regina Marcondes, Edgardo Enríquez Espinoza, Frida Elena Laschan Mellado, Ángel Athanasiú Jara, and Pablo Germán Athanasiú Laschan.

And during the debate, it was demonstrated that in the course of the month of June 1976, Miguel Iván Orellana Castro was kidnapped in the city of Buenos Aires or its vicinity by persons attached to the repressive forces of the military dictatorships of the Southern Cone who acted in a coordinated manner within the framework of Operation Cóndor.

The kidnapping took place before Miguel Iván Orellana could attend a meeting with a party comrade. Faced with his absence, the MIR leadership in Buenos Aires sent the news to Manuel Cabieses, head of the MIR's foreign committee in Cuba, who informed Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga of what had happened to her husband and other comrades residing in Argentina.

Upon learning of what had occurred, Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga began searching for him by making inquiries with various international organizations without receiving a response. To this day, what happened to her husband, who remains forcibly disappeared, has been hidden from her.

According to the description we have provided and taking into account the particular characteristics of the events that harmed Miguel Iván Orellana Castro, and the special context in which they occurred, we understand it is proven that his kidnapping and disappearance were executed within the framework of the repressive coordination known as “Cóndor.” Evidence The narrated facts find correlation in diverse evidence that we will now summarize.

Orellana Castro's political participation in the MIR, the persecution and detention suffered in Chile, and his exile in Cuba are accredited by the testimony provided by Gloria María Ojeda Zúñiga during the debate.

What she told us coincides with the information that emerges from the statement received by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation of Chile in 1990. For her part, Grete Weinmann, wife of Edgardo Enríquez, confirmed upon testifying that Orellana was part of the MIR.

Ojeda Zúñiga also spoke about the training her husband received in Cuba and the trip to Argentina in December 1975 with false documents along with MIR comrades, some of whom she identified. The records contained in the CONADEP file corresponding to Orellana coincide regarding the circumstances in which he traveled and entered our country.

We also have two letters that Orellana Castro himself sent to his wife from Buenos Aires, in which he confirms what we have been saying. The first of them is from January 27, 1976, and from reading it, it is clear that he had already been settled in Buenos Aires for several days.

Document 1 and Document 2 . Regarding Orellana's activity in our country, we have the statements of Ojeda Zúñiga submitted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which she states that he worked with Edgardo Enríquez in Buenos Aires.

In this sense, the references provided by Arnol Kremer in his book Los perros [1] , incorporated into the trial, coincide with what was stated, insofar as MIR supporters coming from Cuba worked side by side with Enríquez in Argentina.

Let us remember that this is a book in which its author, who lived with Enríquez until the end of March 1976, recounts personal experiences from that time. Orellana's letters also allow us to confirm, in his own hand, the political work he carried out within the MIR.

We also notice in them that he was aware that the repressive forces were looking for him and that he took security measures to avoid being detained. And regarding that surveillance, one piece of evidence deserves to be highlighted now.

The secret document of September 15, 1976, prepared by Alberto Baldomero Obregón, Commissioner Inspector of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Argentine Federal Police, confirms the persecution of the MIR in Buenos Aires and the joint work with Chilean intelligence forces.

In it, the operations initiated in April 1976 to find Enríquez and his main collaborators, among whom, as we have already highlighted, was Orellana Castro, are recorded. Document 3 . Regarding the circumstances in which his kidnapping occurred, Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga asserted that Manuel Cabieses had informed her that in June 1976 her husband was supposed to appear at a meeting with a MIR comrade and that he had not done so, nor had he established contact in the following days.

Furthermore, Cabieses told her that, given the situation in Argentina, it was likely that he was dead. In the same sense, we have a note prepared by the Vicariate of Solidarity based on the events reported by Gloria Ojeda Zúñiga.

In it, it is established that the Head of the MIR in Cuba, that is, Cabieses, had told her that several people who worked with Orellana in Buenos Aires had died and that there were no survivors from the group that had traveled from Cuba with him.

Document 4 . The judicial resolution that declares the absence due to forced disappearance of Orellana Castro coincides with the circumstances of time and place of the kidnapping. In this regard, Grete Weinmann mentioned that she knew that Miguel Iván Orellana Castro appeared in many documents as disappeared in Argentina.

And in this sense, we must mention again the report of Commissioner Baldomero Obregón, for it not only shows the exchange of information that existed with the Chilean DINA but also the reach that the operations against the MIR in Argentina had had.

Let us remember that the report, made on September 15, 1976, indicated that 95% of the MIR activist elements in Argentina were detained or forcibly disappeared. Regarding the efforts made by his relatives, we heard Gloria Ojeda, who related that in Chile she had provided testimony within the framework of the Rettig Report.

The rest of the information regarding the search carried out by his family, and which, like the elements we have just mentioned, demonstrate the deliberate concealment of the facts by the forces and state agencies linked to the repression both in Argentina and in Chile, is also found in the CONADEP file, which contains a copy of all the submissions they made.

Finally, we must note that the limitations of this stage prevent us from holding a specific person responsible for what happened to Miguel Iván Orellana Castro, as only Albano Eduardo Harguindeguy and Jorge Rafael Videla had been charged, and both have passed away.

However, honorable judges, the verification in this trial of his political participation, the persecution suffered in Chile and subsequently in Argentina, and the coordination and collaboration between the forces of both countries to capture him, allow us to conclude that those events occurred under the framework of what was called “Operation Cóndor” and adds to the substantial evidence that accounts for its existence. [1] Luis Mattini Los Perros, memorias de un combatiente revolucionario, Peña Lillo-Del Continente, Buenos Aires, 2006.

Source: mpf.gob.ar undated

LOS PERROS. MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONARY COMBATANT (book)

This book, of mixed genre, collects the personal experiences of the author during the birth and heyday of the armed organization Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP) created by the Workers' Revolutionary Party (PRT) in Argentina in the 1970s.

A cross-section of foundational events, armed operations, protagonists, militants, leaders, clandestine life, dreams, realities, courage and fears, hatreds and loves, which marked the political life of that period in our country.

The author moves away from the treatment of doctrinal issues regarding strategies and tactics explained by reason, to approach the reasons of the heart, the desires that were behind those men and women in their circumstances.

Thus, rescuing life, joy, and militant passion, alongside humorous anecdotes that relieve the tension of the drama of armed action and repressive terror, they parade—seen through the retina of the author-protagonist with humor, love, tenderness, rawness, and even audacity—from the unknown mothers pre-Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and grassroots militants with peculiar characteristics, passing through leaders like Mario Roberto Santucho and Agustín Tosco, to the famous Cuban general Arnaldo Ochoa and the legendary Fidel Castro, stripped of pomp and epaulets.

The text maintains a chronology that allows it to be read as a linear history; but also, as it is a collection of stories about people and situations, each of them can be read as an enjoyable independent narrative.

Source: edicontinente.com.ar