My name is Ricardo Navarro Valdivia, a stomatologist by profession, residing in Spain.

On September 11, 1973, I was 19 years old and a second lieutenant in the FACH (Chilean Air Force), stationed at the Cerro Moreno air base in Antofagasta. In the first days after September 11, I was summoned by the then group commander and Chief of Staff of Cerro Moreno, Marcial Vargas del Campo.

He informed me that my constitutionalist positions were known; for this reason, I was arrested and placed under observation. They stripped me of my troop command and weapons, and my freedom of movement was restricted with a prohibition on leaving the air base.

In those days, a group of torturers was quickly and voluntarily formed, headed by the aforementioned Group Commander Marcial Vargas del Campo. This group included the then Group Commanders Gonzalo Pérez Canto, Captains Hernán Gabrielli Rojas, León Dufey, and Raúl Tapia Edole, and the medical squadron commander, Dr.

Silvio del Lago. At the Cerro Moreno air base, they tortured primarily in three places: in a room adjacent to the dining hall in the officers' mess, in an office on the first floor of the administrative building, and in the arrest cells in the guard building at the entrance to the base.

Within the group of torturers, Hernán Gabrielli Rojas and Rafael Ulzurrun stood out for the brutality and frequency with which they tortured people. Furthermore, on several occasions while entering or leaving the dining hall in the officers' mess, I was able to witness Hernán Gabrielli and Rafael Ulzurrun torturing Mr.

Eugenio Ruiz Tagle and Mr. Mario Silva in the room adjacent to the dining hall. On October 6, 1973, I was arrested and brutally tortured by four officers from this group, under the accusation of "treason against the fatherland." Experience shows that when members of the high command of the Armed Forces are accused, they attempt to transform their responsibility into an "institutional problem," cynically hiding behind the esprit de corps of these institutions, insinuating a political crisis that compromises the entire Armed Forces.

International scientific research on the psychology of the torturer demonstrates that they exhibit common psychic characteristics all over the world. Among others, they have a great inability to recognize and assume their responsibility (they received orders, the events happened in the middle of combat, etc.); they also possess a divided personality.

Outwardly, they are obsessed with projecting an image of correct, honorable people and excellent fathers; inwardly, in some dark and gloomy corner of their conscience, the insatiable beast lurks, waiting for its opportunity.

For this reason, it is not surprising that some members of the Armed Forces, lacking information and knowing only the torturer's outward image, declare their solidarity with some of them in the first instance.

People of the moral stature of a Hernán Gabrielli must never be a parameter for judging and condemning an entire institution like the FACH. There are torturers who reach high ranks in the armed institutions; this is because a nomenclature of torture and terror was formed very quickly within the Armed Forces, based on mutual dependencies rooted in the knowledge and silence of their crimes.

This allows them to build a career without professional merit. If one isolates the torturers from the rest of the high and middle command, one can see that in the hierarchical order, they are linked to one another like pearls on a necklace.

To the critics of the Armed Forces, I say: think that the officers who graduated in December 2000 were children under 10 years old in 1989, when democracy arrived in Chile, and the generations of officers from 1989 to the year 2000 only reach the rank of captain.

This is more than a simple analysis of a generational aspect. I knew the Armed Forces from the inside, especially the FACH; there were and are honest people and excellent professionals in them. For this reason, generalized criticisms and condemnations seem unjust, unethical, and of no value to the democratic process.

The guilty must be punished with the full weight of the law; this is a complex and difficult process, very sensitive to the general political climate in the country. Without naming names, I know for a fact that there are many high-, medium-, and low-ranking officers who are willing to clean up the image unjustly damaged by a few members of the Armed Forces.

I am and will always be proud of what the Chilean people have achieved in the democratic process, including the Armed Forces, without whom this would have been impossible. Dr. Ricardo Navarro Valdivia. Madrid, February 12, 2001

Source: February 13, 2001

The following officers, non-commissioned officers, and civilian personnel of the Air Force, mainly from the Air War Academy (AGA), participated in, practiced, or directed the torture sessions to which the accused were subjected in the "FACH vs. Bachelet and others" trial, according to a list compiled by retired Captain Jaime Donoso:

• Engineer General Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, operational chief and prosecuting attorney in the trial.
• Pilot Group Commander Sergio Lizosain Mitrano, presumably second in the chain of command of the torturers.
• Squadron Commanders Edgar Ceballos Jones (engineer), Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, and González Pérez Canto (pilots). The latter operated at the Cerro Moreno base and was well known for his sadism.
• Pilot Squadron Commander Jaime Lavín Fariña (later promoted to general and prohibited from entering the U.S. due to his participation in acts of torture).
• Pilot Flight Captains Alvaro Gutiérrez (also recognized for his aggressiveness and sadism), Víctor Mettig, León Duffey (operated in Antofagasta and AGA, later promoted to general), and Florencio Dublé (also promoted to general).
• Lieutenants Juan Carlos Sandoval (engineer), Hernán Gabrielli Rojas (pilot, operated in Antofagasta and was promoted to general), Franklin Bello, and another with the surname Dumont.
• Non-commissioned officer Juan Norambuena, Aviation Sergeant Hugo Lizana, and Aviation Corporal Gabriel Cortés.
• Legal advisors Víctor Barahona, Jaime Cruzat, and Cristián Rodríguez.

Retired General Sergio Poblete and other former FACH prisoners identified Lieutenants José García Huidobro, Alberto Waschtendorf, and John Ramírez—most with military intelligence degrees obtained in Panama, Brazil, and the United States—as well as lawyer Colonel Julio Tapia Falk, who was an auditor in the war council that sentenced the accused.

That council was presided over by Brigadier General Juan Soler Manfredini and included Colonels Eduardo Fornet Fernández (later promoted to general), Humberto Berg Fontecilla (physician), Sergio Sanhueza López (engineer), Javier Lopetegui Torres, and pilot Group Commander Carlos Godoy Avendaño.

Source: puntofinal.cl, Edition 529, 2002

Retired General Sergio Poblete Garcés recalls the treatment he received from his comrades-in-arms when he was detained: "The torture began, which included, in addition to beatings, burns on my hands and arms.

They took me to a room with a dentist-type chair and tried to hypnotize me—a practice carried out by the DINA and performed by the doctor Osvaldo Pinchetti—which I resisted by biting the inside of my cheeks until I tore off pieces.

During the days and nights they tortured me, they kept me standing with my hands tied behind my back with parachute cords; they also took the opportunity to hit me with their fists and rifle butts. These were sessions that lasted for hours.

After one with electricity, in which they tied me to a metal bed frame and, semi-naked, applied current to various parts of my body, teeth, genitals, and sensitive areas, they threw me down a staircase, and at the bottom was retired General Gustavo Leigh, who ordered me to be kept standing in the center of a room, observing me silently for a long time." The cruelty that characterized his stay at the Air War Academy (AGA) reached such a level that on October 8, 1973, "FACH Sergeant Rafael Reyes Gajardo was murdered one meter in front of me, and in the presence of other prisoners, simply because in a crisis of desperation he began to cry and asked about his family, from whom he had no news. The soldier who shot him was personally congratulated by retired General Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo and retired Commander Sergio Lizosoain Mitrano." The names of the torturers at the Air War Academy remained etched in the memory of the detainees, and new lawsuits will be filed against them.

The torturers of the AGA are

Orlando Gutiérrez Bravo, retired General Sergio Lizosoain Mitrano, retired Colonel Julio Tapia Falk, lawyer Cristián Rodríguez, legal advisor Jaime Cruzat, legal advisor Víctor Barahona, legal advisor Jaime Lavín Fariña, retired Group Commander León Duffey, retired Squadron Commander Edgard Ceballos Jones, retired Group Commander Ramón Cáceres Jorquera, retired Squadron Commander Florencio Dublé, retired Captain José García Huidobro, retired Lieutenant Juan Soler Manfredini, retired General Eduardo Fornet, retired Colonel who served as secretary of the FACH Carlos Cáceres, retired pilot Squadron Commander Gonzalo Pérez Canto, retired pilot Squadron Commander Alvaro Gutiérrez, retired pilot Flight Captain Víctor Mettig, retired pilot Flight Captain Juan Carlos Sandoval, retired Lieutenant Franklin Bello, retired Lieutenant Juan Norambuena, retired non-commissioned officer Hugo Lizana, retired Aviation Sergeant Humberto Berg Fontecilla, retired FACH medical Colonel Sergio Sanhueza López, Colonel Engineer Javier Lopetegui Torres, retired pilot Colonel Carlos Godoy Avendaño, retired pilot Group Commander

Ricardo Navarro, to the newspaper El Mundo

Former FACH second lieutenant: "Gabrielli is a sinister person." The former officer, who declared in 1976 that the Commander-in-Chief (S) of the FACH had tortured a child who later died, maintains from Spain—where he lives and works as a doctor—that "Gabrielli is a sinister person.

He is a pathological liar. I know him very well, since he was 14 or 15 years old, from the days of the Aviation School." In a letter to the Chilean public to which El Mundo has had access, Navarro states that "in those days, a group of torturers was quickly and voluntarily formed," headed by the aforementioned Vargas del Campo and "which included the then Group Commander Gonzalo Pérez Canto, the then Captains Hernán Gabrielli Rojas, León Dufey, and Raúl Tapia Edole, and the medical squadron commander Silvio del Lago." The latter, according to Navarro's testimony, was the doctor who "kept the tortured alive so that they could continue to be tortured."

Source: El Mundo, February 13, 2001

Two new criminal lawsuits against Air Force General Hernán Gabrielli Rojas

Two new criminal lawsuits against Air Force General Hernán Gabrielli Rojas were presented to Minister Juan Guzmán Tapia, who is in charge of the trial for the so-called "Caravan of Death." Thus, there are now 5 legal actions against the high-ranking officer.

Human rights lawyers Carmen Hertz and Eduardo Contreras stated that both legal actions were filed due to the alleged responsibility the high-ranking officer would have in the crimes of torture and illicit association.

The accusatory libels were filed on behalf of former executives of the now-defunct company Inacesa, Carlos Bau—who attended the courts personally—and Eugenio Ruiz-Tagle, executed in Antofagasta on October 19, 1973.

Last Friday, three other lawsuits for torture and illegal coercion related to the passage through Antofagasta of the military delegation led by General Sergio Arellano, known as the "Caravan of Death," were filed before Judge Guzmán.

Lawyers Hiram Villagra and Eduardo Contreras maintained that the three legal actions are directed—among others—against Gabrielli, but the professional Juan Bustos maintained that the libels only specifically mention former President Augusto Pinochet.

TESTIMONIES

The lawsuit filed yesterday for the coercion against Eugenio Ruiz-Tagle was made official before Judge Juan Guzmán by lawyer Carmen Hertz, representing the deceased's daughter, Josefa Ruiz Tagle. "It is against Pinochet and Gabrielli.

There are numerous testimonies that support our action. The document does not speak of the execution of Ruiz-Tagle, since a libel was filed for that event a long time ago," the professional explained. Meanwhile, Eduardo Contreras, sponsor of the lawsuit filed on behalf of Carlos Bau, specified that the document accuses General Gabrielli, Augusto Pinochet, and two former FACH officers, León Duffey and Gonzalo Pérez Canto, of the events. "Gabrielli is identified by several people as responsible for torture at the Cerro Moreno air base in Antofagasta.

Bau, my client, has denounced this for many years, even before international bodies," the lawyer stressed. When it was suggested that the high-ranking FACH officer insists on his total innocence, Contreras commented: "He is lying.

First, he said he was not in Cerro Moreno. Then that he was there, but that he did not see prisoners. Now he admitted that he transported prisoners. How is that situation understood?" he asked. BAU DECLARED FOR DEFAMATION Meanwhile, Carlos Bau also gave his statement yesterday before Minister Jaime Rodríguez, who is in charge of the trial for the request under the Internal Security Law filed by General Hernán Gabrielli while he was serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force.

Magistrate Rodríguez interrogated Juan Ruz, another of the people who accuse Gabrielli of torture, as an accused party last Friday.

ARMED FORCES AUDITORS

The auditors of the Armed Forces and Carabineros continue to analyze different courses of action to follow, on the judicial level, regarding the two lawsuits filed by sectors of the left against the commanders-in-chief, whom they accuse of obstructing justice.

Yesterday, the Eighth Criminal Court accepted for processing the second of the lawsuits for obstruction of justice filed by relatives of the forcibly disappeared against the high commands. One of the courses of action being analyzed is to invoke norms of the State Security Law.

It is also being discussed whether to respond by filing a lawsuit for serious defamation and slander. Both paths are considered fully valid, despite the fact that some lawyers doubt that the high-ranking officers can resort to the State Defense Law since they must first respond to the lawsuit filed against them.

Meanwhile, a third group of jurists maintains that neither of those two paths should be followed, but rather simply not to respond. They indicate that the lawsuits filed by sectors "that call themselves defenders of human rights are purely political" and without any solid legal basis, and that they will be destroyed shortly by the Courts themselves.

They state that it is inconvenient for the uniformed authorities to place themselves at the same level as the plaintiffs by responding with another lawsuit, because by following that path, they are opening a "sounding board" for hard-left groups, which are a very small minority in the country.

They state that the Commanders-in-Chief should have a meeting with the Minister of Defense and demand a political solution from the government, as it is evident that the lawsuits filed against them have that character.

Source: mercuriovalpo.cl, February 20, 2001