Political Representation: Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Intendant of Llanquihue until September 9, 1973 Date of Detention: August 5, 1976 * Name: OSCAR ARTURO RAMOS VIVANCO ID: 5.395.900-8 of Santiago Date of Birth: 28-01-52, 24 years old at the time of his detention Address: Parque Apoquindo, Calle 7 Nº 7801, Las Condes, Santiago Marital Status: Single Occupation: Radio technician and computer science student Political Representation: Militant of the Communist Party Date of Detention: August 5, 1976

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, married, father of two, linotypist, former Intendant of Llanquihue, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, was detained on August 5, 1976, around 1:00 PM at his home by a group of five agents from the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

They raided the home and proceeded to apprehend him, forcing him into a red Peugeot vehicle in which they were traveling.

Along with Mr. Oscar Orlando, his son Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, 24, single, radio technician, and communist militant, was also detained. Both were dedicated to repairing radios, work they performed in a room within the same house, which had been set up for that purpose.

Eyewitnesses to the raid and the detentions were Genoveva Ramos Vivanco and her four-year-old son—the daughter and grandson, respectively, of Mr. Oscar Orlando—who observed how the agents first detained Oscar Arturo just as he was opening the front gate for them.

He was handcuffed and placed into the vehicle used by the agents. Then, Mr. Oscar Orlando was detained in the radio repair workshop while he was working. The agents immediately proceeded to handcuff him and place him in the aforementioned vehicle.

Subsequently, his captors transported Mr. Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido and his son Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco to the clandestine DINA detention center known as Villa Grimaldi. There, he was seen by several witnesses who managed to survive the torture and, in general, the conditions to which the detainees in that facility were subjected.

In this regard, Mr. Isaac Godoy Castillo, who was held in that same facility, testified to having spoken with Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, who told him that he had been detained along with his father, who was also at Villa Grimaldi.

He further relates that the agents stole a "montgomery" coat that Oscar Arturo was wearing at the time of his detention and exchanged his shoes for older ones. From that location, his trail was lost, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

On the other hand, it must be noted that on August 4, 1976, the day before the detention of Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido and his son, his brother-in-law Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega had been detained on a public street in the presence of a witness.

This witness informed the affected man's spouse, Mrs. Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez, who was also detained hours later at her home. Before her apprehension, she managed to communicate by telephone with her son Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera and in person with her sister-in-law Carmen Vivanco Vega (wife of Mr.

Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido), whom she informed of the detention of Mr. Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega.

Following these events, on August 10, 1976, Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera—who, like his father and uncle, had also worked at the Imprenta Horizonte—was detained on a public street while he was making inquiries to determine the whereabouts of his parents. All of those apprehended remain, to this day, as forcibly disappeared.

Beyond their family ties, the victims were also united by a common militancy in the Communist Party. Their detentions took place in the midst of a sweep, initiated in July 1976, against various militants of that Party linked to typographical activity, among whom were José Tolosa Vásquez (July 15), Guillermo Martínez Quijón (July 21), Juan Luis Quiñones Ibaceta (July 23), Guillermo Gálvez Rivadeneira (July 28), and Juan Aurelio Villarroel Zárate (August 13).

All of them, like the Vivanco Herrera family and Oscar Ramos and his son Oscar Arturo, remain forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 9, 1976, an Amparo appeal (Habeas Corpus), Rol Nº713-76, was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido and Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco. It was rejected on September 21, 1976, based on a report from the Ministry of the Interior which indicated: "they are not detained, nor is there an arrest warrant against them." On the 27th of the same month and year, the resolution was confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Parallel to that resolution, on that same day, August 27, 1976, case Rol Nº94.579 was initiated in the Sixth Criminal Court of Santiago, corresponding to a complaint filed for the crime of kidnapping of Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido and Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco.

The case was temporarily dismissed on several occasions. However, on June 1, 1978, the magistrate of the Sixth Court issued a final dismissal by virtue of Decree Law Nº2.191. This dismissal was later changed to temporary by the Court of Appeals.

Subsequent to that date, following the appointment of Mr. Servando Jordán as Minister in Visitation to investigate cases of forcibly disappeared persons in the Metropolitan area, the case came under his jurisdiction until September 24, 1979, when it was again temporarily dismissed.

This ruling was confirmed by the Court of Appeals on November 19, 1980, without having been able to establish the whereabouts of Mr. Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido.

It is important to point out that, although the military government denied the detention of Oscar Ramos Garrido and the other affected individuals, in statements corresponding to July 14 and 17, 1976, through its National Social Communication Division (DINACOS), it informed public opinion that, following operations carried out by security services, 32 "mailbox houses" (clandestine communication hubs) of the Communist Party had been dismantled, which served as links between the National Directorate of said party and its Regional Committees.

The statement also reported the detention of militants of that group, adding that no further information could be provided so as not to hinder the investigations being carried out.

