Before the death of President Allende and prior to the departure of Minister Flores and his two companions from the La Moneda Palace, the suicide of Augusto OLIVARES BECERRA occurred. He was a journalist, a member of the Partido Socialista, the Press Director of the National Television channel, and an advisor to President Allende.

He was on the first floor of the building, together with some civilians. According to the information gathered by the Commission, it can be established that he retreated to a bathroom located under a staircase, after which a gunshot was heard.

The bullet entered through his temple, leaving him in an agonizing state. One of the doctors who was inside the Palace recounted to this Commission the moment he placed Olivares's head on his lap, confirming his death moments later.

The situation of the siege on La Moneda during which Augusto Olivares took his own life leads the Commission to consider him a victim of the situation of political violence.

The group that left the Palace via Calle Morandé was detained by military forces, who forced them to lie face down on the ground. This group was composed of presidential advisors, members of the GAP, doctors who provided services at La Moneda, and officials from the Investigaciones Service.

Most of the doctors who were present (with the exception of some who served as presidential advisors and who will be mentioned later) were released at that time. The rest of the detainees were then moved to the sidewalk, where they remained lying down.

At 18:00 hours, this group was taken to the Tacna Regiment in two military vehicles. They remained in that facility lying on the ground, face down, with their hands behind their necks, from the afternoon of September 11 until midday on September 13.

On September 12, the members of the Investigaciones Service were released, except for one who also remained in this facility until midday on the 13th, at which time he was released.

According to the information gathered, the Commission can affirm that the group that remained at the Tacna Regiment until midday on the 13th was composed, on one hand, of nine advisors and members of the Presidency of the Republic and, on the other, of fifteen members of the GAP.

As indicated above, the information gathered allows us to affirm that the former Director of Investigaciones, Eduardo Paredes, was also detained at the Tacna Regiment until September 13. For this Commission, the version published in the press at that time, which maintained that Paredes had died in a confrontation, is implausible.

From this group, the advisors and members of the Presidency of the Republic were: Jaime BARRIOS MEZA […] Daniel ESCOBAR CRUZ […] Egidio Enrique HUERTA CORVALAN […] Claudio JIMENO GRENDI […] Georges KLEIN PIPPER […] Eduardo PAREDES BARRIENTOS […] Egidio Enrique PARIS ROA […] Héctor PINCHEIRA NUÑEZ, […] Arsenio POUPIN OSSIEL, 38 years old, member of the Central Committee of the Partido Socialista, lawyer, former acting Director of the Investigaciones Police, and advisor to the President.

In the same group were the following members of the President's Security Detail (GAP): Manuel CASTRO ZAMORANO […] Sergio CONTRERAS […] José FREIRE MEDINA […] Daniel GUTIERREZ AYALA […] Oscar LAGOS RIOS […] Oscar MARAMBIO ARAYA […] Juan MONTIGLIO MURUA […] Julio MORENO PULGAR […] Jorge ORREGO GONZALEZ […] Oscar RAMIREZ BARRIA […] Luis RODRIGUEZ RIQUELME […] Jaime SOTELO OJEDA […] Julio TAPIA MARTINEZ […] Oscar VALLADARES CAROCA […] Juan VARGAS CONTRERAS […] All of them were, in addition, members of the Partido Socialista.

The members of the group composed of the President's advisors and members of the GAP, with their hands and feet tied, were loaded onto military trucks and taken from the Regiment to an unknown destination.

Consistent testimonies indicate that the military vehicle headed to Peldehue, to the property assigned to the Tacna Regiment, where they were allegedly executed and buried. Since that date, they have all remained in the status of forcibly disappeared.

The Commission learned that one of the members of the GAP managed to evade his captors, switching from his group to another, and was subsequently released. It is highly improbable that he is one of those recently mentioned.

Considering that this group of the President's collaborators left the La Moneda Palace via Calle Morandé at approximately 14:00 hours, where they were detained by State agents, held in a military facility, and from there taken by them to an uncertain destination, this Commission is convinced of their status as victims, as their disappearance is the responsibility of the State agents who held them in custody.

Another situation, linked to the previous one, is that of a group of people who were detained outside the La Moneda Palace around 08:45 in the morning. They were all members of the GAP and arrived at that time in a pickup truck, being detained by Carabineros personnel.

