The Journalists' Association of Chile expelled from its ranks a former agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) who had become a journalist, and suspended four other university-educated professionals for one year, with public censure, for collaborating in the fabrication of fake news to cover up the murders of political opponents of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

The Regional Ethics and Discipline Tribunal (TRED) of the Metropolitan Council (Santiago) of the Journalists' Association expelled Carlos Roberto Araya Silva, a former announcer for Radio Sargento Aldea in San Antonio whom the head of the DINA, then-Army Colonel Manuel Contreras, introduced into state television.

It also suspended Julio López Blanco, Claudio Sánchez Venegas, Vicente Pérez Zurita, and Manfredo Mayol Durán for one year, with public censure; these journalists, trained at various universities, collaborated with the dictatorship from their positions at Canal 7, Televisión Nacional (TVN), and the Canal 13 TV Corporation of the Pontifical Catholic University.

The sanctioned individuals participated in the media staging of a confrontation between security forces and critics of the dictatorship that never existed, which was also disseminated by the newspapers La Tercera, Últimas Noticias, the magazine Qué Pasa, and other media outlets.

Qué Pasa even interviewed Rodolfo Pávez, an 8-year-old boy, as an “eyewitness.” “I saw them,” Rodolfo said. “Along the slopes of those hills that are so familiar to him, Rodolfo saw seven strangers coming down. ‘Among them were two women, and the men were helping them cross the canal, which had water in it that day.

They were running,’ he recounts to Qué Pasa with composure,” asserted edition No. 240 of the magazine, which on November 27, 1975, published this gem of lies disguised as journalism.

The DINA fabricated the news about this false event with the complicity of the National Directorate of Communications (DINACOS), the military regime’s propaganda agency, where many university-educated journalists worked—many of whom remain active today and even teach the profession at various private universities, including courses on “journalistic ethics.”

In reality, there was no armed confrontation, but rather a media staging to disguise the murder of seven people who were being held at the Army’s Terranova Barracks, better known as Villa Grimaldi. This episode, which included a pregnant woman among its victims, occurred on November 19, 1975, and is remembered as the “Rinconada de Maipú Case.” Other media stagings from that same era, such as the “Case of the 119” or “Operation Colombo” in June 1975, covered up the murders and forced disappearances of opponents of the dictatorship.

Journalist Augusto Carmona Acevedo was also shot in the back in 1977 while entering his home in Santiago, but the journalistic version portrayed him as having died in a “shootout”; he never had the chance to defend himself against his killers, who remain unpunished.

Targeted Killings

The ethics trial was requested on April 25, 2006, by Isabel Gallardo Moreno, a relative of five of the seven victims: Catalina Ester Gallardo Moreno, her 30-year-old sister, whose eyes were gouged out; Mónica del Carmen Pacheco Sánchez, 26, a primary school teacher, three months pregnant and the spouse of her brother Roberto Gallardo Moreno—who had been murdered the day before—; Alberto Recaredo Gallardo Pacheco, 64, the father of the Gallardo Moreno siblings; Manuel Lautaro Reyes Garrido, Luis Andrés Gangas Torres, Felipe Cárcamo, and Pedro Blas Jeldrés.

The earlier death of Roberto Gallardo, apparently in a real confrontation, triggered the DINA’s fierce vengeance against his family.

The seven victims were arrested on November 18, 1975, by the Investigations Police of Chile (PICH), whose chief, now-retired Army General Ernesto Baeza Michelsen, decided to split the group and send those who ended up dead to the DINA.

Isabel Gallardo was also arrested, along with another brother named Guillermo Gallardo Moreno, their mother Ofelia Moreno Aguirre, and two young children, her nephews, who were released that same night on the 18th.

The victims, who suffered atrocious torture before dying at Villa Grimaldi, were arrested in front of witnesses at their homes, with other family members as in the case of the Gallardos, or at their workplaces.

All of these people were seen alive by other detainees at that DINA center. As soon as Isabel Gallardo and her mother were released, they immediately began efforts to find their loved ones through the Committee for Peace, supported by Christian churches.

However, on November 19, 1975, they were shocked to see and hear the anchor of the TVN prime-time news, Julio López Blanco, crouching down at what was then the La Rinconada de Maipú estate, southwest of Santiago, reporting that their relatives had died there in a “violent confrontation.” As irrefutable “proof,” López Blanco displayed half a dozen shell casings from military-grade ammunition.

The murder of five members of the Gallardo family and other political dissidents of the dictatorship was investigated by the criminal justice system in the case titled “Gallardo-Gangas Family,” Case File 2.182-98, led by Judge Alejandro Solís Muñoz, a minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, who also summoned López Blanco and the former DINA agent Araya to testify, among others.