Another piece of evidence linking the responsibility of State security agencies to the disappearance of the affected individuals is recorded in the August 12, 1976, edition of the weekly magazine "Qué Pasa," in an article titled "From the MIR to the PC," where it is noted that, following operations carried out in recent days by security agencies, numerous militants and leaders of the Communist Party had been detained.

Along with the judicial proceedings, Mrs. Carmen Rosa Vivanco Vega carried out countless efforts before national and international organizations and authorities, without succeeding in having the Military Junta acknowledge the detentions and subsequent disappearance of her spouse, Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, and her son, Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco.

Following a letter sent by Mrs. Carmen Vivanco to the Minister of the Interior, in which she requested information about her five forcibly disappeared relatives, she was summoned on August 16, 1977, to the General Headquarters of Investigations, where she was interrogated by an official regarding the letter.

However, on the 14th of that same month and year—at approximately 9:00 PM—three young individuals arrived at Mrs. Carmen's home, traveling in a white Peugeot car, license plate NN-663 of Providencia. Two of them identified themselves as members of the DINA, coming from the Diego Portales building.

In the identification of one of them, she only managed to see the surname "Gómez" and the acronym DINA. The other who accompanied him stated his name was "Faúndez." Gómez told her that by order of General Pinochet, they were investigating the rumors about the detention of her relatives.

Along with this, he asked her to make a voluntary statement, giving an account of the facts. She agreed to this request, writing on a paper provided by the agents a brief account of the events, adding that she was sure the perpetrators belonged to a government security agency and that she was making this statement at the demand of Messrs.

Gómez and Faúndez and at the request of General Pinochet. Upon reading this, Gómez tore up the paper. Finally, she wrote another statement recounting the facts, omitting that she was doing so at the request of the aforementioned subjects. Gómez asked her to leave a blank space, to which she refused.

Furthermore, on August 1, 1978, relatives of 70 disappeared persons, including those of Oscar Ramos Garrido and his son Oscar Ramos Vivanco, filed a complaint before the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of aggravated kidnapping against General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Army Colonel Marcelo Luis Moren Brito, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo.

The identities of other agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), information on the secret detention centers of the aforementioned organization, and other data regarding its structure and the means at the DINA's disposal were also provided to the Court.

Without carrying out any investigative steps, on May 10 of that year, the judge of the 10th Court declared herself incompetent and referred the records to the Military Justice system; after several appeals, in May 1979, the case was lodged with the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago, under Rol N° 553-78.

In 1983, the Court reviewed the four volumes of the Extraordinary Visitation for cases of forcibly disappeared persons in the Metropolitan Region, which was substantiated by Minister Servando Jordán; they contained important information regarding the actions of the DINA and the responsibility of that security agency for hundreds of forcibly disappeared persons.

Without any investigative steps being taken for four years, on November 20, 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, Military Prosecutor General, requested the application of the Amnesty Decree Law (D.L. 2.191) for this case, because the process had had the exclusive purpose of investigating alleged crimes that occurred during the period between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978, and because, during the 10 years of proceedings, it had not been possible to "determine the responsibility of any person." On November 30, 1989, the request was accepted by the 2nd Military Court, which dismissed the case totally and definitively—which was still in the summary stage—due to "the criminal responsibility of the persons allegedly implicated in the reported facts being extinguished." The plaintiff parties appealed that resolution to the Court Martial, which confirmed the ruling in January 1992. A Complaint Appeal was then filed before the Supreme Court of Justice, which, as of December 1992, had not yet issued its resolution.

(Full records of the complaint against Manuel Contreras can be found in the case of Eduardo Alarcón Jara, July 30, 1974).

Mrs. Carmen Vivanco Vega, spouse and mother of the affected individuals and sister, sister-in-law, and aunt of Hugo Vivanco, Alicia Herrera, and Nicolás Vivanco Herrera, has for years carried out efforts and activities of denunciation to be able to establish the fate of her relatives.

She appealed to practically all public authorities responsible for the safety of citizens, and to several international organizations that watch over the respect for human rights. Despite all this, her relatives remain forcibly disappeared.

Source: Corporation report

Under the military regime, five of her relatives disappeared. Paradoxically, Carmen is about to turn 91. One day before the detention of her husband and son, her brother and sister-in-law were captured. Relatives The five disappeared relatives of Carmen Vivanco:

• Her husband: Oscar Ramos Garrido.
• Her son: Oscar Ramos Vivanco.
• Her brother: Hugo Vivanco Vega.
• Her sister-in-law: Alicia de las Mercedes Herrera Benítez.
• Her nephew: Nicolás Vivanco Herrera

Complex are the feelings that converge within Carmen Vivanco regarding the death of Augusto Pinochet. She suffered the Military Regime in an extreme way. Five of her close relatives are forcibly disappeared.