The information gathered allows us to affirm that at least the following people were detained under these circumstances: Domingo BLANCO TARRES […] Carlos Alfonso CRUZ ZAVALLA […] Gonzalo JORQUERA LEYTON, […]; all of them members of the Partido Socialista. The same situation occurred with Enrique ROPERT CONTRERAS […]

All these detainees were taken to the Intendencia of Santiago and from there removed at approximately 11:00 hours that same day to be taken to the Sixth Precinct of Carabineros.

Their lifeless bodies were found on the banks of the Mapocho River, under the Bulnes Bridge, at the end of September 1973, with the exception of Domingo Blanco Tarrés. The latter was taken by Investigaciones personnel to the Santiago Preventive Detention Center, from where he was released on September 19, 1973, by order of the Second Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago.

Since then, he has been in the status of disappeared.

Considering that there is sufficient evidence to affirm that all these people were detained by State agents and that subsequently, three of them were found dead from gunshot wounds at the Bulnes Bridge of the Mapocho River and one of them disappeared after having been removed from the Santiago Preventive Detention Center, also by State agents, this Commission is convinced of their status as victims of human rights violations attributable to those agents, in the cases of Domingo Blanco Tarrés, Carlos Cruz Zavalla, Gonzalo Jorquera Leyton, and Enrique Ropert Contreras.

On the other hand, on that same day, the 11th, while attempting to travel from Talca to Santiago to join the President's Security Detail group, two members of said group were detained by a military patrol on the Pan-American Highway, near Curicó: Francisco LARA RUIZ […] Wagner Herid SALINAS MUÑOZ […], both members of the Partido Socialista.

Both were in Talca and, upon learning of what had happened, decided to head to Santiago. On the outskirts of Curicó, they were intercepted by a military patrol, who, upon seeing documents that proved their membership in the GAP, proceeded to detain them and transport them to the Curicó Prison.

The Gendarmerie Service reported that on September 30, 1973, they were released from that penal facility, but that they were handed over to State agents "with a short shackle and a padlock, both prisoners shackled." The remains were handed over to their families at the Santiago Morgue, with death having been certified on October 5, 1973, and gunshot wounds cited as the cause.

According to this information, the Commission is convinced of the responsibility held by State agents in the deaths of Francisco Lara Ruiz and Wagner Herid Salinas Muñoz.

Arsenio Poupin Oissel, married, 1 child, lawyer, Undersecretary General of Government, was detained on September 11, 1973, as the last group of people inside the Palacio de La Moneda was leaving. He was taken to the Regimiento Tacna, where he remained until September 13, the date on which he was driven away in a military truck to an unknown destination, and to this day he remains a case of forced disappearance.

Arsenio Poupin was a member of the Central Committee of the Partido Socialista, held the position of Undersecretary General of Government, and was a presidential advisor.

On September 11, 1973, he went to La Moneda and, at approximately 11:00 a.m., telephoned his spouse. That was the last contact he had with his family.

On September 11, the Palacio Presidencial de La Moneda, the seat of government, was assaulted by infantry and tank units of the Army, led by General Javier Palacios, who were later joined by Carabineros forces. At 11:00 a.m., the bombing by the Fuerza Aérea de Chile began, which destroyed a large part of La Moneda.

The physician Oscar Soto Guzmán, who survived these events, stated in a sworn declaration that Arsenio Poupin was in La Moneda and that up until the moment the building fell into the hands of the military, Poupin had suffered no physical harm.

The members of the Presidential Guard and other individuals remained in the Palace until they received the order from President Salvador Allende to leave, which they did through a door on Calle Morandé 80 of the Palacio de La Moneda.

There, they were held at gunpoint and beaten by the military, who ordered them to lie on the ground with their hands behind their necks, while being constantly threatened, including being crushed by a tank that moved toward them.

Two members of the Presidential Guard, Antonio Aguirre Vásquez and Osvaldo Ramos Rivera, were taken prisoner inside La Moneda and sent to the Posta de la Asistencia Pública because they had sustained gunshot wounds.