According to Isabel Gallardo’s accusation, Julio López Blanco, who currently works at Megavisión, owned by Ricardo Claro, acted in a “malicious and deceitful manner, as has been proven in the course of the judicial investigation.” Claudio Sánchez, who also works at Megavisión, broadcast a similar report on Channel 13 of the Catholic University.

Inconsistencies of the “Fiction Journalism” Genre

“There is the evidence of the violent confrontation: empty casings, many empty casings,” reported journalist Julio López, dressed in an impeccable white linen suit, in a rugged area with low vegetation where no corpses, bloodstains, or any sign of a “violent confrontation” could be seen, except for the casings he showed the viewers. “There are six or seven [casings] here in this spot and many others scattered around here on the hill,” López Blanco emphasized.

More or less one casing for each victim.

“The latest information says that two other small groups from the MIR and the outlawed Communist Party are currently surrounded by DINA forces,” the journalist López continued to “report.” “And let us move now to our mobile unit 2, where Roberto Araya, at the same place where the extremists fell, will give us their names and other details of this spectacular event.” And here the journalist-agent intervened: “This is the exact site where the skirmish between DINA security forces and the six extremists took place; as can be observed, the burned area is visible to the naked eye, due to the fact that Security had to throw grenades to get the barricaded extremists out of here.”

Araya shows the place where the DINA allegedly threw grenades: “Here are the casings, you can even see a box of cartridges, here is a mark that was made subsequently to mark where one of them fell.” This fiction journalism articulated by the DINA through “the television of all Chileans” was of such poor quality and lied so impudently that Agent Araya spoke of a skirmish between DINA security forces and [the] six extremists, but then read seven names from his own list of the dead.

That is to say, there were seven dead in a skirmish in which only six alleged “extremists” participated.

The person responsible for the TVN prime-time news was the press director Vicente Pérez Zurita, while the general management of the state channel was held by Manfredo Mayol Durán, also a journalist. Claudio Sánchez Venegas made a similar “live” report for the signal of Channel 13 of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

The prosecutor for the ethics trial, Doris Jiménez, obtained a video of the report of less than three minutes that was provided by TVN to the courts of justice, but Channel 13 refused to provide the broadcast made by Claudio Sánchez. “In this regard, and once the audiovisual archives of Channel 13 were reviewed, we note that there is only one report on the matter made by the journalist Mr.

Claudio Sánchez, who also appears on screen,” says a letter addressed to the TRED on October 2, 2006, by Eliana Rozas Ortúzar, then executive director of the Catholic University Television Corporation. The highest head of the Catholic Church, the Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago, Monsignor Francisco Javier Errázuriz, did not respond to the requests of the Journalists' Association.

Rozas implicated Sánchez in the media staging but refused to provide the video, citing a labor dispute between the journalist and the TV station, unless “Mr. Sánchez unequivocally agrees to the material being provided, exempting Channel 13 from all responsibility for said delivery.” Sánchez did not cooperate with the metropolitan tribunal’s investigation and refused to appear to testify, unlike the other defendants, who did recognize the authority of the Journalists' Association over the ethical conduct of its members.

Ultimately, Sánchez was sanctioned for failing to cooperate with the investigation into his own ethical conduct.

Six killers prosecuted for the crime

On February 27, 2006, Minister Solís Muñoz established that the multiple murder occurred on November 19, the same day as the broadcast of the media staging, and initiated proceedings for this crime against Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, the head of the DINA, and his subordinates Marcelo Luis Morén Brito, Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Basclay Zapata Reyes, Francisco Maximiliano Ferrer Lima, and Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, all from the Army, “in their capacity as authors of the crimes of qualified homicide contemplated in Article 391 No. 1 of the Penal Code.” All these military personnel are responsible for numerous other murders of opponents of the dictatorship and are implicated in dozens of trials.

Araya openly declared that he was an agent turned into a “journalist” thanks to his compadre Manuel Contreras, the then-head of the DINA, and a short course for “war correspondents” from the Army, according to his statement to journalist Doris Jiménez, who acted as prosecutor appointed by the TRED to investigate Isabel Gallardo’s complaint.

Araya recounted in the file that his compadre Contreras introduced him to TVN to manage the propaganda of the repression, with even more power than Pérez, the press chief, and Mayol, the general manager.

The statements of these bosses are surprising, because they now indicate that their positions were nominal, although they were presumably collecting their salaries punctually, but in practice, they had no idea what was happening under their noses. Pérez, who was also press chief for Channel 13, is dedicated today to teaching… journalism.

Araya’s friendship with Contreras was born in the port of San Antonio, where he worked as an announcer for a tango program on the local radio station, while the future founder of the DINA held the command of the Tejas Verdes regiment, where numerous murders of political prisoners were also committed.

