Fury shakes and tears her apart every time María Eliana recalls the pain and humiliation of the torture here, in the Valparaíso of the winds, in the beautiful chaos of the port that belongs to everyone, steps away from the bay where, thirty years ago, a sailing ship was anchored that changed her life forever.

Fury shakes the senses and tears the skin, because the Navy continues to deny the obvious: that they detained and tortured thousands of Chilean men and women. And it is clearly established that the training ship Esmeralda was used as a center for detention, torture, and murder, just as it happened with other Navy facilities, the ship Lebu, the Naval War Academy, and the Silva Palma barracks, among others.

María Eliana Comené was in all of them. Today, three decades later, the young university student of that era remembers the painful journey she shared with thousands of victims of the military repression that, in the port, wore above all the uniform of a sailor.

On the “Esmeralda,” the priest Miguel Woodward was murdered, and many people were also tortured. You were there too...

“Yes, I was detained by the Carabineros on September 13, at noon, at my home. They took me in a bus to the 4th Police Station in Viña. Then they brought me to the intendancy of that time, today the First Naval Zone.

At night, around eleven o’clock, the sailors took us to the Esmeralda. Upon arriving at the ship, they pushed us down the stairs. It was dark, but I was not blindfolded, and that is why I realized it was the Esmeralda.

They threw us toward where the officers' cabins were; they were not the sailors' cabins, because they were large rooms with three bunks in a row. They immediately took me to the bathroom, a huge bathroom where they made me undress and leave my clothes on a wooden bench.

And they began to search me, to see if I had anything hidden on my body, therefore sticking their fingers into my vagina, into my anus, looking into my ears, my nose. It was a group of young men, all with their faces painted black; I don’t know if they were officers, because they all dressed the same.”

The violent and humiliating treatment began from the very beginning, then...

“Yes, of course. Then they took me to the shower, and that was perhaps for me the most difficult moment, although later I went through worse. There I felt tremendously degraded, humiliated by being forced to be naked, by the sexual touching, the comments they made, the mockery of all the sailors.

Even now I have a nightmare: I am in a bathroom, and many people pass through the bathroom, and I cannot be at peace. So, I wake up crying.

Afterward, the sailors threw me onto the last bunk in a cabin. I got the third bunk from the top. I realized that we were separated: the men were behind a curtain made of blankets. The men were in very bad shape; they were tortured brutally.

I saw them when they arrived; for example, Sergio Vuscovic, mayor of Valparaíso during the Unidad Popular, had a vomiting attack, of blood. The comrades, many of them former authorities and leaders of the area, arrived dragging themselves, but they did not complain.

They interrogated me twice on the Esmeralda, all violent, humiliating, with beatings and sexual abuse. It gave them pleasure to torture us; they enjoyed touching to see your reaction; they expected us to scream, but screaming, for me, was worse.

Sometimes it was better to let them do what they wanted so they would leave you alone. Also, if we moved or asked for permission to go to the bathroom, they hit us with the butts of their rifles; they did not let us sleep.

We were in a cabin surrounded by metal lockers. We could not know if it was day or night; we only heard screams, the crying of the female comrades who begged them not to touch them. There was a German woman who was constantly beaten.

There were women of all ages, even fifteen-year-old girls, and they were tortured physically and psychologically. To endure the situation, I counted the bolts and rivets of the ship. That is how I abstracted myself from the horror of the Esmeralda. And I was there until they took us all out; I was one of the last to leave.”

Where did they take you?

“They transferred us to the Lebu, a ship of the Compañía Sudamericana de Vapores, belonging to Ricardo Claro, which he had ceded to the Navy for the prisoners. The Esmeralda was almost at the end of the breakwater and the Lebu was at the tip.

They took us in a bus and it was impressive, because the breakwater was covered with people on the ground, all prisoners. The sailors put us in a cabin, unlike the men who were in the holds of the ship.

The cabins were tiny and there were about 25 women inside. So much so that at night we had to sleep sitting on the floor with our legs tucked in. In turns, we would stand near the door to get a little air, although there was a sailor on guard who would not let us get close.