A few days later, these two individuals were removed from said medical center by a military patrol, and they have been forcibly disappeared since that date. Other members of the GAP who were coming from the presidential residences of El Cañaveral and Tomás Moro did not manage to enter La Moneda and were detained in the vicinity by Carabineros and taken to the Intendencia de Santiago.

They were, among others, Gonzalo Jorquera Leyton, Williams Osvaldo Ramírez Barría, Carlos Cruz Zavala, and Domingo Blanco Tarrés, who were part of a group of approximately 13 people, some of whom were subsequently victims of political executions, while the final status of the rest remains unknown, and the identities of a few are unknown.

Patricio Arroyo Pinochet, a physician who was inside La Moneda on September 11, 1973, declared before the court investigating the disappearance of Arsenio Poupin that he saw him inside La Moneda and later lying on Calle Morandé among the detainees.

Osvaldo Puccio Huidobro, another survivor of these events, declared before the court that he was able to see Arsenio Poupin several times in La Moneda on that day, September 11. For his part, the journalist Carlos Jorquera Tolosa, who was wounded, declared that Arsenio Poupin was in La Moneda that day.

This statement was ratified by Lautaro Enrique Ojeda Herrera, who declared that Poupin remained in the Palace until the military entered, being detained at approximately 3:00 p.m.

The people detained at La Moneda remained on Calle Morandé until 6:00 p.m. At that hour, these prisoners were taken in two military vehicles to the Regimiento Tacna, located about 12 blocks from the Palacio de La Moneda, a military unit under the command of Colonel Joaquín Ramírez Pineda.

Survivors of these events have provided information that allows for the reconstruction of these facts: the prisoners remained in the aforementioned regiment until September 13. While they were detained in that regiment, they were forced to crawl on their knees, lie down with their arms behind their necks, or stand with their arms raised.

For nearly 48 hours, they were forced to remain in painful positions on rough ground or gravel, being trampled by soldiers who ran over them and beat them with the butts of their weapons or inflicted wounds with their bayonets, under the constant surveillance of guards armed with machine guns, who threatened them and asked the officers to execute them immediately.

They remained in an area known as the "boxes" or former stables; from there, the prisoners were taken to an office located on the second floor of the regiment, where they were subjected to political imprisonment and torture and interrogated by personnel from the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar (SIM).

Afterward, they were returned in poor physical condition to rejoin the other prisoners and continue in the painful positions assigned to them. Each change of guard began with a beating of the prisoners with rifle butts.

There were 49 of these prisoners. The following day, the order was given to release the 17 Investigaciones officials who were part of the presidential protection team, and some other prisoners were separated.

Finally, a group of people remained as prisoners, 21 of whom have been identified: ten advisors to the President of the Republic or government officials, ten members of the Presidential Guard, and one laborer.

The President's advisors were Jaime Barrios Meza, commercial engineer, presidential advisor, and General Manager of the Banco Central de Chile; Sergio Contreras, public relations officer for the Intendencia and journalist; Daniel Escobar Cruz, Chief of Cabinet for the Undersecretary of the Interior; Enrique Huerta Corvalán, Palace Intendant; Claudio Jimeno Grendi, sociologist and presidential advisor; Georges Klein Pipper, physician and presidential advisor; Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, physician, presidential advisor, and former Director of Investigaciones; Enrique París Roa, psychiatrist, presidential advisor, and member of the Superior Council of the Universidad de Chile; Héctor Ricardo Pincheira Núñez, medical student and presidential advisor; and Arsenio Poupin Oissel, lawyer, Undersecretary General of Government, and presidential advisor. The members of the Presidential Guard who have been identified are as follows: José Freire Medina, Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Julio Hernán Moreno Pulgar, Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, Jaime Sotelo Ojeda, Julio Tapia Martínez, Héctor Manuel Urrutia Molina, Oscar Valladares Caroca, and Juan Vargas Contreras. Additionally, there was the laborer Oscar Luis Avilés Jofré, who had gone to La Moneda in support of the government.

The detective José Eduardo Ellis, one of the survivors, recalls in a notarized statement that Arsenio Poupin was among those who were in La Moneda and sent to the Tacna. A similar statement was made by detective Quintín Romero Mora before the court.

