Old statements by Moren Brito coincide with data held by Judge Urrutia regarding the possible involvement of an Army general who died in 2002, a close collaborator of Pinochet and who, by macabre coincidence, investigated and dismissed the case of the Lonquén ovens.

The testimony of the former DINA agent also links the former Intendant of Santiago, Rolando Garay. The investigation being conducted by Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia into the removal of the remains of forcibly disappeared persons buried at Fuerte Arteaga—and allegedly thrown into the sea—has shifted toward the intellectual authors of the crime, an inquiry that is advancing and, according to those close to it, could lead to new indictments. "This is just beginning," court sources said after learning of the indictments issued by the magistrate against retired officers Luis Fuenzalida Rojas and Hernán Canales Varas (who was commander of the Tacna regiment at the time of the removals) and non-commissioned officers Eliseo Cornejo Escobedo, José Canario Santibáñez, and Darío Gutiérrez de la Torre. However, one of those mentioned in the case, who could have become a key figure in the investigation, passed away in February of last year shortly before visiting judge Amanda Valdovinos finished her search for remains at the aforementioned site and transferred the data obtained and the investigation into the removals to Judge Urrutia. This refers to General Enrique Morel Donoso, one of the men closest to Augusto Pinochet. In fact, he was his aide-de-camp between 1973 and 1974, and the statements he provided in the context of the Caravan of Death trial contributed to the stripping of immunity of the then-senator-for-life. In 1978, when the removals took place at Fuerte Arteaga, Morel was serving as commander of the Santiago Garrison, holding the position that, it is presumed, intellectually coordinated the removal actions that were entrusted to the heads of the military units in each zone. The history of Morel Donoso also includes his tenure as Chief of the Army General Staff and, paradoxically or intentionally, having been the military prosecutor who investigated the discovery of human remains in the Lonquén ovens in 1974, following the jurisdictional dispute that led to the removal of Judge Adolfo Bañados from the case. The investigation into the discovery of the bodies of those executed—an event that precisely would have triggered the subsequent removal of remains in order to avoid similar situations—was dismissed by the now-deceased general. The name of Enrique Morel Donoso appeared mentioned in these types of events in the trial for the death of Manuel Recabarren Rojas, a Communist Party leader detained in 1976. In this case, retired Colonel Marcelo Moren Brito appeared on June 27, 1985, and identified himself as the person who, in the late 1970s, informed General Enrique Morel Donoso about "the alleged disappeared." Moren Brito testified before the court that it was General Rolando Garay, the Intendant of Santiago at the time of the events, who asked Morel Donoso for information on the disappeared, and that he, the colonel, had to make inquiries to the Investigations police, the CNI, and other agencies in order to deliver it to his superior. The evidence gathered in the investigation currently being conducted by Judge Urrutia ratifies those statements by Moren Brito, which reveal that the progress of the inquiries "upward" necessarily points to Garay. Among other people who should have clarity regarding what happened in the process of removing bodies that began in 1978 is retired General Odlanier Mena, former director of the CNI. At the end of 2000, he gave two interviews in which he spoke for the first time about the exhumations and the order for unit commanders to carry out censuses throughout the country to "know who might be buried and how to resolve the problem of handing over these bodies in the future," he told the evening newspaper La Segunda at the time.

Source: elmostrador.cl, June 28, 2003

Operation "TV Set Removal"

Operation "TV Set Removal" was the solution provided by Augusto Pinochet to cover up the massacres that occurred throughout Chile after the coup d'état. This cruel decision was made by him and the Military Junta following the discovery of the bodies of 11 peasants and 4 youths from Isla de Maipo in the Lonquén ovens.

It was the second-to-last day of November 1978, when horror emerged from abandoned lime kilns in the town of Lonquén, a few kilometers from Santiago. The report had reached the Vicariate of Solidarity from a peasant who was digging in the earth looking for his forcibly disappeared son.

At first, it was a secret known only to Cardinal Silva Henríquez, the Vicar of Solidarity Cristián Precht, and a small group of collaborators from the Vicariate of Solidarity; then, it became a raw reality regarding the fate of 15 detained people who were missing until that moment.

The news of this discovery unsettled Pinochet; it was not on his agenda. He was clear that the disappeared had not escaped the country, that they were not wandering the world discrediting the military dictatorship.

He knew that behind every forcibly disappeared person was his hand, so he called an emergency meeting of the Military Junta to find a quick solution and prevent possible accidental discoveries of burials throughout the country.

It was a hot summer for the dictatorship. The discovery of clandestinely buried bodies and their rapid dissemination in the international press was added to the strong pressures from the American government to extradite Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza for the terrorist attack in Washington against Orlando Letelier, further weakening his position on the international stage at a time when he was facing a serious border crisis with Argentina.

That year, the pressures from the White House over the Washington attack had forced Pinochet to make the decision to end the DINA, but he could not be left without an intelligence service that responded to his interests.

Thus, on August 12, he promulgated two Decree Laws: 1876, which ended the DINA, and 1878, which created the National Intelligence Center (CNI). To ensure everything was in order, he promoted Manuel Contreras to General of the Republic, completing the requirements demanded by the position of director of the nascent CNI.

The American pressures continued, as did the investigations, which is why Pinochet decided to retire his loyal servant and look for a general who would provide guarantees to him and the Americans. The chosen one was retired General Odlanier Mena.

Odlanier Mena was a man of Military Intelligence who had retired after intense fights with the director of the DINA, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda. Pinochet, to reassure him, had given him the position of ambassador to Uruguay, a not insignificant post for a retired general, since it was close to home and there were no conflicts or shocks with the civil-military dictatorship of José María Bordaberry, an ally of the Chilean military dictatorship.

On November 3, 1977, Contreras was called to retirement and replaced by General Odlanier Mena. The change was not easy. Contreras had accumulated a great deal of power and influence over his people, who, thanks to the prevailing impunity, had earned a reputation for being unscrupulous among their peers.

Mena was reluctant when they requested him for the position and expressed this to Pinochet. The most compelling argument was that he could not assume it because he was a retired general, and the law created expressly stated that its director must be a general in active service.

Pinochet, demonstrating his power, replied that there were no problems, that he would immediately order a change stating that the director could be a general in active service or retired. He was in that position in December 1978, when he went to Pinochet's office to have him sign several documents.

At the entrance, he came face to face with General Mendoza, who was leaving the office very disturbed. They did not have time to greet each other; he only heard, "Odlanier, we are discussing the Lonquén discovery and the enormous public commotion that this event produced in the country.

