Nicolás Chanez Chanez, married, a truck driver, was detained on November 19, 1973, when he appeared at the Iquique Investigations Barracks at approximately 18:30 hours. He went there to retrieve his identity card, which had been seized by a military patrol near the Baquedano Camp while he was grazing his livestock.

Nicolás Chanez remained detained and held incommunicado at the police barracks for approximately 30 days, after which, according to his son Jaime Chanez, he was taken to the Iquique Telecommunications Regiment, where he remained for one week. His family sent clothing and food to him there, but they were never able to see or speak with him.

On a date that neither his children nor his spouse can recall, Nicolás Chanez was transferred to the Pisagua Detention Camp, where his family sent him letters, packages, and some money.

Nicolás Chanez was held in the incommunicado cells of the Pisagua Prison alongside other detainees accused of drug trafficking, where he was subjected to harsh and violent treatment, as reported by witnesses.

In that prison, which in normal times had a capacity for about 100 inmates and which, after September 11, 1973, came to house some 1,700 people, the living conditions of the prisoners constituted a form of torture in themselves.

They lived in overcrowded cells, housing between 12 and 40 people depending on the size, and were only allowed outside for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon. Their diet consisted of a bowl of tea or coffee and a piece of bread for breakfast, and a small bowl of beans and another piece of bread for lunch.

As witnesses testified before the Visiting Judge, Hernán Sánchez, in Pisagua—which was declared a military zone in its entirety—no entry or exit logs for detainees were kept, nor were records maintained for those individuals who were executed by firing squad by order of the War Council operating in the area or executed by order of the military authority without prior trial.

According to an eyewitness, it was Army Lieutenant Conrado García who, on one occasion, forced the detainees accused of drug trafficking, including the victim, to line up in the prison courtyard. In front of all the prisoners, he forced them to do push-ups and "frog jumps" while, boasting of his good aim, he fired shots over their heads and shouted at them to dodge the bullets.

The Lieutenant advanced toward his victims while continuing to fire until a projectile ricocheted off a wall and embedded itself in his own knee.

Former Pisagua prisoners who testified in the Illegal Burial proceedings conducted by Visiting Judge Hernán Sánchez Marré agreed that both Nicolás Chanez and other detainees accused of drug trafficking remained in the prison until approximately mid-January 1974.

It was around that date that Commander Ramón Larraín indicated that these detainees would be released. However, according to testimonies provided to the Court, the reality was different. A detainee in Pisagua declared that on January 15, 1974, around 09:00 in the morning, while he was doing carpentry work in the non-commissioned officers' mess hall, he saw an Army Mercedes Benz truck pass by, in the back of which were the prisoners accused of drug trafficking.

They were blindfolded and had a red circle on their chests. The witness recognized Tomás Cabello, Luis Manríquez, Hugo Martínez, and Juan Rojas. The truck stopped 2 or 3 kilometers from Pisagua and returned later without the detainees.

About two days later, the witness saw the operation repeated, only this time Juan Mamani and Nicolás Chanez were in the vehicle. The truth is that the body of Nicolás Chanez Chanez was identified among the remains found in June 1990 in a clandestine grave in Pisagua. Sixteen years later, his family was able to give him a final burial.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

While the victim was detained at the Iquique Investigations Barracks, his family filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) on his behalf on November 21, 1973, with the Court of Appeals of that city (case file N°111.036). The following day, the writ was rejected. This rejection was confirmed on December 3, 1973, by the Supreme Court.

During the brief processing of this amparo, it was only established that the victim was "under custody and in transit at the Iquique Investigations [barracks] in compliance with orders from the Commander-in-Chief of the VI Army Division, Chief of the State of Siege Zone of the Tarapacá Province, Brigadier General Carlos Forestier," without any charges being filed against him.

Subsequently, on Thursday, January 31, 1974, the Iquique newspaper "La Estrella" reported that the victim had been released by order of the Chief of the State of Siege Zone. This information was corroborated by Brigadier General Carlos Forestier Haensgen himself to Nelda Chanez, Nicolás Chanez's daughter, in a letter stating that he had been released on January 15, 1974, and that "if your father has not returned home, the reasons are unknown to me and are not my concern."

In the same vein, General Forestier responded on July 19, 1974, to a letter from Natalia Vargas, Nicolás Chanez's spouse. In it, the General stated that the victim had been detained for violating the Arms Control Law and that, once his innocence was investigated and proven, he was released on parole, adding, "if he has not arrived home by this date, you must look for the answer elsewhere or ask yourself, your conscience as a wife who knows your husband's activities."

For his part, Lieutenant Colonel Patricio Ferrer Ducaud, Chief of Public Relations for the VI Army Division, responded in writing to Nelda Chanez that "in relation to these facts, it can be deduced that your father may have gone abroad (Bolivia) to avoid being detained again." After lamenting the situation, he added, "for which he is solely responsible for not having contact with his relatives from wherever he may be, putting his own home in difficulties."

On May 31, 1990, a complaint for Illegal Burial of bodies was filed at the Pozo Almonte Criminal Court. It informed the Court that in the town of Pisagua, in a place near the Cemetery but outside of it, approximately 11 bodies had been buried outside the bounds of the law.

Judge Nelson Muñoz Morales accepted the complaint, assigning it case number N°3805, and began excavations on June 1, 1990. These resulted in the discovery of 20 bodies buried in a mass grave, including that of Nicolás Chanez Chanez, whose remains were identified at the Iquique morgue by his family.