Captain Jaime Núñez Cabrera, who was part of the military contingent that took La Moneda, was the one who detained Arsenio Poupin and the other people who had not left La Moneda.

Around 2:00 p.m. on September 13, 1973, these prisoners, with their hands and feet tied, were thrown into a military truck, one on top of the other, and taken from the Regimiento Tacna to an unknown destination.

Almost all members of the Presidential Guard who were in La Moneda on September 11, 1973, were victims of political executions or were forcibly disappeared. However, one who managed to survive and has contributed to reconstructing these events is Juan Bautista Osses Beltrán, who was taken prisoner to the Regimiento Tacna but was incorporated into another group of prisoners, which allowed him to leave alive after being imprisoned at the Estadio Chile and the Estadio Nacional.

Osses points out in his extensive statement that a group of 13 members of the Presidential Guard accompanied Allende to La Moneda and were detained inside. Subsequently, along with the other prisoners, he was taken to the Regimiento Tacna, where they were informed that they would be executed by firing squad at midnight, later that the execution would be at 3:00 a.m., and later still, at 6:00 a.m.

Osses has recognized that among the detainees at the Tacna were Héctor Daniel Urrutia, Daniel Gutiérrez, Enrique Huerta, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio, Julio Moreno, Eduardo Paredes, Enrique París, Georges Klein, Héctor Pincheira, Arsenio Poupin, Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, and Oscar Valladares.

The witness was taken from the Regimiento Tacna in the early hours of September 13, 1973, and taken along with other detainees to the Estadio Chile.

Beatriz Celsa Parrau Tejos, who was detained at the Regimiento Tacna, is the one who has been able to provide some important background information. She was at INDUMETAL, where she was attending to a wounded person in her capacity as a nurse.

At 6:00 p.m. on September 11, this company was occupied by Carabineros, and everyone there was detained and taken to a police station and, on the same day, transferred to the Regimiento Tacna. There, she learned that those who had been captured at La Moneda were being held, and despite being separated from that group, she had the opportunity to see them when they went to the bathroom or when they were taken for interrogation.

There, she saw several doctors she knew from her professional activities and government leaders, among them Arsenio Poupin, whom she had known since university. She also saw numerous groups of other prisoners entering or leaving.

On September 13, at noon, through the cracks in the shed where about 90 women were locked up, Celsa Parrau was able to see a truck leave the regiment carrying bundles that looked like human bodies. When they were taken out of the aforementioned shed at 2:30 p.m., she observed that the prisoners from La Moneda were no longer there.

Deputy Vicente Sotta Barros, who remained detained at the Regimiento Tacna along with another group of people until September 15, stated in a declaration before the court in case file 101.187 that in the line of La Moneda detainees, he clearly recognized Arsenio Poupin and Jaime Barrios, whom he had known in government functions, and that they greeted each other with a gesture.

Juan Seoane, Chief of the Presidency of the Republic section of the Policía de Investigaciones, stated in a declaration before the court and in public statements that on September 11, along with 16 other detectives, they remained at their post until President Allende ordered them to abandon the building.

As they were leaving through the Morandé 80 door, the doctors informed them that Allende had died. Upon hearing the news, Poupin pulled a revolver from his waistband; the others prevented him from using the weapon.

When they left, they were detained and transferred to the Regimiento Tacna. On September 13, at about 11:00 a.m., he was tied with wire, and all the detainees, except Seoane, were loaded onto a truck and taken to an unknown destination. He never heard from these people again. He knew Arsenio Poupin as Undersecretary of Government and also as Acting Director of Investigaciones.

According to the testimonies of the survivors, they heard from the military personnel who participated in the operation that they had taken them to the military fields of the Regimiento Tacna in Peldehue, located in Colina, where they had allegedly been executed by firing squad and buried.

A soldier from the Regimiento Tacna who was able to witness part of the events relates that the prisoners were tied with wire and thrown into an Army Pegaso truck that was part of a convoy that left the barracks at approximately 2:00 p.m., while all conscripts were ordered to remain confined to their quarters and not to walk through the courtyards.

In the afternoon, the contingent that had been part of the convoy returned, and word spread among the military that the prisoners had been taken to the property that the Regimiento Tacna has in the military fields of Peldehue, in Colina; there, they were allegedly killed in front of a hole or pit, about five to six meters in diameter and several meters deep, which existed a short distance from the dwelling used by the guard personnel of the property.