I have been ordered to present a detailed report because I was unaware of this situation myself." Surprised, he opened the door slightly and saw Admiral Merino, General Leigh, and Pinochet arguing. At that moment, an aide-de-camp let him in.

They greeted him without paying much attention to his presence and continued making comments, analyzing possible scenarios, and looking for ways to cover up the crimes. Mena listened attentively in a corner of the table.

At some point, the idea arose of using the institutions to carry out "the search for clandestine cemeteries throughout the country" in order to erase every trace of the criminal acts. The idea contained a terrifying vision; it was a double crime: after death, disappearance.

The Operation Despite the detailed description that Mena gives of that meeting to the justice system, he replied that he had no further information on the fate of the idea of searching for "clandestine cemeteries." It was Judge Juan Guzmán who managed to clarify the course that meeting took and how the removal of graves had been ordered through "Operation TV Set Removal." In 2004, Judge Guzmán and the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police received the testimony of an Intelligence non-commissioned officer who indicated having received an A-1 category cryptogram—a nomenclature that determines the level of urgency and secrecy of the mission—while he was at the Húsares Regiment in Angol in 1979. The relentless account detailed data and situations that spoke of the context of the era and began to give body to a series of gaps that had remained after the opening of graves in Liquiñe and other points in the country. According to his statement, due to the category of the cryptogram, he had run to the decoding machine to decipher it. When he was able to read it, upon seeing that it came from General Pinochet himself, he took it immediately to the regiment commander's office. He was so impressed that he did not forget its text, and as if he were reading it just then, he told the Judge that it "ordered the exhumation of all the bodies of political prisoners executed within the regiment's jurisdiction and to make them disappear." The text of the cryptogram added that if any body were found after that cleanup operation in the area, the officers in charge of the mission would be retired. Mulchén Massacre The order began to be executed in the Húsares Regiment, but its commander remembered that the massacre of 18 peasants near the Pemehue Hot Springs was not in his jurisdiction and called the 17th Reinforced Mountain Infantry Regiment of Los Ángeles to communicate the order they had received. The next day, three non-commissioned officers from the 2nd Department of the 3rd Army Division, based in Concepción, arrived at the 17th Mountain Infantry Regiment. All had gone through courses at the School of the Americas and had specialties in counterinsurgency warfare. They organized a team of eight people made up of officers and non-commissioned officers who headed to the Pemehue Hot Springs area. They went in two vehicles, equipped with pickaxes, shovels, crowbars, and some black bags. Previously, they had established contact with a relative of a soldier to guide them to the place where the bodies were supposed to be. The task was easy; the damp earth allowed them to reach the bodies, which were only 50 centimeters deep. Some still had the remains of their humble clothes, which were torn apart as they were pulled out, leaving small traces of the crime in the pieces of fabric and buttons that remained in the earth. In total, 12 bodies were exhumed. The bags were loaded into the vehicles and they headed toward Concepción. The place chosen to put an end to the task was a brick kiln of the 2nd Department. One by one, they threw the bodies in to be incinerated, just as the Nazis had done during World War II. Among the accounts is the reference to an officer who commented to them, while they were digging in the earth in search of the bodies, that he had learned to incinerate corpses in a course he had taken in Germany. He gave them gruesome details, such as that a large grill had to be prepared to place the bodies and abundant firewood lit under it, adding oil permanently. He advised them that they had to burn them until they turned to ashes. The Mulchén massacre occurred between October 5, 6, and 7, 1973, at the El Morro, Carmen y Maitenes, and Pemehue estates. At dusk on October 5, 1973, the patrol arrived at the Los Morros estate. They brought a list with the names of peasants. They called them out loud, and they surrendered without complaint: Juan de Dios Laubra Brevis, 26 years old; Domingo Antonio Sepúlveda Castillo, 29 years old; José Edmundo Vidal Aedo, 20 years old; Celsio Nicasio Vivanco Carrasco, 26 years old; and José Florencio Yáñez Durán, 34 years old. All were tied with wire, beaten, tortured, and taken to the banks of the Renaico River to be executed. The next day, they went up to the Carmen y Maitenes estate looking for 8 peasants: Miguel del Carmen Albornoz Acuña, 20 years old; Daniel Alfonso Albornoz González, 28 years old; Alejandro Albornoz González, 48 years old; José Guillermo Albornoz González, 32 years old; Luis Alberto Godoy Sandoval, 23 years old; Manuel Florencio Rubilar Gutiérrez, 25 years old; José Liborio Rubilar Gutiérrez, 28 years old; and José Lorenzo Rubilar Gutiérrez, 33 years old. All were taken to the main house. There, they were subjected to violent beatings, until, amidst taunts and laughter, Lieutenant Concha Maturana made them play "Roman circus," where they would hit each other and the losers would fall under the bullets. Seven were coldly executed, making them dig their own graves and forcing them to lie face down inside them to shoot them in the back. The only one who was not executed that day was José Guillermo Albornoz González, whom they tied to a trailer. The last stop was at the Pemehue estate. There, they took Felidor Exequiel Albornoz González, 33 years old; Alberto Albornoz González, 41 years old; José Fernando Gutiérrez Ascencio, 25 years old; Jerónimo Humberto Sandoval Medina, 22 years old; and Juan de Dios Roa Riquelme, 35 years old, from their homes. Here, they repeated the same sadism they had displayed at the Carmen y Maitenes estate. The next morning, Army Sergeant Luis Díaz Quintana realized that José Guillermo Albornoz González was still tied to the trailer. He approached and saw that he was alive, despite the bleeding wounds, a fractured jaw, having not eaten for two days, swollen from the sleet that had fallen, and without water. Together with Carabineros officer Jacob del Carmen Ortiz Palma, they took him to the banks of the Renaico River and murdered him. As in all the massacres that occurred in rural areas, terror took hold of the community; the law of the strongest was imposed, and the relatives of the victims were left exposed to arbitrariness. Some managed to bury their dead; others did not dare to look for the bodies for fear. Hindered by the fear inspired by the owners of the estates, they did not dare to rescue the bodies, nor did they think that the evil would go as far as the elimination of any vestige of their relatives' lives. The people responsible for these atrocious crimes are the Carabineros lieutenant of Mulchén, Jorge Maturana Concha, and the Carabineros officers Osvaldo Díaz Díaz, alias "Alicate," and Héctor Guzmán Saldaña. Along with them, several civilians participated, among whom are Romualdo Guzmán Saavedra, Francisco Urrizola Elías, Ramón Elías Abella, Aquiles Guzmán Fritz, Carlos Lehman, and a sergeant from the 17th Reinforced Mountain Regiment. Buin Regiment Just as in the Húsares Regiment of Angol, in December 1978, the 2nd Department of the Buin Regiment received an encrypted message from the Commander-in-Chief. More