Among these are her husband and her son. Her husband, Oscar Ramos, had served as Intendant in the Province of Llanquihue in the last year of the UP (Popular Unity) and was a member of the Communist Party.

His body, like that of his son, was never found, and the circumstances of his death are not even known. Paradoxically, Carmen is about to turn 91, the same age at which the retired general who led the country during the period in which her relatives disappeared died. "It is a pity that he perished without having taken responsibility for the death of our relatives.

My husband, my son, my sister-in-law, my brother, and my nephew are on the list of the disappeared. They were detained on August 4, 5, and 10, 1976," recounted Carmen Vivanco. Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, Carmen's husband, was 58 years old at the time of their detention.

Oscar and his son were working on repairing radios when they were detained by the regime's security forces. Five DINA agents captured father and son and forced them into a red vehicle. Both were transported to Villa Grimaldi.

One day earlier, Carmen Vivanco's brother had been detained, then her sister-in-law disappeared, and finally a nephew. In total, five members of her family were kidnapped and never found again. "The coup d'état caught Oscar in Santiago, as he was suffering from an ulcer and the doctor sent him to the national capital.

But the detention was three years later," explained Carmen. During the month in which her husband and son disappeared (August 1976), a series of detentions were carried out by the DINA against members of the Communist Party and people related to typographical activity.

In fact, Oscar Ramos Garrido was a linotypist and radio technician. "After he was detained, I went to a barracks to find out where they were, but they did not arrive at Investigations or the Legal Medical Institute.

Later I went to the Vicaría de la Solidaridad and they helped me file the Amparo appeal. Most likely they killed them, but I cannot live through a mourning process because I still have not seen their bodies.

If I saw their remains I could mourn, but our uncertainty is eternal. That is why Pinochet's death, without having been convicted, is very serious for us," stated Carmen. Carmen's son, Oscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, was 24 years old when he was detained along with his father.

The last thing known about him is that he told a prisoner that the military agents stole his montgomery coat and exchanged his shoes for older ones.

Source: El Llanquihue, Tuesday, December 12, 2006 Date: 12-12-2006

Since I was a child at home, I heard about her, about her integrity, courage, and rebelliousness. Integrity to face a tragedy that would have destroyed anyone, courage to continue searching, making herself heard, protesting in times when those who raised their voices were detained, gunned down, made to disappear (just as happened with her husband, son, and brother years earlier).

She did not escape being detained (several times), being beaten, humiliated by the state forces. Even so, and until the last week I saw her, when I took and caressed her bony hands, she remains brave and clear in continuing the fight.

Rebellious like few others, she did not escape during an entire atrocious dictatorship, the most horrifying our country has lived, which will divide us for years, and of which the "victorious" still boast, brag, and mock, where there is not a shred of mercy, pity, solidarity, or love for the other, and of all those concepts that those murderers and their thousands of passive accomplices coin and claim to believe in when they bow before crosses, saints, and virgins.

That woman I heard about as a child, in whispers, in a low voice at home, but whose childhood curiosity gave way to understanding what was happening and what happened. I contemplate her today, admired, proud, and moved by rage, sorrow, and pain.

Carmen Vivanco was born on August 28, 1916; she repeated it several times with great pride while we were talking. She married my uncle Oscar Ramos Garrido, had two children, Genoveva Ramos Vivanco, the eldest, and Oscar Ramos Vivanco, until now disappeared.

In 1976, Oscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, Carmen's husband, was 58 years old at the time of his detention. Uncle Oscar and his son were working on repairing radios when they were detained by the regime's security forces.

Five DINA agents captured father and son and forced them into a red vehicle. Both were transported to Villa Grimaldi. Aunt Carmen's son, cousin Oscar Ramos Vivanco, was 24 years old when he was detained along with his father.

The last thing known about him is that he told a prisoner that the military agents stole his montgomery coat and exchanged his shoes for older ones. "After they were detained, I went to a barracks to find out where they were, but they did not arrive at Investigations or the Legal Medical Institute.

Later I went to the Vicaría de la Solidaridad and they helped me file the Amparo appeal. Most likely they killed them, but I cannot live through a mourning process because I still have not seen their bodies. If I saw their remains I could mourn, but our uncertainty is eternal," stated Carmen (Source: Memoria Viva).

Source: regionalista.cl 18/10/2018 Date: 18-10-2018

Tribute held for former Intendant of Llanquihue, forcibly disappeared since 1976

A plaque was installed in memory of Óscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, on the front of the Regional Administrative Center in Puerto Montt. With the installation of a commemorative plaque at the Regional Administrative Center in Puerto Montt, authorities and officials paid tribute this Monday, September 11, to Óscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, a communist militant who served as Intendant of Llanquihue until September 9, 1973, and who was detained along with his son on August 5, 1976, at their home in Santiago, both remaining as forcibly disappeared to this day.