The criminal courts established that Araya provided the DINA with names, addresses, and data on stevedore leaders and alleged leftists in the port of San Antonio for their subsequent arrest and elimination.

“We would wish that those journalists were not only repudiated by their peers but also by society as a whole; for their indecent and shameful conduct compared to that of other brave journalists who even gave their lives to reflect the truth of the facts,” asserted Isabel Gallardo upon learning of the ruling.

She also insisted on the criminal culpability “of the head of the Investigations Police of Chile in 1975, retired General Ernesto Baeza Michelsen, and the personnel under his command; apart from the civilian and military officials of the EX-DINA, subjected to prosecution in the ruling of the Santiago Court of Appeals dated February 27, 2006.” She added that “this ruling, which reached us just on Mother’s Day, although it only issues a moral sanction, is a balm that we needed and has been highly valued by our families.”

The five affected journalists were notified of the ruling on May 12. They have 15 days to appeal to the higher body, the National Tribunal of Ethics and Discipline (TRINED) of the Association.

Source: Mapocho Express, May 18, 2007

The sentence was adopted with the dissenting vote of Minister Lamberto Cisternas.

The Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that condemned three agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) to 20 years in prison for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of six members of the Gallardo family, crimes perpetrated under the cover of a staging carried out by state agents known as the “Rinconada de Maipú” case.

The DINA had the complicity of journalists such as Julio López Blanco and Claudio Sánchez, now ethically sanctioned by the professional association, who disseminated a report of an alleged confrontation that, on November 19, 1975, had supposedly ended the lives of Alberto (63) and Catalina Gallardo (30), Luis Ganga, and Mónica Pacheco (26), who was three months pregnant; they were labeled as members of “small groups” who had engaged in a shootout with military personnel.

The Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Milton Juica, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and Jorge Dahm—confirmed the sentences that the agents must serve:

Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Basclay Zapata Reyes, and Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, in their capacity as co-authors of the homicides of Alberto Gallardo Pacheco, Catalina Ester Gallardo Moreno, Mónica del Carmen Pacheco Sánchez, Luis Andrés Ganga Torres, Manuel Lautaro Reyes Garrido, and Pedro Blas Cortés Jélvez.

The story in Rinconada de Maipú

On November 18, 1975, a confrontation occurred on Bío Bío Street in which a soldier and MIR militant Roberto Gallardo Moreno were killed. In the hours following the previous event, that same day, all members of the Gallardo family were arrested at their homes and taken to the Investigations Barracks on General Mackenna Street, where they were interrogated and tortured.

In the early hours of November 19, some members of the family were released, with the exception of Alberto Recaredo Gallardo Pacheco, Catalina Ester Gallardo Moreno, and Mónica del Carmen Pacheco Sánchez, who were placed at the disposal of the DINA and transferred to the “Villa Grimaldi” facility.

In the early hours of November 19, Ester Torres was arrested along with three of her children, Renato, Mauricio, and Francisco Javier Ganga, by DINA agents who were looking for her eldest son, Luis Andrés Ganga.

They were taken to “Villa Grimaldi”; after being tortured and interrogated, the agents obtained the whereabouts of Luis Andrés, who was apprehended moments later and taken to that facility, where he was tortured.

Witnesses who were detained at “Villa Grimaldi” declare that this was the worst of all nights; they describe a great movement of cars, heard agents asking for water and hot oil, and heard the cries of lament from those being tortured. The next day, several corpses were observed on the patio, lying on the ground, along with two women, Catalina and Mónica, in very poor physical condition.

That same day, the corpses of Mónica Pacheco Sánchez, Catalina Gallardo Moreno, Alberto Gallardo Pacheco, Luis Andrés Ganga Torres, Pedro Blas Cortés Jélvez, and Manuel Lautaro Reyes Garrido were transferred from Villa Grimaldi by DINA personnel under the command of Army Captain Germán Barriga Muñoz and Carabineros Captain Ricardo Lawrence Mires to the site known as Rinconada de Maipú, with the purpose of staging a confrontation between these detainees and DINA personnel.

According to Alicia Lira, president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, “There was a cruelty as was done with every woman and man they tortured in this country. That also meant that by demonstrating cruelty toward the individuals and leaving some alive, it was to instill fear.

They send that message when they stage this false confrontation at Rinconada de Maipú; they create an entire apparatus because they already bring them to the place dead, and then comes the sinister machinery, which has no excuse: the journalists who could see what was really happening and preferred to lie,” said the AFEP leader when the trial began in 2013, referring to the actions of journalists Carlos Araya, Vicente Pérez, Manfredo Mayol, Julio López Blanco, and Cristián Sánchez Venegas.

Source: elciudadano.cl, August 9, 2016