On the Lebu, we were not hooded, so we knew the sailors very well and, just like on the Esmeralda, we were women of all ages. In fact, one day a girl in a school uniform arrived. They kept us locked up and gave us food once a day, noodles, beans with worms, and dried peas in indefinable broths. Suddenly a piece of bread or a piece of fruit would arrive, but that was the exception.”

RAPE ON THE LEBU

On the “Lebu,” did the sailors also torture?

“Not only the sailors. There were also Carabineros and civilians who tortured. On one occasion, when it was my turn to get close to the cabin door to breathe better, a Carabineros lieutenant I knew leaned into the window, because I had been detained before ’73 in Valparaíso, during the action to retake the Universidad Católica.

They took me to the Barón police station and tried to search me, but I defended myself, and it was that lieutenant who hit me and then left me dumped in a cell. It was the same Lieutenant Pérez who appeared on the Lebu, and he kept looking at me with hatred.

He, along with other Carabineros and sailors, began to call the women; first, they sent for a young woman in a white cardigan, then they took about five or six young women, until finally, they took me.

It was an unoccupied cabin, huge, that was in a corner. It was very dark, but I saw him clearly because I was not hooded. Furthermore, he greeted me with profanities and by saying ‘this is the tough one I want’ and shouting ‘defend yourself now, you bitch.’ He pushed me into a chair and began to touch and hit me; he undressed me by force and raped me right there.

He did what he wanted with me, and the others who were in the cabin laughed and mocked. Afterward, he ordered me to get dressed and comb my hair; he forced me to tidy myself up before leaving. In addition to the insults, he told me: ‘We’ll see each other again.’

I was not the only one tortured on the Lebu, of course. When the women arrived at the ship, they first went through the torture room and then they were thrown into the cabin. About ten days later, they sent for me from the War Academy, and there the terror began again. I was interrogated by sailors and Carabineros.”

Was the Naval War Academy the main detention and torture center in Valparaíso?

“Yes, when I arrived at the Academy, on the first day they immediately took me to interrogation and began to do the ‘telephone’ to me, hitting my ears with both open hands. I knew that to relieve the pain I had to scream, and I began to scream, and a comrade, whom I don’t know who he is, who seemed to be in the same room, began to complain about what they were doing to me.

And they hit him in such a way that you could hear the blows, the groans. It was horrible and I had to stop screaming. That is how my eardrums were damaged. I was at the Academy for approximately three weeks. They took me out every night to interrogate me. They asked about supposed weapons, but it was to intimidate, to leave you at the level of a thing and not a person.

At the Academy, screams were heard day and night. They beat me, raped me, and applied electricity to me. The current was horrible, because it causes spasms that you cannot control. And they put current on your breasts, vagina, mouth, cigarette burns on your buttocks, arms, and thighs.

One night they took me and took off my clothes: they forced me to undress every time I said no, or gave an answer that did not satisfy them. I felt tremendously degraded; they began to touch me, to grope me, to do things to me.

They returned me to the room around four in the morning or later, because it was getting light. I began to look through the little holes in the windows covered with ship flags and began to cry. A comrade noticed and hugged me. No one moved, except him. He didn’t ask me anything. It was a very beautiful thing. It makes you feel that you are not alone.

The concrete fact is that they soften you up physically, with beatings, with rapes, with electricity, and then the psychological blow comes, when you have no defenses left. In fact, there was a female Carabinero who interrogated me violently, with a lot of psychological attack.

The sailors took us women out to have fun with us, to sexually abuse us. And we were always hooded or blindfolded. Lieutenant Pérez, of the Carabineros, was also at the Academy; several people saw him there.

He had rank; on the Lebu, he did what he wanted. I remember very well that he carried a pistol, and at one point he took it, I don’t know why, but I thought he could kill me; I really believed I was going to leave dead.”

FACE TO FACE WITH THE TORTURER

I understand that you met one of your torturers. How was that?

“I never saw the man again after my detention. However, a short time ago I was at the Falabella café in Valparaíso with a friend. Suddenly I froze, because although he has changed a lot, I don’t know if it was because of his eyes or instinct, I recognized him.

So I say to my friend: ‘Hey, look, the cop Pérez.’ He was talking to an old man, and I was paralyzed. I had thought many times about what I was going to say to him when I saw him. But I wasn’t able to move; we paid quickly and I left, I passed by his side, I looked at him, but I didn’t dare to do anything. My legs were shaking. And I was so angry with myself afterward. I was indignant with myself.

I made a statement in Punto Final a couple of years ago. There I mention Pérez. A former political prisoner, who was a Carabinero and also worked at the Viña del Mar Police Station at that time, told me that his name was Carlos Pérez San Martín, and that he is the operations manager of the Santiago Wanderers club.

Since we held a protest against him, I am more at peace. But when I see him, I remember the café again and I get very angry; I feel like going to talk to him. But everyone has told me not to do it, it’s dangerous, they say he is a thug, that he has people. So I haven’t dared; so much time has passed...

But chance allowed you to cross paths with the now-retired Captain Carlos Pérez at the supermarket...

“Yes, a short time ago I was in the butcher line at the supermarket when someone bumped into me; I turned around and found myself face to face, no more than ten centimeters away, with Carlos Pérez, with my torturer.

I asked him: ‘Don’t you remember me?’

• ‘No, ma’am. Where do I know you from?’ he replied.
• ‘The last time we saw each other was on the Lebu...’
• ‘On the Lebu? I don’t have any problem with human rights,’ he said immediately, giving himself away.

‘Nobody told me this,’ I said. ‘I will never forget your face or your voice, because you ruined my life.’ At that point, I already had a knot in my stomach, but I couldn’t lose my calm; it was important to maintain my dignity despite everything. But he continued to deny everything, as cowards do. As the military has done all this time.”

COWARDICE OF THE NAVY

Do you think the report on political imprisonment and torture will serve to achieve justice in your case and in so many others?

“When they delivered the report to President Lagos, I thought it wasn’t true. It is something I never expected to see in my lifetime, but then anger arose. First, because the right wing keeps saying that we are all responsible.

But having had leftist ideas is not equivalent to having tortured and killed. Really, the political opportunism is shameful. Soledad Alvear has never done anything and now that she is a pre-candidate, she speaks up. What President Lagos says is not important. What interests us is that the report be published in full, that it be known what these criminals did.”

Admiral Vergara, commander-in-chief of the Navy, says that he puts his hands in the fire for his men.

“Admiral Vergara is going to get burned. The cowardice of the Navy in not recognizing its crimes makes me angry. The now-Senator Jorge Arancibia was a frigate captain in charge of a ship in San Antonio.

It also makes me doubt that he says he knows nothing. Tejas Verdes was there, and not only did Contreras participate in the repression, there were also sailors. The Navy abused people in its facilities. I was detained, tortured, and raped by sailors.”

Thirty years have passed and for the first time, what happened to thousands of tortured people will be known, at least systematically. Will this help to alleviate the pain of the victims?

“There are deep physical and psychological consequences. You have to start living with this; I have always said that I am an exile and I will never get used to it. It is not my Chile; it is a Chile that has given me nothing, on the contrary, it took a lot from me.

The nightmares have never gone away. I wake up distressed because I think I am detained on the Esmeralda, when the sailors with painted faces undress me, search me, put me in the water. It is the first sign of humiliation, where we faced the enemy in a real way. I cannot forget, because they beat me, put electricity on me, raped me, and gave me gonorrhea, things that not even my family knows.

A couple of years ago I went up to the Esmeralda accompanying journalists from the BBC in London. I began to feel the smells, the screams, everything I had felt before. I fell into a deep depression, I had panic attacks, and I was locked in my house for four months.

It was horrible; I didn’t sleep, the nightmares were continuous. No report will make us forget what we went through, what we suffered.”

Source: Revista PuntoFinal.cl No. 581, November 26, 2004