On the occasion, the presidential delegate Giovanna Moreira expressed that in the framework of the 50 years since the Coup d'État, "we are making a call for dialogue, reflection, and unity, but with something very clear—and our president has been very categorical about this—that the situations that occurred in our country of systematic human rights violations never happen again." The authority added that "the work we have as a government and as a State is to strengthen our democracy.

For that, we need everyone to be sitting at the table and talking because that is the only path we have." Moreira specified that during the morning, she also met with groups of relatives of forcibly disappeared persons and political torture survivors. "One of the things we talked about is how we have been able to advance in terms of the State taking responsibility for the damage it caused at one point, not only by having more sites of memory, which is a commitment we are advancing on, for example with Egaña 60, with Pilmaiquén, but also with the National Search Plan, for more truth and more justice. These are concrete commitments that will allow for the creation of foundations to have a future with more democracy," she stressed. The presidential representative in the region also highlighted the tour made by people who were taken prisoner at the former governorship of Llanquihue, the current Regional Presidential Delegation. Likewise, she pointed out that from the point of view of order and security, no conflictive events had been generated, nor were there any detainees. "The acts in the different cities of the region have been held with respect, in peace and order," she emphasized. Finally, she noted that there is a preventive deployment of Carabineros "so that people can demonstrate peacefully. It is maintained throughout the day and we hope that the demonstrations continue peacefully."

Source: soychile.cl 11/9/2023

Minister in visitation sentences former DINA agents to 20 years in prison for disappearances at the Simón Bolívar Barracks

The eight victims belonged to or were related to the Communist Party. The qualified kidnappings were committed between July and August 1976 at this barracks in the La Reina commune, in Santiago, where the sinister Lautaro brigade operated.

The minister in visitation for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Leopoldo Llanos, issued a sentence in the investigation he substantiated for the qualified kidnappings of José Vicente Toloza Vásquez, Guillermo Gálvez Rivadeneira, Guillermo Albino Martínez Quijón, Hugo Ernesto Vivanco Vega, Alicia Herrera Benítez, Óscar Orlando Ramos Garrido, Óscar Arturo Ramos Vivanco, and Nicolás Hugo Vivanco Herrera, crimes perpetrated starting between July and August 1976.

In the ruling, the presiding judge sentenced the agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA)—Juan Morales Salgado, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Carlos López Tapia, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, and Ricardo Lawrence Mires—to 20-year prison terms as authors of eight crimes of kidnapping of victims linked to the Communist Party.

In the resolution, the magistrate establishes that the DINA maintained, from the end of 1975 and at least throughout the year 1977, the "Simón Bolívar" Barracks, located at Calle Simón Bolívar Nº 8.630, La Reina commune, a facility where the brigade called "Lautaro" operated, whose main function, in addition to repressive tasks of detaining political dissidents, was the protection of the DINA Director, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and his family.

This brigade was led by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado, who was also the head of the barracks, and who was under the strict supervision of the DINA Director, who was also his direct evaluator. In 1975, a restructuring of the Brigades and operational groups that had "Villa Grimaldi" as their barracks took place, merging the groups led by Army Captains Germán Barriga Muñoz and Carabineros Captain Ricardo Lawrence Mires, and integrated by numerous agents belonging to different branches of the Armed Forces and Carabineros, whose name was the "Delfín" brigade or group.

The purpose of this brigade was the repression of the Communist Party, carrying out tracking and detention work of leaders and militants of that Party, which were verified throughout the year 1976. Thus, during that period, the capture of dozens of Communist Party militants proceeded, many of them members of successive Central Committees that were constituted as the previous ones were dismantled by the aforementioned repressive organization.

The detainees were taken to the "Terranova" or "Villa Grimaldi" barracks, where they were interrogated under torture. The magistrate continues his account by noting that some of them were subsequently taken, while still deprived of liberty, to the "Simón Bolívar" barracks—to which the "Delfín" brigade moved approximately in mid-1976—which became the main operations center of the aforementioned brigade, and from where operational groups went out to practice detentions, in addition to transferring the Communist Party detainees who were in "Villa Grimaldi." To fulfill the functions described above, the so-called "Delfín" brigade had the collaboration of the "Lautaro" brigade, led by Juan Morales Salgado. At the "Simón Bolívar" barracks, the detainees, upon being admitted, handed over their personal belongings to an agent of the barracks' general staff, who kept them in envelopes, writing on them the name of the detainees to whom the items belonged. In said barracks, the detainees were interrogated under torment, their trail being lost and their current whereabouts unknown; however, there is evidence that several of these people were put to death, their bodies being removed and buried clandestinely; and others were thrown into the sea from helicopters; without their remains having yet been recovered.

Source: Elciudadano.com 2018