than 20 years later, Lieutenant Pedro Andrés Rodríguez Bustos declared before Judge Juan Guzmán that the message was signed by Augusto Pinochet and had precise orders "to gather the officers and non-commissioned officers who had been serving in those units between the years 1973 and 1974. Said meeting should try to obtain from that personnel the information they had regarding the whereabouts of the bodies of people executed and buried inside military units or, in this specific case, in the Peldehue military camp, given that this camp was going to transfer part of its land to the Compañía Minera Andina and, for that reason, it had to be known if there were clandestine burials on said land, since if so, the exact locations were required to proceed with the exhumation and elimination of the corpses." Later, he would ratify his statements, pointing out that the order came from the 2nd Army Division, in charge of General Enrique Morel Donoso, and that it was sent to all garrisons in the country. He detailed the way in which the information was delivered by those who knew about the burials of political prisoners and emphasized the secret nature of the entire process, mentioning two officers who came forward to provide information to Commander Mario Navarrete Barriga: Juan Ibáñez and Jorge Aguilar. Despite the conclusiveness of his statement, it was dismissed at the time because it was considered that it could be an intelligence operation. Only in 2004 would it be concluded that "Operation TV Set Removal" was a decision thought out and decided at the highest levels in order to hide the massacres after the 1973 coup d'état. Fuerte Arteaga In 1999, while Augusto Pinochet was detained in London, the government of Eduardo Frei called on different sectors to participate in a Dialogue Table that would allow for the collection of information on the fate of the victims of the military regime who were forcibly disappeared. Human rights lawyers, representatives of the Armed Forces and Order, representatives of the different religions existing in the country, academics, and government representatives participated in it. The organizations of relatives of the forcibly disappeared and human rights organizations refused to participate, considering that this instance was a lifeline for Augusto Pinochet. The work ended on June 13, 2000, with the delivery of the document of the agreements reached to President Ricardo Lagos. In it, the human rights violations that occurred during the military dictatorship were recognized by all those who participated in the Table; an absolute rejection of the use of violence as a method of political action was established, as well as a commitment as a society to generate the conditions that would lead to reconciliation, thereby facilitating the delivery of information on the fate of the forcibly disappeared. In January 2001, the Armed Forces delivered a report that provided data on the fate of 200 forcibly disappeared persons allegedly thrown into the sea, rivers, or the high mountains. Of them, 180 appeared with names, surnames, and the date of their death. A report was delivered to President Lagos containing 45 cases of forcibly disappeared persons whose data contained coordinates and maps of their location, which made it presumed that those remains would be found quickly. This complex situation caused public commotion, since it was the recognition of the existence of information on the fate of the forcibly disappeared within the Armed Forces; to this was added the anxiety of many relatives who hoped to have answers about their loved ones. Given this situation, the president of the Supreme Court, Hernán Álvarez, decided to appoint visiting ministers to clarify the fate of the forcibly disappeared. In this framework, Judge Amanda Valdovinos was designated to investigate the information on the existence of a cavern with 20 skulls of forcibly disappeared persons at Fuerte Arteaga and areas adjacent to the property surrounding this military facility. The accounts that emerged spoke of exhumations and transfers of remains to the slopes of the El Talhuenal mountain range. There, the minister focused her investigative work, together with a team of forensic anthropologists. The information that recurrently mentioned the "corner of the deceased" to refer to a certain area of the military facility, where remains taken from other places had been buried, led her to determine that not all the exhumed remains had been thrown into the sea, and she reported this to the Supreme Court. In March of that same year, the investigations on the grounds of Fuerte Arteaga in Peldehue yielded results. In the Quebrada de los Ratones, the remains of Luis Rivera Matus were found, a communist union leader detained at the exit of the Chilectra building on November 6, 1975, by men in civilian clothes who belonged to the Antisubversive Joint Command. His name appeared in the Armed Forces report as having been thrown into the sea off the coast of the central zone. This meant a new discredit for the Armed Forces; they were pointed out for delivering a list loaded with inaccuracies, causing new wounds among the relatives of the forcibly disappeared. The minister's findings gave rise to more information that ended with the indictments of retired Air Force generals Freddy Ruiz Bunger and Carlos Madrid Hayden, retired Army Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and retired officer of the DINE—Army Intelligence Directorate—Sergio López Díaz. In 2004, the Minister of the Court of Appeals with special dedication to human rights cases, Joaquín Billard, sentenced retired General Freddy Ruiz Bunger and Carlos Madrid Hayden to 600 days in prison as accessories to the qualified kidnapping of Luis Rivera Matus. He sentenced retired Army Major Álvaro Corbalán Castilla and retired Army Intelligence officer Sergio López Díaz to 10 years in prison as authors of the qualified kidnapping of Luis Rivera Matus. Three years later, the Supreme Court reduced the sentences, leaving only Álvaro Corbalán Castilla with an effective prison sentence. La Moneda Four months after the search began at Fuerte Arteaga, the investigations began to reveal what had happened more than twenty-five years earlier with those detained on September 11, 1973, at La Moneda. A large pit was excavated in the northern area of the field zone, and more than 500 bone pieces were recovered, which corresponded to fragments of limbs, teeth, pieces of skull, and other parts of human bodies, in addition to war material and pieces of clothing. Among these remains was the last piece of history of 12 of the 20 people detained on September 11, 1973, at La Moneda. Judge Valdovinos issued a conclusive report to the Supreme Court. In it, she spoke of the violence and irrationality that had dominated these deaths. She indicated that, upon observing the remains found in the pit area, one could "conclude categorically the use of explosives of the grenade type to destroy the bodies," due to the encrustations of bone remains that had remained on the walls of the pit. She also referred to the tracks of heavy machinery in the exhumation of bodies. In June 2002, the Supreme Court decided to restructure the investigations of cases of human rights violations and appointed Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia, of the Fifth Criminal Court, to be in charge of the Fuerte Arteaga case. Based on the bone fragments, the investigation into illegal exhumation began. One of the fundamental witnesses in this investigation was non-commissioned officer Eliseo Cornejo Escobar, who participated in the executions of the La Moneda detainees and, five years later, guided the search in the excavations to exhume the remains, within the framework of "Operation TV Set Removal." On that December 23, 