The prisoners were placed in groups of four at the edge of the pit and shot. Once executed and thrown to the bottom of the pit, grenades were allegedly thrown to destroy the bodies, and the executions continued four by four.

The soldier adds that he had to go to the aforementioned property at the end of September 1973 and found the aforementioned pit covered. There, it was confirmed to him that the executed had been buried in that place and that there were 26 or 27 of them, who, before being murdered, shouted political slogans in favor of the Unidad Popular government.

This soldier also declares that on the second day of his stay in Peldehue, a conscript found, embedded among some thorns, a piece of flesh that was easily identifiable as a human ear.

The family of the victim suffered severe repression after his detention; his spouse, Lucía Neira Rivas, was detained and remained imprisoned for three months without charges, first at the Estadio Nacional prisoner camp and then at the Casa Correccional de Mujeres. Finally, his family and his parents had to leave the country and take refuge in Sweden.

However, this massacre of prisoners, who had surrendered and were unarmed and bound, has never been officially acknowledged, nor have the bodies been returned, and the aforementioned individuals, among them Arsenio Poupin Oissel, remain forcibly disappeared since September 13, 1973.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On May 20, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under file number 500-74. The document states that the Director of Investigaciones had publicly acknowledged, via radio and television broadcast, that all the people who were in La Moneda on that day, September 11, 1973, had been detained.

On May 25, 1974, the Prefect of Santiago of the Policía de Investigaciones, Julio Rada Jiménez, communicated to the Court, according to official letter 584, that "the aforementioned Poupin Oissel has not been and is not currently detained."

General Oscar Bonilla, Minister of the Interior, communicated on June 12, 1974, in confidential official letter 1677/140, that the victim is not detained and that his current whereabouts are unknown.

The court sent repeated official letters to the Ministry of Defense until October 25, 1974, when it was certified in court that said Ministry had sent the reports regarding persons not reported to the Military Justice system to the Ministry of the Interior.

With this background, on October 30, 1974, the writ of amparo was rejected.

Also, in October 1973, a writ of amparo was presented before the Colegio de Abogados de Chile, an organization to which the victim belonged. The aforementioned Colegio never responded to this petition, and according to the minutes, information was requested from the Undersecretary of the Interior. The official letter from the Colegio was not answered by said Undersecretary.

On November 16, 1987, a criminal complaint was filed before the Second Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of kidnapping with the probable result of death, or in its absence, homicide, against Arsenio Poupin Oissel. This case was registered under number 120.410-2.

On November 19, 1987, the substitute judge declared himself incompetent, as the events were committed outside his jurisdiction.

On November 27, 1987, the Fifth Criminal Court ordered an investigation (sumario) with this background, and it was registered as case file 127.429-7.

Detectives Quintín Romero Mora and Juan Seoane Miranda, physician Patricio Arroyo Pinochet, and Carlos Puccio Huidobro, Carlos Jorquera Tolosa, Lautaro Ojeda Herrera, and Vicente Sotta Barros declared before the Court, establishing that the victim was among the detainees at La Moneda and that he had been taken to an unknown location from the Regimiento Tacna.

Prefect Inspector Allard Catalán Catalán reported on December 17, 1987, that the Policía de Investigaciones lacked information on the victim.

The International Police reported that Poupin had no record of leaving the country since January 1, 1980, and that they did not have information from before that date.

On June 19, 1989, the presiding judge of the Fifth Court closed the investigation and established the temporary dismissal of the case, which was approved on September 7, 1989.

In June 1991, his family again requested the reopening of the kidnapping complaint before the 5th Criminal Court of Santiago, file No. 127.429, a case that is in the investigation stage.

Immediately after the detention, the family carried out numerous efforts to locate him: at the Regimiento Tacna, the Estadio Nacional prisoner camp, the Escuela Militar, the Policía de Investigaciones, the Ministry of Defense, the Intendencia of Concepción, the Instituto Médico Legal, etc.

All these efforts did not yield positive results. Arsenio Poupin Oissel currently remains in the status of a forcibly disappeared person.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad