Repressive Status : Militant of the Socialist Party. Member of the GAP Presidential Guard. Date of Detention : September 11, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca, single, a militant of the Socialist Party and member of the Presidential Guard, was detained on September 11, 1973, as the last group of people inside the La Moneda Palace was leaving.

He was taken to the Tacna Regiment, where he remained until September 13, the date on which he was driven away in a military truck to an unknown destination. To this day, he remains in the status of a forcibly disappeared person.

Enrique Valladares resided on a small farm where his family worked in agriculture, an activity he pursued until he joined the Presidential Guard of President Salvador Allende, better known by the acronym GAP, "Group of Personal Friends," alluding to an expression used by the President of the Republic himself, which the press of the time adopted.

On September 11, the La Moneda Presidential Palace, the seat of government, was seized by Army infantry and tank units led by General Javier Palacios, later joined by Carabineros forces. At 11:00 a.m., the Chilean Air Force began the bombardment, which destroyed a large part of La Moneda.

Enrique Valladares was performing his professional duties at La Moneda on September 11 when the coup d'état occurred. The members of the Presidential Guard and other individuals remained in the Palace until they received the order from President Salvador Allende to leave.

They exited through the Morandé 80 door of the La Moneda Palace, where they were held at gunpoint and beaten by the military. They were ordered to lie on the ground with their hands behind their necks, under constant threat, 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 Public Assistance Post due to gunshot wounds; a few days later, these two wounded men were detained and disappeared.

Other members of the GAP who were coming from the presidential residences of El Cañaveral and Tomás Moro were unable to enter La Moneda, as they were detained in the vicinity by Carabineros. Among them were Gonzalo Jorquera Leyton, Williams Osvaldo Ramírez Barría, Carlos Cruz Zavala, and Domingo Blanco Tarrés.

They were part of a group of approximately 13 people, some of whom were executed, while others remain in the status of forcibly disappeared persons. The people detained at La Moneda remained on Morandé street until 6:00 p.m.

At that hour, these prisoners were taken in two military vehicles to the Tacna Regiment, located about 12 blocks from the La Moneda Palace and under the command of Colonel Joaquín Ramírez Pineda. One of the survivors, the Investigations official Eduardo José Ellis Belmar, recalls Enrique Valladares among the detainees.

For his part, Juan Seoane, head of the detectives assigned to La Moneda, recalls "Raúl"—who was Enrique Valladares—among those who were at the Presidential Palace and subsequently at the Tacna Regiment.

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 detained in that military unit, 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 or gravel ground, being trampled by soldiers who ran over them, struck them with the butts of their weapons, or inflicted wounds with their bayonets, all under the constant watch of guards armed with machine guns who threatened them and asked the officers to execute them immediately.

Later, they were kept in an area known as the "boxes" or old stables; from there, the prisoners were taken to an office on the second floor of the Regiment, where they were tortured and interrogated by personnel from the Military Intelligence Service (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 such prisoners. The following day, the release of the 17 detectives who made up the presidential protection team was ordered, 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, presidential advisor and General Manager of the Central Bank of Chile; Sergio Contreras, public relations officer for the Intendancy 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; Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, physician, presidential advisor, and former Director of Investigations; Georges Klein Pipper, psychiatrist and advisor to the General Secretariat of the Government; Enrique París Roa, psychiatrist, presidential advisor, and member of the Superior Council of the University of Chile; Héctor Ricardo Pincheira Núñez, medical graduate and presidential advisor; and Arsenio Poupin Ossiel, Undersecretary General of the 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 Urrutia Molina, Oscar Valladares Caroca, and Juan Vargas Contreras. There was also the laborer Oscar Luis Avilés Jofré, who had gone to La Moneda to support the government. Around 2:00 p.m. on September 13, 1973, these prisoners, with their hands and feet tied, were thrown into a military truck, piled on top of one another, and driven out of the Regiment to an unknown destination. Almost all the members of the Presidential Guard who were at La Moneda on September 11, 1973, were executed or 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 Tacna Regiment 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. In his extensive statement, Osses notes 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 Tacna Regiment, where they were informed that they would be executed by firing squad at midnight, then that the execution would be at 3:00 a.m., and later, at 6:00 a.m. Osses has confirmed that among the detainees at the Tacna Regiment 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 removed from the Tacna Regiment 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 Tacna Regiment, 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, taken to a police station, and on the same day, transferred to the Tacna Regiment. There, she learned that those who had been captured at La Moneda were being held. Despite being separated from that group, she had the opportunity to see them when they went to the bathroom or were taken for interrogations. She saw several doctors she knew from her professional activities and government leaders. She also observed numerous groups of other prisoners entering or leaving. On September 13, at noon, through the cracks of the shed where about 90 women were locked up, Celsa Parrau was able to see a truck leaving 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 La Moneda prisoners were no longer there. For his part, the Chief of Investigations at La Moneda, detective Juan Seoane, remained among the La Moneda detainees until after noon on September 13, at which time he witnessed the prisoners being taken away in a military truck. According to the testimonies of survivors, they heard from the soldiers who participated in the operation that they had been taken to the Peldehue military grounds, located in Colina, where they were allegedly executed by firing squad and buried. A soldier from the Tacna Regiment who witnessed 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 in their quarters and not walk through the courtyards. On the afternoon of that same day, September 13, 1973, the contingent that had been part of the convoy returned, and word spread among the soldiers that the prisoners had been taken to the property that the Tacna Regiment owns in the Peldehue military grounds 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 house used by the property's guard staff. 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 inside, and the executions continued in this manner, four by four. The soldier adds that he had to go to the aforementioned property at the end of September 1973 and found the cited pit covered over. 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 slogans alluding to the Unidad Popular government. However, this massacre of prisoners has never been officially acknowledged, nor have the bodies been returned, and the aforementioned individuals, including Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca, remain disappeared since September 13, 1973. A brother, Julio del Tránsito Valladares Caroca, 28 years old, married, agricultural accountant, was detained in Bolivia on July 2, 1978, and handed over on November 13 of that year to Chilean security agents, a date since which he has also been disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On May 24, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of the affected party. This case was assigned roll number 524-74. On June 21, 1974, the Minister of the Interior, General Oscar Bonilla, informed the Court that the affected party was not being held by order of any administrative authority.

On October 23, 1974, this appeal was rejected by the Court. On October 22, 1974, a complaint for alleged disappearance was filed before the First Criminal Court of Greater Santiago, requesting that a summary investigation be initiated and that, if Enrique Valladares had been the victim of a crime, the culprits be punished.

This case was registered under No. 106.260. The Legal Medical Institute communicated on November 6, 1974, in official letter 3346, that the affected party was not registered at that Institute. Similar information was received from several hospitals in Santiago.

On November 4, 1974, SENDET (National Executive Secretariat for Detainees) informed the Court that it had no records of Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca. On November 15, 1974, the Minister of the Interior, General Raúl Benavides Escobar, in confidential official letter 9-F-82, reported that Valladares was not being held by order of that Ministry.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on November 8 that the affected party did not appear on the National List of Asylees. The inquiries carried out by the First Investigations Precinct, summarized in Report 3226 of November 21, 1974, consisted of consulting the Legal Medical Institute, the National List of Prisoners, and the Identification Cabinet file, which yielded no positive results.

In addition, the mother of the affected party was interrogated, and it was established that he used the pseudonym "Raúl Sáez." Inquiries were reiterated to the Legal Medical Institute, the Ministry of the Interior, and SENDET, this time regarding Raúl Sáez.

The responses from these institutions referred exclusively to the person of Oscar Valladares, without making reference to his pseudonym. On February 17, 1975, the judge of the First Criminal Court declared a temporary dismissal, considering that, according to the merits of the evidence, the existence of any crime or quasi-crime in relation to the disappearance of Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca was not sufficiently justified.

On June 25, 1975, the Court of Appeals approved the dismissal. On July 2, 1991, his family filed a complaint for his disappearance before the 5th Criminal Court of Santiago. This case was registered under No. 126465-6 and is currently in the summary stage (1992).

Enrique Valladares's family carried out numerous efforts and filed many complaints. In July 1974, an administrative petition was made to Colonel Sergio Arellano Stark of the Army's Second Division, requesting an investigation into the fate suffered by Oscar Valladares.

This request was not answered. The Valladares case was presented before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and other bodies. All these efforts did not yield positive results.

Source: Corporation report

The Second Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals sentenced seven members of the Army as co-perpetrators of the crimes of homicide and aggravated kidnapping of 23 victims, all direct collaborators of President Salvador Allende.

The Santiago Court of Appeals issued a conviction against seven Army personnel who participated as co-perpetrators in the homicide and kidnapping of 23 collaborators of President Salvador Allende, who were detained on September 11, 1973, from the La Moneda Palace following the military coup and taken to the Tacna Regiment and the "Fuerte Arteaga" in Peldehue, where they were executed by firing squad and blown up with grenades.

Among the victims were political advisors, members of President Allende's security detail (GAP), doctors, economists, and officials of the Chilean Investigative Police, among others. The Chamber, composed of ministers María Soledad Melo, Gloria Maria Solis, and Inelie Durán, confirmed the ruling issued in May 2018 by investigating judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza and sentenced the then-Army officer Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo to twenty years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as a co-perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of 15 of the 23 victims.

These are Jaime Antonio Barrios Meza, an economist who served as general manager of the Central Bank; Egidio Enrique Paris Roa, former secretary general of the University of Chile; Georges Klein Pipper, physician and advisor to the General Secretariat of the Government; Claudio Raúl Jimeno Grendi and Héctor Ricardo Pincheira Núñez, also presidential advisors; and Luis Avilés Jofré, Manuel Ramón Castro Zamorano, Oscar Reinaldo Lagos Ríos, Julio Hernán Moreno Pulgar, Luis Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme, Jaime Gilson Sotelo Ojeda, Luis Fernando Tapia Martínez, Héctor Daniel Urrutia Molina, Juan Alejandro Vargas Contreras, and Juan José Montiglio Murúa, all members of the GAP. The ruling sentenced Teobaldo Segundo Mendoza Vicencio, Eliseo Antonio Cornejo Escobedo, Bernardo Eusebio Soto Segura, and Jorge Ismael Gamboa Álvarez to seven years of major imprisonment in its minimum degree as co-perpetrators of the aggravated homicide of the same individuals. Meanwhile, Servando Elías Maureira Roa and Jorge Iván Herrera López (now deceased) were sentenced to nine years of major imprisonment for the same crime. Maureira Roa and Herrera López were also sentenced as perpetrators of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree as co-perpetrators of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of eight of the 23 victims. These are Juan Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, former head of the Investigative Police; Arsenio Poupin Oissel, former secretary general of the Government; Sergio Contreras; Enrique Huerta Corvalán, former Palace Intendant; Daniel Escobar Cruz, chief of cabinet for the Undersecretary of the Interior; and former GAP members José Freire Medina, Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala, and Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca. "Bittersweet," was how plaintiff lawyer Nelson Caucoto described the sentence in this case. "Sweet because 48 years later, a trial of historical significance is coming to an end. It concerns the events that occurred at the La Moneda Palace, that is, in the heart of Chile's political and republican institutional framework, which was razed by blood and fire by the coup-plotting military." The lawyer added that "there are 23 victims, collaborators of President Allende who were with him until the very last moment on that crucial day. Taken to the Tacna Regiment, tortured, and finally executed by firing squad in Peldehue by their captors. Of those 23 victims, whose remains were removed five years later, 15 were successfully identified, which led to the legal classification of aggravated homicides. The remaining eight led to aggravated kidnappings." The bitter side of the judicial decision lies, in Caucoto's opinion, "because it is in these last eight crimes that we disagree with the penalty and the determined participation, both in the first and second instance. We trust that the Supreme Court may rectify this part of the sentence so that we may have full justice." According to the investigation substantiated by Judge Miguel Vázquez, it was established that the victims were inside La Moneda on September 11, 1973, and that they exited through the Morandé No. 80 door, were detained, and taken to the Tacna Regiment, where they remained until September 13 of the same year, the date on which they were taken out of the facility with their hands and feet tied with wire in a Pegaso truck. They were then taken to the "Fuerte Arteaga" military facility in Peldehue, a location where the victims were executed by firing squad and blown up with grenades. Five years after being executed, their bodies were exhumed and disappeared again. However, bone splinters and other skeletal remains were left at the site, which allowed for the identification of 15 of the 23 victims. The remaining eight were not found, and the whereabouts of Sergio Contreras, Daniel Escobar Cruz, José Freire Medina, Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala, Enrique Huerta Corvalán, Juan Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, Arsenio Poupin Oissel, and Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca remain unknown to this day.

Source: radio.uchile.cl 11/04/2021 Date: 11-04-2021

Oscar Valladares Caroca Present! (excerpt)

Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca, single, a militant of the Socialist Party and member of the Presidential Guard, was detained on September 11, 1973, as the last group of people inside the La Moneda Palace was leaving.

He was taken to the Tacna Regiment, where he remained until September 13, the date on which he was driven away in a military truck to an unknown destination. To this day, he remains in the status of a forcibly disappeared person.

Valladares resided on a small farm where he worked in agriculture, an activity he pursued until he joined the Presidential Guard of President Salvador Allende, better known by the acronym GAP.

Read more

https://www.gap-chile.org/nuestros-martires/oscar-valladares-caroca/

Source: gap-chile.org 10/30/2018 Date: 10-30-2018

Court approves extension of extradition for General (ret.) Joaquín Ramírez Pineda

The commander of the Tacna Regiment in 1973 is under prosecution in Chile for aggravated kidnappings in the so-called La Moneda Palace case. The Supreme Court extended the extradition request to Argentina for Luis Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, commander of the Tacna Regiment in 1973, who is currently detained in Buenos Aires.

Ramírez Pineda is being prosecuted in our country by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar in the investigation into aggravated kidnappings in the so-called La Moneda Palace case. In a unanimous ruling, the ministers of the Second Chamber, Nibaldo Segura, Rubén Ballesteros, Jaime Rodríguez, Hugo Dolmestch, and Carlos Künsemüller, accepted the request filed by Judge Fuentes Belmar in the case of 9 victims who have been disappeared since September 11, 1973.

They are Jaime Gilson Sotelo Ojeda, Sergio Contreras, Héctor Ricardo Pincheira Núñez, José Freire Medina, Juan Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, Egidio Enrique Paris Roa, Manuel Ramón Castro Zamorano, Daniel Antonio Gutiérrez Ayala, and Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme.

In 2003, the Supreme Court decided to send an extradition request for the person prosecuted for the kidnapping cases of Jaime Antonio Barrios Meza, Daniel Francisco Escobar Cruz, Enrique Lelio Huerta Corvalán, Claudio Raúl Jimeno Grendi, Jorge Klein Pipper, Óscar Reinaldo Lagos Ríos, Juan José Montiglio Murúa, Julio Hernán Moreno Pulgar, Arsenio Poupin Oissel, Julio Fernando Tapia Martínez, Óscar Enrique Valladares Caroca, and Juan Alejandro Vargas Contreras, which also occurred starting in 1973 at the La Moneda Palace.

The background information for the extension of the extradition request has already been sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for transmission to Argentina for processing in that country.

Source: El Mercurio, March 20, 2009 Date: 03-20-2009

Judge dismisses case regarding the removal of bodies of forcibly disappeared persons

Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes, in charge of investigating the removal of bodies from the Peldehue Regiment in 1978, dismissed the judicial action against retired members of the Army, considering that they are not connected to the main crime of the case, permanent kidnapping.

The judge's decision was applied to the case that occurred in 1978 involving the bodies of the former advisors to President Salvador Allende who were detained at the La Moneda Palace on September 11, 1973.

As reported by Radio Cooperativa, the ruling nullifies the prosecutions that were pending against retired non-commissioned officers Fernando Remigio Burgos Díaz, Sergio Antonio Medina Salazar, Isidro Custodio Durán Muñoz, and retired officer José Jaime Darrigrandi Marques.

The ruling maintains that the act constitutes an infraction of Article 144 of the Sanitary Code and does not have the character of a "crime against humanity." The prosecutions that were nullified corresponded to the alleged removal of the remains of former Central Bank manager Jaime Barrios Meza; Palace Intendant Enrique Huerta Corvalán; PS leader Claudio Jimeno Grendi; Communist leader Georges Klein Pipper; former Undersecretary General of the Government Arsenio Poupin Oissel; and former chief of cabinet of the Undersecretary of the Interior Daniel Escobar Cruz.

Added to them are Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Julio Moreno Pulgar, Julio Tapia Martínez, Oscar Valladares, and Juan Vargas Contreras, all members of the Group of Friends of the President and militants of the Socialist Party.

Source: El Mercurio, September 1, 2005 Date: 09-01-2005

Remains correspond to La Moneda forcibly disappeared persons

Visiting Judge Amanda Valdovinos, tasked with verifying information from the Dialogue Table regarding the location of the remains of some 20 forcibly disappeared persons inside the Justo Arteaga Regiment in Colina, discovered the exact place where the bodies were clandestinely buried after the military coup of September 11, 1973.

An exclusive source confirmed to La Voz that the remains are in a 15-meter-deep well. Last January, excavation work on the land—which was donated by the Catholic Church to the Army for war practice before the military coup—focused on a 15-by-13-meter pit, from which more than 400 bone fragments scattered at a depth of nearly three meters have been extracted to date.

However, soil studies conducted by a botanist and the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) made it possible to specify that the fragments correspond to the remains left behind by the removal of the bones at the end of the 1970s.

The precision of the specialists is such that it was determined that, due to their location, they were dragged from one of the ends of the excavation site using a backhoe, the characteristics of which (make, model, and ownership) are documented in the case file.

Well equivalent to six stories The fragments, which include skulls, phalanges, vertebrae, teeth, and dental arches, come from a well about five meters in diameter and about 15 meters deep—equivalent to a six-story building—where the bodies were thrown after the detainees were executed by firing squad and blown up (using grenades) inside.

In the coming days, excavations will focus on that location, and the discovery of a large quantity of bones is not ruled out. So far, with the collections made, the Legal Medical Service has been able to estimate that the remains of about ten people were at the site.

However, with the dental pieces and the background information available in the case, five identities have been confirmed, which will only be made official once the investigations are exhausted. The relatives of the alleged victims have been informed periodically by Judge Valdovinos.

The latest report submitted by the judge to the Supreme Court also confirms errors in the report submitted by the Army to the Dialogue Table, as the site has been located thanks to testimonies from locals and former military personnel who have approached the court voluntarily.

All the information gathered by Judge Amanda Valdovinos will be forwarded to the corresponding criminal or military courts to determine those responsible for the homicides and the illegal burials and exhumations documented in the investigation.

Who are they? According to the Rettig Report, 21 were the La Moneda detainees who ended tragically in Colina. President Allende's advisors: Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, former director of Investigations; Enrique París Roa; Jaime Barrios Meza, general manager of the Central Bank; Sergio Contreras; Daniel Escobar Cruz; Enrique Huerta Corvalán; Claudio Jimeno Grendi; Dr.

Georges Klein Pipper; Héctor Pincheira Núñez; and Arsenio Poupin Oissel, Undersecretary General of the Government. The GAP members: José Freire Medina, Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Julio Moreno Pulgar, Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, Jaime Sotelo Ojeda, Julio Tapia Martínez, Héctor Urrutia Molina, Oscar Valladares Caroca, Juan Vargas Contreras, and Oscar Luis Avilés Jofré.

Source: Primera Linea, April 4, 2002 Date: 04-04-2002

Testimony of Manuel Máximo Cortés Iturrieta (excerpt)

Manuel Máximo Cortés Iturrieta, born in Santiago de Chile on July 25, 1942, with national identity document Tax ID number 4.520.117-1

DECLARES

On September 11, 1973, I was five blocks from the La Moneda Palace, staying at the Hotel El Conquistador. I was sleeping with my roommate, whose surname was Vidal, who, having gotten up very early and gone out to the street, returned to the room very frightened, saying that the street was full of soldiers and police.