On June 6, 1990, the Supreme Court appointed Hernán Sánchez Marré as Visiting Judge to continue overseeing these proceedings, and in the course of his investigation, he was able to establish what had occurred in Pisagua.

On June 15, 1990, a son of the victim, Jaime Rolando Chanez Vargas, filed a criminal complaint for Illegal Burial before the Visiting Judge.

However, it was not possible to go further in uncovering what happened. On June 31, 1990, exactly one month after the proceedings began, Major General Luis Patricio Serre Ochsenius, judge of the VI Military Court of Arica, requested that Visiting Judge Hernán Sánchez Marré decline his jurisdiction, as there was military personnel apparently involved in the investigated facts.

On August 8 of that same year, the Visiting Judge denied the request, elevating the records to the Supreme Court to resolve the matter.

In November 1990, the Supreme Court resolved the jurisdictional dispute in favor of the Military Justice system, leaving the case in the hands of the Iquique Prosecutor's Office, which, acting as an ad hoc tribunal, assigned it case number N°321 90.

On February 5, 1991, when the former Pisagua prosecutor, Mario Acuña, appeared to testify before the Military Tribunal, he requested that the provisions of Decree Law 2.191 of April 1978 be applied, which granted amnesty for all crimes, with few exceptions, committed between September 1973 and April 1978.

On that exact same day, Military Prosecutor Juan Romo Aravena ordered the closure of the summary proceedings. On February 26, the case was dismissed totally and definitively through the application of D.L. 2.191. This resolution was subsequently confirmed by the Court Martial.

As of December 1992, the records are at the Supreme Court awaiting a response to the appeals filed by the lawyers of the families of those 19 victims who were executed outside of any legal procedure.

Source: Corporation report

The President assured that he will advance a search plan for the victims of the dictatorship 50 years after the Coup.

President Gabriel Boric arrived this Thursday at the Pisagua grave, in the Tarapacá region, where he reiterated his commitment to advance the search for the forcibly disappeared 50 years after the Coup d'État of September 11, 1973.

The President took advantage of his tour of the north to visit the memorial site, which after the start of the dictatorship was transformed into a prisoner camp, where hundreds of people were tortured, murdered, and forcibly disappeared.

“We do not forget and we will never forget those who fell here, those who saw their friends die here, or those who learned to respect in the prisons, in the dungeons, or in the catacombs. To those who survived and were witnesses to the discovery, at the beginning of June 1990, of the grave with 21 bodies of 21 compatriots, cowardly and vilely murdered,” the President expressed.

Plan to search for the forcibly disappeared

President Boric took advantage of his tour of the Pisagua graves to reiterate that his administration will advance in the search and recovery of the forcibly disappeared.

“From the Government, we have committed ourselves, because it hurts us and breaks our hearts to know that there are those who are still looking for their loved ones, to implement, together with the associations of relatives of the forcibly disappeared—and I insist, together with the associations—a National Search Plan,” he expressed.

The Head of State valued the work of the victims' relatives, highlighting that “they have continued to fight despite the ignominy of some, despite the forgetfulness or the desire for forgetfulness of others, for truth and justice throughout all these years, to those who, after so much time, continue to search for their forcibly disappeared relatives without yet having an answer.”

“Perhaps there are those who—I hope not—try to blame the dead or the tortured for what happened in Chile; we will not allow it, because only through a transversal historical condemnation and a common view on the atrocities of the past, the unrestricted value of human rights in all times and eras regardless of political colors, with a common view of the value and importance of democracy, will we be able to face the threats that precisely stalk democracies throughout the world,” he emphasized.

Source: eldinamo.cl 16/3/2023

Date: 03-16-2023

Relatives of those executed in Pisagua against Kaiser: they reserve the right to take legal action

The families of those executed in a prisoner camp in Pisagua during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet reserved the right to take legal action against the elected deputy Johannes Kaiser. This follows the revelation of a video in which the representative of district 10 states that "they were well executed."

The Association of Relatives of Political Executions and Forcibly Disappeared of Iquique and Pisagua condemned the statements made by the elected deputy Johannes Kaiser, of the Republican Party, regarding the murders that occurred in 1973 inside a prisoner camp in the Tarapacá region.

“His statements, full of hatred and fanaticism typical of his ideology, which without any foundation, offend and reopen wounds for the relatives of the executed and forcibly disappeared of Iquique and Pisagua,” they stated through a press release. Furthermore, they assert that they will reserve the right to take legal action against the future parliamentarian.

It should be remembered that this Tuesday, videos and Twitter posts by the politician resurfaced, in which he disparages the feminist movement and refers in pejorative terms to victims of Human Rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

In a broadcast, Kaiser can be heard saying, “let them hear it well in the Supreme Court. Those people in Pisagua were well executed. Well executed, this is not just anything.”

“Of all those people who were executed in Pisagua, who were ordered to be executed after the War Council by General Forestier, the vast majority were either involved in subversive groups or were part of the drug cartels that had laboratories in the north. In other words, they were either narcos, or they were leftists, or they were a mixture of both,” he added.

In response, the association of victims' relatives in Iquique and Pisagua indicated that the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation “determines its conviction that our relatives were executed and forcibly disappeared without prior trial and in violation of all their Human Rights.”