1978, the supervision of the work was in charge of the commander of the Tacna Regiment, Hernán Canales Varas. According to the accounts, it was around 10:00 hours when Eliseo Cornejo marked the exact place where those detained on September 13, 1973, had been buried. A mechanical shovel began to dig the dry pit until reaching six meters deep; there, an iron bar appeared, which Cornejo immediately identified. The shovel began to work slowly until the first body appeared. The bodies were almost intact, thanks to the clay soil that prevented the penetration of oxygen and the subsequent process of organic decomposition. The bodies were removed manually so that they would not fall apart; despite this, small fragments remained in the earth, as if refusing to disappear completely. Then they took out the remains and loaded them onto a Unimog truck. In total, there were 12 bags, and all were transported to some parking lots in front of the San Martín highway. Around 22:00 hours, the Army Aviation Command helicopter arrived, in charge of the then-colonel Fernando Darrigrandi. It was piloted by Emilio de la Mahotiere González, Luis Felipe Polanco, and Antonio Palomo Contreras, the same trio that flew the Puma helicopter in the Caravan of Death. The aircraft landed near where the bags were; they were quickly loaded, and the helicopter took off. As in the previous cases, "Operation TV Set Removal" had been carried out silently and opportunely. The order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army was fulfilled. It was the realization of one crime to hide another, which had begun on September 12, 1973, with the arrival of Pedro Espinoza at the Tacna Regiment. The Intelligence officer carried an envelope containing precise orders from the Army Commander-in-Chief to the commander of the Tacna Regiment, Luis Ramírez Pineda. In them, the people detained at La Moneda were sentenced to death, and it was ordered that they be transferred to Peldehue to carry out the order. Ramírez Pineda had given orders to apply maximum brutality against the detainees who arrived that afternoon of September 11. In those tied and exhausted men, he deposited all his hatred against the Marxists. There were 49 detainees; the next day, it was ordered to release 17 Investigations officials, and others were separated, leaving the La Moneda group reduced to 21 people. On the 13th, first thing in the morning, a truck parked in front of the barracks where the prisoners were. List in hand, they were taken out of the stables, tied with wire, and violently thrown into the truck. Among the 21 were Jaime Barrios Meza, Sergio Contreras, Daniel Escobar Cruz, Enrique Huerta Corvalán, Claudio Jimeno Grendi, Jorge Klein Pipper, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Enrique Paris Roa, Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, Julio Moreno Pulgar, Héctor Pincheira Núñez, Arsenio Poupin Oissel, Julio Tapia Martínez, Héctor Urrutia Molina, Oscar Valladares Caroca, Juan Vargas Contreras, Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, José Freire Medina, and Luis Avilés Jofré, who had arrived at the La Moneda Palace to support the government. The truck headed north, guarded by military vehicles and followed by the attentive gaze of the then-colonel Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who was traveling in one of the column's vehicles. Espinoza was a high-ranking Army Intelligence officer whose role in the post-coup repression was decisive. He was in charge of supervising the main extermination operations committed throughout the country, by order of the Intelligence General Staff. Upon arrival, they went immediately to a dry pit that was next to a building. There, they mounted a machine gun that was operated by Lieutenant Jorge Herrera López and began to take the detainees down, calling them by their names. Without complaint and looking straight ahead, the 21 men faced death standing on the edge of the pit. They faced the muffled sounds of the bullets that echoed in the solitude of the hills alone. When the last detainee fell, the order was given to throw grenades so that the walls of the pit would collapse, thus covering up the crime. The Trial The case has had a long journey through the justice system. Since Judge Amanda Valdovinos began the investigation into illegal burials, until the present, the investigation has been in the hands of the judge of the Fifth Criminal Court, Juan Carlos Urrutia; the Minister of the Court of Appeals Alejandro Madrid Crohare; the Special Minister for human rights cases Juan Fuentes Belmar; and it is currently in the hands of the Minister of the Court of Appeals Miguel Vásquez Plaza. Of the 21 victims, it has only been possible to identify 11 forcibly disappeared persons through the work of identifying remains and the genetic analyses carried out by the University of North Texas Laboratory, United States, which included expert examinations of the victims' bone samples and comparative tests on blood samples donated by the families. Currently, retired General Luis Ramírez Pineda is being prosecuted as the author of the qualified homicide of 11 people detained at La Moneda on September 11, 1973, and transferred to the Tacna Regiment, where he was commander. The expansion of the extradition is also being processed in the Argentine justice system, because it was initially requested for the charges of qualified kidnapping of 11 people, and currently, he is being prosecuted for qualified homicide, and by changing the legal figure, it is required to request a change of it from the country that grants the extradition. The resolution affected eight other retired members of the Army who confessed to having participated in the kidnappings of Jaime Barrios Meza, Daniel Escobar Cruz, Enrique Huerta Corvalán, Claudio Jimeno Grendi, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Julio Moreno Pulgar, Arsenio Poupin Oissel, Julio Tapia Martínez, Oscar Valladares Caroca, and Juan Vargas Contreras. The eight prosecuted as authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping were retired Army Colonel Servando Maureira Roa, retired Army Major Jorge Iván Herrera López, retired Army Brigadier Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and retired Army non-commissioned officers Eliseo Antonio Cornejo Escobedo, Jorge Ismael Gamboa Álvarez, Teobaldo Segundo Mendoza Vicencio, Juan de la Cruz Riquelme Silva, and Bernardo Eusebio Soto Segura. Linares Artillery School The same secret document that traveled through the barracks at the beginning of 1979 arrived at the Linares Artillery School. Without hesitation, the director of the Linares Artillery School, Lieutenant Colonel Patricio Gualda Tiffani, ordered the formation of a special team to exhume the bodies and left Captain Mario Gianotti Hidalgo in charge of this mission. He chose two officers, among whom was Lieutenant Hernán Véjar Sinning, and two non-commissioned officers to carry out the mission. To them was added an Intelligence non-commissioned officer from the 3rd Army Division who had arrived together with two other members of that department to supervise that the order was fulfilled. Equipped with shovels and pickaxes, they dug in different places inside the Regiment, finally finding two bodies that were without clothes. After putting them in bags, they left them in a safe place inside the Regiment and left for the city of Constitución to look for a clandestine burial that was in a cave at the mouth of the Maule River. The constant rising of the river and the tides had changed the physiognomy of the terrain a little, so it was difficult for them to find the exact place. Finally, they found three skulls, concluding that it was the place they were looking for. They exhumed them, put them in bags, and returned to the Artillery School.

a. With the first stage of the mission accomplished, they went to look for a metal drum, poured oil into it, then put the five bodies inside, doused them again with oil, and set them on fire. The remains of five forcibly disappeared persons were reduced to ashes, and the double crime was finalized.

In April 2003, Minister Alejandro Solís had initiated investigations in the area of the Polígono General Bari, where, according to information provided by a former conscript, a mass grave had existed containing the bodies of the forcibly disappeared from the area.

The proceedings yielded no results, and only a few traces of possible burials were found at the site. In 2008, the Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Alejandro Solís, issued a sentence and set prison terms of 15 years and one day for five defendants, and 10 years and one day for a sixth defendant for the disappearances of María Isabel Beltrán Sánchez, José Gabriel Campos Morales, Anselmo Cancino Aravena, Héctor Hernán Contreras Cabrera, Alejandro Róbinson Mella Flores, Arturo Enrique Riveros Blanco, Jaime Bernardo Torres Salazar, José Alfonso Saavedra Betancourt, and Jorge Bernabé Yáñez Olave, who were detained between September 1973 and February 1974. On April 27, 2011, the Supreme Court reduced the sentences issued by Minister Solís, acquitting General (ret.) Gabriel del Río Espinoza, who had been convicted for the disappearance of five people, and sentencing the Army Colonel (ret.) Juan Hernán Morales Salgado and Army Lieutenant Colonel Claudio Abdón Lecaros Carrasco to five years and one day in prison with the benefit of supervised release for the disappearance of María Isabel Beltrán, José Gabriel Campos, Anselmo Antonio Cancino, and Alejandro Róbinson Mella. Army Sub-officer (ret.) Antonio Aguilar Barrientos was sentenced to five years and one day in prison with the benefit of supervised release for four counts of aggravated kidnapping, and Army Colonel (ret.) Antonio Cabezas Salazar was sentenced to five years and one day for three counts of aggravated kidnapping. General (ret.) Humberto Lautaro Julio Reyes, who was Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs during the military dictatorship, was sentenced to three years in prison with the benefit of conditional remission, remaining on supervised release. This was one of the most damning pieces of evidence available to demonstrate that Pinochet was aware of the atrocities that occurred during his mandate. No one creates such a perverse mechanism to hide crimes unless they are directly involved.

Chihuío On October 9, 1973, the locals of Chihuío thought the worst of the period had passed. News of the detention of workers in Neltume and the violence that the Llifén Carabineros had unleashed among the peasants of Chabranco, Arquilme, and Curriñe had spread like wildfire.

That day, a patrol consisting of 90 well-armed and equipped soldiers in seven vehicles set out for the foothills area, where only poor workers of the Empresa Maderera Panguipulli lived. They were from the No. 2 Cazadores Armored Cavalry Regiment of Valdivia, commanded by General (ret.) Santiago Sinclair, who later became a member of the Military Junta and a designated senator at the beginning of the transition to democracy.

In charge was Squadron Commander Luis Osorio Gardasanich, along with officers Patricio Keller, Lautaro Ortega, Marcos Rodríguez Olivares, and Luis Rodríguez Rogorrichi. Lieutenant Cristián Labbé Galilea was in charge of the special unit.

The patrol toured the towns and hamlets of the area, read lists of names, and proceeded to detain them. The owner of the Chihuío estate, Américo González Torres, participated actively and enthusiastically in this journey of death.

Without any shame, they asked the locals for wire and teams of oxen to drag the vehicles that had gotten stuck in the mud. In the Curriñe administration office of the Panguipulli Timber Complex, they tortured some detainees, while a patrol went up to detain workers at the Folilco sawmill.

Their last stop was in Chabranco, where they detained the final group of workers. With their cargo, they left for the main house of the Chihuío estate, where they brutalized the workers. According to testimony received by the Rettig Report, at first glance, there were no bullet impacts, but rather signs of cuts, throat-slitting, dismemberment, and other traces of torture impossible to describe.

The next morning, a local saw some bodies covered with branches and logs, recognizing some of the victims as workers from the area. The corpses remained in the open for about 15 days and were then buried.

There were 17 workers from the area: Carlos Maximiliano Acuña Inostroza, José Orlando Barriga Soto, José Rosamel Cortés Díaz, Rubén Neftalí Durán Zúñiga, Luis Arnaldo Ferrada Sandoval, Eliecer Sigisfredo Freire Caamaño, Narciso Segundo García Cancino, Juan Walter González Delgado, Daniel Méndez Méndez, Sebastián Mora Osses, Pedro Segundo Pedreros Ferreira, Rosendo Rebolledo Méndez, Ricardo Segundo Ruiz Rodríguez, Carlos Vicente Salinas Flores, Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda Rebolledo, Rubén Vargas Quezada, and the minor Fernando Adrián Mora Gutiérrez, who, upon helping to pull a military vehicle out of the mud, saw his father among the detainees and asked the soldiers where they were taking him. They replied that if he wanted to go with his father, he should get into the vehicle, and he did so. At the end of 1978, a military operation returned to Chihuío and exhumed the bodies of the 17 peasants to throw them into the sea. The grave containing the skeletal remains from the exhumation was found on June 17, 1990, by a group of relatives and friends of the forcibly disappeared. In the first days of July 2011, the director of the Legal Medical Institute, Patricio Bustos, released the names of the first five people identified: Carlos Maximiliano Acuña Inostroza, 46 years old at the time of his death, agricultural worker; Luis Arnaldo Ferrada Sandoval, 42 years old at the time of his death, agricultural worker; Daniel Méndez Méndez, 42 years old, agricultural worker and peasant leader; Ricardo Segundo Ruiz Rodríguez, 24 years old, factory manager and member of the Socialist Party; and Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda Rebolledo, 28 years old, timber worker. On July 15, the director of the Valdivia Legal Medical Service, Patricia Benhe, handed over the few skeletal remains to the families so they could bury them. The identifications were made using fragments found in the clandestine grave where the bodies had been thrown and later removed to be thrown into the sea, within the framework of the so-called "Operation TV Set Disposal." In January 2011, the Supreme Court sentenced Army Colonel (ret.) Luis Osorio Gardasanich to 10 years and one day as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of 17 people, including a minor. Carabineros officer (ret.) Luis Eduardo Osses Chavarría was sentenced to 3 years and one day in prison for his role as an accomplice to 4 kidnappings. Civilian Bruno Esteban Obando Cárdenas was acquitted for having no participation in the events. General Santiago Sinclair, who gave the orders, was acquitted. Meanwhile, Colonel (ret.) Jerónimo Pantoja Henríquez died before the Supreme Court sentence. The 17 workers belonged to the Esperanza del Obrero Peasant Union of the Panguipulli Timber Complex. Most were evangelical believers who had organized to participate in building a more just life.

Cuesta Barriga Enrique Erasmo Sandoval Arancibia was an Army lieutenant when he was called to the DINA in 1976. Although he does not say much about his role in the repressive organization that year, he hints at his time at the Intelligence School in Rinconada de Maipú, which served to instruct Argentine, Uruguayan, and Chilean agents.

He also claims to have been part of the security for the VI OAS General Assembly held in Santiago, which Henry Kissinger attended. Disjointedly, he says that at the end of 1976, he became part of the Caupolicán Brigade, which was under the command of Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, assigned to the Cóndor group.

He claims not to remember names, nor the activity he carried out; he only remembers that he spoke a lot with the former MIR member who collaborated with the DINA, named "Joel," Emilio Iribarren. But "Pete el Negro," as he was known in the DINA, had a whole criminal history behind his apparent innocence before the courts.

After the coup d'état and the indiscriminate repression, this man murdered the boy Carlos Fariña with a shot in the back and burned the corpse. In the 80s, he participated in the murder of Lisandro Sandoval.

In 1978, he joined the Red Brigade of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), in charge of the repression of the MIR. During his time there, he reported directly to Álvaro Corbalán. He remembers that at the beginning of 1979, Jerónimo Pantoja, deputy director of the CNI, received information that a rabbit hunter had discovered an abandoned mine with bodies in Cuesta Barriga, and the information had been given to the Vicariate of Solidarity.

Faced with the alarm, Pantoja sent him to check the place, "which was a mine shaft, and I verified that it was true. It was full of rodents, bats, putrefied remains, and there was a smell consistent with the remains.

This smell would have alerted and disturbed the hunter's dogs, and that is how he would have arrived at the place." With a photograph in hand, Lieutenant Sandoval went before Pantoja, who ordered him not to dynamite the mine and ordered him to use acid.

Given the difficulty he had due to his lack of knowledge about the use of chemicals, he called General Odlanier Mena at his vacation home in Mehuín to inform him of the situation. The sensitive information caused Mena to suspend his vacation, return to Santiago, and take charge of the removal of the bodies.

For this, he entrusted Sandoval with removing the bodies with a trusted team. "My team was made up of 9 people and we went to the mine for three days." He claims to have no idea how many bodies there were, but calculates that there were about 20, which were put into 50 potato sacks.

Some of the bodies were skeletonized, others still retained soft tissue. When they finished removing the bodies, they took some dogs, killed them, and threw them inside to justify the presence of bones.

Then they loaded the sacks onto a truck and took them to the Malloco plot that had belonged to the MIR Political Commission. Finally, the remains were transported to Peldehue and possibly thrown into the sea.

Operation TV Set Disposal covered the entire national territory and is the clearest example of the policy of concealing human rights violations that prevailed during the military dictatorship.

Source: elmostrador.cl, September 2013

The unknown network of properties that Pinochet bought for the Army abroad

There are 28 properties acquired for the regime's military attachés outside of Chile. DINA agents and high authorities of the Government Junta lived in them. In the heart of London, steps from Hyde Park and the popular Camden Town neighborhood, is a spacious four-bedroom apartment located on the third floor of a building, which has belonged to the Chilean Army since February 7, 1977.

That day, the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet signed a 125-year leasehold contract for the property, which was intended for the military attachés appointed to England, of whom there is only a record since 1983.

The agreement included an initial payment of 18,000 pounds of the time and monthly disbursements that continue to this day. It was the first time such an investment had been made, even though the attachés' offices had existed since the end of the 19th century.

That apartment became the first in a series of acquisitions made by the dictatorship outside the country, with the goal that military appointees could live in Chilean State residences around the world.

Argentina was the second country where sumptuous purchases were made, this time for the three branches of the Armed Forces that controlled the country in those days. In May 1979, the Navy bought a 195-square-meter apartment in Buenos Aires, according to one of the real estate purchase contracts outside of Chile made by the Armed Forces, which El Dínamo accessed via the Transparency Law.

The property cost 200 million Argentine pesos of the time, and the purchase was signed by the then-ambassador to that country, Sergio Onofre Jarpa. Two months later, the same former authority signed the acquisition of a 159-square-meter apartment in the Argentine capital for 62 million local pesos, but this time intended for the Army attachés.

Three years later, also with orders from Santiago, Onofre Jarpa would do the same for the Air Force envoys, buying a 373-square-meter apartment in Buenos Aires. The contract was made for $120,000 dollars.

Although the three branches of the Armed Forces accessed properties in the neighboring country for their attachés during that brief period, from 1980 onwards the situation changed radically and the favoritism in purchases by orders of the dictatorship was concrete: only the Army—Pinochet's alma mater—acquired 26 additional properties in Europe and Latin America within a period of eleven years.

Additionally, in 1981, the Navy bought a property for its attaché in Lima, Peru, but the next one would not arrive until 1994, in the United States, under the government of Patricio Aylwin. Meanwhile, for the Air Force, the next two were only bought in 1995 (USA), when Eduardo Frei was President, and in 2007 (Peru), with Michelle Bachelet at the head of the country.

In total, during the military dictatorship, 31 properties were bought abroad for the Armed Forces, a unique privilege within the State that continues to this day. Of these, five are currently uninhabited. Since 1977, the Armed Forces have registered a total of 34 houses and apartments around the world for their attachés.

Global expansion

After the Coup d'état, Pinochet was interested in expanding his military network internationally, so he decided to double the number of military attachés in the world. Both then and now, the role of these appointments is to be a representative of the Armed Forces and an advisor to the ambassador on defense issues, although—according to experts—during the first years of the dictatorship, they pointed to another role.

In fact, several envoys were DINA agents. According to Army records, in September 1973 there were 15 attaché offices, including those in Russia and Cuba, which were abruptly eliminated. The dictator kept thirteen of them and added eleven more in different parts of the planet.

Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain, the United States, France, Paraguay, Peru, England, Venezuela, Germany, and Mexico maintained a military relationship prior to the dictatorship through attachés; in the first ten, Pinochet determined the purchase of homes as priority links for the regime.

Switzerland, meanwhile, was maintained only between 1972 and 1980, and the military relationship with the Aztec country was cut between 1973 and 1993. For ten years, Pinochet installed attaché offices in different places: El Salvador, Panama, and Uruguay in 1974; Bolivia and South Korea in 1975; Nicaragua in 1977; China in 1979; Honduras and South Africa in 1981; Israel in 1982; and Canada in 1983.