Together with him, I headed west along Moneda street until I reached the La Moneda Palace around 7:30 / 8:00 a.m. Upon arriving at the La Moneda Palace, I went to the garage, where the presidential escort vehicles had recently arrived.

At the garage door, I met Daniel Gutiérrez, who apparently was also arriving in a hurry in another vehicle. I asked him who was the head of the escort. He told me it was Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca.

I looked for him and told him that I was at his disposal, along with another comrade, and asked him what we should do. He replied that he would ask inside the La Moneda Palace. Shortly after, Daniel Gutiérrez came out and informed me that Jaime Sotelo, head of the security detail, ordered me to stay in the garage, take charge of the vehicles, and be prepared to leave at any moment to evacuate the President.

Between 8:00/8:10 a.m., the military assault on the La Moneda Palace began from south to north, with some tanks passing at high speed along Teatinos street with infantry on top of them, moving at great speed to position themselves to the north, in the Plaza de la Constitución.

That attack was constant for approximately more than two hours, 10:00/10:30 a.m. When that attack began, those of us who were in the garage climbed a ladder to some second-floor windows of the building adjacent to the garage, which belonged to the Ministry of Public Works.

In that building, we took up defensive positions in the various offices on the third floor, covering the entire Plaza de la Constitución from the Ministry of Defense to a building located at the corner of La Alameda and Lord Cochrane street.

From that position, we managed to stop five attempts by the army to advance toward La Moneda. Subsequently, there was total silence; the attacks ceased, and we were informed by telephone that there was a negotiation and that we should wait for the result of that dialogue.

Around 11:00 a.m., the military resumed the attacks by bombarding La Moneda, using the air force and firing approximately 25 missiles, most of them with incendiary warheads, which triggered the fire at the La Moneda Palace.

From La Alameda and from the buildings remaining along Teatinos, soldiers appeared on the rooftops and began throwing gas and tear gas canisters inside, causing the people inside to begin suffocating. The attacks continued until, around 1:00/1:30 p.m., the Morandé 80 door was violently opened, through which some prisoners came out, who were thrown to the ground, beaten, and even threatened with being shot.

At that moment, we opened fire on those soldiers, who escaped back into the building, coming out shortly after using the prisoners as human shields. Then we realized that we could not continue firing and ordered a ceasefire.

The first prisoners to be taken out of La Moneda were those who had been fighting inside. They were lined up and subsequently thrown to the ground in the middle of the public thoroughfare. Next, they began to take out the rest of the people who were in the building (advisors, doctors, Allende's personal secretary, etc.).

As they were taken out of La Moneda, the prisoners were stood up one by one, physically searched, and placed against the wall with their hands behind their necks, and in this way, lined up next to the rest of the comrades.

At that moment, a tank arrived along Morandé street from south to north, which stopped in front of the line of comrades who were lying on the ground, and I heard the tank driver say: "Permission, Captain, to run the tracks over these sons of bitches." They told him no, and they lowered the tank's cannon and pointed it downward, toward the comrades who were lying in the middle of the public thoroughfare.

At that moment, we stopped firing and began to devise a way to get out of the building. From our position, we were able to see how they took our comrades out as prisoners and identify some who were taken to the Tacna Regiment.

They are: Jaime Gilson Sotelo Ojeda; Juan José Montiglio Murua; Enrique Helio Huerta Corvalán; Oscar Enrique Valladares Caroca; Daniel Antonio Gutiérrez Ayala; Luis Fernando Rodríguez Riquelme; Manuel Ramón Castro Zamorano; Juan Alejandro Vargas Contreras; Héctor Urrutia Molina; Julio Fernando Tapia Martínez.

A wounded man named Osvaldo del Carmen Ramos Rivera was also evacuated and taken by ambulance to a hospital in downtown Santiago. All those mentioned suffered the condition of being forcibly disappeared, except for some of them who were identified through forensic practices in mass graves.

Also present were: Pablo Cepeda Camilieri; Juan Oses Beltrán; and Hugo García. These are currently alive. The first two reside in the Republic of Chile, and the last resides in the city of Paris in the French Republic.

Source: derechos.org, no date