Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, single, secretary, and a member of the Socialist Party, was detained on June 25, 1975, around 1:30 a.m., along with Exequiel Ponce—a high-ranking socialist leader for whom she served as a liaison—in the room they were renting on Calle Tocornal.

To this day, both remain forcibly disappeared. The action was carried out by 4 armed, plainclothes agents belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who entered the house violently, displayed badges, and identified themselves as "special agents" to the owner of the boarding house, Joaquín Palacios.

The events—according to the witness—occurred amidst a commotion and the raiding of the residence. What struck him most was that the DINA officials knew perfectly well that Mireya Rodríguez and Exequiel Ponce occupied the last room.

Upon leaving, along with taking the couple into custody, they took all the personal belongings they possessed. There were at least three vehicles on the street that participated in the apprehension. One of the agents was short, with a thick, wide mustache.

When the individuals left, Joaquín Palacios noticed that the boarding house telephone was not working. It appeared they had removed a part to prevent calls from being made. Various witnesses have confirmed the presence of Mireya Rodríguez and Exequiel Ponce at Villa Grimaldi.

One witness—who remained held incommunicado for 80 days in that secret DINA detention and torture center—stated that she saw the victim in July 1975. On that occasion, the witness was in the courtyard of Villa Grimaldi and clearly saw Mireya Rodríguez and Modesta Carolina Wiff standing there, blindfolded.

The circumstances of the victim's detention and disappearance are part of the operation that the DINA directed against the Socialist Party, the members of its Political Commission, its liaisons, and couriers during the months of June and July 1975.

This operation included—among others—the detentions of Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Peña, Carlos Lorca, Modesta Carolina Wiff, Exequiel Ponce, and Mireya Rodríguez. In July of that year, Rosa Elvira Soliz Poveda and Sara Donoso Palacios were detained. All of them remain in the status of forcibly disappeared to this day.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On June 27, 1975, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed for the affected party in the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under No. 793-75. On July 3 of the same year, in response to an inquiry from the Court, the Division General and Minister of the Interior, Raúl Benavides Escobar, officially stated that Mireya Rodríguez was not being held by order of that Ministry of State.

Faced with this response, the Court insisted on its inquiry, asking the Minister to specify whether the affected party could have been detained "without an order from that Ministry by any of the specialized agencies tasked with ensuring the normal development of national activities." Benavides merely sent a copy of the previous official letter.

The Court reiterated its request, and the Minister of the Interior, Benavides Escobar, responded again: "she is not being held by order of that Ministry" (August 4, 1975). After two more reiterations by the Court of Appeals, Minister Benavides responded, only on September 29, 1975, that "having consulted the corresponding agencies, there is no record whatsoever related to the person (Mireya Rodríguez)." He added that said information had been requested from the Minister of Defense, given that the aforementioned agencies "depend directly on that Department of State."

In the meantime, a new writ of amparo had been filed for the affected party on September 17, 1975. The filing stated that the affected party had been seen in a detention center by a witness in July 1975.

The Court did not address this evidence and only ordered its consolidation with the one already in progress (file No. 793-75) on September 29, 1975. On October 8, little more than three months after the proceedings began, the Court rejected the amparo.

The resolution was appealed, and on October 14 of the same year, the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling, adding that the evidence should be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court to investigate the possible commission of a crime.

On October 18, 1975, the 8th Criminal Court of Santiago initiated summary proceedings under file No. 12.758 for the disappearance of Mireya Rodríguez. The Court requested the appearance of the witness—who was being held at the Cuatro Álamos camp—since she had seen Mireya Rodríguez imprisoned at Villa Grimaldi.

The Minister of the Interior and Division General, Raúl Benavides Escobar, did not authorize the witness's appearance, asking the Court to instead convene at Cuatro Álamos (November 17, 1975). The Judge, Juan Rivas Larraín, then asked the Minister for the reasons preventing the witness's presence in Court.

On January 6, 1976, Minister Benavides insisted on "Security Reasons." Given this situation, the Judge ordered that a copy be made of the statement the witness had given personally in the proceedings being followed for the disappearance of Juan Carlos Perelman (January 14, 1976).

Without further investigative steps, on August 30, 1976, the summary proceedings were closed and the case was temporarily dismissed. The Court of Appeals approved the resolution on November 29 of the same year.

On August 1, 1978, relatives of the affected party joined relatives of other forcibly disappeared persons at the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago to support a criminal complaint for the crime of kidnapping against General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito, and Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, an Army Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel, respectively.