“Inform the elected deputy that the Supreme Court of Justice has annulled the war councils as illegal and declared our relatives innocent of all charges that were the motive for their execution or forced disappearance by agents of the State of Chile,” the document published by the entity adds.

Finally, they reiterate their commitment to “continue fighting against denialism, for truth, justice, and memory.”

Source: biobio.cl 24/11/2021

Date: 11-24-2021

In memory of the 35 victims of the dictatorship in Iquique and Pisagua murdered between 1973-1974

Although the legal proceedings are advancing, including several sentences condemning the perpetrators of the crimes committed in Iquique and Pisagua between 1973 and 1974, the families continue to feel the pain because many of them have not found the remains of their loved ones, because the sentences seem disproportionate in relation to the gravity of the crimes, and because justice arrives 43 years after the events occurred.

For this reason, for the families, for the survivors, and for those who died, it is necessary to remember the victims of political executions and the forcibly disappeared. They are part of the heritage of our Memory.

FOR THE MEMORY

After September 11, 1973, the arrests of militants and supporters of the Unidad Popular parties, or anyone deemed suspicious, began immediately.

In Iquique, political prisoners first passed through the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones, only to be transferred, in the vast majority of cases, to the Pisagua prison camp. It was the forced journey...

The first lawsuit for the death of the forcibly disappeared and the victims of political executions in Iquique and Pisagua was filed in 1987 by the lawyer for the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, Carlos Fresno; that is, 14 years after the crimes occurred. The case was transferred to the Military Justice system and was dismissed.

On June 2, 1990, the clandestine grave of Pisagua was discovered, where skeletal remains were found, showing evidence of deaths by gunshot wounds, blindfolds, bound hands, and being placed in sacks.

This event shocked the city of Iquique, Chile, and the entire world. From the bowels of the earth, a truth systematically denied by the military authorities and the Chilean Army, which administered the Pisagua prison camp, came to light.

Thus, the last to be executed was the first to re-emerge from the brackish earth: Manuel Sanhueza, a militant of the Communist Youth, affectionately known as "Choño."

A fundamental role in discovering the clandestine grave of Pisagua was played by the then-judge of Pozo Almonte, Nelson Muñoz, who has since passed away. For many months prior, the magistrate had been in charge of a small group with which he searched for the remains of those executed in Pisagua.

Only on June 2, 1990, was a result reached, and the truth surfaced from the bowels of the northern earth.

It was a tense day. It was feared that the bodies would be removed as a way to conceal the crime. Despite this, the remains arrived at the Servicio Médico Legal that night.

As a result of the discovery, Hernán Sánchez Marré, a member of the Iquique Court of Appeals, was appointed as Ministro en Visita (Special Investigating Judge). The judge had to declare himself incompetent because military personnel were involved; therefore, the case fell under the jurisdiction of the military courts. In this way, the desires for truth and justice were once again thwarted.

After the return to democracy, President Patricio Aylwin created the Corporación Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación, which allowed, for the first time after 17 years of dictatorship, the establishment of an accredited list of human rights victims, whether as executed, detained, or forcibly disappeared.

This report is one of the precedents that the Ministro de Fuero (Special Judge), Mario Carroza, has had, along with hundreds of testimonies, to prove the crimes and issue several sentences. Before Carroza, in chronological order, were Joaquín Billard, Carmen Garay, Daniel Calvo, and Juan Guzmán.

The case is titled "Nash and others" and was filed against Pinochet and all those who may be responsible in 1998.

In parallel, in Iquique, the minister of the Court of Appeals, Mónica Olivares, was appointed as ministra en visita to investigate all human rights crime cases in the Tarapacá jurisdiction that occurred from 1973 onwards.

The Minister works independently of Judge Carroza and keeps the cases she handles in complete secrecy so as not to harm the investigation. In one of them, referring to the murder of the gendarme Isaías Higueras, she has just achieved a sentence against Blas Barraza and Miguel Aguirre, who had already been sentenced in other cases by Minister Carroza.

Several of the cases regarding what happened in Iquique and Pisagua are represented by human rights lawyer Adil Brkovic. He is also a fundamental piece in advancing the investigations and holds important information and testimonies.

THE VICTIMS

The first execution occurred in Iquique, less than a week after the military coup, affecting the life of:

1.- LUIS FERNANDO ROJAS VALENZUELA, 49 years old. According to official information from the time, it is indicated that the victim resisted his arrest by a military patrol and even tried to snatch a rifle from one of the soldiers.

According to Military Proclamation No. 24 of the Government Junta, Luis Rojas was executed on the spot at around 7:00 PM on September 17, 1973. The truth is that the Rettig Report finds the explanation little credible and certifies that he was, at the very least, a victim of unnecessary violence.

In light of the indictments made by Ministro de Fuero Mario Carroza, who is investigating the crimes that occurred in Iquique and Pisagua, other crimes have been proven.

This concerns the case of 6 prisoners to whom a "false escape law" was applied, according to information contained in the Rettig Report and considered in the minister's investigation, along with many other proceedings. The first three of this group, whose remains appeared in the clandestine grave of Pisagua on June 2, 1990, are:

2.- JUAN CALDERÓN VILLALÓN: He was 25 years old at the time of his arrest in September 1973. He was an official of the Customs Investigation Department of the Superintendency of Customs in Valparaíso, where he was arrested. A militant of the Socialist Party. After his arrest, he was transferred to Pisagua aboard the ship Maipo and executed in Pisagua on September 29, 1973.

3.- MARCELO GUZMÁN FUENTES: A health educator, 34 years old, and a chief official at the Iquique Hospital at the time of his arrest. He was a militant of the Socialist Party. He presented himself voluntarily to the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones, without suspecting that this act of compliance with military authorities would end his young life. Executed in Pisagua on September 29, 1973.

4.- LUIS ALBERTO LIZARDI LIZARDI: A 29-year-old port employee and militant of the Socialist Party. He was arrested on September 11 and taken to the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones, and subsequently transferred to Pisagua, where he was finally executed on September 29, 1973.

These three people, while detained in Pisagua, were taken from their cells to perform voluntary labor outside the prison and were transferred to the Pisagua Viejo sector, where the cemetery is located. There, the "escape law" was applied to them, and they were buried at the site.

Their remains appeared in burlap sacks in the clandestine grave of Pisagua, discovered on June 2, 1990, after years of fruitless searching. The investigation led by Minister Mario Carroza establishes that these acts constitute the crime of qualified homicide, provided for and sanctioned in Article 391 No. 1 of the Penal Code.

On the same day—September 29—three other detainees were taken from their cells to complete the previous group, but their remains did not appear, maintaining to this day the status of forcibly disappeared. They are:

5.- NOLBERTO CAÑAS CAÑAS: 48 years old, a militant of the Socialist Party, and serving at the time of his arrest as the Interventor of the Northern Fishing Complex. He was arrested in Iquique, transferred to the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones, and from there to Pisagua, where he was executed on September 29, 1973.

6.- JUAN JIMÉNEZ VIDAL: 42 years old, a customs official in Valparaíso with no known political affiliation. After the military coup, he presented himself voluntarily on September 13, 1973. Executed on September 29, 1973.

7.- MICHEL SALIM NASH SÁEZ: A 19-year-old youth who was fulfilling his military service in Iquique. He was a militant of the Communist Party. He was discharged and arrested on September 11 and transferred to Pisagua.

There are testimonies indicating that he refused to use his weapon against the people. He was executed on September 29, 1973. Despite being part of the previous group where military authorities acknowledged their execution by "escape law" and supposedly buried them in the Pisagua Cemetery, his remains did not appear.

In the investigation led by the minister, charges were brought against the military officer Miguel Aguirre Alvarez, who is attributed with participation as a perpetrator in the crimes of repeated qualified kidnapping against Juan Jiménez, Michel Nash, and Nolberto Cañas.

The Ministro de Fuero issued sentences in all these cases on August 17, 2016. It was possible to confirm what is already stated in the Rettig Report regarding the false escape:

"Regarding their deaths explained as a result of an escape, this Commission cannot believe it so, as it seems very improbable that these prisoners would have tried to flee while being transferred to perform work.

The strong military guard of these transfers, the layout of the place, and the state of health of some of them, especially Cañas Cañas, make an escape attempt improbable and absolutely implausible that the only means to prevent them was to kill them."

Thus, Juan Calderón, Nolberto Cañas, Marcelo Guzmán, Juan Jiménez, Luis Lizardi, and Michel Nash were victims of serious human rights violations committed by State agents.

ANONYMOUS HERO

An emblematic case is that of the young soldier Michel Nash, an anonymous hero. He leaves a testimony of life for history: that there is no law of command or due obedience when it comes to murder. For that noble gesture, he paid with his life.

Michel Nash was a militant of the Communist Youth, so when the coup d'état occurred and his superiors told him he would have to take up arms against "the Marxists," he refused and said he was willing to defend his country, but that he would not shoot at the people he swore to protect.

Immediately afterward, he was discharged from the Army, stripped of his soldier's uniform on September 11, and sent to the Pisagua prison camp. That would be a journey of no return.

Minister Carroza also recently achieved a sentence for the cases of:

8.- JORGE MARÍN ROSSEL: 19 years old, a militant of the Socialist Party and Secretary of the Youth of that party in Iquique. He worked as an official for Emporchi. He was married and had a small daughter who, at the time of his arrest, was just 3 months old.

He was arrested on September 28, 1973, by State agents at his home and taken to the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones. Since that date, he has been missing.

9.- WILLIAMS MILLAR SANHUEZA: 42 years old, father of 5 children, he was a worker for the State Railways company. He was a union leader and a militant of the Socialist Party. He was arrested on September 16, 1973, at his home and released.

Subsequently, on the 24th of the same month, he was summoned via a Military Proclamation, presenting himself at his work. From there, he was transferred to the Investigations Barracks and then to the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones, where his trail was lost.

According to the information gathered in the investigation stage led by Minister Carroza, after September 11, 1973, the general headquarters of the VI Army Division, based in Iquique, organized an intelligence corps that, among others, arrested Jorge Rogelio Marín Rossel and Williams Robert Millar Sanhueza and transferred them to the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones "to lock them up as political prisoners, under the complacent and complicit gaze of the officers who were part of said military facility (...)"

The purpose was "to keep them in a sector of the regiment known as 'La Chanchería,' where they were subjected to interrogations under torture until September 29 of that year (...) an occasion on which the other prisoners stopped seeing them, and a proclamation from the military authority informed the media of a conjectured escape and ordered that if they were located, they should be shot on the spot.

Since that day, their whereabouts are unknown, despite the intense searches by their families."

This case of a false confrontation is inexorably connected to that of the soldier 10.- PEDRO PRADO ORTIZ, also dead, supposedly as a victim of the previous two, but ultimately, he was a victim of the same dictatorship.

The minister's sentence opens a path to establish the truth regarding the death of this young soldier. For his family, the Army's version at that time seemed credible; however, today it is possible to access other versions that allow for the clarification of what actually happened in the early hours of October 1, 1973, when the young man met his death.

Another case, for which there is not much information, is that of 11.- MANUEL HERIBERTO ARAYA ZAVALA, 29 years old, who was arrested at his home by military personnel, and his trail is lost after passing through the Regimiento de Telecomunicaciones and Pisagua.

Today he is a forcibly disappeared person. According to investigations, on October 9, 1973, he was arrested in Arica and taken to the Rancagua Regiment, along with two other socialist militants, whose final destination was Pisagua.

The official version indicates that the military vehicle in which they were traveling overturned and caused their deaths. Years later, it was proven that the vehicle was pushed into a ravine.

FIRST EXECUTIONS BY FIRING SQUAD

Five prominent public professionals, some militants of Unidad Popular parties and others without affiliation, were the first to be executed by firing squad in Pisagua.

It occurred on October 11, 1973, after being processed and sentenced to death in a supposed "First War Council," which was not such, and which was carried out in the Political Prisoner Camp, under the charge of military prosecutor Mario Acuña.

Acuña—now deceased—was a man feared by all the prisoners. It was not for nothing that their fate, which translated into living or dying, was in his hands. He also possessed a true criminal record due to his involvement in drug trafficking and smuggling.

He arrived in Iquique as a judge after being punished, and the military coup allowed him to regain power to the point of being appointed the prosecutor of Pisagua.

Regarding these deaths on October 11, and through Proclamation No. 82, the Chief of the State of Siege Zone of the Tarapacá Province and Commander-in-Chief of the Sixth Army Division, Carlos Forestier Haensen (deceased), reported the execution of 5 people after the War Council was constituted the previous day, October 10.

The same Council that, according to subsequent investigations and records, is debunked. The executed were:

12.- JULIO CABEZAS GACITÚA: 45 years old, a lawyer by profession, he served as Fiscal Prosecutor of the State Defense Council of Iquique and did not belong to any party. After being summoned in a Military Proclamation, he surrendered voluntarily to the military authorities.

There are testimonies that remember him walking with a blanket over his arm toward the Sixth Army Division. He never thought of his tragic end.

This is a case of great impact, as it is attributed that his death was a revenge by Military Prosecutor Acuña, who was involved in a drug and smuggling case where his participation was already proven.

Lawyer Cabezas, who had no political affiliation and was not a supporter of the Unidad Popular, was considered a man of great prestige and austerity. He was appointed by the State Defense Council to investigate smuggling and cocaine trafficking in Iquique.

In 1972, Mario Acuña arrived in Iquique, transferred from a court in San Miguel, where he was involved in a scandal while serving as a judge. In this northern city, he assumed the functions of a judge.

Journalistic investigations again connect him to a criminal case, as he is linked to a group of people who diverted merchandise to Peru and Bolivia—a smuggling crime—which was destined from the central level to the north.

Profuse information on this situation is provided in a publication called "Los Intocables," which indicates that with the operation, they contributed to the black market and, in exchange, received cocaine as payment for services.

This is precisely what the Prosecutor of the State Defense Council, Julio Cabezas, was investigating. Even the Supreme Court—relates Freddy Alonso, a former detainee who investigated the subject—had backed the accusations against him, so his fate was already sealed. The higher court had authorized the dismissal and imprisonment of Acuña. But the coup occurred, and events took another course.

Acuña was appointed Military Prosecutor of Pisagua and was in charge of the supposed War Council where, along with Cabezas, Mario Morris Berríos (Customs Investigations), Juan Valencia Hinojosa (ECA Administrator), José Córdova Croxato (Port Administrator), and Humberto Lizardi Flores (teacher) were executed.

Curiously, all of them—with the exception of Lizardi—made up, until days before, the Investigative Commission of the State Defense Council for the smuggling and drug trafficking case.

13.- JOSÉ CÓRDOVA CROXATO: 35 years old, he served as Administrator of the Port of the Iquique Port Company, being arrested on September 11 at his workplace, Emporchi. He was a militant of the MAPU.

14.- HUMBERTO LIZARDI FLORES: A young 26-year-old English teacher at the Iquique branch of the University of Chile (currently UNAP) and a militant of the MIR. He was also arrested on September 11 while teaching at the then-Commercial Institute. His mother, Baldramina Flores, has dedicated her life to honoring the memory of her beautiful son.

15.- MARIO MORRIS BARRIOS: 27 years old, he was an official of the Customs Investigation Department and had no political affiliation. He had just been assigned to the city of Iquique, so he was staying at a hotel, where he was arrested on September 11.

16.- JUAN VALENCIA HINOJOSA: 51 years old, head of the Agricultural Commerce Company (ECA) of Iquique and a militant of the Communist Party. On September 11, he presented himself voluntarily to the Intendencia, without foreseeing that he was handing himself over to murderous hands. A Military Proclamation...

Regarding these executed individuals, a report was published in the then-newspaper El Tarapacá on October 26, 1973, that is, 15 days after the executions took place. “They were convicted for having confessed and being authors of the crimes of treason against the fatherland (note: a crime not applicable to civilians) and espionage; and for violation of the State Security Law, by actively participating in subversive and infiltration plans within the Armed Forces.” After democracy was restored, the Commission declared that it held serious doubts regarding whether the War Council had actually taken place. According to the version of people who were detained in Pisagua, “the procedures that were subsequently observed each time a Council was held were not carried out on this occasion: in general, the fact that the Council had been constituted was made known, naming the accused and grouping them according to the sentence requested for each of them. Then they were presented to the lawyer who would defend them. Furthermore, there has been no knowledge of any defense provided by any lawyer in this alleged first War Council.” There is testimony indicating that the 5 prisoners were executed in the Pisagua cemetery and their remains placed in sacks. All of them appeared in the clandestine grave discovered on June 2, 1990. On October 21, the Salesian priest was murdered:

17.- GERARDO POBLETE,

only 31 years old, a philosophy teacher, was taken from the Don Bosco school and beaten to death at the Iquique Carabineros Police Station. For his murder, Carabineros Sub-officer BLAS ESPINOZA BARRAZA is serving a sentence of 5 years and one day.

Along with him, Carabineros Sub-officer FROILÁN MONCADA SAEZ and Carabineros Major ENZO MENICONI LORCA—who died in 2008—were sentenced; the latter was convicted as a cover-up agent. He served as the Prefect of Carabineros in Iquique and was also a guardian of the Don Bosco School.

Furthermore, Blas Barraza, along with Miguel Aguirre, was prosecuted for other crimes against humanity, such as the murders of Miller and Marín, and that of Isaías Higueras, crimes for which they were sentenced. The War Council, constituted in Pisagua on October 29, sentenced the following to death:

18.- RODOLFO FUENZALIDA FERNANDEZ,

43 years old, a civilian pilot, detained on the 11th. He was a member of the Socialist Party. Like almost all the detainees, he made the journey from his place of detention to the Telecommunications Regiment and from there to Pisagua.

19.- JUAN ANTONIO RUZ,

32 years old. He worked as a Customs official and turned himself in voluntarily at the Telecommunications Regiment.

20.- JOSE SAMPSON OCARANZA,

33 years old, who worked as a public relations officer for the Iquique municipality. He also turned himself in voluntarily. He did so before the Carabineros.

21.- FREDDY TABERNA GALLEGOS,

he was the youngest of this group, only 30 years old, and like the others, he turned himself in voluntarily, without foreseeing that this decision would be irreversible. Today, a street in his neighborhood, El Morro, remembers him by his name.

This War Council acted illegally, as the Auditor did not share the criterion of the death penalty and proposed 10 years, due to his irreproachable prior conduct. The legislation states that all sentencers must agree on the sentence.

Furthermore, it establishes that the crimes of which they were accused were not proven. And worse yet, if they had been executed, the same report—which recognizes that the crimes were committed “in a state of frustration”—cites the same sentence.

That is, they were not carried out. It also recognizes the subjection to systematic torture applied to obtain confessions. The Commission establishes that the 4 were “executed by State agents in a process that, by not having conformed to the law, violated the rules for the protection of the human rights of the accused.”

THIRD WAR COUNCIL

Exactly one month later, when the atmosphere of terror was the constant in the Pisagua prison, the third War Council was constituted… The death of the following is intuited:

22.- GERMAN PALOMINOS LAMAS,

25 years old. He was sentenced to death. He was a member of the Socialist Party. He was a carpenter by trade. He was accused of belonging to the subversive group AGP and that, within the organization, he was in charge of preparing bombs and handling explosives.

The accusation states that the objective was to attack the regiment. Palominos, according to the official version, confessed to these crimes. Recently, Judge Carroza issued a sentence for this crime.

23.- ISAIAS HIGUERAS ZÚÑIGA

He was a prison guard at the Iquique jail and a Communist militant. The events occurred on January 11, 1974, when Higueras met his death as a result of the brutal torture session to which he was subjected in Pisagua.

The relatives received a sealed casket, but they never believed the version. The newspaper Fortín Mapocho, on June 16, 1990, page 12—12 days after the discovery of the Pisagua grave—states that Iván Zamora Ordenes, a former prison official known as “the warden,” confessed to having participated in executions, receiving military orders.

And that his companion, Isaías Higueras, died as a result of the beatings. He was forced to record in the statistics that his companion had died as a result of a sudden heart attack.

24.- NELSON MARQUEZ AGUSTO

29 years old, a Communist militant. He lived at the party headquarters on Tarapacá Street and worked as a fishing crew member. With his mental faculties disturbed, according to witnesses, as a consequence of the innumerable torture sessions to which he was subjected, he attempted an impossible escape and was executed in the Pisagua camp.

THE NON-POLITICALS

Six prisoners without political ties and associated with drug trafficking activities were supposedly released, according to what was informed to their families. However, their bodies appeared in the Pisagua Grave. In the Museum of Memory, the following are identified:

25.- ORLANDO CABELLO CABELLO.

44 years old, a retail merchant, with no political affiliation. Detained at his home by Iquique Carabineros, placed at the disposal of the Telecommunications Regiment, and subsequently transferred to Pisagua.

26.- NICOLAS CHANEZ CHANEZ.

43 years old, a transport businessman, with no political affiliation. He was detained and sent to the Iquique Investigations Barracks, and from there transferred to Pisagua.

27.- JUAN MAMANI GARCIA.

27 years old, a transporter, with no political affiliation, was detained by Carabineros, taken to the Iquique Telecommunications Regiment, and from there transferred to Pisagua.

28.- LUIS MANRIQUEZ WILDEN.

44 years of age, a retail merchant, with no political affiliation.

29.- HUGO MARTINEZ GUILLEN.

36 years of age, a retail merchant, with no political affiliation, detained by Carabineros on November 2, 1973, taken to the Telecommunications Regiment, and subsequently transferred to Pisagua.

30.- JUAN ROJAS OSEGA,

38 years of age, with no known political affiliation, detained by Carabineros personnel on November 1, 1973, transferred to the Telecommunications Regiment, and from there to Pisagua. They were linked to drug trafficking and merchandise smuggling, but the accusation was not established judicially.

According to the Museum of Memory, the official information provided through a military communiqué from the Army's VI Division was that these people had been released on January 29, 1974. Furthermore, some of the families were officially notified of the supposed release of their relatives through a letter from the Chilean Army.

Thus, the spouse of one of the forcibly disappeared received letter No. 3550 380, dated July 19, 1974, issued by the Command of the Army's VI Division, in which it states that Nicolás Chanez was detained and transferred to Pisagua “for the purpose of investigating and determining responsibilities in an alleged violation of the Law on Arms Control.” “Once it was investigated and his innocence was proven, as far as the Arms Law is concerned, he was released on the date indicated above.

If he has not arrived home by this date, you must look for the answer elsewhere or ask yourself, your conscience as a wife who knows the activities your husband carried out.” The bodies of all of them were found in 1990 in the Pisagua grave, bagged, with their hands tied and their eyes blindfolded.

This Commission holds the full conviction that Orlando Cabello, Nicolás Chanez, Juan Mamani, Luis Manríquez, Hugo Martínez, and Juan Rojas were not released but rather executed without a prior trial and their bodies made to disappear by State agents.

MORE EXECUTIONS

The fateful year 1973 ended, but the practices of disappearance and death by State agents continued.

31.- ALBERTO YAÑEZ CARVAJAL,

31 years old and a prison official, was detained in January 1974. Executed along with

32.- LUIS TORO CASTILLO,

34 years old, a railway worker. They were accused of an alleged "Plan 22," which consisted of a series of attack points in the event of a Civil War or Military Coup. One of the most shocking deaths, because it affected a minor, was that of:

33.- HENRY TORRES FLORES

16 years old. He was a laborer, with no political affiliation, and resided in Calama with his mother. His father lived in Iquique, which is why he was visiting him in that city when the events occurred.

He was detained in July 1974 by military personnel and taken to the Pisagua prisoner camp. A letter sent to his mother, bearing the military censorship stamp, proves his time in this prisoner camp, from where he disappeared. Since then, he has been a forcibly disappeared person.

34.- MANUEL SANHUEZA MELLADO,

30 years old, a member of the Central Committee of the JJCC (Communist Youth). He was detained on July 10, 1974, and transferred to Pisagua, where he disappeared. His remains were found in the clandestine grave of Pisagua.

Indeed, it was a moment of special silence when his almost intact body emerged from the earth with the rigor mortis, like a heartbreaking scream, to expose the crimes of the dictatorship.

35.- MARCELINO LAMAS LARGO

23 years old, a Socialist militant, was detained by members of the Army and seen in the dungeons of the former customs building in Iquique. A place from which he has been missing to this day.

Source: edicioncero.cl 9/11/2016

Date: 09-11-2016

Judge dismisses case against former aide-de-camp of the Chamber in Pisagua case

Visiting Minister Joaquín Billard dismissed the case against Colonel (R) Jaime Krauss Rusque, former aide-de-camp of the Chamber of Deputies and brother of the current Chilean ambassador to Spain, Enrique Krauss, for "lack of merit." The former officer had been prosecuted since July of last year as a material author of the homicide of seven political prisoners in the Pisagua area, First Region, in 1974.

The decision of Judge Carmen Garay—who was handling the case at the time—forced Krauss Rusque to leave his position as aide-de-camp of the lower house, a job he had held since 1990. This is because the Statute of Personnel of the Chamber of Deputies established that no official who is convicted or prosecuted by the courts of justice could remain in their position. "Like every soldier, I submitted to the rules of the game and collaborated with justice, but the presumption of innocence did not operate for me.

That right, which should prevail in Chile from the President of the Republic downwards, was denied to me," the former aide-de-camp told the newspaper La Segunda. Krauss Rusque highlighted the testimonies of “a dozen” detainees who testified in his favor during the process. “That one is defended by soldiers is natural.

But it is truly comforting that those who have been on the opposite side do so,” the former officer pointed out. The former officer was charged with the murders of Nelson Márquez Agurto, Luis Manríquez Wilden, Juan Rojas Osega, Hugo Martínez Guillén, Tomás Cabello Cabello, Juan Mamani García, and Nicolás Chánes Chánes.

General (R) Carlos Forestier—the late father-in-law of the current head of the Army, Juan Emilio Cheyre—and Major (R) Carlos Herrera Jiménez and Bernardo Martínez Téllez were also prosecuted for these cases. The latter were not favored by the resolution announced this Tuesday.

Source: September 13, 2005, El Mostrador

Date: 09-13-2005

Judge prosecutes aide-de-camp of the Chamber of Deputies

The board of the Chamber of Deputies requested the resignation of the aide-de-camp, Colonel (R) Jaime Krauss Rusque, and he agreed to leave. The resignation was demanded only hours after the presiding judge Carmen Garay prosecuted him and ordered his arrest as a material author of seven homicides that occurred in the Pisagua prisoner camp, while Krauss served in 1974 as the captain in charge of the Company of Guards for the detainees.

The information regarding the resignation requested of the aide-de-camp, who is the brother of the current ambassador of Chile in Madrid, Enrique Krauss, was delivered yesterday after 6:30 PM at the Palacio Ariztía in Santiago by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Pablo Lorenzini (DC).

He stated that the board of the Chamber agreed to request his resignation because, having been prosecuted, he fell into the “supervening disqualification” indicated by the institution's personnel statute in its article No. 23, letter c), which establishes that “the person who performs official duties may not be prosecuted or convicted.” The aide-de-camp had declared himself “innocent” in his statements during the Pisagua process, and he also expressed this to La Nación Domingo, which in its edition last Sunday published the chronicle “The Ghost of the Aide-de-Camp.” The indictment of Colonel (R) Krauss was requested by the plaintiff lawyer in the Pisagua case, Adil Brkovic. He said yesterday that “we are very satisfied with this resolution because the truth is that there is sufficient evidence in the process to prove Mr. Krauss's participation in the homicides of seven prisoners.” The lawyer said that although Krauss “is not accused of shooting the prisoners himself, there are those who point to him as the one who issued the orders as the second-in-command of the Pisagua prisoner camp. This investigation has already taken six years and the facts are fully proven,” said Brkovic. The facts The now-former aide-de-camp of the Chamber will be notified early today at the Palace of Courts in Santiago, and will then be transferred as a detainee to the Military Police Battalion located inside the Army's Telecommunications Command in the Peñalolén commune. Judge Garay maintained in her resolution that the seven homicides that occurred between January 18, 1974, and January 30 of that year, took place in Pisagua while “Captain Jaime Krauss Rusque was in charge of the military personnel whose mission was to guard the political prisoners of the Pisagua Camp, a military unit that ultimately depended on the commander-in-chief of the Army's VI Division (in Iquique), General Carlos Forestier Haensgen.” Colonel (R) Krauss acknowledged during the process that these seven homicides indeed occurred while he served in Pisagua between January 14, 1974, and at least, according to him, January 30 of that month. But he denied that he ordered the executions and also denied that his function was that of commander of the Company of Guards for the prisoners. He said his task was “administrative,” inventorying and storing “saws, hammers, shovels, heaters, cheese, ham, and sugar,” coming from Red Cross aid for the prisoners. However, according to lawyer Brkovic, the judge “did not believe” that argument, since it “does not fit” with what actually happened. Between September 1973 and July 1974, a rotating calendar of officer personnel who made up the Company of Guards for prisoners operated in Pisagua like clockwork, each time under the command of an officer with the rank of captain. In turn, he had four or five lieutenants and second lieutenants under his command. The company was responsible for what happened to the prisoners, and it was its members who always participated in the extrajudicial executions, as established in the investigation. For these same functions, other officers (R) who, at the date of their duties in Pisagua, according to the shift calendar, also held the ranks of captain and lieutenant or second lieutenant, have been indicted for other homicides. The first to state that Krauss ordered the execution of prisoners in Pisagua was Major (R) Carlos Herrera Jiménez, who is serving a life sentence in the Punta Peuco prison. Herrera admitted that Krauss ordered him to kill the prisoner Nelson Márquez Agurto, one of the seven victims of the indictment, because he had tried to escape to avoid further torture. Krauss denies it, but when confronted, Herrera maintained his statements. Colonel (R) Krauss was also indicted for the homicides of Luis Manríquez, Nicolás Chánez, Tomás Cabello, Juan Rojas, Hugo Martínez, and Juan Mamani. All of them were declared “released” by General Forestier; however, their corpses appeared, along with Márquez's, in the clandestine grave discovered in Pisagua in June 1990 with 19 bodies. The other prosecuted individuals General (R) Carlos Forestier, as the intellectual author; Major (R) Carlos Herrera Jiménez, as a material author; Colonel (R) Bernardo Martínez Téllez, as a cover-up agent; and Carabineros Sub-officer (R) Manuel Vega Collao, also as a material author, were also prosecuted for the seven homicides. Vega was part of the firing squad for the six prisoners executed at the end of January 1974. Contradicting Colonel (R) Krauss's arguments of innocence regarding the fact that he only performed administrative duties are the statements of some former prisoners, who affirm, coincidentally, that the then-Captain Krauss entered the jail on the night of Márquez's escape attempt, threatening that if he did not appear in half an hour, prisoners would be killed. One of them, Luis González Vivas, said that “when Márquez was killed, Major Krauss was there, for whom I had made a piece of furniture. And he warned that if Márquez did not appear by four in the morning, they were going to take prisoners out of the cells to be shot.” Freddy Alonso stated the same. Both versions contradict the “administrative” tasks of the then-Captain Krauss.

Source: July 23, 2004, La Nación

Date: 07-23-2004