Years later, a property would be bought for the Montevideo attaché. The United States leads in the number of properties intended for the Army attaché office. There are eleven houses and apartments located between Maryland and Washington DC.

The first was acquired in 1981 for US$163,000 of the time, equivalent to having paid $315 million today (without considering capital gains and others), in Montgomery County; then three houses were bought for 418,000 dollars, with four bedrooms and four bathrooms, as stipulated in the purchase contracts.

That same year, in August, three others were bought for US$432,000 dollars. The contract includes a decree authorized by Pinochet asking—in his zeal for secrecy—that an "account be rendered in a reserved manner of this investment," which grants US$1,200,000 for it.

Three years later, three other property purchases were made for US$116,000, US$83,000, and US$86,000, from three different sellers, all in the same county. Finally, in 1988, two properties were bought in Washington for almost two million dollars.

According to the Army, they are currently used by the head of the military mission, the secretary, finance advisor, military advisor, training officer, chief of staff, three typists, and a technical assistant. One property is unoccupied.

Large properties

In Spain, nine properties were bought. The first was made in 1980 in Madrid for 19 million pesetas for a 320-square-meter apartment on a fifth floor, with four bedrooms and two parking spaces. This first purchase was made in conjunction with a residence for the ambassador and offices for the consulate, among other acquisitions made by the regime.

Two years later, three apartments between 110 and 115 square meters were acquired for 10 million pesetas each. In all contracts, it is stipulated that they will be intended for "attaché office officials." Meanwhile, in 1985, five more properties were bought: two 98-square-meter apartments for 6.5 million pesetas each, on a fourth and a sixth floor, in addition to three other properties between 86 and 90 square meters for 40 million pesetas.

The latter were intended to be offices for the military attaché in Spain, according to the documents sent by the Army. Currently, according to the institution, the military attaché, the training officer, and the chief of staff live in the apartments, while three properties are unoccupied.

The expansion through Europe also reached France. In October 1980, the dictatorship bought a three-bedroom apartment on a first floor in Paris for two million francs, an equivalent today of having paid USD$1,660,394, without considering capital gains or others.

A year later, a 300-square-meter property was bought in Montevideo for 295,000 dollars of the time, located on the Rambla República de Perú. That same year, a 709-square-meter property was bought in the La Recoleta district of Asunción, Paraguay, for 2.5 million guaraníes.

Then, in 1984, an apartment on a 9th floor was acquired in Quito, Ecuador, for 31,000 sucres. And the following year, in Caracas, Venezuela, a house was bought in Quinta Mamia of 658 square meters for three million bolívares, a contract signed by the then-ambassador Carlos de Costa-Nora, who stipulates that the property is handed over to the Army for "the purposes it deems convenient." According to the institution, it is currently unoccupied, waiting to be sold "until there are better conditions in the country." Already in democracy, in 2008, the Army acquired a 244-square-meter apartment with two parking spaces in Lima, Peru. Then, a four-bedroom property in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1994. A former member of the Military Junta, close to Pinochet and who participated actively in the dictatorship's decisions, justified these purchases and stated to El Dínamo that "it was more economical to buy the properties because in some countries it was very expensive to rent them." "It was an economic criterion to save a little," he added.

Rentals For living in any of these properties, the Army currently deducts 5.5% from the attachés' base salary, just as it happens in Chile with those who live in fiscal housing of the Armed Forces. Today, Colonel Sergio Gutiérrez Sepúlveda is a military attaché in London, and although he has a final gross salary of $3,511,768 for his rank, the base remuneration is 660,000 pesos, the amount with which the "rent" of the apartment is calculated.

That is, his payment is $36,300 per month for living in the middle of the English capital. In the case of the Air Force, in its three properties abroad, that same percentage is charged to the officials who are appointed.

This institution currently has the properties in Argentina, the United States (which was bought in 1995 for US$465,000), and another that was acquired in 2007 in Peru for US$168,000. Neither the Air Force nor the Army rents properties at the cost of the treasury, as the Navy and Carabineros do.

The sailors currently have three purchased properties; the one in Buenos Aires and the one in Peru, which cost 64,000 soles of the time, corresponding to a "two-story chalet" on a 546-square-meter plot.

Added to that is one bought in the United States for 712,000 dollars in 1994. In none of those three countries are naval attachés given a discount for the use of fiscal housing, the institution explained.

In addition to that, the Navy rents three properties at the expense of the treasury in Colombia, China, and Israel, and until a year ago in India and South Korea, with monthly rents ranging from $2.1 million to $3.1 million, according to the lease contracts reviewed.

In addition, there are naval attachés in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, Ecuador, and Panama, who must pay for their own rent. Carabineros does not own purchased properties, but it does rent twelve properties for its attachés and officials: three apartments in Argentina, three in Bolivia, two in Italy, one in the United Kingdom, Spain, Ecuador, and the United States.

The prices paid range from 700 to 4,200 dollars. How much assets the attaché offices have in real estate outside the country is a mystery. The Army explained to El Dínamo that they do not have "a registry that contains the information of the consulted properties in a systematized form." The Navy, meanwhile, stated that they did not find "documents regarding the commercial or fiscal value, or current estimates on the mentioned properties." A similar situation occurs with the Air Force.

As confirmed by the Foreign Ministry to this media outlet, no civil attaché office in Chilean embassies has the privilege of having fiscal housing at a low price or at zero cost for its officials.

The appointees The role of military attachés is to advise the ambassador on defense issues and to represent the Armed Forces in the host country, among other minor functions. This figure has existed in Chile at least since the end of the 19th century, after the War of the Pacific, when the Army began to professionalize the military career and officers began to be sent outside the country as part of their instruction.

Until then, as historian Gabriel Salazar explains, the officer corps was appointed by the Executive, so normally only the upper class and those with political networks managed to rise. With the modernization of the career, they began to send military personnel to Europe to train, where they were decorated and treated well diplomatically.

Thus, the idea of the military attaché soon appeared. "A career of honors and prestige was being configured, very linked to classism. The generals or colonels who come from abroad with a medal felt they were at a much higher level," explains Salazar.

Augusto Pinochet understood that well and endorsed it. In 1956, he had been a military attaché in Washington and immediately afterward was sent to Ecuador for three years to organize that country's War Academy.

Different journalistic investigations have revealed the importance this stage had in the dictator's life. Therefore, already in command of the country, Pinochet quickly began to appoint military attachés from his close circle and expanded the network of attaché offices in the world, as much to—formally—represent the Armed Forces as for other tasks assigned by the dictatorship.

Former military personnel of the time acknowledge that it was a coveted position in the regime and that there was hidden competition to reach them. Many of the first envoys were regimental commanders, while others were agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) or people who were in Pinochet's close circle, sent probably—states Salazar—for espionage and operations purposes.

This period also coincides with the international expansion of the organization under the command of Manuel Contreras and his anti-communist plan, a sort of global "Gestapo," which had a brief life.

From the DINA to the leadership

The first five attachés in Paraguay, at least two in Ecuador, two in France, one in Uruguay, Venezuela, Spain, El Salvador, China, and Argentina, have been identified as agents of the repressive organization by Human Rights organizations.

Later, a similar formula would be repeated with agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI). One of them was Pedro Ewing Hodar, who had been appointed minister in the General Secretariat of Government between 1973 and 1974, and who upon arriving in Madrid in 1975 was head of the DINA in Europe and of the military attachés of that continent.

Humberto Gordon Rubio arrived in Brazil a year after the Coup, who would later be director of the CNI. Another agent was Carlos Mardones Díaz, sent to Ecuador between 1977 and 1978, a year after having participated in extermination operations in Chile, according to judicial investigations.

Among those close to the dictator appear—on the list of attachés provided by the Army—Enrique Morel Donoso, who had been Pinochet's aide-de-camp before being appointed to the United States. The same with Alejandro Chacón Reveco, appointed after the Coup as second head of the Advisory Committee of the Government Junta and then sent as a representative to Paris, France.

Also Rafael Ortiz Navarro, recognized as part of the dictator's iron circle, sent to Switzerland in 1974. He was followed by Óscar Coddou Vivanco, godfather to Marco Antonio Pinochet Hiriart. He was the first Undersecretary of War of the Military Junta and only lasted one year as an attaché due to problems linked to his personal relationships.

Upon arriving in Chile, he was appointed director of INACAP, which still depended on Corfo. In this same initial stage of the military attaché offices, several crimes were committed on international soil, such as the murders of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert in 1974 in Buenos Aires, and of Allende's former Minister of Foreign Affairs Orlando Letelier in 1976 in Washington.

Added to this are the first attempts to assassinate former senator Carlos Altamirano in Spain. A high-ranking member of the Military Junta, who was Pinochet's right-hand man, assured El Dínamo that DINA agents were never sent outside the country because "other nations know the background of the military and were not going to accept someone who worked in intelligence, because it created a vulnerability for them.

The attaché had to be a very transparent person." "The military attachés had an impeccable trajectory within the Army, so more than a recognition, it was a need to be able to represent ourselves outside the country," he insisted.

Despite this, 18 former military attachés of the dictatorship and the first years of the return to democracy are accused of crimes against Human Rights and are in prison today in Punta Peuco.

High positions Starting in 1978, when the DINA had already disappeared and Manuel Contreras's plan was in retreat while international pressure for crimes against humanity grew, in the countries that were of greatest relevance to the regime, they began to send military attachés of higher rank or who had previously held higher positions, such as ministers, undersecretaries, and intendants.

That dynamic occurred especially in neighboring countries, such as Peru and Brazil, and especially in those where Chile had already acquired properties, such as the United States, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, and England, unlike the others where lower-ranking military personnel were sent. "It does not surprise me that Pinochet emphasized the sending of high-ranking officials, only for honorary purposes, to raise the level and raise the rank of his military," explains Gabriel Salazar, one of the few who has studied the subject.

Not even the Military History Academy today has research on military attaché offices. A large part of the appointees who returned to Chile did so to head organizations and high positions. Carlos Schalchli Villalobos, attaché in Argentina, was in charge of buying a property in that country.

Upon returning to Chile, he did so as intendant of La Araucanía in 1980. Between 1982 and 1983, the envoy was Hugo Salas Wenzel (former director of the Military School), who upon arriving in Chile would head the CNI as deputy director and, later, director.

In Buenos Aires, Alejandro González Samohod was also assigned between 1985 and 1987, who had been an advisor to the Government Junta after the Coup and, between 1980 and 1985, intendant of Atacama. Upon returning to Chile, he became the last intendant of Magallanes, already promoted to general.

The then-colonel Alejandro Medina Lois was director of the War Academy when they appointed him as military attaché in Madrid in 1978. The following year he was promoted to general and upon returning to Chile he was Minister of Health and then rector of the University of Chile for almost three years.

Between 1984 and 1985, Francisco Ramírez Migliassi was an attaché in that same country. Before, he had been Undersecretary of Economy and executive vice president of Corfo. Upon returning to Chile, he was director of the Planning Office (Odeplan) in 1985, the prelude to the Ministry of Planning, and then Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs.

After Ramírez Migliassi, Sergio Ballerino Sandford assumed for three years in Spain. He had been a close collaborator of the dictator, in charge of the Military House of La Moneda, which is why he later ended up directly involved in the Riggs Case. Upon returning to Chile, he became the last Presidential Chief of Staff (predecessor of the Segpres) between 1988 and 1990.

In the 70s Several of those appointed in the mid-70s also rose rapidly after their international stint. In the United States, Washington Carrasco Fernández was sent a few months after the Coup and upon returning to Chile was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Austral Joint Command, then Minister of Defense in 1982 and Intendant of two regions in the south of the country.

Enrique Morel Donoso (1975), Pinochet's aide-de-camp, after his time in the US was commander of the Santiago Garrison, chief of the General Staff, president of the board of SQM, and rector of the University of Chile.

For his part, Nilo Floody Buxton (1976), upon his return to the country in 1977, was promoted to division general and assumed as intendant of the Austral Zone and later as ambassador to Israel. In Paraguay, between 1977 and 1978, César Manríquez Bravo was appointed, who had been a high official of the DINA, in charge of prisoners of the National Stadium and several repression centers.

After returning to Chile, in 1981 he was appointed Undersecretary of War for two years. Others had a brief period outside the country. Christian Ackerknecht San Martín had been head of the O'Higgins province after the Coup and in 1982 was appointed military attaché in Washington, but complaints from exiles about his participation in Human Rights violations made his stay in that country very short.

He died in 1989 without facing justice. Only the Army provided El Dínamo with a complete list of who its military attachés were from 1970 onwards. The Navy stated that "it is not possible to have the information from the years prior" to 1990, as it is not systematized, while the Air Force responded that they do not have the registry.

NOTE: This report was made with different requests for information via the Transparency Law, documents published by the National Congress Library, and biographies from the Memoria Viva website. by Daniel Martínez G.

Source: eldinamo.cl, April 10, 2019