The Judge declared himself incompetent and referred the case to the Military Justice system, which assigned it to the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago, registering it under No. 553-78. Without any investigative steps being taken for four years, on November 20, 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, Military Prosecutor General, requested the application of the Amnesty Decree Law (D.L. 2.191) for this case because the proceedings had the exclusive purpose of investigating alleged crimes that occurred during the period between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978, and because, during the 10 years of processing, it had not been possible to "determine the responsibility of any person." On November 30, 1989, the request was accepted by the 2nd Military Court, which dismissed the case totally and definitively—which was still in the summary stage—due to "the criminal responsibility of the persons allegedly implicated in the reported events being extinguished." The plaintiffs appealed this resolution to the Court Martial, which confirmed the ruling in January 1992. A Complaint Appeal was then filed before the Supreme Court of Justice, which, as of December 1992, had not yet issued its resolution.

(For complete details of the complaint against Manuel Contreras, see the case of Eduardo Alarcón Jara, detained on July 30, 1974).

Source: Corporation report

Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz was born on December 7, 1941, in Ovalle, in the interior of what is now the Fourth Region. Her parents were Pablo and Herminia, who also grew up in that northern commune, amidst green fields and hills and under the caress of a benevolent climate.

Mireya completed her primary education at Escuela Superior No. 2 in Ovalle, where she stood out as a good student and an even better classmate. From there, she moved to live in La Serena, continuing her studies at the Normal School of that city.

She completed up to the Sixth Year of Humanities at that institution. She was nearly 15 years old when her mother passed away in Ovalle, which forced her to interrupt her studies and return to her hometown to live in her maternal grandmother's home.

Already a young woman, emulating many provincial girls of her age, she decided to travel to Santiago to expand her study and work opportunities. In the capital, she was welcomed by relatives and friends. Despite the accelerated pace that seemed to mark life in the city, so different from the listless life of the province, Mireya would make Santiago her permanent residence.

Seeking to integrate quickly into the labor market, she studied to be a dental laboratory technician and later in secretarial work, which soon allowed her to be employed at CORFO, an entity where she would work until September 11, 1973, the date on which she was dismissed from her position.

Physically, she was an attractive woman: medium height, shiny black hair, almost straight and always cut at chin length, proportionate facial features, dark brown eyes, and pale brown skin. Of slender build, a pretty figure, thin and small hands, short nails—always unpainted—she liked to dress impeccably, with high-heeled shoes that she took great care to match with the color of her handbags.

She wore little makeup: at most, some mascara and eyeliner to highlight the intensity and brightness of her gaze.

Those who knew her remember her as a woman who was always sociable, talkative, and loyal to her family and friends. She enjoyed the simple things in life: a walk in the open air, weekend lunches with the family, or a "little tea" chatting with her old friends.

Throughout all the years she lived in Santiago, she never stopped visiting or worrying about her closest ones, friends, or relatives. They always received her with immense love and affection.

A woman of her time, she liked to be fashionable, which included, of course, the use of miniskirts, a garment that defined a new attitude in an entire generation of young women. She used to go to parties and liked to dance, although her greatest luxury was going to the cinema to enjoy the double features that were shown rotationally in the old downtown theaters.

During her years in Santiago, she began to realize the social injustice that prevailed in many areas of the country, and which in the capital seemed to become more evident. In those days, she looked for some way to help those most in need, and that is how she began to collect used clothing among her friends and relatives, which she periodically delivered to the Traperos de Emaús, an organization of Christian and progressive inspiration that collected clothing and distributed it to families in poverty.

That attitude, that selfless commitment to her neighbor, according to those who knew her, were part of her life, constituting an expression of her values, her personal experience, and her peculiar way of being.

Towards 1970, a new presidential election was approaching, and Mireya became interested in the ideas of each of the presidential candidacies, trying to see which one offered real changes and opportunities for the most marginalized.

The Unidad Popular candidate became her favorite. At that time, the popular refrain that its followers chanted said: "Tell it, say it, and say it again, that on September 4, Salvador Allende will win." Mireya also chanted it when, together with her friends or coworkers, she joined the festive demonstrations of support for the left-wing candidacy.

It was not strange that she ended up in the ranks of the party of the "compañero President."

After the coup, like hundreds of Chileans, she was dismissed from her job at CORFO. Mireya was part of that generation of men and women who shared the dream of making Chile a country where everyone could develop their potential, everyone had a fair salary, and education and health were rights for all.

A generation that vibrated with Allende's speeches and participated enthusiastically in the small and large tasks of the process. And who saw with frustration how that dream was interrupted by the right and the military.

A few months later, she began to get involved in tasks supporting the work that the resistance was attempting to develop, collaborating in the administration of the aforementioned laundry that a group of PS militants had installed at the foot of Cerro San Cristóbal.

Mireya was detained and disappeared by the DINA in the early hours of June 25, 1975, in an operation that swarmed the boarding house where she was staying with Exequiel Ponce, with whom she was carrying out liaison and courier tasks.

As has been noted, she was seen in the courtyard at Villa Grimaldi by journalist Gladys Díaz, along with Modesta Carolina Wiff, blindfolded.

On June 27, 1975, a writ of amparo was filed for the young secretary in the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under No. 793–75. On July 3, the Minister of the Interior, Raúl Benavides, officially stated that Mireya Rodríguez was not being held by order of the Ministry of State.

Faced with the response, the court insisted on the inquiry, requesting that he specify whether she could have been detained "without an order from that Ministry by any of the specialized agencies tasked with ensuring the normal development of national activities." Benavides merely sent a copy of the previous official letter.

The Court reiterated its request, and the Minister of the Interior responded again: "She is not being held by order of that Ministry." After two more reiterations by the Court of Appeals, the minister responded that "having consulted the corresponding agencies, there is no record whatsoever." He added that said information had been requested from the Minister of Defense, since the security agencies "depend directly on that Department of State."

Meanwhile, a new writ of amparo was filed on September 17, 1975. The filing stated that the affected party had been seen in a detention center by a witness (Gladys Díaz) in July 1975. The Court did not address this evidence and only ordered its consolidation with the one already in progress (file No. 793–75).

On October 8, little more than three months after the proceedings began, the Court rejected the amparo. The resolution was appealed, and on October 14, the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling and ordered that the case files be sent to the Criminal Court to investigate the possible commission of a crime.

On October 18, 1975, the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago initiated summary proceedings under File No. 12.758 for Mireya's disappearance. The Court requested the appearance of Gladys Díaz, who was still detained at Cuatro Álamos.

The Minister of the Interior, Raúl Benavides, did not authorize it and asked the court to convene at the detention center. The judge, Juan Rivas Larraín, then asked the minister for the reasons preventing the witness's presence in Court.

On January 6, 1976, Benavides insisted on "security reasons." The Judge ordered that a copy be made of the statement the witness gave in the proceedings being followed for the disappearance of Juan Carlos Perelman.

Without further investigative steps, on August 30, 1976, the summary proceedings were closed and the case was temporarily dismissed.

More recently, judicial investigations have determined the passage of the socialist leadership kidnapped in 1975 through a clandestine DINA clinic, located in the former headquarters of the MAPU on Calle Santa Lucía 120, today 164, due to the change in numbering with which they tried to erase its existence.

The investigation led by Minister Jorge Zepeda Arancibia established that not only were the organization's agents and their family members treated at that facility, but also the detainees.

According to the testimony of a former nurse at the establishment, Ramón Muñoz, the clinic had its origin in the old infirmary of the Army Intelligence School (EIE), located in Rinconada de Maipú, which began to attend to the needs of the personnel, and also to the political prisoners, who were assisted to "give them a second wind" and thus be able to continue torturing them.

Part of the personnel who later worked at the Santa Lucía clinic came from there.

The evidence collected in this investigation shows that the director of Santa Lucía, which had no health permit or legal existence, was the pediatrician and retired Colonel Vittorio Orvieto Tiplizky.

Zepeda collected the testimonies of former political prisoners who reported that during their period of detention they were transferred to a building near Cerro Santa Lucía, as they oriented themselves in time and space by the typical noon cannon blast.

In this sense, former prisoner María Isabel Romero declared that she saw Michelle Peña at Villa Grimaldi, very thin and pale, who told her that they had killed her eight-month-old son in her womb, for which she was taken to the clandestine medical facility.

There is also evidence suggesting that the socialists Carolina Wiff, Mireya Rodríguez, Ariel Mansilla, and Alfredo Rojas Castañeda had passed through the medical center to receive resuscitation after the intense torture to which they were subjected.

Source: pschile.cl

The Santiago Court of Appeals published yesterday the ruling for the disappearance—qualified kidnapping—of the Socialist Party central committee at the hands of DINA agents in 1975. The third chamber of this Court, composed of ministers Jenny Book, Verónica Sabaj, and Paula Rodríguez, confirmed the 2018 sentence of Minister Miguel Vásquez regarding the convictions of six former agents of the civil-military dictatorship who must serve effective prison sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years.

The names of the criminals are known.

Miguel Krassnoff is sentenced to fifteen years as the perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, an event that occurred in the city of Santiago starting on June 25, 1975.

Raúl Iturriaga Neumann is sentenced to twenty years as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio.

Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido is sentenced to twelve years as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio. All these crimes were committed in 1975.

Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo and Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos have been sentenced to eighteen years as co-perpetrators of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Adolfo Ariel Mancilla Ramírez, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, Carlos Enrique Lorca Tobar, Modesta Carolina Wiff Sepúlveda, Rosa Elvira Soliz Poveda, Sara de Lourdes Donoso Palacios, and Jaime Eugenio López Arellano.

Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, meanwhile, is sentenced to sixteen years as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, Carlos Enrique Lorca Tobar, Modesta Carolina Wiff Sepúlveda, Rosa Elvira Soliz Poveda, Sara de Lourdes Donoso Palacios, and Jaime Eugenio López Arellano.

Source: elclarin.cl 1/1/2021 Date: 01-01-2021

The judicial ruling that shook the old socialists (EXCERPT)

Minister Miguel Vásquez sentenced six former members of the DINA this week for the kidnapping and disappearance in 1975 of 11 members of the PS Central Committee.

The minister visiting for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez Plaza, sentenced six former members of the National Intelligence Directorate, DINA, for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified kidnapping of 11 members of the Socialist Party Central Committee, detained on various dates in 1975 in the Metropolitan Region.

In the ruling—case file 47.518—of nearly 240 pages, Judge Vásquez sentenced Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann to 20 years of effective imprisonment as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio.

Meanwhile, former agents Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo and Manuel Andrés Carevic Cubillos must serve 18 years in prison as co-perpetrators of the qualified kidnappings of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Adolfo Ariel Mancilla Ramírez, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, Carlos Enrique Lorca Tobar, Modesta Carolina Wiff Sepúlveda, Rosa Elvira Soliz Poveda, Sara de Lourdes Donoso Palacios, and Jaime Eugenio López Arellano.

In the case of Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González, the minister sentenced him to 16 years of effective imprisonment as a co-perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, Carlos Enrique Lorca Tobar, Modesta Carolina Wiff Sepúlveda, Rosa Elvira Soliz Poveda, Sara de Lourdes Donoso Palacios, and Jaime Eugenio López Arellano.

Finally, the repressive agents Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko must serve 15 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio; and Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, 12 years in prison as a co-perpetrator of the qualified kidnappings of Alfredo Rojas Castañeda, Michelle Marguerite Peña Herreros, Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, Mireya Herminia Rodríguez Díaz, and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio. (excerpt)

Source: interferencia.cl 22/12/2018 Date: 22-12-2018

No relative's house in Santiago or in the provinces was raided when they detained Mireya

When she was detained by the DINA, I was being held in Pirque. I was detained by the DINA on January 14, 1975. I was a prisoner for a year and eight months. My brother had also been arrested and is currently disappeared [1].

The agents told me in a threatening tone: "Remember that you have a disappeared brother." His name later appeared on the list of 119 people whose detentions were attempted to be covered up in the so-called "Operation Colombo."

The DINA accused me of belonging to the MIR and of being a messenger for its Central Force.

My parents, who are now deceased, took steps for Mireya. I would ask the detainees who arrived from Villa Grimaldi about her. Of course, no one knew we were relatives. I could not believe she had been detained, much less that they would make her disappear. I have never known what they did with her.

I remember that one day, perhaps it was at the beginning of 1974, I am not sure of the exact year or month, Mireya stopped by to say hello. It was lunchtime. My brother was there and started teasing her.

They always had that game; they would both laugh and tease each other in a very nice way. In the end, we would all end up laughing. Mireya looked well and told us that she had set up a laundry with a friend.

She explained to us that they had a washing machine where they delivered washed and ironed clothes. She lived in a house near Calle Pío Nono. She made no allusion or mention of any political party. It just seemed like a business of hers with a friend to have some income.

The laundry was at the foot of Cerro San Cristóbal. Connecting the dots, over time I realized that the laundry was a safe house for the PS leadership and that the friend was Carolina Wiff, who is also disappeared. I do not remember seeing Mireya at our house after my brother's detention.

No one knows how she became linked to the PS. In fact, before the coup, we were unaware that she had been a militant. My impression is that the PS gave her this job because she was not "burned" or was little known as a socialist: the first rule of clandestinity.

And I do not believe she was just a helper. To link someone to the head of a clandestine party, it is required that they not be "burned," but at the same time that they be of total trust, that they not run away at the first opportunity, and that they be capable of procuring their own resources. I believe Mireya met all these requirements.

Everyone I have asked was unaware of which party she worked for, what she specifically did, or when or how she became linked to the PS. I thought it was through Carolina, but the evidence indicates that they did different things before the coup d'état.

There is also no information regarding when or why they met... It intrigues me. The only thing I can assure is that no relative's house in Santiago or in the provinces was raided when they detained her.

Testimony of María Teresa Villalobos Díaz, former political prisoner and cousin of Mireya Rodríguez.

[1] Refers to Manuel Jesús Villalobos Díaz, who was detained on September 17, 1974, by five DINA agents commanded by Osvaldo Romo.

Source: pschile.cl